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

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

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.

Photographer Steve Gerrard, who is working with us on the Home Of Metal project to capture fans portraits has taken some amazing images of Capsule favourite band of all time, the wonderful Melvins. We were gutted to have missed them just recently when they played in Nottingham, and to make life worse we heard they put on a show to remember, now joined but another of our fav bands the mighty duo that is Big Business….these photos go some way to easying the pain of missing them and we’re really excited about ATP’s Nightmare Before Xmas, where they’ll be curating the weekend alongside Mike Patton. (The Capsule Grannies will also be DJing).

Go and check out Steves photos - he’s a star!!!

Tickets are now on sale for a host of new and exciting shows we have coming up at Capsule.
Just confirmed a new signing to Constellation Records ( home to GYBE! and A Silver Mnt Zion) are Seattle based The Dead Science with support from Worcester based Theo who will be performing at the Hare & Hounds on the 5th of Nov.

Another treat on the horizon is Racebannon, a genre-defying avant hardcore punk band from Indianapolis who formed in 1996. They begun as a screamo band on Witching Hour Records and have now evolved to produce bone crushing riffs and manic vocals, a kin to Melt Banana. Support for this comes from Dream Dreams The Dreamer (aka Matt from Esquilax who we should add is a wonderful illustrator and has designed covers for Gallows to name but a few) and the infamous casio-grind trio, Trencher. It should be noted that Lyam from Trencher is himself a talented artist and a member of Drumize along with DJ Scotch Egg, who performed at Supersonic 08.
Check out this amazing video by Trencher, it will melt your mind!

“As Birmingham’s creative revival gathers pace, look out for events run by DIY promoters Jenny Moore and Lisa Meyer, aka Capsule. Champions of all things avant garde, they’ve hosted events at SXSW in Texas and Sonar in Barcelona as well as the annual Supersonic Festival nearer to home at the Custard Factory . Meanwhile their latest project Home Of Metal at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery , celebrates the West Midlands as the birth place of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppellin and Judas Priest. ” People will bring collections of memorabelia relating to the bands,” says Jenny Moore, “like the Antiques Roadshow of Rock.” Artefacts and stories will be recorded and uploaded onto permanent online archive. Capsule also take an original approach to hospitality - rather then snakebite ‘n’ black, they serve tea and cakes at their events.”

Last week we were at The Joyful Bewilderment exhibition opening at Rough Trade East in London, it was like Birmingham on sea, well not quite but a good percentage of Birminghams’ creative community were either exhibiting their work or had just come down for support - safety in numbers as it were!!! The event was a total success with absolutely loads of folks in attendance, at one point they had to stop the crowds coming in.

Our contribution to this shindig was Einstellung performing in the later part of the evening, the band played a storming set which was well received by all. As you can see from the photo the band had a hoot.

Here is Log, one of the Out Crowd founders and co-curator of the show looking slightly fearful, which is either due to being surrounded by so many ladies or the free dodgy Lidl beer.

French, Marcus, Peplow and Ben, perhaps slightly concerned that the dodgy Lidl beer may run out at some point.

Jenny and I on the other hand were fine, enjoying seeing friends including the lovely Fuck Buttons boys who made a special trip to pop in and see us, surrounded by great art work and the bright lights of London.

And most importantly the art work, which you can read all about on The Joyful Bewilderment blog, and I believe many of the pieces are for sale, so go and check them out.

Some of the brummies exhibiting were Lucy McLauchlan , Rik Cooper, Lee Basford, Stef Grindley, Ben Javens Tsz and Log Roper.

Photos by our very own Jenny Moore

Feel free to join our Home Of Metal group on facebook and help us spread the word.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=29055552953

Saturday 25th October : Wolverhampton Art Gallery 10am - 4.30pm
http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk
Lichfield Street
Wolverhampton, WV1
01902 552 055

We launch the first series of open days at Wolverhampton Art Gallery as part of Hello Digital Festival. Home of Metal is a brand new project aimed at creating the first digital archive of metal music, memorabilia and fans stories, to tell the story of this unique moment of Midlands’ musical heritage. Launching at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Saturday 25 October, 10am - 4.30pm, the project coincides with the 40th anniversary of when the term ‘heavy metal’ was coined by music journalist Lester Bangs when describing Black Sabbath.

The launch event at the city centre Art Gallery encourages fans of Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to come along and share their experiences of their favourite band. Fans are encouraged to bring memorabilia along with their personal stories to the gallery to be recorded - all of which will go towards the new digital archive, which aims to tell the true story of the birth place of metal. - Think antiques roadshow for Metal fans!

Each open day will be hosted by Kerrang! Radio DJ - the legendary Johnny Doom, a stalwart of the Midlands Metal scene, accompanied by special guests from industry or genre. A selection of memorabilia will be on display as well as screenings of film documentation and interviews from the bands. Refreshments will also be provided. Dig out your old ticket stubs, T-shirts, fanzines and bring them along, its a FREE EVENT so everyone welcome, curious folks too!

Next open days: Thursday 6th November at New Art Gallery Walsall 6pm - 9pm (with special performance by Einstellung) and then Saturday 7th Feb at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.