Birmingham Music Month is a time for all music lovers in the area to come and sample exactly what the city has to offer on the music scene, from dub to dubstep, bhangra to gospel, metal to indie, Birmingham has it all. We are holding The Launch of Birmingham Music Month on the 6th May and we are offering you the chance to come and sample this showcase of Birmingham culture.
Don’t forget that MAY MEANS MUSIC! Oh, and don’t forget to vote either. (Link via BiNS)
Bear in front (of Millennium Point) – Birmingham: It’s Not Shit – Can’t stand Children in Need on the tellybox? No, neither can Jon Bounds, which is why he suggests going to the Children in Need live event at Millennium Point instead to watch ‘legendary bhangra artist Malkit Singh and ascending star Jaz Dhami head the star studded line up for the ‘Pudsey Does Bhangra’ appeal show’. It’s on 6pm to 11pm on Friday 20th November at Millennium Point.
We had a grand old time, taking in the pubs, street art and public art and, thanks to Karen Strunks’ blagging skills, a grand tour of the Travel West Midlands bus depot on Liverpool Street by the lovely Myron. Karen Strunks got to sit in the diver’s seat of a brand new bus, we took a double decker ride through the bus wash and said farewell to some older buses destined for that great bus depot in the sky. Here’s some photos of our fun:
Jon covers all the best of Digbeth’s places to shop, eat and drink like The Custard Factory, Fiends of The Earth Warehouse, The Spotted and The Rainbow, outlining the recent Noise Abatement problems the latter two have faced. A grand article that encourages visitors to ‘Bypass the Bullring and head for dynamic Digbeth, Birmingham’s vibrant heart’.
I’m not long off the phone to my parents to tell them I had a name check in a proper big broadsheet paper and that.
Area is the new “pocket sized” (or A6 in grown-up terms) “pocket guide” to what’s going on in and around Brum. It’s going to be monthly, although the first issue is a July/August double issue as “everyone’s on holiday and not much goes on”. It looks lovely. It’s got listings and writerly things from top people such a Danny Smith (whose new “wordcast” you should check out). It looks like this:
Jon links directly to page 18 of the online version ‘because I wrote it, and I’m vain’. A very pertinent piece about sunbathing it is, too. However, I’d urge you to flick forward to page 36 for the in-depth, 3 page feature all about Digbeth, ‘the epitome of the diamond in the rough’.
The digital district will act as a showcase and business demonstrator to attract new businesses and inward investment and offer a strategy for economic recovery.
Which, as Nick Booth says, sounds ‘Very nice…Does that mean that Digbeth will get better mobile phone reception and something as high tech as a cash point?’ Quite. Although it seems like Lord Carter managed to get an okay reception when he visited Fazeley Studios for the Digital Britain Unconference today.
As Jon Bounds points out, ‘It also sounds like another bit of the (still in consultation) Big City Plan being announced.’
