This Sunday will be our last gig of the year and its set to be a raucous affair, so come and get your fix of balls-out riff-heavy fun provided by RACEBANNON from Indianapolis. There is now a change to the original line up as TRENCHER are unfortunately unable to play due to family illness (we wish a speedy recovery) so stepping up to the challenge are those lovable rogues better known as BEESTUNG LIPS, what a great way to end this years shows with these guys throwing a bit of chaos into the mix and then of course who knows what to expect with DREAM DREAMS THE DREAMER - there will also be a raffle with some great prizes as our way of thanking you for an eventful year + some party treats. Looking forward to seeing you there!!!

Beestung photo by Penny Mcconnell

Photo from http://www.guitarmasterclass.net

The Broad Street Business Improvement District is delighted to announce that Heaven and Hell guitarist, founding member of Black Sabbath, Grammy Award winner and king of heavy metal Tony Iommi will be honoured on the Broad Street Walk of Star’s on Sunday 23rd November 2008.

Following an afternoon of live music from local bands on the stage in Centenary Square ‘Kerrang Radio’ presenter Johnny Doom will host the evening, with the presentation of the star taking place at 6.30pm.

Home of Metal encourages fans of  Black Sabbath  to be photographed wearing their prized band t-shirts.
Images will be taken by the Birmingham photographer Steve Gerrard, who has been capturing bands in action for over 20 years, and has photographed some of the biggest names and artists. The photographs will then go on display on the Home Of Metal website and in future exhibitions.

Followed by our last Capsule gig of the year at the Hare & Hounds with Racebannon + Trencher + Dream Dreams The Dreamer - doors at 8pm

I thought it was about that time of year to dig out this press shot!
As inspired by Ideals recent BHM Doppelgänger facebook group, hours of fun.

Murcof interview

We only have 3 shows left for 2008. To begin the countdown this Sunday we have esteemed Mexican electronic composer MURCOF, accompanied by live strings performing at the Hare & Hounds, support comes from Oren Marshall,  a pioneering player of acoustic and electric tuba who, crossing between classical - jazz - improvised- world music, has collaborated with the likes of Derek Bailey, Keith Tippet, the Pan-African Orchestra and the London Philharmonic. This tour has been commissioned by the CMN.

Followed on Thursday by Domino Records’ CLINIC performing in collaboration with renowned animator Clemens Habicht, famous for his work with Franz Ferdinand and many others. This takes place at the Factory Club at the Custard Factory.

Then sadly it will be our last Capsule gig of the year on the following Sunday and we wanted it to be a raucous affair, so come and get your fix of balls-out riff-heavy fun provided by RACEBANNON from Indianapolis with support from Casio-grindcore trio TRENCHER and who knows what to expect with DREAM DREAMS THE DREAMER. This takes place at the Hare & Hounds.

Trencher -’Mouth to Anus’

Tickets for all three shows are available from  ticketweb
Polar Bear - Kings Heath or Swordfish in the city centre

Its that time of year again - when the entertaining website ‘Birmingham is Not Shit’ holds their ‘Brummie of The Year’ nominations, Capsule were lucky enough to come third last year,  winner was the outspoken Digbeth landlord John Tighe, who founded the campaign to keep Digbeth vibrant! Second was Blogger extraordinaire Pete Ashton, who pretty much single handedly got the creative industries blogging, including getting us started.

So who would be worthy this year, its a hard one - let us know who you think deserves to be nominated and crowned as Brummie of The Year?

I think it would be hard for me to choose between Johnny Doom better known as being the late night dj for Kerrang! Radio and previous lead vocalist of the band Doom,  Johnny has been an amazing advocate for our Home Of Metal project, his early support and first hand knowledge has been invaluable. But whats best is he isn’t a man afraid of hard work and got stuck in when he was co-ordinating the stage crew for us at this years Supersonic Festival, his crew are clearly the unsung heros of the festival, along with our volunteers and sound crew.

Photo courtesy of Penny  Mcconnell
My other nomination would go to Helga Henry at Fierce Earth, for the way she so generously shares her knowledge and contacts and the way she encourages so many of us working in the creative industries, and most importantly for her work in the tea room at Supersonic.
Get involved here - http://www.birminghamitsnotshit.co.uk/award

We had an amazing turn out for our second Open Day at The New Art Gallery Walsall, and clearly the project is starting to snowball as word spreads. A highlight for us all was when Sue Halford and family turned up with a great selection of Rob Halfords (lead singer of Judas Priest) costumes and related treasures.

Sue Halford with Stuart Williams from the Walsall History Society

Jenny with one of Rob’s jackets - preparing it to be photographed for the archive.

Sue in conversation with Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom

These photos are courtesy of Stuart Williams who has been inspired to start his own blog http://metaldog.vox.com/ and developing the project Walsall Rocks, which we look forward to working with in the future. More photos and interviews from the event coming soon.

The BBC Midlands Today featured The Home Of Metal Open Day which took place last Thursday at The New Art Gallery Walsall.

Watch here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7722704.stm

Next open day at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday 7th of Feb - plenty of time for you to hunt out your photos, programmes, ticket stubs and stories. Or you can upload your own images to the archive and contribute to this project, which aims to celebrate Birmingham & The Black Country as the birth place of Heavy Metal.

Another busy week ahead firstly we have Constellation Records latest signing Seattle-based group THE DEAD SCIENCE with support from the incredible one man guitar/drums band THEO (for fans of Battles, Oxes, Steve Reich) and Brummie post rock favs UNA CORDA - thats at the Hare & Hounds on this Wednesday.
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The Dead Science talk through some of their artwork.


Una Corda -’Three’

Followed on Thursday by our next HOME OF METAL event at The New Art Gallery Walsall 6pm - 9pm FREE EVENT

With special live performance by Einstellung ‘… A Touch Of Sabbath’
Einstellung are proud to have the opportunity to pay homage to Sabbath and thank them for allowing four like minds to meet. For this special evening Einstellung will be performing a Sabbath inspired piece. If you listen carefully within the simplistic motorik beats and slabs of Sabbath inspired riffage you may well be raising those metal fists in the air to some monstrously well know Sabbath gems.

The evening will be hosted by Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom with special guest Nicholas Bullen (one of the founding members of Napalm Death - responsible for inventing Grindcore)

We have been lucky enough to be given a handful of ‘Halford Live at Rock In Rio III’ Promos to give away, so don’t forget to hunt out your old ticket stubs, programmes, photos and stories relating to the innovators of the genre - Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Napalm Death and Godflesh!

Oh what fun we had and really quite remarkable that even despite the terrible weather the show was a total sell out, with over 1200 people in attendance, all the bands were amazing especially the mighty Shellac - Bob, Steve and Todd how we love you so.

Some amazing photos of the bands by Pete Ashton

Photos of folks in fancy dress by Katja Ogrin

and the highlight of the night for us was when Sara (our latest Capsule Granny) was asked by Steve to have her photo taken with him, separated at birth!!!

* On a more solemn note - Capsule acknowledge that there were problems with the venue in terms of the bar and toilets, and although we have little control over these areas as they are run by the venue itself, we continue to urge them to improve on these matters. Despite this we hope that the event itself was of the highest quality, we appreciate your continued support.