YouTube – Supersonic Festival – 2005 – Tweeted out by @supersonicfest this afternoon, a funky Supersonic Festival 2005 promo film of live action in the Custard Factory, with music by Modified Toy Orchestra. Filmed by local lad Chris Keenan. I can’t wait for Supersonic 2010!
Capsule blog photo: Sara of Needles & Hooks as well as Stitches & Hos
Last week was the last week of Capsule’s residency in VIVID, in celebration of their tenth birthday. First up on Thursday was Knowing Me, Knowing You where Capsule and Created in Birmingham‘got together and invited a bunch of interesting people along to introduce themselves and say (for the sake of getting a conversation going) what they might do if they were to get their hands on VIVID for a little while.’ The results were interesting (especially the suggestion of packing the place with jelly) so fingers crossed that this can become a regular thing.
Saturday was the big bash closing party, culminating in a great performance by the poptastic and seriously circuit-bent Modified Toy Orchestra. It was the first time I’d had a chance to see them and they were brilliant. Hula Barbie stole the show in her new dress, there was a rather phallic rocket that counted to ten and some lovely projected visuals that reminded me of Brian Duffy describing how he once made the stars sing at Supersonic 2008.
Capsule have now cleaned up and moved out of the VIVID space, which is shut until 12th January.
Thanks to Created in Birmingham and More Canals Than Venice for reminding me that Capsule’s tenth birthday is almost upon us (I’m rubbish at remembering birthdays, as my poor mother will testify). It seems VIVID on Heath Mill Lane will be playing host to the month-long birthday party:
Capsule will be taking over Vivid, an arts space in deepest darkest Digbeth where you can expect a number of exciting concerts, exhibitions and workshops with special guests including LIGHTNING BOLT, GEOFF BARROW of PORTISHEADS latest project BEAK>, MODIFIED TOY ORCHESTRA and many more. There will also be a night at the very prestigious Town Hall Birmingham with old and new friends as well as an evening with two heavy weight doom merchants SUNN 0))) + OM and of course plenty of cake.
Glad to hear there’s lots of birthday cake. VIVID will be hosting:
The launch party on 1st Dec with Monotonix and special guests Beestung Lips, Cum Dogs and Esquilax.
Another gig on 11th Dec with Pram ‘creating an eerie musical nightmare’ and Light Trap. After seeing Pram perform at Supersonic earlier this year, this is definately one I’ll make.
Afternoon tea with 7 Inch Cinema on 13th Dec with a light buffet with a healthy serving of films ‘of hairy men shouting and small dogs in space’. Weirdly, this is the one I’m most excited about.
Yet another gig on 16th Dec with Beak> (Geoff Barrow – Portishead), local lads Einstellung and Thought Forms.
‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ (Aha!) on 17th Dec, a fee event with Created in Birmingham ‘bringing some of Birmingham’s most exciting independent creatives together for a quickfire evening of show and tell.’ There’ll be drinks, cake and music to keep the creative juices flowing.
A Closing Party on 19th Dec with the fantastic Modified Toy Orchestra, PCM, Calvados Beam Trio, Una Corda and Stinky Wizzleteat.
There’s lots more going on outside of the VIVID gallery over December too – check out Capsule’s Coming Up page for details.
Supersonic Collective Memory- Capsule are collating a Supersonic festival collective memory of all the online reminiscing of great music and great fun. The most comprehensive piece I’ve seen is Pete Ashton’s film of photos taken with his TTV camera over the weekend, of pretty much all the acts there.
I managed to make the Sunday – a flatmate with swineflu and my own lame hypochondria prevented me from going to Devon as planned. My highlights, in no particular order were:
Jarboe – a brilliant, bonkers crazy lady with big balls of metal.
Film Ficciones/Pram – Playing behind a screen onto which was projected an eerie film with echoes of The Prisoner about it – there wasn’t a clear narrative to follow as such, just scenarios which left one feeling uncomfortable and full of dread. There seemed to be masked girl in a futuristic dystopia running and stumbling through the woods whilst some mysterious ‘others’ looked on from afar. Pram reinforced the confused and vaguely threatening atmosphere, playing live initially unseen but later back-lit to project silhouettes onto the screen.
The Memory Band – The Wicker Man is my favourite soundtrack in the whole world, and the main reason for me buying the Sunday ticket. I wasn’t disappointed by their faithful rendition of pretty much every song from the horror film.
65daysofstatic – who rocked the place with a relentless pace, even after their rained-over keyboard gave up the fight.
Goblin – a grand end to a great festival, Goblin played all the favourites with intricate gusto along to the goriest scenes from the horror films they’d sound-tracked projected onto screens.
There Are No Others, There Is Only Us | Pete Ashton – Pete puts a pointy arrow mark to There Are No Others, There Is Only Us, an installation currently running at Moor St Station as part of the Supersonic Festival. ‘I want to blog about it because it’s not immediately obvious that it’s there.’ So Pete goes and tells us exactly where.
Supersonic this weekend! But what else is on? « More Canals than Venice – Absolutely loads, according to PixieSixer. Ikon Eastside is showing the work of Raqs Media Collective, Eastside Projects is showing the work of Joanne Taham and Tom O’Sullivan and VIVID continues the Participation film exhibition. And as if that weren’t enough:
There is also a launch event on Friday 24th from 7-9pm at The Bond (located opposite Ikon Eastside on Fazeley Street) for the new Ikon offsite project, Hey for Lubberland! Artists Simon & Tom Bloor have specially adapted a canal boat using geodesic design and dazzle camouflage. After Supersonic weekend, the canal boat will be based in Brindleyplace and transport passengers around the area. Timetables for boat trips can be found on the Ikon website.
Sounds brilliant, and I’m kind of sorry I’m planning to be halfway to Devon by then. Also look out for the Organic Beer Festival at The Anchor Inn (with organic barbecue on Saturday) and Babak Salari at The Edge on Saturday evening:
morecanalsthanvenice > wicker-man – The mysterious PixieSixer gets rightfully excited about Supersonic at the Custard Factory this weekend (24-26 July), with Goblin, The Memory Band’s interpretation of the the Wicker Man soundtrack, Nancy Wallace and Caribou. I’m particularly sad to be missing The Memory Band as the Wicker Man is one of my favouritest ever soundtracks, but sunny Devon beckons.
Brumcast Supersonic Festival Special Part 1 – Little Chris attempts ‘to cover most of the vital artists performing at one of the most important music festivals around’. There’s so many of them, he’s also had to do a Part Two.
Now in it’s 7th year, the event will once again take place at the Custard Factory utilising the many rooms for music, art, film & of course cake.
Additional confirmations will follow in the upcoming weeks, but the line-up is shaping up to be another extravaganza – the rather incredible former Swan, JARBOE; the expansive drone-noise of GROWING; Brighton’s prog adventure, DIAGONAL; the wild avant futuristic jazz of ZU; the stoned pysch of EARTHLESS, the Virginian sludge rock of PONTIAK, the industrial experiments of 65 DAYS OF STATIC, the immense duo that is FLOWER/CORSANO DUO, KHYAM ALLAMI and one of the finest folk vocalists NANCY WALLACE will be featured in the line-up, once again highlighting the highly eclectic booking policy of the festival.
