Atsuhiro Ito « More Canals than Venice – What looks to be an astounding concert at VIVID this Wednesday 10 March – Capsule present Japanese musician/artist Atsuhiro Ito:
He uses a device he has made called an Optron, fluorescent light tubes with integrated guitar pick-ups which are sent through guitar amp stacks. ‘When a voltage applied to the tubes is altered, the lights flicker and the pick-ups harvest the electromagnetic noise perfectly synchronized with the flickering light. The intense noise creating a visual hallucination and the sounds veering from some kind of extreme techno to outright noise. ‘ Wow.
This coming weekend sees the famous St Patrick’s Festival. The fun kicks off with a Festival Launch Party at The Irish Centre on Friday night, ‘a free evening of entertainment, dancing and a buffet’. To request tickets for the event email stpatricksbirmingham@gmail.com.
A Saturday of The Reel around The Bullring leads into the big Sunday parade, which starts with Mass at St Anne’s Church before the street parade and dancing around the St PatROCKs stage in South Birmingham College.
Post-weekend, the celebrations take a cultural turn with Irish film, literature and theatre events. NLP Theatre perform Singin` I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim on Monday 15th March in The Paragon Hotel. On Tuesday 16th March you have a choice between an Irish Film Night at The Spotted Dog or a St Patrick’s Literary Festival at The Old Crown Inn. On St Patrick’s Day, Weds 17th March, Irish Storyteller Katrice Horsley will be weaving her magic at The Irish Centre, as will musicians John McNicholl and John Kiernan. Rather amazingly, all of these events are free.
We Are Eastside
Friction Arts' The Edge - part of We Are Eastside
Once you’ve recovered from the St Patrick’s festivities you’ve a little time to pause for breath before the launch of We Are Eastside on 27th March, ‘an online and printed guide to the artists, collectives, promoters and spaces helping to transform Birmingham’s industrial heartland into a thriving creative playground’. The weekend will be jam-packed, with the Flatpack Festival being joined by local arts organisations showcasing their wares.
On Friday there’s a Curtain Show at Eastside Projects whilst The Lombard Method goes all Cinematic on us. I personally will be striving to catch Monuments at Ikon Eastside and mischievous audio-visual antics Synth Eastwood: Fast Forward at The Rainbow Warehouse.
Supersonic 2009 - Capsule are leading We Are Eastside and I get to post a picture of someone's bum
Saturday promises to be rather magical, with the new Rhubarb East gallery opening with The Uses of Enchantment, ‘inspired by fables and fairy stories, nostalgia and psychology’ and Laterna Magicka at Ikon Eastside, which later hosts the new concert film Burning, featuring Mogwai. VIVID will be providing the late-night space to let your hair down, with an Eastside Plasticine Party of ‘Psychedelic claymation’ by Bruce Bickford, which I think I’ll need to see to understand.
If you’re still standing on Sunday there’s plenty going on, with Paul Sharit’s 70’s Flicker films at Ikon Eastside and Belbury Youth Club’s evening of haunted audio and creepy telly at VIVID. I love a good scare…
So there we have it – we can finally see an end to the long, bitter winter and taste spring in the air, with lashings of Guinness and culture in equal measure. Swap your winter coat for a fetching emerald green number and enjoy!
I am most interested in hearing from anyone who is familiar with the above location. I am currently redeveloping the three victorian properties which form a substantial part of the main block where Rainbow pub is located. We are recreating old timber framed victorian shopfronts and would love to hear from anyone who has any history on this building. We need some old photos which we can display when the building re-opens as offices in a few months time.
We Are Eastside | Birmingham – Another new local website is live and raring to go! We Are Eastside is ‘your guide to the organisations that host and produce bold new work across film, digital media, crafts, music, visual arts, literature and photography all based in Eastside,’ I suspect the site will be getting particularly busy this month, in the lead up to the fantastic Flatpack Festival, which will inhabit lots of local venues such as Ikon Eastside, VIVID, The Bond and The Rainbow. Tickets for events have just gone on sale and are already selling fast so get in quick!
We Are Eastside has some very useful local information, such as a We Are Eastside map (which I’ll be replacing my old Digbeth arty trail with), and guides to Shopping, Entertainment, Eating Out and Places to Stay. Contributions to the blog are from the local cultural aces that are:
BBC News – Does peace and quiet always take priority over loud music? – Problems encountered by the Ministry of Sound nightclub make the BBC look at the bigger British picture, which of course leads them to Digbeth’s The Rainbow and The Spotted Dog. John Tighe has dire warnings about where this might lead:
“They are going to close down Digbeth, the only area of Birmingham where live music is played.”
About : Flatpack Festival – A sneak preview peak at the Flatpack fun in store. Digbeth treats include:
WALKING DOWN BRISTOL STREET at Ikon Eastside on Wednesday 24 March, with guests including great Brummie author David Lodge.
Dublin collective SYNTH EASTWOOD: FAST FORWARD ‘present an eye-popping night of audio-visual antics’ on Friday 26 March at the Rainbow Warehouse. YouTube film above for us walkie guys.
JULIEN MAIRE: DEMI-PAS, a ‘Mesmerising performance using modified slide projections’ on Friday 26 to Sat 27 March at Ikon Eastside.
BELBURY YOUTH CLUB give us ‘haunted audio and spooky 70s TV’ on Sunday 28 March at VIVID
More festival details will be coming soon, so be sure to watch their space!
