Folks there are still tickets available for Supersonic Festival – day tickets can be purchased on the door

Sat from 4pm

Sun from 2pm

Join Ikon and the Bloors in Eastside to launch Hey for Lubberland!, their specially adapted canal boat, utilising geodesic design and dazzle camouflage. Music by Khyam Allami.

As part of the Supersonic Festival Simon & Tom Bloor’s boat will be moored near Ikon Eastside. Visitors can make short journeys, accompanied by soundtracks selected by artists performing at the Festival.

To reserve a place call Ikon on 0121 248 0708

With only 1 day to go here is some useful stuff to help make your weekend great – we look forward to seeing you.
X Supersonic Team

TICKETS
Friday tickets are SOLD OUT
There are a limited amount of weekend tickets which do include Fri/Sat/Sun
and individual Saturday/Sunday tickets available from
http://www.theticketsellers.co.uk
24 hr order line – 0844 870 0000 – Calls cost max 5p per min from BT landline
Polar Bear – Kings Heath Birmingham
Swordfish – City centre Birmingham
Rough Trade East – London

There will also be a limited amount of SAT/SUN tickets available on the door.

TIMETABLES
FRI, SAT, SUN
Please note there will be some clashes, this is the nature of a festival

BOX OFFICE
Doors open at 9pm on Friday night , only then will you be able to pick up your wristbands
Saturday from 4pm & Sunday 2pm
This is located at the top of Gibb Street at the Custard Factory
For etickets you will need to bring with you the confirmation code + your postcode

DIRECTIONS
Festival Location

FOOD & DRINK
Food stalls are open on Saturday & Sunday –  includes Squisito (Italian deli and ice cream), 100% Cornish BBQ, The Crepe Shack, Sabai Sabai (Thai food), Hogans Cider.
Be sure to check out the ‘MARKET PLACE‘ which houses bands merch as well as a number of independent distributors, record labels and peddlers of curiosities as well the tea room where you can sample a selection of epicurean delights.

EXTRA FREE STUFF
Supersonic has teamed up with a number of arts organisations in the area to add a bit of culture to the weekend.
Why not sign up on Saturday 25 & Sunday 26 July between 1-5pm for a free canal boat trip courtesy of Ikon Gallery. Visitors can make short journeys, accompanied by soundtracks selected by artists performing at the Festival. Boat trips leave The Bond promptly on the hour, limited to 12 places per trip, booking is strongly recommended – please call Ikon on 0121 248 0708.
Children must be accompanied at all times.
There are also a number of exhibitions you can visit at IKON EASTSIDE, VIVID & EASTSIDE PROJECTS.

RHUBARB RADIO
Broadcasting live from the festival over the weekend www.rhubarbradio.com/

TWITTER
Keep up to date during the festival by following us http://twitter.com/supersonicfest

HOUSEKEEPING
Last but not least some general FAQ’s.
* Weather provision, the festival is under cover however you will need to walk between venues, so best to bring umbrellas or rain coats just in case.
* There are NO CASH POINTS in Digbeth – so come armed with cash (nearest one is by the Bull Ring Shopping centre 10 mins walk)
* There is a cloak room on site.
* Parking – there is a car park located on Heath Mill Lane, 1 road away from the Custard Factory
* No Camping – there are a list of recommended hotels on our website.
* We DO NOT allow you to bring your own alcohol on site, and you may be searched on entrance by security, there are a number of bars on site including this year Purity Ale – with Pure UBU & Mad Goose and Hogans Cider Stall.
* If you are under 18 you must be accompanied by an adult.
* We are happy for you to take photos however we ask that you act within a reasonable code of conduct, please limit photography to a maximum of two songs per set and be aware of your fellow audience members who can bring their own lightweight camp chair to enjoy the show.
* Drugs – sorry but a strict no drugs policy, if you are caught you will be escorted off site – YOU”VE BEEN WARNED!

We look forward to seeing you, travel safe
from the ever increasing Supersonic Team

Photo by Tashmahal

Final rules for Friday night

I’ll be checking this search for things to re-tweet. To appear on my radar include one of the following in your tweets:

• The username @supersonicfest
• The hashtag #supersonic
• The phrase “supersonic festival“

I thank you.

Hi, I’m Pete Ashton. I do Internet stuff.

Lisa’s asked me to run the @supersonicfest Twitter account over the weekend, which fits rather well as I’ve been thinking about how it might be used at the festival since last February. Here’s how I hope it’s going to work.

Firstly I’m going to try and tap into the backstage comms and relay any useful info, newswire-style. Schedule changes, late runnings, surprise guests, that sort of thing. It won’t be perfect but I’ll do my best.

The most obvious thing is changes to the schedule. There’s nothing more annoying than leaving one stage in time to catch the official start of a set on another only to discover the band is still setting up. So if you’re about to leave Thorr’s Hammer at 11.30 you can check the Twitter to see if Zu are on time or not without losing your spot at the front.

But that’s not the most useful way to use this thing. Since Twitter is fairly well adopted right now I’m assuming a fair few of you will be tweeting away, telling your friends what the good stuff is and so on. I’ll be watching you doing that. To bring stuff to my attention immediately include @supersonicfest in the message. But if you just mention the word “supersonic” I’ll still pick up on it in amongst the jet engines and Oasis nonsense. The stuff I think is of interest to all will then be retweeted through the @supersonicfest account.

So if you’re somehow at a loose end check into @supersonicfest and you’ll soon be back on track. (If you’re phone isn’t all fancy and that we’re going to whack a computer monitor in a window somewhere – more on that later).

This won’t be perfect. It’s a festival and the serendipitous chaos is what makes it special. And by the time I iron out the kinks and figure out the best ways to do things it’ll be Sunday evening. But hopefully we can use this to fill in some gaps and turn some of those “wish I’d seen it” into “caught the end of it”.

If you’ve got any thoughts or ideas on how this might be useful to you, let me know in the comments. Otherwise, see you Friday!

14 albums, more than 1000 concerts, one really doesn’t know what to say about this trio from Rome, Italy. One more record to come by the hand of Dälek, more than 1000 concerts all around the globe, a collaborations list from here to Mars (King Buzzo and Mike Patton from Melvins to mention a sample). That deep sound to their music that goes down to the abyss and further is what makes them so special.

The bass lines maintain a deep, hard structure, over that is chaotic rhythm looking for freedom until it becomes totally lost. These guys don’t waste their time smiling.

Influenced by everything natural, ancestral and imaginary, they never seem to find time to centre on human emotions. Isolated landscapes, remote geological ages, astral forces are part of the compositions that become more obscure each time a new album is released. They are far removed now from the innocent grunge from records like the self-titled Zu, now closer to abyssal and chaotic atmospheres.

While keeping their original line-up since 1999 (drums, bass, saxophone) they have been touring with Mike Patton and King Buzzo from Melvins whom they share a record label with.

By Nicolás Gómez

Zu will play the Saturday of Supersonic Festival

24th-26th July

Tickets for Supersonic Festival are available from www.theticketsellers.co.uk

With just under a week now till Supersonic Festival kicks off we have the individual timetables up, so you can plan your weekend in advance.
You can find FRIDAY, SATURDAY & SUNDAY on our website.
Happy planning.

* Please note there maybe some clashes – this is the nature of festivals

Double Bubble: Supersonic Previewed – Goblin Interviewed

Our favourite extreme music festival – Supersonic – is almost here. We look forward to the treats in store and Jimmy Martin talks to Italian psych/prog horror legends Goblin
Not so long ago, Brian May was heard to remark that Queen’s soundtrack to Flash Gordon marked the first instance of a rock band providing the score to a motion picture. Much as we all love Flash Gordon and the glorious bombast that accompanies it, such a claim is plainly nonsense. Not only does it ignore the frequently meandering and inconsequential work that Pink Floyd delivered to score films like Zabriskie Point, More and La Vallee, and the work of Can on the numerous celluloid projects that led to their Soundtracks album, but it also fails to take into account the twin titans of 70s rockscore lore, whose startlingly vivid work looms large over not only much else of a similar disposition, but sometimes the very films themselves: Florian Fricke’s Popol Vuh, and the Italian maestros of florid grand guignol, the band synonymous with horror auteur Dario Argento, Goblin.

Goblin’s cult following originally began around the time that their score to Profondo Rosso became a chart hit in their native land, somehow taking a sound which occupied similar territory to the ill-reputed likes of Mike Oldfield and Emerson Lake And Palmer, yet injecting it with a dynamism and drama that places them well outside the more self-regarding and indulgent spheres of mid-seventies experimentation

Indeed, such was the impact of Goblin’s music, that the symbiotic relationship between film and soundtrack was often thrown beyond its usual metier. During the making of Argento’s heavenly bloodbath Suspiria, for instance, much of the music was recorded before any of the film was actually shot, and played on set to build up the requisite atmosphere. True to form, it’s genuinely hard to imagine that film’s otherworldly allure being anything like as potent without Goblin’s dark, deliciously overwrought blend of progressive baroque and wild, raw experimentation blasting away in tandem.

Read the full article
http://thequietus.com

Goblin perform for the first time in the UK at Supersonic Festival on Sunday 26th of July and also at the Scala in London on Monday 27th of July
Tickets for Supersonic Festival are available from www.theticketsellers.co.uk
and for the London show from www.ticketweb.co.uk

The constant rain and stupid hours we’ve been putting in of late has got us feeling a little glum…only one thing to cheer us up, it can only be pups in raincoats.

Enjoy!





ahhh now we’re feeling better.
See you in a week!