At Supersonic Festival 2012 we hosted a Q&A with Savage Pencil aka Edwin Pouncey ahead of the release of his ‘Trip or Squeek’ publication, a collection of comic strips that have featured in the Wire since 2002.

You can see an exhibition of the original Trip or Squeek artwork at London’s Orbital Comics 10th January – 10th February.

One of Savage Pencil’s comic strips was about Home of Metal – quite an honour!

 

We Are Eastside presents Birmingham – The Magic City as part of ‘City States’ at the 7th Liverpool Biennial – welcome to the hidden undergrounds, blushing civic pride and future visions of our ‘magic’ city.

‘The Magic City’ is borrowed from a proposed artwork by BAZ, inspired by the sign that originally welcomed visitors to Birmingham, Alabama, USA. BAZ want to build a new version of the sign next to the planned hi-speed rail station destined for Eastside, Birmingham, UK. BAZ believe everything Birmingham does is magic.

As part of the exhibition, Capsule will present a collage of 1980s Grindcore fanzines from the birthplace of Heavy Metal and a snapashot of the formation of the one of the most extreme bands in the genre’s history – Napalm Death.

We Are Eastside is a consortium of Birmingham based arts organisations, flying the flag for the very outer edges of the city’s culture.

The Liverpool Biennial runs 15 September – 25 November and Birmingham – the Magic City can be found at Liverpool John Moore University Copperas Hill Building. More info here

We are extremely proud to announce that Capsule have been appointed to curate the Library of Birmingham’s opening ‘Discovery’ season.

As producers we will produce a dynamic mix of events, activities and performances on the theme of Discovery. Capsule will programme events throughout the new Library, in its new and innovative spaces, and in Centenary Square and other city venues in the lead up to and after its opening on 3 September 2013.

Highlights of the opening season will be announced later this year.

Ian Ward, Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council, comments

‘We are really excited by what Capsule has to offer and impressed by its cohesive approach to working with the Library’s many partners, including The REP. Capsule’s understanding of audiences along with their creative thinking and energetic approach will result in an opening season that will be contemporary and forward-thinking whilst also celebrating the Library and the city’s past.’

Lisa Meyer, Capsule’s creative director, says

‘We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the

Library of Birmingham, a flagship cultural hub in the city and assist it in meeting its aims and achieving its ambitions. Capsule’s reputation and experience for delivering high profile, artistically ambitious events to the highest quality make us well equipped as Producer for the Library of Birmingham’s opening season. The season will invite us all to discover the library as a building and its contents. With its dynamic architecture and multitude of facilities, the audience, will be encouraged to explore, learn and play within the space. The programme will be reflective of the wealth of creative and cultural talent from within the city whilst also playing host to exciting international works.’

Read more about the city’s new library via http://libraryblog.birmingham.gov.uk/ and http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/rewritingthebook

Tomorrow will see the launch of an exciting new commission between VIVID and Capsule:

MR. UNDERWOOD
SONIC GRAFFITI 2011

Walking the streets near to VIVID and Supersonic Festival, the ubiquitous signs of
neglect passing you by, your attention is captured by a symbol you’ve seen somewhere
else before…

Set into a decaying wall there is a headphone socket. You unplug from your own music
and plug yourself into the city. The sounds you hear are of and from this place, dark
and decayed. As you listen you examine the surface before you more closely. You’ve never
paused here in this way before. What beauty you have missed.

A special “Crash EP” featuring four compositions by Mr.Underwood will be
contained within the installations. Each piece is based on a field recording taken
close to the site in which you find it. The EP will be available for download but you
are encouraged to listen to the pieces in situ, as the chance sounds that surround
you at the time of listening are considered part of the compositions. The pieces
will require you to interact with them in a variety of ways to trigger or manipulate
the sound. Go explore! Headphones are available from VIVID during exhibition
opening hours for a small deposit.

Join Mr. Underwood for a special tour, leaving from VIVID on Friday 23
September, 6pm. Meet at VIVID reception at 6pm. Bring your own headphones.

Home of Metal Launch In Pictures

Last Thursday Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery’s Gas Hall hosted the launch of the Home of Metal Exhibition. In attendence were notable members of both the music and art communities. Slade singer Noddy Holder, former Judas Priest guitarist KK Downing and Brian Tatler from Diamond Head were among the guests at the official opening which was launched by Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi.

Please visit www.homeofmetal.com for the origional article and much more.

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 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

Capsule are proud to be involved with ‘The Joyful Bewilderment…“, a group exhibition showcasing the outpourings of a group of like minded image-makers which will take place at Rough Trade East in London from 2nd October – 27th October. Fundamentally, the artists in the show all share an essential motivation to explore the possibilities of enhancing everyday life by making magic from the mundane. Over 100 artists from all over the world including members of The Outcrowd Collective as well as several other West Midlands inhabitants from LUCY MCLAUCHLAN, RIK COOPER, STEF GRINDLEY, LEE BASFORD, BEN JAVENS, CHRIS KEENAN and LAWRENCE ROPER to name but a few as well as host of other reprobates including FRENCH, RICK MYERS and JAMES JARVIS.

EINSTELLUNG will be performing at the opening night on Thursday 2nd of October, in preparation for their forthcoming release on Capsule Recordings, a limited edition vinyl release of ‘Wings Of Desire’, with art work by Lucy Mclauchlan. (Due for release in November).

Einstellung are Steve Hough (ex-Cable Regime, Godflesh, Grover) on bass, Simon Rider (Ex Grover, Moneygods) on drums, Andrew Parker (ex-Katastrophy Wife, Sally) and Andy Smart on guitars.