Home of Metal hit West Brom last weekend – which included a number of large scale vinyls of fans portraits taken by photographer Steve Gerrard.

Home of Metal is collaborating with Flatpack Festival to bring a very special screening to this year’s edition of the prestigious film festival. On Saturday 26th March, ‘In Bed with Chris Needham’ will be screened at IKON Eastside, followed by a Q&A with Chris Needham himself.

‘In Bed with Chris Needham’ follows a 17 year old thrash fan as he about to embark on his band’s debut gig. Full of quotable lines, its a fantastic insight into teenage fan-dom and is, of course, a testament to the power of Heavy Metal. Unscreened for two decades, this will be a very special event.

20:30 – 23:00 Sat 26th March 2011
Screening : £6.50 Tickets from HERE

In 2009, Home of Metal brought the Led Zeppelin classic ‘Song Remains the Same’ to Flatpack Festival – if you missed it (or just really need to see it again) we’ll be showing it earlier that day at our Home of Metal Open Day at The Public, West Brom. So come along and make a day if it!

Flatpack Festival 2011 programme is now online!

Just click on the image above to vote

Capsule has made it through to the first round for the SXSWi panel in Austin, Texas – we’ve proposed a panel around the Home Of Metal project, but to be considered for the final submission we need you folks to comment & vote on our idea, most importantly are your comments – to create a discussion and to show it’s a topic of relevance.

You’ll need to sign up to the link below – there have been 2200 proposed panels but only room for 300 panels.
Please feel free to help us spread the word, if you know other people that attend SXSW or folks that would find this subject of interest. This is a great opportunity to raise the profile of the Home Of Metal project and of work going on in the West Midlands. The voting closes on September 4th.

New Ways of Collecting: Digital Archives and Contemporary Histories
http://tinyurl.com/kjacgm

Description:
How does Web 2.0 make us rethink the notion of collecting? Bedroom enthusiasts now have tools that enable them to interact with global audiences. They can work at the same level as professional archivists, and amateurs may have more virtual visits than some physical museums. This session will explore the Home of Metal Digital Archive as a case study focusing on music collections and illustrating successful 21st century collecting strategies.

many thanks as always from Lisa & Jenny

There is a strong metal presence at this year’s festival as Supersonic embraces Birmingham’s musical heritage.

Home of Metal is a project that has been raising the profile of the West Midlands region as the birthplace of Heavy Metal, citing Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Napalm Death and Godflesh as key players within this genre who all came out the area.

Festival goers will witness the torturous Japanese ‘funeral doom’ band Corrupted who have embraced their heavy metal influence while twisting the genre to a parallel universe where guttural roars follow extensive harp pieces and atmospheric doom accompanies all out head banging sludge. It is fitting that the first UK show for this now cult band will be in the place where Black Sabbath originally discovered their dark ominous sound which still resonates in the haunting heaviness of Corrupted.

The reformation of Head of David is another reminder of the diverse interpretations that can be born out of Heavy Metal. This Black Country band were one of the first industrial metal bands, the tempo is slowed down and distorted. They create a heavy haze that subsequently poured into the sounds of Godflesh and Ministry.

Ex Napalm Death drummer Mick Harris will be playing the festival as industrial dub act Scorn. The sounds of Scorn take those dark, heavy sounds of Heavy Metal and strip them bare, creating a uniquely mucky minimal sound.

The influence of West Midlands’ Heavy Metal can be made out through the thrashing and pummelling of Kylie Minoise. His hectic bursts of noise a reminder of the early Napalm Death tracks that pound into submission. Kylie Minoise’s reinterpretation of the one second long Napalm Death track ‘You Suffer’ was released in 2007 – it’s over an hour long.

Other Heavy Metal influenced performances at Supersonic 2009 will include grunge doom from Thorr’s Hammer, thrashcore from The Accused, power grind from Iron Lung and a wealth of bands embracing dark, psychedelic and experimental sounds – whether they linger gloomily for eternity or smash into you briefly as a burst of noise.

In addition to these crushing sounds, a number of Home of Metal events will be taking place over the weekend. Catch Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom in discussion with Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley of Sunn0))), discussing the influence of West Midlands’ Heavy Metal. Dr Niall Scott of the University of Central Lancashire will be lecturing on the ‘monstrous male figure’ with Heavy Metal and their will be a screening of the Vice film ‘True Norwegian Black Metal’.

Tickets – Weekend tickets – £70 / Friday Ticket – £15 / Saturday Ticket – £35 /Sunday Ticket – £35

available from: www.theticketsellers.co.uk
24 hr order line – 0844 870 0000 – Calls cost max 5p per min from BT landline

Also available from
Polar Bear + Swordfish – Birmingham
Rough Trade East – London
Plugd Records – Cork

Our Home Of Metal project was featured in +1 magazine after editor David Hopkins came up for our last open day at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery…some amusing thoughts of possible future souvenirs and branding Birmingham and the Black Country as the birth place of Metal

“Though the The Home Of Metal is a tailor made vehicle for fanboys’ adoration for all things Page, Plant, Butler, Broadrick and Halford the project ultimately aims to repackage Birmingham in musical, tourist-friendly wrapping paper. Just like  Manchester and Liverpool have so successfully done with Madchester/The Smiths and The Beatles respectively. But the Black Country’s considerable musical pedigree is arguably going to be harder to sell to their local authority as a potential money spinner. As even with the best will in the world Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Napalm Death and Godflesh aren’t quite as brochure friendly as the fab four. ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’ souvenir pencil case anyone?”
By David Hopkins

A selection of photos of fans from our last Home Of Metal open day at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery were featured in last weekends Guardian Magazine. The photos were taken by photographer Barry Lewis. As you can see there was a real cross section of fans in attendance old and young, Sabbath to Napalm fans coming together to share their passion for Birmingham & The Black Country.
As a result of the last open day Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery have committed to a large scale exhibition in Gas Hall for 2011, as have Wolverhampton Art Gallery and New Art Gallery Walsall – keep watching this space for further news.

As part of Flat Pack Festival in collaboration with Home Of Metal
Screening of: The Song Remains the Same & talk by Chris Phipps

@ South Birmingham College
Saturday 14th 16:00pm
£4
Tickets

Dir. Peter Clifton & Joe Massot
UK/USA 1976, 137 mins
Feat. Robert Plant; Jimmy Page; John Bonham; John Paul Jones

Back in the day when psychedelic concept movies were compulsory for any self-respecting rock band, Led Zeppelin took the plunge with this patchy but often entertaining document of their 1973 Houses of the Holy tour. The meat of the film is a performance at Madison Square Gardens shot over three nights in which the group steam through ‘Stairway’, ‘Black Dog’, ‘Heartbreaker’ and the rest to thunderous effect. Also scattered through the movie are fantasy sequences which Spinal Tap might have cringed at, including Plant rescuing a fair maiden and Page meeting a hermit up a mountain. The simplest and most touching is John Bonham’s, shot on his farm near Droitwich.

The making-of story is an epic in its own right, and today’s special screening will include a talk by Birmingham-born documentary maker and music historian Chris Phipps. Combining personal anecdotes with music fact and urban fiction, Phipps will provide a unique decoding of a band and film which often defy description. As he says, “you may leave with more questions than answers, but that’s Zeppelin.”

For further info about Flatpack Festival:
http://www.flatpackfestival.org.uk/

Don’t forget you can upload your photos, ticket stubs, programs etc to the Home Of Metal Archive

A piece written by Plan B Magazines editor Louis Patterson on the Guardian Blog about the Home Of Metal project. It seems has stirred quite a debate, though some people have clearly missed the point of the article  which is not saying that Birmingham isn’t a musical city but rather we haven’t marketed ourselves as such despite our rich musical heritage.

“Some cities are music cities: they have music in their DNA. Think of Manchester as you stroll along and see if you don’t get a hint of swagger in your step, your legs encased in a pair of voluminous corduroys as She Bangs the Drums filters down from some passing cloud.
Birmingham, however, is not a music city. That’s not to say it has no history of music. Indeed, from 1970s rock giants Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, through to later, less well-known but hugely influential outfits such as Napalm Death and Godflesh, the city has a history of music to all but rival Manchester. Yet, though Sabbath and Priest were certainly big bands, they were never Brummie bands, at least not in the way the Smiths or Oasis became synonymous with Manchester. Why?”

Read more here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2009/feb/05/birmingham-rock-metal

This is one of the comments from the article:

“This may come as something of a shock, but Black Sabbath are a 100 times more influential than The Smiths or Joy Division ever will be. I live in the US and they are feted as gods by folks here…It’s a bloody inspired place.”