As we prepare to bid farewell to Ikon Eastside ahead of it’s April closure, they’re gearing up for a rather special three night music festival, Rites of Spring, from 7 – 9 April.

Celebrating the venue’s five year contribution to Birmingham’s cultural scene, the festival welcomes headliners Modified Toy Orchestra, Martin Creed and his band and Fyfe Dangerfield, along with the first UK video installation from US band Matmos.

The full line up showcases a collection of folk, pop and electronic musical offerings, from local talent along with further afield artists.

Thursday 7 April
Modified Toy Orchestra
epic45
Shady Bard
Poppy Tibbetts
Friends of the Stars

Friday 8 April
Martin Creed and his band
David Cunningham
Matmos (video set)
Is I Cinema
Arc Vel

Saturday 9 April
Fyfe Dangerfield
Lulu and the Lampshades
Boat to Row
Young Runaways
Timothy Parkes

Tickets are £12 (£10 for students), or for the full festival £30 (£27 for students) and can be booked online or by calling O844 87O OOOO

The CiB Shop window was jazzed up with the help of Birmingham Royal Ballet, Art Detection Services set up their workshop in store and Shady Bird popped by to play a set. In other CiB news, CiBmail was launched.

The Rainbow announced their plans for developments and expansion both upstairs and below, we said goodbye to more independent record shops and sampad celebrated their 20th anniversary.

Trove showed some science, we had a nosey at CBSO’s summer programme and some behind the scenes footage from The Electric showed up.

Not My Type brought together “a veritable who’s who of Brum talent” (to quote myself) and, in other illustration-related news, the Love To Print crowd released Patterns #1.

Other things to look back on and go ‘oh yeah, I remember that’ include Such Tweet Sorrow, BAP’s document on Birmingham’s Creative Capital, the Big Culture Blog and a call for “more of the Simon Rattle effect”. Also, In Our Backyard looked interesting and Chris Bates made a video for Munchbreak’s Television:

Yesterday we had Shady Bard playing in the Created in Birmingham shop. Here’s 26 minutes of their set (before the batteries in my camera ran out…)

Matt Murtagh was on hand with his camera.

Thanks loads to Shady Bard for turning our shop into a venue for an hour.