Home of Metal have teamed up with photographer Steve Gerrard to offer an unsigned band the chance of winning a free Band Photoshoot!
Steve has been an accredited photographer for bands such as Radiohead, Metallica, Kiss, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Iron Maiden, The Sex Pistols, Bon Jovi and Kings Of Leon. His work has been published in magazines including Rolling Stone, Kerrang!, NME, Terrorizer, Metal Hammer and Rock Sound.

You could win your band a variety of great portraits to help you stand out from the crowd.

To be in with a chance of being photographed by Steve, all you have to do is tell us in less than 200 words: who your local West Midlands music hero is an why?

Email the answer along with the name of your band, location and contact phone number to [email protected]

Closing date for entries is 14th March.

The competition coincides with our Home of Metal open day at The Public on March 26th. Fans of all ages are invited to bring along their memorabilia and stories to be recorded for the digital archive. Home Of Metal is looking for everything from concert tickets to photographs, badges, album covers, t-shirts and flyers relating to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Diamond Head, Magnum and Napalm Death.

Hosted by Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom who will be talking to former ‘Raw Power’ presenter, Ozzfest compere and all round metal expert Krusher. In addition Juneau Projects will be showing you how you can make your very own DIY guitar + loads of rockin fun family activities!

Free event all ages welcome 11am – 4pm
http://www.thepublic.com

On Friday, 11th February Home of Metal will be joining the celebrations at Scruffy Murphys. It’s the rock pub’s 10th Birthday and they’ll be celebrating it in true metal fashion with a night of live doom and stoner metal featuring Birmingham’s very own Sally.

We’ll be bringing along photographer Steve Gerrard who’ll be taking your portraits to contribute to the ongoing collection of fan photos, that could feature in one of our Home of Metal exhibitions.

See you all there!

Scruffy Murphy’s, Newton Street, Dale End, Birmingham, B4 7LN

Photo from http://www.guitarmasterclass.net

The Broad Street Business Improvement District is delighted to announce that Heaven and Hell guitarist, founding member of Black Sabbath, Grammy Award winner and king of heavy metal Tony Iommi will be honoured on the Broad Street Walk of Star’s on Sunday 23rd November 2008.

Following an afternoon of live music from local bands on the stage in Centenary Square ‘Kerrang Radio’ presenter Johnny Doom will host the evening, with the presentation of the star taking place at 6.30pm.

Home of Metal encourages fans of  Black Sabbath  to be photographed wearing their prized band t-shirts.
Images will be taken by the Birmingham photographer Steve Gerrard, who has been capturing bands in action for over 20 years, and has photographed some of the biggest names and artists. The photographs will then go on display on the Home Of Metal website and in future exhibitions.

Followed by our last Capsule gig of the year at the Hare & Hounds with Racebannon + Trencher + Dream Dreams The Dreamer – doors at 8pm

On display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Saturday, then The New Art Gallery Walsall on the 6th Nov.

A selection of portraits taken by photographer Steve Gerrard as part of Home Of Metal.

To keep you up to date with what we’re doing with the Home Of Metal project we have set up a blog, this will hopfully fill you in until the archive gets launched towards the end of October. The blog will have contributions from our volunteers as well as news on what we are starting to collect for the digital archive, and who we encounter along the journey with related news for our events too.

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!!!

A call out to Metal fans across the region:
Home of Metal warms up with as unique opportunity for fans of Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to be photographed wearing their prized band t-shirts. The event, which will take place at The Giffard Arms, Wolverhampton on Friday 19th September, 9pm – 11pm and then Scruffy Murphys in Birmingham on Friday 26th of September 9pm – 11pm.

Images will be taken by the Birmingham photographer Steve Gerrard, who has been capturing bands in action for over 20 years, and has photographed some of the biggest names and artists. The photographs will then go on display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery at the official launch event in October as well as New Art Gallery Walsall and then will become part of the Home Of Metal website.

Photo courtesy of Ben Javens