Monthly Archives: March 2010

Russ L's Lots Of Things To See And Do In The West Midlands – April 2010

A month in which Howard Marks will interview Peter Hook, Carl Chinn will host a concert and there'll be a battle between Saxon's and Vikings in Chamberlain Square.

Read more »

Eastside, East of Westside

Eastside, East of Westside

Here’s a tweet I saw the other day, a sentiment we’ve all heard (and maybe said) before: “Wish Birmingham’s creatives would shout louder about the great stuff that goes on in the city”. There are lots of good things, but by definition there’s chaff with the wheat too — so are we really after “the creatives” to do the shouting? Wouldn’t we be better served with a batch of critical eyes, exposing the greatness? Or is the shouting the first stage of that, do people need to be aware of ‘something’ before they can pick the best bits? But do “the creatives” (a pointless generalisation, but I may as well stick with it as everyone else seems to) really want to let us know they’ve got a trumpet? Or, do they just want to impress the art scene, get a few quizzical looks from passers-by and be able to moan that “people from round here don’t care”? There’s always been that suspicion floating round my head; notice how all the excitement is round the ‘private view’ or the party (something I’ve never really understood) rather than the exhibition itself, think about how odd (and ad-hoc) opening times prohibit dropping...

Read more »

W H Rhodes and associated companies – a set on Flickr

A lovely set of photos from the 30s to the 60s, located in Solihull, Nechells, King's Heath and on Broad St.

Read more »

Rediscovering Birmingham's movie meccas – guardian.co.uk

Nice write up of Flatpack's tour of our cinematic heritage.

Read more »

Back in Fàshiön

Back in Fàshiön

(Self)-Published by the brilliantly named Brummie Git Press Luke James’s Stairway To Nowhere is out now. He says it’s “the true, unexpurgated, and twisted story (with pictures) of the original line-up of Fàshiön (1978-80)” and who are we to argue — the singer should know. It’s available for just under a tenner as a book and at £3.19 as a download, both from lulu.com If you’re not aware of them, the blurb might well sell it to you: “Stairway To Nowhere is the true story of late 1970’s, Birmingham, UK band Fàshiön. In the brief spotlight of their fifteen minutes of fame, Fàshiön toured both the USA and UK as opening band for The Police, did a UK club tour with a then unknown band from Ireland called U2, opened for The B52’S on their first ever UK tour, and had a new band called Duran Duran open shows for them.The book tells the story of how four young, unemployed working class gits from the gutters of Brum donned make-up, attitude, weird clothes and swaggered forth to escape the dreaded clutches Birmingham’s car factory mentality by conquering the music business. On their voyage of escape and discovery, Fàshiön encounter...

Read more »

Birmingham community museums reopen this week

Aston Hall, Blakesley Hall, Sarehole Mill and Soho House open their doors again from April 2. Open every week – Tuesday to Sunday from 12pm to 4pm – until October 31.

Read more »

Moseley Folk Festival 4th, 5th & 6th September – Line up announced

Donovan, The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, The Divine Comedy and rather excitingly The High Llamas all announced, more too

Read more »

Project Brutal

Do you want to get involved with celebrating and documenting the wonderful Central Library building? You do? Good here's the place:

Read more »

Maypole Queen to be chosen – Bournville Village

If you needed anywhere within the city boundaries to feel just that little bit more like The Wicker Man.

Read more »

BiNS is mostly by Jon Bounds a Birmingham based social web consultant, producer and writer., You can hire him to work on your social web campaigns or anything really—he's not fussy. Follow him on twitter or drop him an email.

There's also the odd bit of stuff from Danny Smith.

Feel free to send us anything you're interested in - or think we might be.

@onBirmingham – Breaking Brum News on Twitter