Just to whet your appetites for the Official Launch Ceremony of the First Free Digbeth Cashpoint Wednesday week, Michael The Shopkeeper has sent me some photos of its installation. Join us next Wednesday 28th April 2010 at 6.00pm in the Nisa Convenience Store on Digbeth High Street to watch Jon Bounds Cut The Riboon and that before downing a pint of Cashpoint Real Ale at The Anchor.
This week sees the opening of the new Nisa convenience store, just next to the Digbeth High Street entrance of Birmingham Coach Station. Here’s a short video of Michael the Shopkeeper talking about what the new store will have to offer, such as grocery items, lottery tickets and….(drum roll)…..
A FREE CASHPOINT!
Yes, people, it’s here at last. Later this week Natwest will be installing Digbeth’s first free-to-use cashpoint in the store, which is open until 10pm Mon-Thurs and until midnight over the weekends. Naturally, Digbeth is Good cannot fail to mark this momentous occasion, which means it’s time for….(drum roll)….
THE DIGBETH CASHPOINT OFFICIAL LAUNCH CEREMONY!
Reg Varney using the first ATM in 1967.
You are all cordially invited to the Official Launch Ceremony of the First Free Digbeth Cashpoint next Wednesday 28th April 2010 at 6.00pm in the Nisa Convenience Store on Digbeth High Street. Local celebrity Jon Bounds (him off of Birmingham it’s Not Shit) will be Cutting The Ribbon and making a Filmed Cash Withdrawal. He has threatened to find a Reg Varney outfit for the occasion (knowing Jon whatever he wears, it’ll be good).
After the proceedings, the party will move onto The Anchor pub around the corner, where Landlord Gerry has promised to stock some special Cashpoint Real Ale.
I do hope you can join us for this glittering social gathering. No need to RSVP, just pop on your clean tux/bestest party frock and we’ll see you there.
There was a definite chill in the air last Saturday afternoon but that didn’t stop a good crowd braving the great outdoors for We Are Eastside’s East Stride, a tour of some of the area’s key arts venues led by local historian Ben Waddington.
We started off from The Old Crown, which as Ben pointed out, perhaps isn’t as old as it purports to be. We then made our way to where much of what makes up Digbeth all began, at Bennie Gray’s The Custard Factory. Those hanging about didn’t appear to be the usual skater kids that frequent its skate park, they seemed to be a much more rag-tag bunch.
'Aggressive Localism'
It turned out they were the creations of people participating in the Craftspace Collective ‘Aggressive Localism’ workshop led by Juneau Projects. You’ll be seeing these Morris dancer inspired costumes worn by skateboarders in the Lord Mayor’s Parade later this year.
The Uses of Enchantment at Rhubarb East
From thereon we visited the newly opened Rhubarb East Gallery in Rhubarb Studios on Heath Mill Lane, which is exploring The Uses of Enchantment with some lovely fine art photography from The Jackson Twins and Vee Speers, whose child portraits I found particularly captivating. Rhubarb-Rhubarb’s Creative Director Rhonda Wilson spoke of her joy in at last having a space to display work:
For years we have watched while the sometimes extraordinary talent emerging from our reviews and mentoring schemes, has been shown by other people, both in the UK and in international spaces. Now we have the pleasure of exhibiting the results of our efforts, in collaboration with some of the world’s most interesting image makers.
The pod space in VIVID
We carried on down Heath Mill Lane, stopping off at Eastside Projects to enjoy The Curtain Show and hear Gavin Wade talk about the artist-led, ex-industrial space and VIVID, where Director Yasmeen Baig-Clifford told the story of its versatile pod space developed by architect Ranbir Lal, a perfect solution for an arts organisation renting rather than owning their premises.
Jim Simpson
Ex Black Sabbath Manager and Birmingham International Jazz Festival founder Jim Simpson popped by and chatted with Lisa and Jenny from Capsule about the rougher, tougher type of music that seems to stem from industrial Birmingham.
St Basil's by Steve Cadman
Ben’s tour also included elements of local history and interest, such as the amazing brickwork on St Basil’s headquarters, which used to be a High Anglican Church.
Pip McKnight
Whilst we were oohing and aahing who should pass by but Pip McKnight, who told us all about how 7 Inch Cinema began whilst Birmingham Film Festival was folding, which was a cloud with a silver lining as they got a lot of the old equipment!
Spacesuit at Grand Union
We got to have a chat outside Ikon Eastside, where many of the tour later got to enjoy Flatpack and Capsule’s screening of Burning, before crossing the road to find the tucked-away Grand Union. The current exhibition Gon-goozler is well worth a look with a fun space-travel theme that includes a spacesuit, a weather-balloon and of course, cheese, some of which had disappeared before the night was out.
Grand Union artist studios corridor
What was really impressive about Grand Union was the studio space, where about 8-10 artists get their own, cheap self-contained work units to get creative in. The artists we met were as happy as pigs in mud in this place and spoke of the need for more like it. Like VIVID, Grand Union are tenants rather than owners of the old industrial space, but the units are flatpack so should they need to move, their studios can move with them to be reassembled in a new home.
James Langdon and Ben Waddington talk the We Are Eastside typeface
We bumped into artist James Langdon whilst we were there, who spoke with Ben about his development of the distinctive We Are Eastside typeface. If you look carefully you’ll find the A’s are a particularly curvaceous treat and as Ben pointed out, not unlike the outline of Eastside itself, although whether this is by accident or design I’m unsure.
Claudia Borgna installation at Rea Garden
Last stop on the tour was the Rea Garden on Floodgate Street, where Arlene Burnett of Behind Closed Doors spoke about their development of the space, and resident artists Claudia Borgna and Alex Lockett of Project Pigeon explained their very different installations. Claudia’s plastic bag flowers looked like seeds from another planet had landed in the bottom half of the garden and taken it over.
Bluen with her chick by Project Pigeon
Project Pigeon is a longer-term installation in the space, which means we get to see the pigeons develop from eggs to fully-grown birds. I got to stroke Bluen’s tiny chick (above), which is now the healthy, strapping 28-day old bird below.
Alex Lockett with Bluen's fully-grown chick
Unfortunately Ben didn’t have the time to take us to see Friction Arts’ The Edge or The Lombard Method, but both are well worth taking the time to venture over to the other side of the High Street.
Curtains at Curtain Show, Eastside Projects
There’s been some interesting online discussion about We Are Eastside since its launch, including a brilliant post by Jon Bounds at BiNS about increasing engagement in the arts, both by simple awareness raising and more in-depth local collaboration. The latter is something I’d like to see lots more of Digbeth – there’s some amazing cultural stuff going on around here, such as Irish Heritage and St Patrick’s Festival Birmingham which, for whatever reason, feels completely unconnected to much of the arts activity in the area.
Cheese at Grand Union. Mmmmmm....
From my resident’s perspective, both camps are making interesting, creative and exciting stuff happen, so it would be great to see them bounce off each other more. I suppose that’s why I’ve kind of fallen in love with Friction Arts, because they are so embedded within the community. I’d love to see arts organisations reach out more and work with local people who are already getting together and doing brilliant things under their own steam, my guess is that all involved learn an awful lot!
The new National Express coach station on Bradford Street will be fully-functioning tomorrow. Some, like Karen Strunks are looking forward to the new station with its Starbucks, WH Smith and an Uppercrust bakery, which promises to be a vast improvement on the older model she’d photographed above. Others, like Ian Jelf, aren’t so pleased because it’s situated ‘that little bit “out” of the City centre in a still-not-very-brilliant area.’ Grrrr…
I’m very happy the plush new station is ready to go, if only because I’ll no longer get accosted by panicked-looking people with suitcases demanding to know, “Where’s the coach station?” The temporary move across the road seemed to be more than many could handle.
So happy, I’d quite like to spend some time in there, enjoying the luxuries it has to offer and talking to the passengers passing though, gathering tales of their journeys via Digbeth – where they’ve come from, where they’re going to, their reasons for travel and their experience of the new station along the way.
I suspect the most colourful tales could be gathered during the loud and lively party season that’s about to hit us, so I’m planning my sit-in for the liveliest night of them all. I’ll be arriving at the coach station at 6pm on 31st December and will be staying there until 6am on 1st January – seeing in the brand New Year in a brand new coach station, hopefully gathering some interesting stories from party-goers, commuters and coach station workers whilst I’m there. If you fancy joining me, I’d love some company, but won’t hold out too much hope on that score. If you’re passing through or near the coach station over that time, please seek me out and stop for chat!
And then I learn that Mr Ralph has lost his early lead in BiNS Brummie of the Year and been overtaken by UB40′s Brian Travers, which is well deserved, especially for his sterling support for The Rainbow, but a little saddening all the same. I think I need some chocolate to cheer me up.
The new exhibition Bodies Revealed at the Custard Factory had a press day last Wednesday, which has resulted in some links. Karen Strunks went along with her camera and took some striking images, which she’s compiled into the video above. She seemed to enjoy it, posting one picture as her BiNS Friday Photo.
Would I recommend the exhibition? Absolutely. It’s a chance to see the human body how you would never get to see it ordinarily. It is fascinating, informative and something very, very different.
As promised, here’s the first video taken by my brand new Flip, kindly donated to me by Fullrange Films. Spotted Dog landlord John Tighe gets his head shaved for charidee by a rather un-PC barmaid. Funilly enough, no-one wants the lock of hair I harvested that evening. Thankfully Jon Bounds has come to the rescue with talk of somehow locking it inside the trophy for Brummie of the Year 2008. I hope this will start a tradition of the previous years’ winner passing on discarded body bits to their successors, complete with ceremony, like when Miss World passes on her crown but a bit grosser.
Felt there is enough out there about Gigbeth for the links to warrant their own post. Tickets are now on sale, get buying early to take advantage of their Early Bird ticket offer of £20 for a weekend pass.
Guillemots film and music tour starts here – Yes, here, in Digbeth! At Gigbeth! In the Custard Factory on 7th November. Now I suspect I’m showing my age to admitting to not hearing of them before Gigbeth was announced, but I do LOVE seeing films with live scores so really want to see the “selection of short films re-scored live by the band.”
Fight! Fight! Fight! – or maybe just a minor disagreement, between grumpy guts Midge Diabolik and Gigbeth, who crowned him Digbeth’s Simon Cowell after he accused them of poaching their headline acts from Gay Pride. Birmingham it’s Not Shit joins in the fray with its two bits’ worth.
What is this Gigbeth thing, anyway? – is the question the above spat prompted Russ L to ask himself, which he answers with an interesting discussion of their vision, identity and impact.
One of the reasons I love living in Digbeth is its multitude of pubs, especially old man drinking establishments.
Before Digbeth is Good was born, I wrote a post listing the top ten Digbeth pubs on my personal blog The Getgood Guide (makes for a great crawl, if you have the inclination). In it I lamented the loss of Cleary’s and The Market Tavern, which may yet be reborn as a gastro-pub. How it hopes to beat the culinary competition of the Big Bull’s Head He Man’s Grill pictured above I don’t know.
Now more Digbeth pubs are closing. Barnard wrote that The Spotted Dog (no, the other one on Bordesley Street) called last orders on 6th July. In the same week Birmingham It’s Not Shit announced Monsoon Nights on Bradford Street (previously The Mercat) is set to close to make way for the wholesale markets. You never know, I might just pluck up the courage to drink a pint in there before then.
