Category archive for: Tenant News

Something of a spate of website redesigns at the moment. Must be the time of year. Here’s Substrakt’s new site:

Punch Records have revealed the theme for the 2009 BASS (British Arts and Street Sounds) Festival - “Inspired by Africa and Africans.”

The aim of this year’s theme is celebrate and explore Africa’s influence on the arts scene. Working with mainstream and grassroots organisations, we will also be encouraging a broad range of audiences to participate in and experience the global impact of African cultural expression.

BASS 09 isn’t just about djembe drumming! We will be celebrating the wealth of African talent present in the UK through international artistic exchange, major presentations of contemporary work, new installations, artist lounges, concerts and masterclasses.

They’re also open for comissions for the festival, welcoming “from any art form (music, film, fashion, visual art, theatre, dance, etc) but will favour those that have a bias towards urban or black forms of expression or content.” In the past these have included:

• Grime theatre show
• Photographic exhibition of Hip Hop legends
• Film screening and Q&A with graffiti legends Henry Chalfant and Goldie
• Live Jazz and Hip Hop night with Jazzanova and Eska Mtungwazi
• Book launch on the history of Reggae Dj’s and sound systems with Dr Lez Henry
• Hip Hop and Poetry fusion night with Ursular Rucker and Ty
• Sole Elements – exhibition featuring trainer and street inspired art

Full details and application form here.

Not much info online yet but I picked up a flyer declaring that the mighty Public Enemy are playing Space2 at the Custard Factory on December 3rd. Tickets will be on sale on November 3rd from The Ticket Sellers for £20 plus the usual booking fee. CF tenants Heducation appear to be behind this.

Rhubarb Radio, the community radio station based at the Custard Factory, has quietly been pulling the pieces together over the last few weeks and is pretty much live.

Shows are being broadcast from the studio by the lake with some regular slots and they’re currently developing the live broadcasts from local venues in the area. Now the foundations are in place they’re looking for more people to get involved from presenters to behind the scenes. They also offer training for those who’ve never been behind a microphone before. Contact details are on the site (which was designed by Substrakt).

Alice Bowe sent through some information for the Custard Factory Directory and while updating Alice Bowe Garden Design and Garden Boutique I was delighted to note she’s been running a blog for the latter.

That brings the total number of weblogs and subscribable news feeds coming out of the Custard Factory that I’m aware of to 18. You can find them on the front page and on the sidebar of this blog, along with links in their respective Directory entries.

I set myself a target the other day, partly seriously and partly as a joke, to get 50% of the businesses here blogging in some way or other by the middle 2009. That can be anything from a full-on blog to a Flickr stream or Twitter account. If you’re already doing something like that and you’re not on the list let me know, and if you’d like some help setting one up (it’ll take about 10 minutes at most) or just want to know why it might be a good idea (and it might not) pop along to my surgery on Thursday afternoons in Rootys. Details here.

And if you haven’t already done so and you’re a tenant at the Custard Factory, go fill in this form so I can get your Directory entry up to scratch.

The blog for Capsule’s major project, Home of Metal, kicked off last week with a slew of postings from the volunteers who are helping to collect memories and memorabilia of the West Midland’s Heavy Metal heritage.

Here’s a couple of Steve Gerrard’s photos which will be displayed at the open day at Wolverhampton Art Gallery on October 25th:

The website for 7 Inch Cinema’s Flatpack Film Festival has gone live and they’re looking for submissions of short films up to 15 minutes long. Here’s the submission form - the deadline is December 5th. If you want to chat they’re in Unit 118 of Scott House.

More details on their events page.

We’re getting a new food outlet to compliment Rooty’s and The Kitchen. Yumm Deli is opening here in late October and they’re looking for staff. Here’s the flyer with all the details.

The Birmingham Book Festival is managed by Midland Creative Projects out of Unit 116 in Scott House. The (by my reckoning) 9th annual festival kicks off on October 1st and, again, has a rather impressive month of literary events scheduled. As well as headline names such as Mark Thomas, Kate Adie, Ian McMillan, Will Self and Louis de Bernières there’s a full range of events from workshops to awards and the seemingly obligatory Radio 4 broadcast (Any Questions this Friday).

Pick up the booklet from the usual leaflet piles about the place or download the PDF.