November saw the year start drawing to a close with Gigbeth and a whole bunch of awards…

The nominations for Brummie of the Year were posted with voting lasting all month.

Gigbeth happened.

The IKON had their Eastside closing party curated in the main by 7inch Cinema which made me think a Digbeth warehouse is the perfect venue for an art house cinema – screen, benches, bar, what more do you need?

There was Kipple. Kipple there was.

Project X Presents took place and was generally considered a good thing.

The Digital Festival was confimed for October 08 with Birmingham declared a “pioneer of the digital world”.

Jibbering Records turned seven.

IKON got a new website.

Nikki Pugh got involved with the international 4649 sticker project.

Chloe Blackwell won the Student Bands compo at Gigbeth.

The Flamenco Festival started at the Town Hall.

Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, Ikon Gallery and Walsall’s New Art Gallery together won £1m to spend on contemporary art which was seen to be a stepping stone towards a new modern art gallery in Birmingham, possibly in the old bank building on Broad St.

Screen West Midlands went and got £4 to spend on film and digital media over the next four years.

Capsule started feeding music reviewers to Plan B magazine with the hope of developing more awareness of the live scene in the press.

The Place I Love, a new venue connected with the Sunflower Lounge and hosting an NME night, was announced to open in Feb.

Catherine O’Flynn was shortlisted for loads of awards this year – not bad for a first novel.

The film Birmingham: The Creative City was unearthed.

I got very excited by Richard Kaye’s Slit-Scan Photography.

Brilliantly Birmingham – the annual jewellery showcase festival – began.

An international dance festival was announced for spring 2008.

Sticking illiterate captions on photographs of Birmingham councillors became the obsession of some.

There weren’t no art in Bearwood. Actually there was quite a lot of art in Bearwood this year.

Councillor Ray Hassall was quzzed by Adrian Stirrer about how Artsfest and the proposed bi-annual dance and music festivals were going to work. Still not quite sure myself.

Taking their cue from the defacto eviction of Birmingham Artists, the Pub Conversations folks found their event about studio space was so popular they had to move it out of the pub and into Vivid’s warehouse space.

Plans were afoot to monetise this here blog with the dread spectre of advertising. We hope it won’t be too painful.

It was discovered that Curzon Street Station, home to many an art event this year, was to be boarded up to save money until a permanent use was decided upon. Booo.

The much hated (by me anyway) BBC Big Screen was turned off due, it appeared, to a paperwork cockup. Aledgedy.

The entire Black Country was shortlisted for an ITV lottery popularity contest thing to get £50m for a massive redevelopment plan. They didn’t get it.

Profles included Simon Winnall, Karen Osborne, Dave Hilliard, Ivan Brackenbury, Kate Beatty and Mary Rochford.

October – the summer of art starts coming to a close with a new Town Hall, opera in the NIA and choirs on a housing estate.

The Post and Mail was not for sale as Trinity Mirror decided they wanted to keep our local papers.

KR-36 became DY-66 as the interactive game from The Event transmogrified into a London gallery show.

Digtial Birmingham launched The FIZ – the info portal that is available free via the otherwise charged for city-wide WiFi network.

Leon Trimble and Lisa Wetton’s film Written on the Body premiered at the ThinkTank’s Planetarium having been specifically made for that medium. reviews followed.

I came across the MySpace pages for those folks organising Flash Mobs in Birmingham.

Charlie Jordan became Birmingham Poet Laureate.

The 4Talent Awards were announced with three winners from the Midlands.

Going Deaf For A Fortnight 2007 began.

Lost and Found, an exhibition of found objects, was reported on.

La Traviata started generating attention with some useful videos.

I posted something about the Gigbeth Conference which generated a number of comments. As did a subsequent post about the conference lineup being all male.

Andris Nelsons became the new music director of the CBSO.

Apparently there were a number of empty seats at the Town Hall re-opening as so-called VIPs didn’t bother turning up.

The press launch for the Flip Animation Festival gave us a nice overview of the state of the local animation industry.

The Nightingale club off Hurst Street was having troubles with the developers in a story that was disturbingly similar to that of the Spotted Dog.

Capsule took over the newly re-opened Town Hall along with a number of other “niche” promoters making the festival more representative of the city that one might have expected.

After what seemed like years of political wrangling and occasionally bemusing statement the new site for the Central Library was confirmed as being next to the REP.

The Plus+ Design Festival began in Digbeth. Some bloggery followed and photos.

Photos from the Binary Oppositions launch surfaced.

The IKON Eastside closing party looked to be pretty cool and so it proved to be.

Dom from TAK gave away some knowledge on his company blog which I’ve cited many times as good blogging practice.

Birmingham Royal Ballet won an Outstanding Achievement in Dance Award.

Stef Lewandowski found himself in a group of “ideas people” tasked with redesigning Birmingham and blogged extensively about it asking folks for their ideas which he then fed to the group.

The Autumn Store blog was turning into a very useful resource.

Jan Bowman reckoned artists shouldn’t take government money.

La Traviata happened and was generally considered a good thing locally and nationally.

Reality Estate happened at Five Ways after a year of work in the estate and was one of the best things of the year by far.

Profiles included Hunt Emerson, Drumvoice, Ted Chippington, Dan-ish, Jan Bowman, PolarBear, The Apology Line, Laura Howell and James Nash.

September and the Heat was Felt in the most surprising of places.

The manager of Midas went on the record about that SIM card charts thing that no-one really understood.

The Moseley Folk Festival happened and I did the Collective Memory thing. Personally speaking it was a rather wonderful thing, something Birmingham should be very proud of.

Gary Corbett did his 10 Strangers photography project.

Station, a photography exhibition at Curzon St Station, opened and had an ulterior motive – to make the case for the building to house a permanent Photography Museum, something Birmingham sorely lacks. The Post followed this up.

Feel the Heat launched, Marketing Birmingham’s long term campaign to promote the city’s arts and music across the country and the world. CiB provided a forum for critique in the comments. The rest is unwritten history, but it certainly put this blog on the map.

And then The City Council’s B1 CD hit the fan where it emerged things hadn’t quite been done properly regarding licensing them for the website. A website that didn’t really work. Oops.

Damian Ortega’s Being was the final installation at the IKON’s Eastside warehouse, using massive sheets of copper found around Digbeth.

Skeleton Crew Productions took over gig promotions at the Actress and Bishop.

The Artsfest Program went online one whole week before the event took place.

The MAC was in trouble after a summer of flooding and faced a financial crisis resulting in them Axing 182 staff and canceling their proposed off-site program during the 18 month refurb.

With Artsfest seemingly doomed before it happened there were reports of a new bi-annual music festival being planned.

The Birmingham Comedy Festival was announced. Even with Jimmy Carr headlining and BRMB sponsoring there were some excellent shows on. Personal fave: Stuart Lee.

The Plus+ Design Festival was getting closer…

The VTP aka VerTiPlex aka Vertical Theme Park was announced – essentially a big cock of a tower in Eastside. Excellent!

Boy Wonder Records launched and soon joined the blogosphere.

After a rather big 07 the 7inch kids decided to take a year off from the Flatpack Festival. It’ll return in 09.

Project X was approaching.

BLAST happened and was absolutely fantastic. I noted that it was of an international standard yet could only happen in Birmingham and that publicity for the event had been sadly lacking. If it had been a Tate London event it would have been all over the media. But on the whole, WOW!

Artsfest was hailed “a huge success” and saved for another year. Apparently over 200,000 attended. They weren’t spread that evenly though. Cue musings on how you count those sort of numbers and what “success” ultimately means. I asked for personal stories and got some nice ones particularly from bands and volunteers.

Feel the Heat continued with Dave Hodgson of Marketing Birmingham defending the campaign in The Post. The comments thread on that post went on for a while…

Stourbridge got itself a Mask Festival.

The Charles Parker archive at the Library was unveiled.

The Crowd 6 galley in Bearwood started appearing on my radar.

Stats for the Artsfest Ticket Booth sales generated a lot of comments, not all about the ticket booth sales…

Gigbeth was a’coming and Robin Valk did a special podcast for it.

Soweto Kinch won a MOBO Award but failed miserably in the Brummie of the Year award later in the year.

The Festival of Xtreme Building ended after 4 months of experimental building and art. Rain dampened this outdoor event quite substantially but it’s on the map now and due to return in 2009.

The Binary Oppositions launch crept up on me and I didn’t realise the significance until the last minute. A very inspiring and important project this.

Ben Waddington did a number of his walks around Birmingham including type-specific ones for the Plus+ Festival.

Light House in Wolvs celebrated 21 years of existence.

And finally, UCE became BCU. How exciting.

Did I really only profile two people this month? It appears so. Ben Calvert and Jane Anderson were they.

August and everyone seemed to go on holiday, as people do. But a busy month all told.

The Birmingham Carnival took place in Handsworth. In what was becoming a trend there were noise complaints which might jeopardize its future.

Magazines were launched: The kids from Fused grew up and published Blink while Bearded was a newcomer on the scene.

Kamakazi started their well received 444 Club night at the Rainbow featuring 4 bands for £4 til 4am.

A new venue, Sui Generis, got planning permission to open on Adderley Street, Digbeth. No news since that I’ve seen but they’ve got three years to open it.

Building on the events that took place around Five Ways over the year Friction announced Reality Estate, transforming a housing estate and it’s residents into a large scale performance for one night only.

artlounge put on shows over the autumn.

The Outcrowd’s Supersonic art show was blogged.

The Emocion Flamenco festival was announced.

Pudelskern came to the Festival of Xtreme Building bringing with them “some flowers from the Austrian alps to the Heart of England” along with “spaceship, performers, light installations, a parallel universe, sculptures and structures”.

The Fireworks creative office / studio complex opened in the Jewellery Quarter.

Andrew Dubber’s 20 Thing You Must Know About Music Online was published as a book.

Many videos were spotted online from the Fierce Festival.

The Sunday Flea Market at the Custard Factory began giving artists and related types a space to sell their wares.

Dave Harte mashed up photos of Birmingham with Woody Allen’s Manhattan producing this gem:

Them Lot and Monsters Monsters had art shows at the Custard Factory

Second Home’s The Animal Book animated short greatly entertained.

The Island Bar continued to establish itself as a music venue running their own Acousticfest.

The Creative City Awards winners were posted along with a rather swish video. I’m still in a state of bemused shock from the whole thing.

An intriguing video piece called Bleep ‘n’ Grind was found on YouTube.

Getting help from the City Council was a rather handy email doing the rounds that I re-pubished.

With less that a month to go promotion for Artsfest started to stir with a Top 10 attractions. Quite a lot of comments on this post too.

The Festival of Xtreme Building published their mid-term report.

Ctrl-Copy was an online art exhibition asking questions about copyright and ownership of images in relation to Art.

Fused magazine did their regular spotlight on UCE fashion graduates.

The Academy’s OnSong Festival was scheduled for September.

The Jug of Ale venue and pub was rumoured to be closing but those rumours were exaggerated. I made another note, this time in black marker, never to listen to Barnard again.

Martin Mullaney gave a mini lecture on the history of graffiti in South Birmingham on YouTube. Oh yes.

One of the more consistent thing in 2007 was Little Chris and his Brumcast podcast of new Birmingham music. He contacted me asking for advice on getting some help with it and I obliged with a post.

Midas were “banned from the charts” after they decalared SIM card sales at gigs as sales of their music which could be downloaded with the credit on the card. Or something. It was all very complicated. But they got more publicity that they would have by actually getting into the charts so I guess it all worked out okay.

Profiles in August included Debut, Sara Fowles, Johnny Foreigner, Gemma Quarterman, Hot Spunk, Mamma Matrix, Robot, Carp, Peanut and Stuart Estell.

July saw the music festivals kicking off, rain permitting, and a number of debates.

We started the month with a question: Why can’t Birmingham do it like Manchester? asked Dan Jones of Ten4 having visited the latter for their International Festival. He wasn’t saying we should be like Manchester, just maybe learn from their attitude to things. The resulting debate on the Ten4 blog was most interesting with Rhonda Wilson’s comment in particular bearing repeating:

“Its that sharing thing. Here everyone wants to own things so they prevent other people doing their thing. There people got it – one thing that everyone has a share of and some trust in the directors. And look at what’s happened. Let’s leave this antiquated idea about power and control behind us and work on some things together. Then we all might benefit.”

The Rootsville Festival happened despite quite heavy rain which kept the turnout low but those who went had a fantastic time. Or at least I did, dancing in the rain to a wide range of musical styles.

Evidence of the Large Sheet Metal performance surfaced. Sadly there weren’t hammers.

The Rhubarb Festival of the Image took place along with the Light Sale at Curzon St Station.

I investigated the graffiti-related art scene on MySpace

Ex-Poet Laureate Roshan Doug wrote a blistering attack on the city after we lost the Bollywood awards to Shefield, concluding:

I suggest our arts leaders, both in the public and private sectors, stop being so lame and ineffectual. Instead I would urge them to learn from Sheffield and start using, what they would regard as dirty, c-words – coordination, cooperation and campaign.

The Viewfinder was unveiled at the Festival of Xtreme Building.

The Spotted Dog debate continued.

Susie Norton at Film Birmingham was pushing for a film studio to be established in the city.

I came across the Pub Conversations events where artists got together to discuss art and the issues surrounding the creation of art. I went along to one and found it good. Towards the end of the year they addressed one of the hot issues of the year, studio space.

The Luminarium was confirmed for Artsfest, but not on the Artsfest website I noted.

The Supersonic Festival occurred and was a big success. I certainly loved every minute of it. I decided to track all the reactions online on blogs, photos on Flickr, videos on YouTube etc and was astounded by the quantity and at times quality I found. And thus the traditon of the Collective Memory was established.

Big news on the clubbing front was the return of the Que Club as plans to covert it into flats and offices fell through. Nice to see things working the right way for a change. It re-opened with Drop Beats Not Bombs and was, by all accounts, rather good fun.

The Surface Unsigned Festival came to an end with The Brascoes taking the big prize. Runners up were Regis, Clout and Jazz Thrash Assassin. This year it goes national with “300 nights of live music involving over 5,000 musicians from across the UK.” Flippin’ eck!

The Birmingham Post got a new editor who decided to shake things up with their Power 50 drawing 17 of them from the creative industries. Much musing about what this all meant, if anything, followed. Which is kind of the point.

A video interview with Little Chris, producer of the Brumcast podcast, surfaced and confirmed him to be a good man doing good works.

I expressed concern about “Logi-itis” on the Rhubarb Festival banners. Comments followed.

Capsule’s Metal Symposium got a nice write-up in the New Statesman.

And at some point this month the Creative City Awards took place. I didn’t report on it as, quite frankly, I didn’t quite know how to put the freakishly odd nature of the thing into words. But take place it did.

Profiles included Ruth Angell, Jazz Thrash Assassin, Garazi Gardner, Saturday Night at The Queens, Love Child Electric and Stereographic.

Over the year I posted a lot of photos taken from the Birmingham Flickr community. Here’s a small selection. Click on them for bigger.

from richard314159

from Matt Murtagh

from dan-ish

from Garry Corbett

from Karl Randay {pixelherder}

from suselstahl

from Simon Medlicott

from nobody knows anything

from nobody knows anything

from A knight who says Ni

from sarahabnett

from mike warren

from Dumbfunk

from harri b

from ambientbuzzsaw

from harri b

from H4NUM4N

from suselstahl

from suselstahl

from harri b

from pashmolean

from suselstahl

from tanyalupton

Thanks to all the photographers!

June, and the Summer of Art starts to pick up steam, despite the rain.

The Festival of Xtreme Building launched with some success and continued for four somewhat rainy months.

Birmingham Words come onto the radar with their Perfectly Formed anthology.

Birminghamusic.com open a studio free of charge for local bands prompting questions about whether this was the right thing for a funded org to do, undercutting other businesses in the region.

Hi8us launch Artpeeps, a portfolio site for illustrators who’ve gone through their programmmes.

Mark Scully’s Little Moscow is published set in a skuzzy bar in Birmingham.

Francisco Lopez brings his “dreadful abyss” to Modulate on Green Street.

Ensemble Interakt do their Invented Instruments concert with the legendary “Piece for Large Metal Sheet”.

Concreation pop onto the radar expressing a love for all things concrete. I approve.

The Museum of Lost Heritage continued to do work at 144 Newhall Street.

The first ever Symposium on Heavy Metal was scheduled as part of the Supersonic Festival.

There was a Big Debate in Birmingham with Christopher Frayling, Germaine Greer, Anthony Sargent, Terry Grimley and Richard Morrison asking the question “Is there life in the regional arts?” A brief report was later posted.

The Quiet Digbeth debate began.

New Generation Arts was a-going on with the Mixed Media show on Floodgate Street probably being the highlight. Or at least the biggest bit. There were launch photos.

Paul Birch and Andrew Dubber got into a fight about the latter criticizing the music industry on his blog and Dubber’s posting of the conversation went viral, crashing his server and cementing his rep. Highly entertaining.

In another key topic of the year Birmingham Artists had their funding slashed by the council and were given one month to vacate their premises, oddly enough located in a major regeneration zone. The council responded and I picked through their statement. After the sentence was commuted to December I understand they’ve got a new space in Digbeth but the whole thing was very disconcerting.

The Zulu Warriors came to Rootsville and it was good.

The MAC was flooded as the summer rain continued to hamper the arts.

Tower of Song was a new venue opened in Cotteridge.

The Decibel Performing Arts Showcase got a schedule for September.

The Moseley Festival’s Music in the Park was announced though later postponed as the park flooded.

I went to see the BritArt-heavy “How To Improve The Word show at the Gas Hall and thought it very good indeed.

IKON Eastside’s program continued with perhaps the highlight, Florilegium, where the warehouse was turned into a field.

Misty’s Big Adventure start their own record label, Grumpy Fun Records.

Then, finally, the hot topic of the year kicks in as The Spotted Dog is served with a noise abatement notice and landlord John Tighe goes on the warpath.

Profiles included Phil Wilkinson, Chrissy Van Dyke, KateGoes…, Beat Union, Sian Hindle, Jivan Astfalck, Tom Lewis, The Kings of Spain, Roys Boys,

May saw Spring kick in with Festivals a plenty coming into view and one in particular dominating proceedings.

The Fierce Festival saw me trying the preview / review thing again and I managed posts on The Sky Orchestra (which still hasn’t happened!), The Opening Party, Franko B, Platinum, The Pandora Effect / Frozen Sea, Ballet on the Buses, Noise Forecast, Mmm… Stravinsky Project and The Long and Winding Road

Town Hall Symphony Hall got a lovely new website which prompted some questions about who exactly owns them.

The much hyped Straightheads film kinda bombed critically and theatrically. I wonder how the DVD sales went?

Einstellung did an acoustic show with Rich Batsford in support which I hyped because I like them and you can’t always be objective.

Digital Central got a new website which I was involved with for a short while.

Hi8us were looking into establishing a school for comic art.

Artsfest was announced foreshadowing months of speculation – was it to be the last? Was it being promoted properly? What was it for anyway?

The Multipack monthly meetups for web design nerds crossed my path. Still haven’t been to one yet. Must do that.

The Rootsville festival was announced bringing an absurdly varied lineup of musicians to the Custard Factory.

Having been woo’ed by the lovely Kate Spragg I reach beyond my remit and start plugging stuff at Wolverhampton’s Light House with the Shedding Light exhibition and their Flair Designer Maker Fair. I retained a soft spot for Light House throughout the year and wish there was somewhere with a similar vibe in Birmingham.

The Festival of Xtreme Building is announced and confuses the hell out of me for a bit. I later meet Dave, the brains behind it, and it all makes sense.

The Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath has a refit after being bought by the same people as own Moseley’s rather swish Bulls Head. We all get a little worried but, on reflection, it all worked out rather well with the H&H now one of the best pub venues in the city. IMHO.

Architecture Week is announced.

The BASS Festival is announced (British Art and Street Sounds) run by those lovely Punch Records folks.

The Flip Animation Festival is announced over at Light House.

The Mr Silke collective pops into my consciousness and never appears again. How curious. One to follow up I think.

The annual Jazz Festival gets its dates.

A bit of a CiB exclusive saw me hearing that UCE Birmingham were planning to close Margaret Street, home of their art department and a venue where art has been taught since 1885. They later changed their minds. Yay!

Out Of The Shadows and ArtPride were a couple of queer arts exhibitions co-inciding with Pride.

Shimm1′s The Main Event took place at the Custard Factory.

An arts and crafts market was scheduled for July in the Jewellery Quarter.

BRB did their Dynamic Dance shows which, if I remember rightly, went on to win awards of note.

Not so many profiles this month but I did showcase Clare Galleries, The Heathers, Devil and Casey Jones, Augustine, Tamsin Mae and Sue Rowe

April was when I appeared to get my head around who was doing stuff with a whole slew of profiles which I’ve listed at the end of this post. And a bunch of stuff happened too as the arts scene picked up for the Spring and CiB got into its groove.

The Mirage Festival of Arabic films occurred.

Digital Central set up an office at the Birmingham “embassy” in London.

The Treasury’s Spending Review appears foreshadows the anticipated arts cuts.

Advice about using YouTube to build your event’s reputation was given.

The interactive game KR-36 took place as part of The Event.

The Midlands Textile Forum was announced as launching in October. I wonder if that actually happened?

TAK won a Webby.

The International Puppetry Festival was announced.

Brumcast did an Iron Man Records special.

The Town Hall reopening festival was announced.

The Breakin’ Convention at the Hippodrome was announced.

Intrigue was another arts event at Five Ways.

April profiles included Martin John Callanan, the film Whatever Happened to Pete Blaggit, Plimsoul, Betty and the Id, 104 Films, Kate Penberton, Dubtransmissions, The Traditional Arts Team, It’s Just Noise, The Electric Cinema Orchestra, Banner Theatre, Steven Gerrard, Stephanie Mill, Krankpod, A Slice of The Pie, Victor Kills Virginia and TG Collective

March saw the blog stumble for a fortnight as I came down with the worst cold of my life. Seriously. It was a bad one. But still, a hell of a lot came my way.

Name In Lights, the compo to get a name erected atop the library as part of Fierce, started and by all accounts went viral with millions of these scattered around the internet:

Project X Presents started the long road to getting Arts Council funding that ultimately ended in disappointment. Boo. But they went ahead anyway. Yay!

Made in Moseley, the directory of arty types in B13, crossed my path.

Antonio Gould started thinking about Co-working Spaces and I understand something tangible will be coming of this very soon.

The AA-RT show took place.

Supersonic was announced.

The Post reported that there are 60,000 “creatives” in the city though where you draw the line was questioned.

Test Bed, one of many art events taking place at Five Ways, was announced.

The mindboglingly complex and massive Surface Unsigned Festival began filtering 170 bands via the medium of audience reaction.

Rhubarb announced their For Sale exhibition where buildings in Birmingham looked like they were up for sale but, on closer inspection, were exhibiting photographs.

Brian Duffy was interviewed and showed himself to be a thousand times more interesting than you previously imagined. And that’s saying something.

The Rotunda was refurbished in 2007 and there was an accompanying art project.

March profiles included Poppy and the Jezebels, Lewes Herriot, Chris Keenan, Beat 13 and Goodmedia.

March also saw me introduce the blog at the Creative Industries Convention, croaking about it for ten minutes before Ken Loach did his keynote thing, which was pretty weird but did kickstart the process of everyone knowing about this little website.