Stunning footage of Peter Brodericks performance at Supersonic Festival 2010, shot and edited by HTF Media. Watch this space for dates, tickets and line up announcements for Supersonic 2011.
“Peter Broderick, next, made inventive use of loops to accompany himself, both with his vocal and assorted instruments (guitar, violin, keyboard, bowed saw), all of which he deployed with impressive proficiency.”
Read full review from TLOBF
Capsule is delighted to announce they have been awarded a grant of £60,000 over two years from Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The award will be used toward capacity and organisational development in particular the successful delivery of forthcoming projects Home of Metal and Supersonic 2011, and the development of a five year plan.
We are really grateful to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for recognising the contribution we are making to the region and further a-field. The grant will be of enormous benefit to Capsule and particularly help secure our future during these uncertain times. It’s wonderful to get recognition from such a prestigious organisation.
The Paul Hamlyn Foundation Arts programme supports the development and dissemination of new ideas to increase people’s experience, enjoyment and involvement in the arts.
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.
The video was shot and edited by the very wonderful HTFmedia gang
http://htf-media.blogspot.com/
And what could be more romantic than being in love and making noise music together? Blue Sabbath Black Fiji on stage at Supersonic Festival 2010 – they later had a little kiss on stage…
The Quietus recently interview Kevin Martin and he had lots of lovely things to say about his time at Supersonic last year, and about the festival in general – follow the link to read more.
Kevin Martin in The Quietus:
In a weird sort of way Supersonic were responsible for me rethinking what I wanted to do with King Midas Sound. I’d seen Corrupted play a year or two before and they helped me remember the roots of where I’d come from musically…To be honest we just love the festival. It’s an extremely positive experience to just wander around and check out all the other bands.
King Midas Sound live at Supersonic 2010
Last day in the office for the Capsule layyyyydies – looking back on an exhausting year, here are some of the highlights…
January
The ever popular Baroness played along with Bristol sludge trio Taint. Lots of hair and lots of fist pumping
February
In the wonderful setting of the Town Hall, we brought kraut gods Cluster to Birmingham – and what charming gentlemen they were too
March
Home of Metal had its official launch at SXSW in Austin, Texas, with Lemmy of Motorhead doing a Q&A as part of the event. March also saw the launch of We Are Eastside, the beginnings of a fruitful relationship between various creatives around the Eastside area of the city.
April
Firm Capsule favourites Eyehategod played to a well pumped up crowd at The Asylum. This was utter filth.
May
Wolves in the Throne Room and Tweak Bird made for a perfect line up for a Saturday night – with some impromptu Hula Hooping afterwards
June
We welcomed summer with a beautiful show at mac; a collaboration between Warp’s Plaid and the Southbank Gamalan Players. Home of Metal also held a series of open days in an empty shop in Wolverhampton where we met this Sabbath fan and his killer Henry tattoo
July
Supersonic was already well on its way at this point as well as Kaye Winwood coming on board as Operations Manager we appointed three interns – Ben, Tom and Aaron – thanks again for your hard work boys!
August
The legendary Silver Apples performed an intimate show at Hare & Hounds with amazing visuals from Film Ficciones
September
Capsule celebrated the release of Modified Toy Orchestra’s new record Plastic Planet by hosting a show for them at Town Hall, and later at the manificent Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.
October
Well, it was only Supersonic. Hard work but probably our best festival yet – thank you to al who came along and witnessed incredible performances from Swans, Godflesh, King Midas Sound, Hallogallo, Tweak Bird, Napalm Death, Master Musicians of Bukkake, the list goes on…plus an appearance from Frank the pup.
November
A crazy fun last show of the year featured Torche, Part Chimp and Stinky Wizzleteat. We also appointed our Home of Metal project manager, the lovely Ms Phoebe Jeebe
December
We appointed the exhibition designers for the Home of Metal show that will take place June-Sep 2011 in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, exciting times.
And our overall highlight must be the arrival of Ms Mabel Javens – a new lady in the Capsule world she was born on 30th November 2010.
Lots of gigs planned for next year already and we’ve just announced gigs for Earth and Woods! We’re always after feedback so do get in touch and let us know what artists you’d like to see in Birmingham next year…
Merry Christmas
Capsule HQ
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Great review of Supersonic Festival in the latest issue of The Wire, especially good to note that Birmingham and the Black Country are starting to be branded as the ‘Home Of Metal’ in the music press. This comes just as we have appointed a designer for the BMAG show which is happening next summer, Studio Myerscough who were responsible for the Matthew Boulton show and were the design curators for Vintage at Goodwood start work on the exhibition in January. We’re delighted to be working with both Morag & Luke , who have a very innovative approach to exhibition design and are sure will help us make ‘Home Of Metal‘ a real landmark show for the city.
The Wire review also made reference to the creative community around the Custard Factory, again encouraging to see that there is such a buzz around the ‘We Are Eastside‘ group.
The West Midlands and Birmingham in particular are ‘the Home Of Metal‘ – where founding fathers like Black sabbath and Judas Priest played their first shows and a second wave, including Napalm Death and Godflesh, spawned numerous subgenres…We get a sense of the diverse musical and artistic interest that fed into the Birmingham scene. It’s clear that the city’s current music community, or at least the one centred around the Custard Factory, is equally openminded – something which the organisers Capsule both cater to and take inspiration from.
Supersonic confirms that there’s certainly something in the air in Birmingham, or, as one of the organisers suggests, in the city’s architecture, that makes even the older artists come across as fresh. That’s because you’re not observing them on display in a ‘zoo’, but working in their natural habitat: a post-industrial space. So many other music festivals offer what you expect to hear, merely affirming your good taste in music, Supersonic is a place to be educated and surprised: new, experimental and intellectually nourishing material is cleverly smuggled in under a black cloak of fist-pumping riffs and cathartic noise.
David Moats – The Wire
Hello! My name is Tom, and I worked as the design intern at this year’s Supersonic festival.
I should start by saying how much the internship helped me out. Before working with Capsule, I was spending most of my time hunched over my desk, drawing small pictures on small pieces of paper. That was pretty much all I did, and after doing that for a few months, I became aware that it was possibly doing me more harm than good. It felt like I wasn’t really accomplishing anything anymore. I guess I was suffering from some variety of ‘artist’s block’, which I appreciate makes me sound like a monumental prat, but I can’t think of a better way to put it. The design internship seemed like just the opportunity I needed to make some new work and learn some new skills, so I figured I would give it a shot and send off an application. I was over the moon when Capsule offered me the position.
My first project was designing an issue of the Capsule fanzine. After doing that, I designed a few posters for some upcoming Capsule shows before concentrating on Supersonic. The biggest project for me was designing the Supersonic festival catalogue, which I worked on with Ian Richards of Heavy Object. A heck of a lot of drawing, cutting, tracing, typesetting and spell checking went into making the catalogue, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. It was a really enjoyable project to work on, and immensely exciting to see catalogue progress from being a bunch of files on a MacBook to 2,000 properly printed books.
I also worked on decorating the festival site. If you got yourself a cup of something at any point during the weekend, then you may have seen some my work pasted up on the walls of the tearoom. You may also found yourself watching the animations I helped put together on the big screens in the venues whilst you were waiting for your favourite band to come on.
During the festival weekend, I had the pleasure of helping out the Black Sun Drum Corps. They put on an incredible performance on Sunday evening. It was definitely a highlight of the festival for me. It was great to see everyone involved get really into it, to the extent where some of the participants didn’t take their make up off for the rest of the night!
Other highlights of the festival included seeing Eagle Twin, eating a chickpea curry whilst watching Tweak Bird, witnessing Bong play one of the most atmospheric and captivating sets I’ve ever seen any band play, finally getting my hands on Alan Moore’s Unearthing album from the Rough Trade stall, and of course, Swans!
The internship has been a great experience, and I would like to thank Capsule for giving me the opportunity to work with them for the last few months. I can’t wait to see what they’ve got up their sleeves for Supersonic next year now, October 2011 can’t come quickly enough!
Check out Tom J Hughes’ work here
If you’re interested in being an intern for Supersonic 2011, check the Supersonic website for updates next year.
