Pitchfork: Have you ever had any kind of personal interaction with any of the Sabbath people?

Dylan Carlson, Earth: No. Sabbath is from Birmingham, England and Tony Iommi supposedly came to a festival we played there once, but I didn’t actually see him. The two women who put on that festival are always trying to get the Birmingham City Council to recognize that it’s the city of heavy metal and put up a plaque or a statue to acknowledge it.

Pitchfork: That’s not a bad idea.

Specialz Ltd is Keith Owen and Dave Smith and they describe their company as a ‘Production Design and Manufacturing House’. That is to say that they make lights like these for Radiohead’s 2008 world tour:

They’ve worked on sets for the likes of Franz Ferdinand, Pink, Girls Aloud, Kylie Minogue and U2. They also refurbished the Black Sabbath Cross from 1981:

Acquired as a piece of Black Sabbath memorabilia by Music Superstore PMT The Black Sabbath Cross found it’s way in the Specialz Workshop for a refit. The Birmingham branch of PMT Music store plan to hang the piece, dating from 1981 tour, in the shop. However, with most of fittings missing and the fact they’d have to sell twice as many instruments to pay the electricity bill if it was rebuilt with the original light sources.

Keith Owen, Specialz Technical Director, sourced some obsolete spinnings and repopulated the piece with 60 1.5w LED clusters which only draw a total of 300w max. He then used a prismatic lens to amplify the light output.

Impressive stuff. They do art installations and all sorts too. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much they can’t do and the reports I’ve found on them elsewhere are glowing – there’s a PDF here which effusively explains their role in the Radiohead stage set.

Tony Iommi – guitarist for Black Sabbath – is the next person to be honoured, which ties in nicely with the Home of Metal project:

Home of Metal encourages fans of Black Sabbath to be photographed wearing their prized band t-shirts.  Images will be taken by the Birmingham photographer Steve Gerrard. The photographs will then go on display on the Home Of Metal website and in future exhibitions.

That’s all happening on 23 Nov at 6.30pm, with Kerrang hosting live bands in Centenary Square earlier in the afternoon.  More info on the Home of Metal blog.

Capsule are hosting Racebannon + Trencher + Dream Dreams The Dreamer at the Hare & Hounds later that evening. They’ve also got Clinic at the Factory Club tomorrow (Thurs) night.

Last word goes to Tony (from the Walk of Stars website):

It’s great – it’s really an honour – I’m really proud of it … I was shocked!  It’s so nice to have things like that! I’ve got one out in LA but I’m not from LA – It’s so nice being recognised in your home town”