Stuart Braithwaite of Mogwai at home with his dog (Picture: Pete Millson)
We did a short interview with Stuart at Supersonic Festival 2010, he talks about his experience of visiting as a punter, djing and performing with Mogwai. He doesn’t mention the infamous year of the bomb – when it was in fact his mum that telephoned from Glasgow to let us know that Birmingham had been evacuated due to a bomb scare and we had to close the festival. Stuart is also a big fan of Frank the pup, which of course gives him extra points.
Mogwai play the HMV Institute on Thursday and we can’t wait to hear their new material played live – Hardcore Will Never Die went into the UK album charts at number 25.
Flatpack Festival is well under way and a whole host of exciting events are planned for the weekend. We’re particularly excited about:
Friday 26th March / 8pm til late / Rainbow Warehouse, Digbeth
Synth Eastwood: Fast Forward – a night of audio visual revelry
Live sets from:
CLARK (Warp)
performing a one-off set using sounds recorded around Birmingham;
GANGPOL & MIT (Pictoplasma)
Manic French AV duo HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY
Digbeth-born psych six-piece
Plus the Synth Eastwood band, a man in a box responding to your art requests and a lineup of Dublin and Birmingham DJs into the wee hours.
A Plasticine Party – an Eastside knees up celebrating the beginning of the end of Flatpack. As well as various guest DJs, punk-dub multi-media threesome Jackdaw with Crowbar and Zappa-infused ten-piece outfit Moon Unit will be performing, plus there will be a DJ set from Stuart ‘Mogwai’ Braithwaite. Presented in association with We Are Eastside.
We’re delighted to co-host an evening with Stuart Braithwaite from MOGWAI as part of FLATPACK FESTIVALon Sat 27th of March. We’ll be starting off with a Q & A followed by a screening of BURNING dir. Vincent Moon, a documentary of the band, filmed during their residency at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
This event starts at 20:30pm at Ikon Eastside, 183 Fazeley Street, Digbeth
Birmingham, B5 5SE Advance Tickets can be purchased from HERE
We’ll be DJing alongside Stuart at the Plasticine Party held at VIVID following the screening – more details HERE
There are loads of amazing screenings on during the festival, highlights include Palace Of The Winds (Sublime Frequencies), Until The Light Takes Us (feat Birminghams own Black Metallers Frost) and No One Knows About Persian Cats.
“It was an incredible experience that was quality throughout – every detail accounted for, every nerve stimulated! Fantastic to spend an entire weekend talking about and listening to music with people who really love it too. And getting to tell the musicians how much you appreciated them was a real bonus. A life changing experience – never been more in love with music- THANK YOU! XXX” Audience feedback
We hope each year people go away from Supersonic having discovered a few gems, often the line up is made up of names that you might not recognise just yet! – but its worth being adventurous as the rewards are well worth it.
Here are some of the highlights from previous Supersonic Festivals including 2008’s immense performance by the incredible Harvey Milk featuring the mighty Joe Preston – these guys blew audiences away on the Saturday night – fists in the air, tears in the eyes!!! Supersonic were proud to bring these guys over to Europe for the first time after a few years of gentle persuasion. Other great performances were by Merzbow in collaboration with Keiji Haino as Kikuri, the Danish ensemble Efterklang, comic antics by Fucked Up and the blissful end performance by Krautrock legends Harmonia.
Harvey Milk 2008
2007 saw a unique collaboration by the Oxbow Duo with Stephen O’Malley, Justin Broadrick, Dave Cochrane & Chipper, the first European show for David Yows Qui, a near riot during Wolf Eyes and a co headline performance by Sunn0))) and Mogwai.
2007 report for Supersonic by BBC
2006 saw the thunderous High on Fire headline the outside stage whilst in the Factory club audiences went berserk for Zombi & Circle.
High On Fire 2006
Zombi 2006
Circle 2006
2005 was the infamous year of the bomb – when the whole of Birmingham city centre was evacuated due to a bomb scare including our festival – we all had to vacate the Digbeth area but not before having witnessed amazing sets by Battles, Dalek and Tunng amongst a host of others. The much anticipated collaboration by Stephen O’Malley and Merzbow had to be postponed as did a perfromance by PTV.
2005 Supersonic short film
In 2003, our very first Supersonic Festival took place over the water at the Custard Factory, with live performances by Coil and a very early live show by LCD Sound System. Happy days!
