Created in Birmingham

I’ve just discovered that my local independent book shop, Bonds Books in Harborne, has a website and a pretty good line-up of events coming up over the next few months.

• 28 May - Martin Bell will speak about his new book ‘The Truth That Sticks’
• 12 June - Prof Robert Knecht, esteemed historian, will introduce his book ‘The French Renaissance Court’
• 2 July - Catherine O’Flynn award-winning local author of ‘What Was Lost’ (due to be turned into a film, reports The Stirrer) will read from the book and sign copies.

They’ve got a reading group too, and the staff in there have always been lovely and helpful. I can’t help thinking that a little blog to promote and record these events, recommend new books and generally help tie themselves into their community might be a good idea.

If you know of any independent book shops doing interesting events (preferably with some sort of interweb link) then give them a mention in the comments.

• Likemind: Birmingham
  A monthly coffee morning that's open to all and has no agenda other than simply to get people talking. Organised by James from Supercool and Lucie from Saint Caffe. The next one is tomorrow 8.30am to 10am at Saint Caffe, St Pauls Sq.
• Another Byte Of Banality
  Midge works at Urban Village and has a new, Birmingham-based blog.
• Perform at the Birmingham Book Festival « The Asian Writers Project
  The Birmingham Book Festival and sampad are looking for writers who struggle to connect with writing communities and audiences because of a barrier of language.
• West Midlands Cultural Olympiad - Find Out More
  This is tonight. The original ticket allocation went quickly so they've taken a bigger room and have made a few more tickets available.

Capsule need a couple of people to help out at their festival:

There are 2 festival internships available to assist with: Artists liaison / Production / Marketing / Festival Management you will be required to do 5 -10 days between May to July. You will receive valuable work experience and be credited as part of the core team that deliver Supersonic Festival.

In addition to this we need a team of volunteers to help deliver the festival over the weekend of the event itself 10th-14th July and in the run up to Supersonic from June onwards. You will be required to do a minimum of 6 hrs over the weekend in return for a day ticket and festival t-shirt.

Plus it’s a good item to get on the CV - this has been called one of the UK’s best-run festivals, after all. If you’re over 18 and are interested in getting involved then email info[at]capsule.org.uk and put ‘volunteer’ as the subject.

The closing Integra 2008 Festival & Conference will be held in Birmingham 5 - 7 June with various events happening over those dates.

If I’ve got it right then Integra seems to consist of a series of Europe-wide art/science collaborations, taking in performances, training, conferences and the presentation of papers with names like ‘Distortions in listening and imitation, Rational programming vs. instinctive programming’ (that one’s from composer Andrea Cera).

In the simplest terms I can find:

Integra is Performance with live electronics. Throughout the project, there are many exciting performances, across Europe, that feature new works commissioned by the project and existing works migrated from obsolete technologies. Integra 2008 Festival and Conference will take place in Birmingham on June 5-7 2008, and will bring together all the ensembles of the project for three days of new music and transferred repertoire.

Further info on the Integra Festival 2008 site.

To be honest the scope of this baffles me slightly but it looks fascinating. The local hook-up comes via BCU (hosting/contributing) and Capsule (producing a couple of events).

• Changing Faces of Small Heath & Birmingham Exhibition
  An exhibition of photos taken 10 years ago by pupils from Small Heath School and photographic work by Rubina Bibi. Small Heath Library until 30 May.
• Self-published author takes competition to bestseller rivals
  Birmingham-based Irish writer Mary Rochford’s collection of short stories Gilded Shadows (Tia Publishing) has been longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award (the most prestigious of its type) alongside Roddy Doyle and Anne Enright.
• Inside The Animal Book
  “ITV Local have produced a fascinating behind the scenes look at the making of The Animal Book, the RTS-nominated, stop-motion short by Birmingham’s Second Home Productions”. I can’t get the vid to play unfortunately.
• Ikon Gallery - Ruth Claxton in conversation
  Artists Ruth Claxton and Richard Deacon joined Ikon Director, Jonathan Watkins before an audience during Richard Deacon’s Ikon exhibition. You can click through to the audio. Good to see the gallery doing this, others should take note.
• Birmingham Architectural Association - lecture from Maciej Hawrylak
  What does it mean to be a second city? The next in the BAA’s series of lectures is form Maciej Hawrylak, leading tutor of the urban design course at Wroclaw University of Technology. At the Old Joint Stock, 20 May.
• ArtsFest - Free arts board training weekend for people aged 18 - 25
  Applications are now open for young people aged who want to take part in a training weekend to learn about what being a member of an arts board involves.
• CreativePeople - “CPD for the CPD providers”
  A one-day event on continuing professional development, 25 June at the Hippodrome.

More news of enterprising students from BCU - four of them have established their own label called Disco Monkey Records.

They’re working quickly and have already set up a showcase for their first four signings - all West Mids-based indie acts. The showcase is at the Flapper & Firkin at 7pm on Sunday 18 May, £4 on the door and +18 only.

Playing on the night are the Lipstick Gypsies, Deeds Of The Nameless, The Vehicles and Metrognome.

There’s more information on the Disco Monkey Records MySpace and here’s the flyer.

Bit late notice this one but The Rainbow have a licence appeal hearing on Wednesday. As I understand it they’re having issues adding the Rainbow Warehouse to the licence for the Rainbow itself.

Email your support to kent[at]rootyfrooty.co.uk. Now, please.

Not sure what to say? Maybe something along the lines of:

Kent

I would like to give my support to you in your Premises Licence appeal. In my experience events run at your venues have always been organised to the highest standards and have helped to promote the licensing objectives. Your venues also help to bring some much needed vibrancy to this area of Birmingham.

The Rainbow and the Rainbow Warehouse host music and film and we’re lucky to have them so please give em a hand.

A group of BIAD students are frantically raising money for their final year exhibition (they have to fund it themselves). Fundraising efforts have so far included a bake sale, a raffle, a club night in the Arcadian, a book stall and a t-shirt sale.

The next event will be a night at the Flapper & Firkin on Thursday 15 May but in the meantime:

June the 11th sees the launch of a site-specific artwork, created from the regions leading brands, which will span the entirety of the central exhibition hall of the Department of Visual Communication, creating an expressive environment with your identity and mark your place within the business and cultural communities.

You certainly can’t knock their hustle. If you can help or if you know anyone who can then contact the deputy course director David Osbaldestin - details are on the press release.

Further info about them can be gleaned from their Facebook page.

In the video for Amnesty International’s Unsubscribe campaign, Birmingham-based artist Jiva Parthipan ‘played’ the part of a detainee subjected to waterboarding. That is, for a short while he was actually subjected to it with the treatment (judged by the Bush administration not to be torture) filmed in slow motion at 1000 frames per second.

The video has generated a great deal of coverage and no small amount of controversy. You can see it for yourself here:

Jiva is giving a talk at BIAD on 14 May and will be performing a piece called ‘The Terror Of Living‘ at Warwick Arts Centre on 21 May, both as part of the Fierce Festival.

His own website is at www.jivajiva.com.

It’s nice when you ask for something and then it turns up, even if it takes a while. Four years ago I (Pete, btw) put in a request to the interwebs for a “searchable small gigs database feed site thingy” which I could throw a bunch of criteria into and be given regular updates of stuff happening in my area that might be of interest - a middle ground between my usual sources and the useless torrent of information that most what’s on sites provide. There have been a few attempts since then but Live Brum is the first that’s gotten me slightly excited.

Partly this is the pedigree. It’s run by Josh Hart who recently left Made Media to concentrate on this project. Made, as you may know, built the fantastic Town Hall Symphony Hall website and Live Brum looks to be applying the ideas there to the rest of the city’s venues.

The other part is that its incredibly flexible. You can filter the information in numerous ways and subscribe to those results with ease. Stuff like subscribing to Rock and Pop at the Hare and Hounds is nice enough but being able to subscribe to a search for a band or any keyword is quite lovely.

Lots of other neat things too, such as embedding the event in your blog or website in the same way as YouTube videos, the magic being if the details change on Live Brum those changes will be reflected on your site too. Think of them as dynamic flyers. Here’s one:

And, with my tech-head on, the way Josh has built the site lets him add all sorts of new and innovative features and integration with other social networking sites with ease. This is still early days for the site.

The trick, of course, is making sure the site has all the correct information. From chatting to Josh the other week he’s pretty sure he’s got this sorted out in a sustainable way, partly by ensuring promoters and venues can take their information back out in a variety of ways making it worth their while putting it in. I think there might be a bit of a steep learning curve for some of them here but, frankly, it’s about time the live music industry caught up with the 21st century. And, of course, if this site works then it will put Birmingham miles ahead of most other cities.

So, in short, cautious big grins all round. Nice one.

• Whatsonstage Midlands
  "the first site purely dedicated to performance in the Midlands, providing a platform for all the talent and flair that takes place here"
• Anne Bennett and Annie Murray at Castle Bromwich Library
  On Thursday 15 May at 10.30am you can listen to two well known local authors Anne Bennett and Annie Murray talking about their different lives and personal experiences of Birmingham.
• Sunday Flea at the Custard Factory
  It's back on Sunday 18 May from 11am to 4pm. The Birmingham Opera Company are having an open day down there with activities too.
• Dave Holland Jazz Ensemble Awards
  Garry Corbett (aka bluejazzbuddha)'s photos from the final of the Dave Holland Jazz Ensemble Award evening, held on 27 April at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
• Robot Vs Dinosaur
  Back at Island Bar on Friday 16 May with Datassette and Lone complementing the DJs. Dress like a robot or dinosaur for reduced entry.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham - events for w/c 12 May
  A selection of events and workshops including a performance by the National Ballet of China and the opportunity for a peek at Ikon Eastside where 'Glass Fragments of Time' is on. There's film action with 'Planet B-Boy' on Saturday.

Festival season is starting with all manner of events happening between now and the end of August. Here’s what I know about, if I’ve missed anything then perhaps you could mention it in the comments.

In chronological order:

International Dance Festival Birmingham
Now - 25 May. Various venues in Birmingham.
A month of world class live performance from every corner of the globe with performers from Taiwan, Australia, South Africa, Cuba and Russia.

Fierce Festival
21 May to 1 June. Various venues in Birmingham and West Mids.
In it’s 11th year, the award-winning contemporary performing arts festival has let the audience curate a sizeable chunk of the line-up.

Birmingham Pride 2008
24 - 25 May. Hurst Street and surrounding roads.
The roads will be closed to traffic for street performers and dancers, market stalls and a fairground. The main stage will feature Samantha Mumba and Gabrielle among many others.

The Flyover Show
31 May. Hockley flyover.
A free event to celebrate the very best from the city’s urban communities and reclaim derelict spaces taking place in a ‘forgotten corner of Birmingham’. Line-up includes Soweto Kinch, Bashy and Ty.

BASS Festival 2008
31 May - 29 June. Various venues Birmingham and West Mids.
Short for British Art and Street Sounds, the BASS Festival is a month-long festival celebrating the best of the streets around this year’s theme ‘the elements of hip hop’.

New Generation Arts Festival
5 - 20 June. Various venues in Birmingham.
Focusing on developing and showcasing up and coming graduates alongside rising artistic stars who have studied or live in Birmingham.

Integra
5 - 7 June. Various venues in Birmingham.
The goal of the festival is “to create a software-based open source environment for composing and performing music with live electronics, and test it in real life thanks to new commissions and a big modernisation effort of existing repertoire using obsolete technology.”

Pritchattsbury Free Music Festival 2008
7 June, Pritchatts Park, Edgbaston.
A free student festival held to celebrate the end of exams and is open for anyone. Line-up includes The Holloways, Plan B, Envy & Other Sins, The Anomalies.

Flux
25 June - 13 July. Various venues in Birmingham.
A season of events celebrating the spirit of Fluxus, featuring rare films, publications, music, performances and Fluxus miscellany. Presented by VIVID.

Birmingham Jazz Festival
4 - 13 July. Various venues in Birmingham.
Information to come…

Supersonic
11 - 13 July. Custard Factory, Digbeth.
A musical melting pot described as ‘the nexus where metal, folk and noise meet’. Last year it was also described as ‘Festival of the year’ by Plan B magazine. The line-up includes Battles, Harmonia, Efterklang and Julian Cope. Presented by Capsule.

Moseley Folk Festival
29 - 31 August. Moseley Park.
Featuring a selection of the finest in traditional and contemporary folk, the headliners this year are Morcheeba, Jose Gonzalez and Seth Lakeman.

A testament to the passion and drive of Soweto Kinch, the award-winning jazz saxophonist/MC/producer/poet/writer/whatever he wants:

For one day only the entire area beneath the Hockley flyover will be alive with inspiring sights and sounds, ground breaking art and music.

For the line-up see the flyer, for other info see the Flyover Show on Myspace.

Soweto can explain the motivation behind the Flyover Show much better than me and that’s exactly what he does in this video:

For a taste of how much he’s putting into the project, check the second video where we takes he message to the (Broad) streets:

A perfect storm of Birmingham creative scene interestingness is happening on Monday 26 May with Capsule producing an event for the Fierce Festival at the really-rather-good Town Hall (who seem to be widening the scope of the events they’re putting on).

Julian Cope will be presenting his lecture entitled ‘Ancient Worship Of The Gods Beyond Rome’, followed by a screening of ‘Haxan; Witchcraft through the Ages’ with a live soundtrack provided by Bronnt Industries Kapital.

More details and ticket buying info are on the Capsule page.

Julian Cope will be returning with Capsule for the Supersonic Festival, 11 to 13 July. Weekend tickets are available for a bargainous £65 and (limited) day tickets are now on sale too. Check their website for details but don’t dally if you want a ticket.

The results of an interesting collaborative project, carried out in 2007, are just coming out. The project used the question ‘what does this city really look like?’ as a starting point.

Locations were shared-out between a team of ‘photographers’ (none of them are photographers) according to a grid imposed over the area.  The photographers were free to capture whatever they wanted at their location, but it was the grid that determined the locations in the first place.

You can browse the photos on the Birmingham Photographic Project website and it’s worth a look.

The results of the project are being presented in stages - the website being th first with a (limited-run) hardback book and a public exhibition both not far off official announcement.

• OJS Theatre - What’s On May to July 08
  Comedy and theatre listings for the Old Joint Stock Theatre during May to July 2008
• Birmingham Words handover
  The National Academy of Writing/BCU are taking over Birmingham Words from 12 May. Good luck to all involved and I’m looking forward to seeing what the “new and exciting directions” involve.
• International Dance Festival Birmingham - Collective Memory
  Wechtie is doing a fantastically useful collective memory for the IDFB. If you’ve spotted any online coverage then post a link in the comments on his blog.
• Supercool mention Winnie O’Brien
  I like the look of Winnie O’Brien’s work but can’t find any information on her (yet). Props to Supercool for posting this.
• New Ikon Eastside Space
  27 May sees Ikon’s itinerant Eastside programme re-open in a new location on Fazeley Street, Digbeth. It opens with Soi Project, an artists’ collective from Thailand and Japan.
• Woom Gallery in the Jewellery Quarter
  Some interesting things happening here “the common thread being; the venue’s charm, underground edge and our input into aesthetics.. leaving the audience with the feeling of being part of something a bit special”.

Creative Republic (who fund this blog) are organising a series of events over the next few months, the first of which focuses on the West Midlands Cultural Olympiad which is

a four year celebration of culture and creativity that will be launched over the weekend of 26 September as part of the plans for the London 2012 Games

Details on the background to all this can be found at www.london2012.com/beinspired.

Here’s the invitation to this particular event. Attendance is free but you’re asked to register here and also encouraged to sign up to the Creative Republic Charter (if you agree with the principles, of course).

Update - there’s also a Facebook event for this.

The Birmingham International Film Society launches today with a season of films at the Birmingham Library Theatre in conjunction with Cuba Solidarity.

The films to be shown are:

• 12 Chairs (8 May, 8pm)
• Beloved (20 May, 6pm and 8.15pm)
• Death Of A Bureaucrat (5 June, 7.30pm with a talk)
• The Adventures Of Juan Quin Quin (17 June, 6pm and 8.15pm)
• A Successful Man (10 July, 7.30pm with talk)

with more details of each film on the Cuba Solidarity website. Tickets are £3.50 (conc £2.50) and are available in person at the library, by telephone on 0121 303 2323 or at www.birminghamboxoffice.com.

Before tonight’s film there’s a gala reception at 7pm, although I have no idea what that might entail. If you go you’d best assume it’s black tie and arrive in a limo, just in case.

Unfortunately BIFS itself doesn’t seem to have any sort of web-presence but I’m sure that’ll be rectified soon (hint! - just as Pete was, I’m free for tea and a chat about this kind of thing). According to comments on The Stirrer, they’re looking to show the international films that the multiplexes and The Electric can’t/won’t.

CABE, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, are partnering with Bham City Council for what is apparently “the world’s first climate change festival” between 31 May and 8 June.

They’re promising “no guilt and no finger wagging. This will be collective, dramatic and fun”. CABE’s thinking is that the environmental crisis is largely a planning and design crisis and so the festival will explore how cities are planned, designed and used.

Over to the organisers:

Over nine days, the Climate Change Festival will help you see your city with new eyes. Exhibitions and debates, clay modelling, parkour (free running), street theatre, ideas and fun for anyone aged 9-90. Come along!

You can check out the Climate Change Festival website or thrill to the Council’s own brand of wild enthusiasm but all the action seems to be on Facebook so far. CABE have a fair amount of info too but there are no listings yet (that I can find).