The film comes out of a number of recent issues where venues key to the Birmingham music scene have been faced with difficulties amounting to eventual closure due to complaints of a very small minority of people and alleged behaviour by the Council and Property Developers which leaves much to be desired.

In response, Project X  have produced this short film to highlight some of the issues and hopefully stir up some action:

• Project X Presents (Sat 13th, 8pm to 3am) – this promises to be very cool indeed.  Comedy, music, visuals, weird buzzing boxes… A new city centre venue to explore, sensible drink prices and only a tenner.  Check out the website for pics of how it’s all been coming together over the past week.
• Of All The People In All The World (today, 6.30pm until 5 Oct) – Stan’s Cafe bring their big, crazy and thought-provoking show to Birmingham.  “112 tonnes of rice – 6.7 billion grains – one for everyone on the planet”.
• Artsfest (all weekend) – the UK’s biggest arts festival.  If you can’t find anything to enjoy then… well, I don’t know.  It’s not as if people haven’t been trying to help you find the good stuff.

There’ll probably be some collective memory shenanigans coming up so if you go to any of these things and take photos/video/blog about them then chuck a link here and it’ll go into the pot.

Oh, and tag anything Stan’s Cafe-related with ‘thericeshow’ for it to feed into the clever little website for The Rice Show.

Artsfest is a big sprawling beast of a festival and a difficult one to wrangle from a listings perspective. A few people have chipped in with their take on how things could/should be presented but for me, while all of them help in some way, none of them really hit the nail on the head.  Still here are they:

• Every event has been manfully wrangled into the Live Brum database
• Jon Bounds has scanned the programme and put it online
• He’s also put together a map showing what’s happening where (but not when)
• Matthew Somerville from Dracos.co.uk has put together a searchable list of events listed by time, not location

I’m pretty sure that the small team running Artsfest wouldn’t have the budget or reach to put something like the above together, so it’s great to see the local community take it upon themselves.

In case it’s of any use to anyone, here’s what I’m planning to do.  Or at least what I think looks interesting.

Friday evening

Friday’s fun takes place against the backdrop of Light Night, of course.

• Stan’s Cafe are opening the doors of AE Harris Factory (110 Northwood Street, B3 1SZ) for Of All The People In All The World (6.30-9pm)
• From 7pm (not sure until when) there are two interesting things happening at the Council House.  Definitely worth seeing are Willard Wigan’s astounding micro sculptures.  Sonia Bhamra will be Painting With Light in another room which might be worth a look if you’re there
• Gallery 10 at BM&AG has Comfortism who, I think, mixes up poetry, theatre and stand-up with the odd bit of audience participation.  Could be interesting
• At 8pm there’s a parade from the Pavillions to Centenary Square
• The Town Hall present Late Night Light Night and they’ll be open from 8pm for perfomances by Soweto Kinch, The Sub Ensemble, Manga and Maylight (who I’m looking forward to seeing)

Saturday

Saturday’s the tricky one.  There’s loads happening so the best thing might just be to go for a wander around the city centre and see what you stumble across.  That said…

• Nic Gaunt’s exhibition ‘The Rotunda: 21 Stories‘ will be at The Pavillions all day
• From 3.30pm to 4.30pm there’s Raw Magic which is “a visual installation and promenade performance built into a maze of tents, for audiences to explore and choose which direction they would like to take”.  Some of the people here were involved in the very popular B1 Labyrinths from this year’s Fierce Festival
• From 8pm to 10pm BRB, CBSO and Birmingham Opera Company share the Centenary Square stage for one of the weekend’s big items.  Plus there’ll be fireworks.
• After that it’s Project X Presents for me.  It’s not Artsfest-related but it does look pretty exciting, so that’s where I’ll be.

Sunday

• If I’m functioning at 12pm then I’ll want some ‘beautiful heartwarming acoustic/electronica music’.  At the Custard Factory, Elliot Jack will be playingjust that.
• After that I might wander into the Custard Factory Theatre for some short flicks courtesy of Shortcuts
• From 7pm Needle & Thread Theatre are doing the rather charming-looking ‘Between The Lines’ – walking theatre around the Central Library.  This is on on Saturday too (call 07530 939 380 to book a free place)
• It’s Kerrangfest in Centenary Square from 12pm with The Mexicolas, The Metros, Envy & Other Sins and The Levellers later in the evening.

Of course, whether I actually get round a fraction of all of that is another question.

Join us for a joyous celebration where many performers combine to present a seamless whole of sound, light and interaction …an “omnimedia experience”.

Three stages and multiple projection screens will allow the presentation of a seamless flow of multi genre entertainment including bands, performers, comedians, VJs, DJs, dancers, poets.

Tickets are a tenner and on sale at The Ticket Seller and soon at Jibbering Records in Moseley.

In the meantime, there’s a Radio To Go audio preview to listen to and they’ve also spruced up their website which you can see at Project X Presents (with bigger pics of the flyer).

**update** – forgot to mention that Mark Reck has blogged about this.

That was the bad news.  The good news is that PXP will be back with an event on 13 September 2008 at, of all places, the Birmingham United Services Club.

As mentioned in Frankie Ward’s interview with the Capsule ladies, PXP scoured more than 30 venues in the city looking for somewhere they could house three stages, 80 participants and a week of on-site preparation.  The BUSC apparently fits the bill.

The venue is being refitted and will officially re-open in October – apparently hosting Edwards-style club events and live bands in an area of town that’s rapidly becoming the city’s indie/rock quarter, what with Snobs, Island Bar, the Sunflower Lounge, Subside and soon the Academy/Dome all within pogoing distance.  Here’s a pic of the BUSC pre-refit:

The event will

explore and create an unforgettable multi-sensory assault based on the theme of Digital Distopia, inspired by 1984, Bladerunner, and the impending threat of I.D cards

with at least

two rooms, of musicians, performers, dancers, djs, vjs, percussionists, comedians, poets and installations already confirmed and collaborating

All of which makes it one for the diary (that’s 13 September in case you missed it).  Tickets will be on sale soonish.

There’s more info and a couple more pics on the Project X Presents website.

(Note – this post was taken down temporarily while the venue was being confirmed)