There’s also a whole shopping list of extras that you can pick up in exchange for a little more investment, including advance copies of the album on CD, T-shirts, an exclusive performance by the band and Grandmaster Gareth’s soul.

Things seem to be going pretty well so far – they’re up to 53% of their total already.

Others

A quick trawl around a few crowdfunding sites – Pledgebank, Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Sponsume and WeDidThis – reveals just one more project from around Birmingham that’s asking for your money. I thought there’d be more (tell me if I missed any).

It’s a collaborative project between Birmingham-based Lantern Music and New York-based Cassis who are looking to fund the second part of A Hawk In The Rain. There’s more info about that project on their blog.

On 1 May 2010, mac will open its doors again and there’s a bunch of stuff going on to mark the occasion.

There’s a celebratory gig featuring Misty’s Big Adventure, Vijay Kishore, and Kevin Dempsey and Joe Broughton, there’s Motionhouse’s outdoor dance spectacular Cascade, The City Sings, featuring the new anthem for the mac by Helen Ottaway, and a host of other things to take part in.

But the fun stuff doesn’t stop there. Once mac is open, there’ll be a steady stream of events and interesting goings on to keep you going back to Cannon Hill Park for more.

On the performance side of things, there’s Motionhouse’s multimedia dance Scattered, comedian Daniel Kitson’s 66a Church Road,  “return” by spoken-word artist Polarbear. In the visual arts and events spectrum there’s a discussion on the invention of the balti, an exhibition charting the history of sampad, and a debate on social media and globalisation.

And don’t forget there’s a programme of events for families, learning opportunities and the cinema.

For full listings and updates, be sure to check the mac website here.