Happy New Year, and Capsule have tons of gigs planned for the forthcoming months:

16th Feb – Kayo Dot + Bilbao Syndrome @ Hare & Hounds: Heavy, experimental music from the Hydra Head label; this is Kayo Dot’s first appearance in Birmingham and they’re bringing extreme metal/jazz outfit Bilbao Syndrome along with them.

14th March- Woods + Mr Underwood @ Hare & Hounds: We at Capsule fell in love with Woods when they played with Espers back in 2009; trippy psych and lo-fi rock frame noise freak outs. Support comes from peddler of curiosities Mr Underwood AKA Glatze.

22nd March – Seefeel + Dead Fader + Epic45 @ Hare & Hounds: The influential electronic indie band have reformed and have a new LP. Also on the bill are noise dubstep outfit Dead Fader, whom some of you may have caught at Supersonic and the Midlands’ own Epic45.

23rd March – Arbouretum + Hush Arbors + Health & Efficiency@ Hare & Hounds: Heavy psychedelic folk in the form of Thrill Jockey’s Arbouretum. Support comes from the gorgeous country psych of Hush Arbors as well as Health & Efficiency.

3rd April – Earth + Sabbath Assembly @ Hare & Hounds: Firm Capsule favourites Earth, the godfathers of doom, are back in Brum with the majestic apocalyptic folk of Sabbath Assembly

30th April – Blood Ceremony + Ghost @ Hare & Hounds: 70s occult rock, massive riffage and flute solos, Blood Ceremony are a must see live act, support comes from Sweden’s Ghost.

Unfortunately the scheduled Secret Chiefs 3 gig will no longer be going ahead due to personal reasons within the band. We hope to get them back soon.

Tickets for all the above gigs can be bought from theticketsellers or in person at Swordfish Records and Polar Bear Records.

The lovely posters are designed by Tom J Hughes

Marketing and Audience Development Assistant, Capsule + Home of Metal

F/T to August 2011 (Mid Jan start required)
£5.80 p/hour (£11,310.00 pro rata)

This is an exciting Future Jobs Fund Opportunity for anyone aged 18-25 who has been unemployed for a minimum of 6 months and is looking to forge a career in the arts.

You will work closely with the Programme Directors at Capsule on all aspects of Capsule’s day-to-day activities with a particular focus on ‘Home Of Metal’ – an exhibition across the West Midlands.

Duties will include general administration, research, copywriting, artist and artwork logistics.  You must be able to work unsupervised, have a good understanding of how to use social networking tools, copywriting skills, basic photoshop, passion for music and the arts, an eye for detail and excellent communication skills. Degree level or equivalent is preferred.

To apply for this position please send your CV and a covering letter / statement outlining your interest and experience to:
Lisa Meyer, [email protected] using ‘Marketing and Audience Development Assistant’ in the subject.

Deadline for receipt of CV and covering letter              – 5th Jan
Shortlisted candidates will be invited to attend an interview on     – 7th Jan
Initial briefing with successful candidate                – 14th Jan

For more information please contact:
Lisa Meyer, [email protected] or 0121 248 2252

This post is offered through the Future Jobs Fund. To be eligible to apply you must be aged 18-24 and be claiming job seekers allowance. The post is offered for 6 months from January 2011. 30 hrs per week at minimum wage rates.

Last day in the office for the Capsule layyyyydies – looking back on an exhausting year, here are some of the highlights…

January

The ever popular Baroness played along with Bristol sludge trio Taint. Lots of hair and lots of fist pumping

February

In the wonderful setting of the Town Hall, we brought kraut gods Cluster to Birmingham – and what charming gentlemen they were too

March

Home of Metal had its official launch at SXSW in Austin, Texas, with Lemmy of Motorhead doing a Q&A as part of the event. March also saw the launch of We Are Eastside, the beginnings of a fruitful relationship between various creatives around the Eastside area of the city.

April

Firm Capsule favourites Eyehategod played to a well pumped up crowd at The Asylum. This was utter filth.

May

Wolves in the Throne Room and Tweak Bird made for a perfect line up for a Saturday night – with some impromptu Hula Hooping afterwards

June

We welcomed summer with a beautiful show at mac; a collaboration between Warp’s Plaid and the Southbank Gamalan Players. Home of Metal also held a series of open days in an empty shop in Wolverhampton where we met this Sabbath fan and his killer Henry tattoo

July

Supersonic was already well on its way at this point as well as Kaye Winwood coming on board as Operations Manager we appointed three interns – Ben, Tom and Aaron – thanks again for your hard work boys!

August

The legendary Silver Apples performed an intimate show at Hare & Hounds with amazing visuals from Film Ficciones

September

Capsule celebrated the release of Modified Toy Orchestra’s new record Plastic Planet by hosting a show for them at Town Hall, and later at the manificent Bridgewater Hall in Manchester.

October

Well, it was only Supersonic. Hard work but probably our best festival yet – thank you to al who came along and witnessed incredible performances from Swans, Godflesh, King Midas Sound, Hallogallo, Tweak Bird, Napalm Death, Master Musicians of Bukkake, the list goes on…plus an appearance from Frank the pup.

November

A crazy fun last show of the year featured Torche, Part Chimp and Stinky Wizzleteat. We also appointed our Home of Metal project manager, the lovely Ms Phoebe Jeebe

December

We appointed the exhibition designers for the Home of Metal show that will take place June-Sep 2011 in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery,  exciting times.

And our overall highlight must be the arrival of  Ms Mabel Javens – a new lady in the Capsule world she was born on 30th November 2010.

Lots of gigs planned for next year already and we’ve just announced gigs for Earth and Woods! We’re always after feedback so do get in touch and let us know what artists you’d like to see in Birmingham next year…

Merry Christmas

Capsule HQ

x

Great review of Supersonic Festival in the latest issue of The Wire, especially good to note that Birmingham and the Black Country are starting to be branded as the ‘Home Of Metal’ in the music press. This comes just as we have appointed a designer for the BMAG show which is happening next summer, Studio Myerscough who were responsible for the Matthew Boulton show and were the design curators for Vintage at Goodwood start work on the exhibition in January. We’re delighted to be working with both Morag & Luke , who have a very innovative approach to exhibition design and are sure will help us make ‘Home Of Metal‘ a real landmark show for the city.

The Wire review also made reference to the creative community around the Custard Factory, again encouraging to see that there is such a buzz around the ‘We Are Eastside‘ group.

The West Midlands and Birmingham in particular are ‘the Home Of Metal‘ – where founding fathers like Black sabbath and Judas Priest played their first shows and a second wave, including Napalm Death and Godflesh, spawned numerous subgenres…We get a sense of the diverse musical and artistic interest that fed into the Birmingham scene. It’s clear that the city’s current music community, or at least the one centred around the Custard Factory, is equally openminded – something which the organisers Capsule both cater to and take inspiration from.

Supersonic confirms that there’s certainly something in the air in Birmingham, or, as one of the organisers suggests, in the city’s architecture, that makes even the older artists come across as fresh. That’s because you’re not observing them on display in a ‘zoo’, but working in their natural habitat: a post-industrial space. So many other music festivals offer what you expect to hear, merely affirming your good taste in music, Supersonic is a place to be educated and surprised: new, experimental and intellectually nourishing material is cleverly smuggled in under a black cloak of fist-pumping riffs and cathartic noise.
David Moats – The Wire

Two great shows rounded up another year of Capsule gigs – here’s the piccies

Grimpen Mire

Black Breath

Stinky Wizzleteat

Part Chimp

Torche

Hello! My name is Tom, and I worked as the design intern at this year’s Supersonic festival.

I should start by saying how much the internship helped me out. Before working with Capsule, I was spending most of my time hunched over my desk, drawing small pictures on small pieces of paper. That was pretty much all I did, and after doing that for a few months, I became aware that it was possibly doing me more harm than good. It felt like I wasn’t really accomplishing anything anymore. I guess I was suffering from some variety of ‘artist’s block’, which I appreciate makes me sound like a monumental prat, but I can’t think of a better way to put it. The design internship seemed like just the opportunity I needed to make some new work and learn some new skills, so I figured I would give it a shot and send off an application. I was over the moon when Capsule offered me the position.

My first project was designing an issue of the Capsule fanzine. After doing that, I designed a few posters for some upcoming Capsule shows before concentrating on Supersonic. The biggest project for me was designing the Supersonic festival catalogue, which I worked on with Ian Richards of Heavy Object. A heck of a lot of drawing, cutting, tracing, typesetting and spell checking went into making the catalogue, and I couldn’t be happier with the result. It was a really enjoyable project to work on, and immensely exciting to see catalogue progress from being a bunch of files on a MacBook to 2,000 properly printed books.

I also worked on decorating the festival site. If you got yourself a cup of something at any point during the weekend, then you may have seen some my work pasted up on the walls of the tearoom. You may also found yourself watching the animations I helped put together on the big screens in the venues whilst you were waiting for your favourite band to come on.

During the festival weekend, I had the pleasure of helping out the Black Sun Drum Corps. They put on an incredible performance on Sunday evening. It was definitely a highlight of the festival for me. It was great to see everyone involved get really into it, to the extent where some of the participants didn’t take their make up off for the rest of the night!

Other highlights of the festival included seeing Eagle Twin, eating a chickpea curry whilst watching Tweak Bird, witnessing Bong play one of the most atmospheric and captivating sets I’ve ever seen any band play, finally getting my hands on Alan Moore’s Unearthing album from the Rough Trade stall, and of course, Swans!

The internship has been a great experience, and I would like to thank Capsule for giving me the opportunity to work with them for the last few months. I can’t wait to see what they’ve got up their sleeves for Supersonic next year now, October 2011 can’t come quickly enough!

Check out Tom J Hughes’ work here

If you’re interested in being an intern for Supersonic 2011, check the Supersonic website for updates next year.

Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson: 1955-2010

Along with the rest of Throbbing Gristle, Sleazy was a bold provocateur and activist. But he was also one of the most innovative musicians of his generation. Coil played the first ever Supersonic Festival in 2003, it was a real honour.

It is with great sadness that this morning the Quietus is having to report that Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Coil and X-TG has died. He was 55, and reportedly passed away in his sleep. The news was broken in the early hours of the morning by Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, who tweeted “Our dearest beautiful Sleazy left this mortal coil as he slept in peace last night.words cannot express our grief”. The Throbbing Gristle website simply features Sleazy’s name, and the dates of his life: 1955 – 2010.
From The Quietus

There is also a piece on the Guardian website

We know it’s only November, but, whatever, we’re done for the year (well, for gigs anyway). Thanks to all who came along to our final gig of the year last night. Torche, Part Chimp and Stinky Wizzleteat was a badass way to end the year.

We’ve had some really great gigs this year, Supersonic Festival was a phenomenal success and Home of Metal is coming together VERY nicely (watch this space for exciting announcements next year). Huge thanks to all who’ve played for us, volunteered and of course attended the shows – see you again next year!

Here’s just some of the shows from 2010

Eyehategod at The Asylum in April

Silver Apples at Hare & Hounds in August

Cluster at Town Hall in February

Baroness at Hare & Hounds in January

Phosphorescent at Hare & Hounds in June

Atsuhiro Ito at VIVID in March

Modified Toy Orchestra at Town Hall in September

And of course there was Supersonic Festival in October – check out the collective memory for photos, videos and reviews

See you all next year for, amongst others, Kayo Dot, Blood Ceremony and Arbouretum – get tickets for these shows here