I don’t tend to cover gigs, but I liked the poster. Call me fickle.

Published by Punch and OOM Gallery, Birmingham based photographer Pogus Caesar is releasing a book entitled ‘Musik Kinda Sweet‘, which collects his iconic photographs of black performers over the last twenty five years.

This evocative and nostalgic book captures candid snaps on the city streets, along with the contrasting vibrant energy by the stage, including photographs of Stevie Wonder, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Grace Jones and Jay-Z. All of his images were shot on 35mm black and white film, with each negative developed by hand – a far cry from today’s heavily digital performance photography.

The book launch will take place as part of Birmingham Book Festival on 15 October on 6.45pm at mac‘s Terrace Gallery.

Signed copies of the book will be available to buy via the Punch website from 16 October.

‘There are young people working within the BBC for long periods without pay’, he said.  ‘This is not fair to them, but more importantly it excludes many others who simply don’t have the means to support themselves’

While someone from In Birmingham has applied the same to this city’s cultural industries, using un/low paid opportunities at Punch Records and VIVID as examples.

Here’s the article – Exploitation in the Cultural Sector: unpaid internships in Birmingham’s cultural industries. Go comment if you’ve got an opinion either way.

This launches at 1pm today over at the Custard Factory’s Sauce Gallery with a talk and music from Digby Fairweather [insert joke about weather remaining fair here].

From Peter Williams:

a powerful exhibition of portraiture that features nu-generation playas like DJ Shadow, Reprazent, Sizzla, Soweto Kinch, Courtney Pine and Cassandra Wilson alongside legends like Don Cherry, McCoy Tyner, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Randy Weston, Steve Reid, Nina Simone and Miles Davis – horn at the ready, floating in the air like an eerie apparition

And not only, but:

Following on from the hugely successful Swifty Pop Shop which opened at the Sauce gallery at the end of 2009,  have invited Swifty to contribute to Headz! As the former creative director of Straight No Chaser, Swifty has long worked with Peter Williams imagery.

More info via Punch Records.

The next one to add to that list is the Meeting of Minds exhibition (also mentioned on Best Believe) which is the next up in the series of really rather excellent exhibitions at the Sauce Gallery.

This one brings together a bunch of people I’ve heard of (Lucy McLauchlan, Mac 1, Matt Watkins, Gavin Campbell) and a bunch I’m as yet ignorant of (Andy Tattoo, Glenn Anderson, Jon Paul Hollinsworth, Kevin Kafesu, Guy Carlos, Kosmic Neil, Lisa Travers, Richard Coldicott, Skank, Stuart Styles, Tony Graffiti and Victor TX).

The launch party will be on Thursday 24 June from 5pm at the Sauce Gallery (Custard Factory).

Here’s a link to the opening speech and here’s a video of Ammo Talwar walking round and explaining the exhibition:

It’s at the Zellig Gallery (Custard Factory) until 26 June.

Also, Andrew Dubber (he who filmed those two videos) has been doing some work with Punch Records and explains what all that’s about in this post.

BBC Radio Drama, Birmingham Repertory Theatre and Punch are collaborating on a 2-part workshop to explore the methods, challenges and opportunities of creating new writer-performer work for theatre and radio.

Further knowledge via Script.