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Wednesday night saw the official launch as it were of the HOME OF METAL project with our first training session for our volunteers, to our delight we have a fantastic group of over 20 people, who are all fired up and ready to go, working with us to achieve what is to be a huge and quite honestly, daunting task. No longer is this a just an idea we’ve been toying with over the past 9 years or so, now it’s a reality and we have to see it through!

To kick start the proceedings we invited up the great oracle himeslf, John Doran, a music journalist who writes for a number of publications including Metal Hammer, Classic Rock, WIRE, Plan B, Stool Pigeon, Drowned In Sound, Playlouder, Disorder, Bizarre and more. He also edits his own website The Quietus. John gave us a fascinating potted history of music starting with Black Sabbaths’ early beginnings and blues influences right through to Napalm Death. Despite being rather poorly and suffering from a liver infection he had us all on the edge of our seats.

The group of volunteers will be keeping a record of their experiences on the HOME OF METAL blog, which will be set up next week, so I thought that it would be useful to keep you updated with what we discover and try and keep a record of our journey, as even within the last 7 days we’ve uncovered so much.
* Last week we went to London and met with Julie Weir and Lisa Bardsley, both key members of the music industry whom have been incredibly generous with their time and contacts, and will serve as great advocates to the project.

Myk in one of his many Napalm related garments.

* We were put in contact with Myk Bastard, a guy from Vestal, New York, whom has amazingly collected everything Napalm related, with over 200 T-shirts and clothing , not to mention the back catalogue of all their releases and related projects. Myk is now going to start photographing his collection so he can add them to our archive. What a star!

* Midge from DIABOLIK at the Custard Factory, has kept every issue of Sounds Music paper from 1984 – 1991 and has leant them to us to scan and serves as a wonderful archive of news relating to the bands of that period, loads of great reviews and news stories. A legacy of Sounds was the creation of the Heavy Metal/Rock magazine Kerrang!, which was originally issued as a supplement before being spun-off as a separate publication, which continues to this day.

* Richard Short has been in touch, he’s been documenting Digbeth over the past 20 years and has photos from all the venues in the 80’s and 90’s, mainly taken at the coach and horses, barrell organ, kalidiscope and edwards or nameless digbeth pubs and include some fantastic Godflesh photos.

* We went to Nottingham, home of Earache Records, and spent the afternoon with label founder Digby Pearson, luckily for us Digby has been a great hoarder, and has kept a wealth of treasures which relate to Napalm Death and Godflesh. He has kindly agreed to start digitising them for us to add to the archive. Most fascinating was his memories of early shows when people like Vic Reeves were big fans of the bands and the way the late great John Peel was such an advocate for the genre. We’re hoping to go back and see Digby in a couple of weeks to rifle through more of his collection, as well as inviting him to be interviewed at our first open day in Wolverhampton on Saturday 25th of october.

* We have recieved permission from Central TV to show a documentary made in 1992 by Roger Shannon and Jonnie Turpie entitled MOTOR CITY MUSIC YEARS. Part two of the documentary is about the 1970’s. It starts by charting the move from The Move into orchestral based pop music (ELO, Wizard etc) at the start of that decade, and then concentrates on heavy metal with great interviews, and music clips, with Black Sabbath, Ozzy in LA, Judas Priest, Magnum, and then Slade (filmed in the pub at the Black Country Museum).

Exhausting and thats just a weeks worth, the project is now in full swing, no turning back…start searching in your attics!

Saturday 25th October : Wolverhampton Art Gallery 10am – 4.30pm
http://www.wolverhamptonart.org.uk
Lichfield Street
Wolverhampton, WV1
01902 552 055

We launch the first series of open days at Wolverhampton Art Gallery as part of Hello Digital Festival. Home of Metal is a brand new project aimed at creating the first digital archive of metal music, memorabilia and fans stories, to tell the story of this unique moment of Midlands’ musical heritage. Launching at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on Saturday 25 October, 10am – 4.30pm, the project coincides with the 40th anniversary of when the term ‘heavy metal’ was coined by music journalist Lester Bangs when describing Black Sabbath.

The launch event at the city centre Art Gallery encourages fans of Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to come along and share their experiences of their favourite band. Fans are encouraged to bring memorabilia along with their personal stories to the gallery to be recorded – all of which will go towards the new digital archive, which aims to tell the true story of the birth place of metal. – Think antiques roadshow for Metal fans!

Each open day will be hosted by Kerrang! Radio DJ – the legendary Johnny Doom, a stalwart of the Midlands Metal scene, accompanied by special guests from industry or genre. A selection of memorabilia will be on display as well as screenings of film documentation and interviews from the bands. Refreshments will also be provided. Dig out your old ticket stubs, T-shirts, fanzines and bring them along, its a FREE EVENT so everyone welcome, curious folks too!

Next open days: Thursday 6th November at New Art Gallery Walsall 6pm – 9pm (with special performance by Einstellung) and then Saturday 7th Feb at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.

So what does Black Sabbath, Jasper Carrott and the Capsule Grannies all have in common?
Well we’ve been given a mention under the Custard Factory heading no.37 in the Birmingham Mail’ s 100 Great Things About The West Midlands.
“The campus also contains a first-class music venue, bar and theatre, all of which are fully used by leftfield promoters for nights of alternative mayhem.
Most established of these is Capsule, two switched on women, who constantly host nights of the world’s most cutting edge music and provide a platform for local bands.
Capsule’s Supersonic Festival, held every July at the Custard Factory is a world-class event and perfectly sums up the whole Custard Factory Vibe.”

Have been meaning to draw your attention to this artwork produced by Drew Millward for the Oxes tour which starts in a couple of weeks time, the Birmingham date is at the Hare & Hounds on Friday 24th of October. We love it! You can check out more of his designs on gigposters.com

While on the subject of poster art here are some other exciting examples of artists who produce gig posters that are worth checking out including Seldon Hunt

and Burlesque Of North America whom we discovered at SXSW a few years ago at Flatstock and ended up parting with a fair bit of cash and now a lack of wall space.

Flatstock is co-presented by the American Poster Institute (API) and South by Southwest (SXSW), and displays the works of more than 100 artists from across North America.

Thanks for the wonderful turn out on Tuesday night for Approximately Infinate Universe show at the Hare & Hounds, for those that missed out, shame on you! A big congratulations to NoFi for putting the tour together. It was an amazing and really quite unexpected treat in terms of its diversity of collaborations. A new discovery for me was Finnish artist ISLAJA, she has an incredible voice and was well complemented by Blevin Blectums electronic beats.

Blevin was one half of the SF duo Blectum From Blechdom, we saw Kevin Blechdom perform at Sonar a few years ago, and she brought tears to the eye with the most painful rendition of ‘I Will Always Love You’. A stroke of comedy genius.

Jenny and I are often referred to by the younger bands we work with as the Capsule grannies, so I thought it was fitting to draw your attention to these OAP’s rockin out in Australia. Found on the Guardian website:

As part of the Sydney Biennial 08, Swiss artist Christopher Büchel got some Australian grannies to give a raw, rough and ready rehearsal/performance of the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen.

Also the most genius invention the granny shopping trolley with speakers. Chic granny style and still able to deafen, perhaps Sunn 0))) could do a mobile show!

A call out to Metal fans across the region:
Home of Metal warms up with as unique opportunity for fans of Judas Priest, Napalm Death, Godflesh, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin to be photographed wearing their prized band t-shirts. The event, which will take place at The Giffard Arms, Wolverhampton on Friday 19th September, 9pm – 11pm and then Scruffy Murphys in Birmingham on Friday 26th of September 9pm – 11pm.

Images will be taken by the Birmingham photographer Steve Gerrard, who has been capturing bands in action for over 20 years, and has photographed some of the biggest names and artists. The photographs will then go on display at Wolverhampton Art Gallery at the official launch event in October as well as New Art Gallery Walsall and then will become part of the Home Of Metal website.

Photo courtesy of Ben Javens