Our next Home Of Metal open day (think antiques roadshow for fans of Metal) takes place in Waterhall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday 7th of Feb, from 11am to 4pm.

Bring along your memorabilia, photos, old tickets, T-shirts, patches fanzines etc as well as your personal stories to be recorded and added to the Home Of Metal archive.
The event will be hosted by none other than Brummie of the year, Kerrang! Radio presenter Johnny Doom, with a host of guests, as well as a selection of memorabilia which will be on display.

The event is free – all welcome.

Last Saturday was an overwhelming success with Wolverhampton Art Gallery reporting over 970 people in attendance at our first Home Of Metal open day, we had everyone from small kids, to teenagers right through to the more distinguished older gentlemen. We all had a blast and are incredibly grateful to Kate Williams Pryror and her team at Wolverhampton for all their hard work, Johnny Doom from Kerrang! Radio for hosting the day and for his interviews with our special guests Jim Simpson and Digby Pearson.

The website has now been launched and over the next week or so we will be adding the digitised artefacts to the archive – check out www.homeofmetal.com

Here are a few photos taken by Naz, from the day to give you a feel for what happened;

Johnny Doom interviewing Jim Simpson

A selection of press clippings and photos on display

Adults and kids making badges & colouring in Black Sabbath picture by Aye Jaye

Godflesh  & Napalm Death related cabinet courtesy of Earache Records – included hand written lyrics, original art work mock ups (old school hand made cut n paste)

Judas Priest & Black Sabbath cabinet of treasures

Led Zeppelin cabinet with rare Russian release of Stairway To Heaven (Courtesy of Lisa Bardsley) and only known official 7″ release of Stairway To Heaven (Courtesy of Nigel Dodds)
Home Of Metal family tree created by Francesca Bunny Williams

Fascinating stuff!

A rare outing for this Robert Plant painting by John Judkins ‘Pop Star ‘73′- part of Wolverhamptons permanent collection.

Stuart Williams from Walsall local history archive

Teenage kicks!

The pace is definitely quickening as Saturday approaches, we were at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery yesterday, dropping off the bits and pieces of memorabilia along with a variety of old press clippings to put on display, we also did a photo shoot for the Express & Star as well as a little practice run with our wonderful group of volunteers – here we all are in our HOME OF METAL T-shirts which were kindly sponsored by Fly53. Aren’t we a happy bunch!!! Now its heads down to add all the content to launch the archive.

Photo by Najma Hussain

Earlier in the week myself and two of our team Dunc and Bill went on Kerrang! Radio and did an interview with Johnny Doom, talked all about why Capsule had initiated the project and why Bill & Dunc wanted to get involved -  you can listen to here.

L-R : Johnny Dooms plastic bag(!!!!), Johnny Doom, Bill and Dunc.

We have a couple of nice pieces of press out about Home Of Metal and of course you are also free to help us spread the word and get involved with this project. Read more about it on the Home Of Metal blog – the website itself launches on Saturday.

From the Birmingham Post – today article by Andrew Cowan

Document +1 magazine

Nice write ups on the Plan B Magazine blog, BBC Black Country and the Kerrang! radio website

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.