Wristbands are only £10 for access to all venues and events, and should be bought in advance.

www.oxjambrum.org.uk / www.twitter.com/oxjambrum / www.facebook.com/oxjambrum

The artwork used on the Oxjam flyers is by Mark Murphy – www.surely.uk.com and Craig Earp – www.craigearp.co.uk. This was one of their 48 sheet project pieces back in May. It’s soon available to buy as a giclee print so if you’re interested then keep an eye on their websites.

“Birmingham: The Magic City is a snapshot of overlapping perceptions, an exploration of the unknown underground sub-infrastructure of the city, a collage of 1980s Grindcore fanzines from the birthplace of heavy metal, a day in the life of walkers of Birmingham, an orgy of civic boosterism and a reconstruction of a ‘creepy’ wooden lath wall. Welcome to Birmingham.”

We Are Eastside have curated pieces of Birmingham’s history into an exhibition that’s part of the Liverpool Biennial,  running between 15th September–25th November, taking place in Liverpool (of course). It’s been organised by Capsule, Eastside Projects, Fierce Festival, Flatpack Festival, Grand Union, Ikon Gallery, and is supported by Birmingham City University.

More about the Birmingham: The Magic City exhibition on the Liverpool Biennial website.

Wondering if we could take CiB on tour and head up there for a weekend visit…?

For more information or to book your slam place telephone Emma 07950 165265 or email emmaasif@hotmail.com

The Drum Beat Poetry Workshop starts Tuesday 21 September, and will carry on until 14 December. Meeting Tuesdays at 4 – 6pm, the group will discuss a selected poets work, along with sharing and providing feedback for each other’s work. Poets of all levels are welcome, all you need to join in is a pen, a piece of paper, a poem and £1.

Rhymes on the Roof will be happening 24 September, from the roof of RoguePlay’s new space at The Old Fire Station, Moseley. With the usual poetry goodness and awesome Raffle, this month’s will also host a pretty view and fresh air. Starting at 8pm, bring a brolly and a jumper.

The Story Exchange is the visually enchanting invention of Birmingham-based Needle & Thread Theatre, and will be captivating story-lovers, story-tellers, and strays over four days in the Created in Birmingham shop at Bullring from Thursday 13 May until 16 May.

Here’s the blurb (pun intended) for you:

You are invited to browse, peruse and explore the leafy pages of the sumptuous second-hand books. Once you’ve found a treasure to take away we won’t require your pounds or pennies as payment, all we ask in return is a story of your own – fairy-tales; folk-tales; fond memories and funny stories from everyday life are all welcome.

Artistic director Natalie Wilson can be contacted for more info at needleandthreadtheatre@yahoo.co.uk or on 07530 939 380.

• 28 May – Martin Bell will speak about his new book ‘The Truth That Sticks’
• 12 June – Prof Robert Knecht, esteemed historian, will introduce his book ‘The French Renaissance Court’
• 2 July – Catherine O’Flynn award-winning local author of ‘What Was Lost’ (due to be turned into a film, reports The Stirrer) will read from the book and sign copies.

They’ve got a reading group too, and the staff in there have always been lovely and helpful. I can’t help thinking that a little blog to promote and record these events, recommend new books and generally help tie themselves into their community might be a good idea.

If you know of any independent book shops doing interesting events (preferably with some sort of interweb link) then give them a mention in the comments.

It’s nice when you ask for something and then it turns up, even if it takes a while. Four years ago I (Pete, btw) put in a request to the interwebs for a “searchable small gigs database feed site thingy” which I could throw a bunch of criteria into and be given regular updates of stuff happening in my area that might be of interest – a middle ground between my usual sources and the useless torrent of information that most what’s on sites provide. There have been a few attempts since then but Live Brum is the first that’s gotten me slightly excited.

Partly this is the pedigree. It’s run by Josh Hart who recently left Made Media to concentrate on this project. Made, as you may know, built the fantastic Town Hall Symphony Hall website and Live Brum looks to be applying the ideas there to the rest of the city’s venues.

The other part is that its incredibly flexible. You can filter the information in numerous ways and subscribe to those results with ease. Stuff like subscribing to Rock and Pop at the Hare and Hounds is nice enough but being able to subscribe to a search for a band or any keyword is quite lovely.

Lots of other neat things too, such as embedding the event in your blog or website in the same way as YouTube videos, the magic being if the details change on Live Brum those changes will be reflected on your site too. Think of them as dynamic flyers. Here’s one:

And, with my tech-head on, the way Josh has built the site lets him add all sorts of new and innovative features and integration with other social networking sites with ease. This is still early days for the site.

The trick, of course, is making sure the site has all the correct information. From chatting to Josh the other week he’s pretty sure he’s got this sorted out in a sustainable way, partly by ensuring promoters and venues can take their information back out in a variety of ways making it worth their while putting it in. I think there might be a bit of a steep learning curve for some of them here but, frankly, it’s about time the live music industry caught up with the 21st century. And, of course, if this site works then it will put Birmingham miles ahead of most other cities.

So, in short, cautious big grins all round. Nice one.

The Edge, “Birmingham’s first dedicated live and time-based arts venue”, wants to put the joy back into making art:

Saturday Sesh is not networking, it’s not a series of seminars, it’s just a place for artists to meet, to share ideas and resources and to make things happen.

All of which is highly laudable, so more power to their collective elbow. Anyone interested should feel free to drop in from 3pm on Saturday 3 May and every Saturday after for drinks, nibbles and a chat. Admission is free.

The Edge can be found at 79-81 Cheapside, Digbeth, Birmingham B12 0QH, or roughly where the green arrow is on this map.