Another busy week ahead firstly we have Constellation Records latest signing Seattle-based group THE DEAD SCIENCE with support from the incredible one man guitar/drums band THEO (for fans of Battles, Oxes, Steve Reich) and Brummie post rock favs UNA CORDA – thats at the Hare & Hounds on this Wednesday.
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The Dead Science talk through some of their artwork.


Una Corda -‘Three’

Followed on Thursday by our next HOME OF METAL event at The New Art Gallery Walsall 6pm – 9pm FREE EVENT

With special live performance by Einstellung ‘… A Touch Of Sabbath’
Einstellung are proud to have the opportunity to pay homage to Sabbath and thank them for allowing four like minds to meet. For this special evening Einstellung will be performing a Sabbath inspired piece. If you listen carefully within the simplistic motorik beats and slabs of Sabbath inspired riffage you may well be raising those metal fists in the air to some monstrously well know Sabbath gems.

The evening will be hosted by Kerrang! Radio DJ Johnny Doom with special guest Nicholas Bullen (one of the founding members of Napalm Death – responsible for inventing Grindcore)

We have been lucky enough to be given a handful of ‘Halford Live at Rock In Rio III’ Promos to give away, so don’t forget to hunt out your old ticket stubs, programmes, photos and stories relating to the innovators of the genre – Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Napalm Death and Godflesh!

Home Of Metal enamel badge now available from our shop for just £3.00

Last Saturday was an overwhelming success with Wolverhampton Art Gallery reporting over 970 people in attendance at our first Home Of Metal open day, we had everyone from small kids, to teenagers right through to the more distinguished older gentlemen. We all had a blast and are incredibly grateful to Kate Williams Pryror and her team at Wolverhampton for all their hard work, Johnny Doom from Kerrang! Radio for hosting the day and for his interviews with our special guests Jim Simpson and Digby Pearson.

The website has now been launched and over the next week or so we will be adding the digitised artefacts to the archive – check out www.homeofmetal.com

Here are a few photos taken by Naz, from the day to give you a feel for what happened;

Johnny Doom interviewing Jim Simpson

A selection of press clippings and photos on display

Adults and kids making badges & colouring in Black Sabbath picture by Aye Jaye

Godflesh  & Napalm Death related cabinet courtesy of Earache Records – included hand written lyrics, original art work mock ups (old school hand made cut n paste)

Judas Priest & Black Sabbath cabinet of treasures

Led Zeppelin cabinet with rare Russian release of Stairway To Heaven (Courtesy of Lisa Bardsley) and only known official 7″ release of Stairway To Heaven (Courtesy of Nigel Dodds)
Home Of Metal family tree created by Francesca Bunny Williams

Fascinating stuff!

A rare outing for this Robert Plant painting by John Judkins ‘Pop Star ’73’- part of Wolverhamptons permanent collection.

Stuart Williams from Walsall local history archive

Teenage kicks!

On display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Saturday, then The New Art Gallery Walsall on the 6th Nov.

We have a couple of nice pieces of press out about Home Of Metal and of course you are also free to help us spread the word and get involved with this project. Read more about it on the Home Of Metal blog – the website itself launches on Saturday.

From the Birmingham Post – today article by Andrew Cowan

Document +1 magazine

Nice write ups on the Plan B Magazine blog, BBC Black Country and the Kerrang! radio website

A selection of portraits taken by photographer Steve Gerrard as part of Home Of Metal.

To keep you up to date with what we’re doing with the Home Of Metal project we have set up a blog, this will hopfully fill you in until the archive gets launched towards the end of October. The blog will have contributions from our volunteers as well as news on what we are starting to collect for the digital archive, and who we encounter along the journey with related news for our events too.

“As Birmingham’s creative revival gathers pace, look out for events run by DIY promoters Jenny Moore and Lisa Meyer, aka Capsule. Champions of all things avant garde, they’ve hosted events at SXSW in Texas and Sonar in Barcelona as well as the annual Supersonic Festival nearer to home at the Custard Factory . Meanwhile their latest project Home Of Metal at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery , celebrates the West Midlands as the birth place of Black Sabbath, Led Zeppellin and Judas Priest. ” People will bring collections of memorabelia relating to the bands,” says Jenny Moore, “like the Antiques Roadshow of Rock.” Artefacts and stories will be recorded and uploaded onto permanent online archive. Capsule also take an original approach to hospitality – rather then snakebite ‘n’ black, they serve tea and cakes at their events.”

Feel free to join our Home Of Metal group on facebook and help us spread the word.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=29055552953