The legendary Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, whom we had the honor of meeting and interviewing at the end of last year when he was given a walk of stars, has kindly agreed to loan us one of his custom guitars for our next Home Of Metal event and also has given us his full support for the project.

“I’m really proud to be a Brummie and to call Birmingham my home, that’s why I’m supporting the Home of Metal events and message.  Your surroundings and experiences influence your music so it’s important for people to know where that music came from!“

The next Home of Metal Open day takes place on Saturday 7th of Feb at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery in Waterhall, 11am – 4pm.
Fans are encouraged to bring along related memorabilia, photos and stories to be recorded and digitised to add to the archive. Its a free event all are welcome.

Above photo of Tony Iommi taken by Steve Gerrard, whose photos of Metal fans will also be on display at the 7th of Feb event.

Saturday 25th October 2008 arrived and I picked up Lisa, Jenny and Juan and we headed off to the Wolverhampton Art Gallery.

WOW and a huge congratulations to Jenny, Lisa (Capsule) and Kate and her great team at the gallery who had completely transformed the exhibition space. It looked amazing – where there had once been bare walls and an empty room now stood beautifully displayed island units with wonderful memorabillia and the walls were covered in artwork and information for all the visitors we were hoping would arrive.

There were tables where mainly children/teens could colour in Black Sabbath images courtesy of Aye Jay also the fab Wolverhampton team were on hand offering design your own t-shirt and badge making. I did say mainly children/teens as plenty of adults during the course of the day actually participated in the activities , including me – I made badges and t-shirts for my girls to wear at the Birmingham Home of Metal Open Day.

Johnny Doom was setting up his Kerrang Radio DJ and interview space as the rest of the Ambassadors arrived and we set up all the sections and,slowly but surely, people of all age groups began to appear – All our well scattered seeds had begun to germinate.

Fuelled by an everlasting flow of coffee and tea courtesy of the Gallery we happily recieved information to record verbally and some wonderful memorabillia to photograph and document. Johnny Doom’s interviews with :Jim Simpson – Big Bear (nickname given him by DJ John Peel) who runs one of the oldest independant labels in the Uk and :Digby Pearson - Dig who founded and runs Earache Records, which has been home to outfits Napalm Death and Godflesh as well as a host of other extreme bands; proved to be a great success seeing the space filled with a diverse age range of interested people.

Jenny and Lisa chatting to Jim Simpson and friend prior to his interview with Johnny Doom.

The Digby Pearson and Johnny Doom Interview.

At lunch time there was a fantastic spread of sandwiches and fruit etc. laid on by the Gallery which was yummy – it was also really nice that the food was situated in the film screening area as we all got to see some of the wonderful footage which was shown throughout the day.

The films screened were Motor City Music Years produced by Roger Shannon and Johnie Turpie, The Scum Story courtesy of Earache, Judas Priest – British Steel directed by Tim Kirby, Led Zeppelin – Interview courtesy of Classic Rock Magazine and Napalm Death – The DVD courtesy of Earache Records.

A special mention has to go to Lisa Bardsley who very kindly lent a copious amount of memorabillia for this and future Open Days – the display cases would not have been the same without your generosity!

Well done everyone it was a great day and yes we did cope and more importantly yes people came – bearing treasured items to be archived and stories to be recorded.

And so it has begun ………Home of Metal may you rock n roll into the future.

!!!!20 DAYS TO GO to the HOME OF METAL OPEN DAY at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery!!!!

****Happy New Year all you Metal Headz****

I have some catching up to do and Im ready to pop my blog cherry!!!

Firstly I’d like to say a big thankyou and well done to Lisa, Jenny and Debbie (Capsule Ladies) who are truly inspirational,full of strength,confidence,wonderful ideas AND totally lovely too.

I’m going to split my info up as since applying to be a volunteer in september 2008 loads has been happening and I’ve taken loads of photos. Bear with me metal fans and over the next week or so I’ll endeavor to share with you my experiences so far.

It all began for me on Wednesday 1st October 2008 – New moon, new month and a new project.Autumn was truly in the air as an enthusiastic, diverse group of people met upstairs at the Hare and Hounds in Kings Heath. John Doran – music journalist gave a talk and we were sent of into the world to sow our seeds with posters in hand and titled! We were all made Ambassadors of the Home of Metal – our mission to draw out memorabillia, and memories, both verbal and visual to help create an archive for the future.

The following Wednesday, we met up again this time at Creative Alliance based at the Custard Factory in Digbeth. Dave Rowan – professional photographer gave us some training on ‘documenting the object’ and Pete Ashton - blogging guru gave us some training on ‘how to blog’. A really interesting evening, and then we were off again posters and flyers in hand to spread more seeds.

The next Wednesday found us meeting for a talk by Izzy Mohammed – senior community archivist at Birmingham Central library. We got to try out the interviewing method which is to be used at all the Home of Metal Open Days. Again we were sent back into the world with flyers and posters to set loose more metal seeds.

4 weeks after our initial meeting we were due to meet at Wolverhampton Art Gallery ,for our final gathering before the first Open Day. I picked Lisa up in the afternoon and we met Jenny at the printers where she had picked up some massive images for the exhibition.

On arrival at the gallery we met up with Kate Pryor-Williams and some of her team who showed us the exhibition space.

It felt a bit like Xmas when we opened a box to find the Home of Metal t-shirts from Fly 53 and Debbie and me got ours on straight away. Little did we know it was a ploy, as no sooner were we in the t-shirts and squealing with delight, the door opened and there was a local journalist come to do a piece on Saturdays Open day. Needless to say we were royally roped in to pose for pictures infront of the wonderful Home of Metal screens with some of the borrowed memorabillia.

Debbie posing for the local press.

6.30 arrived and so did the rest of the Ambassadors – we went through our designated tasks, looked at items already donated and got really excited and a little bit queezy about the ever looming first Open day.

Jenny and Dave Rowan giving us (the visual team) a final run through of equipment and techniques.

Comments flew around that night as anxieties tried to rear up, like “do you think we’ll cope” to “do you think anyone will come”.

This picture sums that feeling up :

Wolverhampton FRAGILE!

Thursday morning I picked Juan up and we went to Birmingham University to pick up some rare records from Geoff Doleman who was very kindly lending them for display at the Open Day in Wolverhampton. Then we were off to the printers to get some prints for the exhibition.

Thankyou to Mike Wilson who is pictured here with Juan.

Got  Jenny and went to St.Pauls Gallery in the Jewellery Quarter to meet Nick and pick up 2

pieces of album artwork which they kindly lent for the Wolverhampton Open Day.

We then zoomed over to the gallery for Jenny to do interviews and left her with Kate and the fab Wolverhampton art gallery team beginning to display the wonderful memorabillia which had been borrowed and the artwork which had been produced.

Now I’m no longer a blog virgin I shall leave you with a couple of close-ups of one of the Jimmy Page signed pieces of album artwork from St.Pauls gallery.

!!!!23 DAYS TO GO TO THE HOME OF METAL OPEN DAY at BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM and ART GALLERY!!!!

Our next Home Of Metal open day (think antiques roadshow for fans of Metal) takes place in Waterhall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday 7th of Feb, from 11am to 4pm.

Bring along your memorabilia, photos, old tickets, T-shirts, patches fanzines etc as well as your personal stories to be recorded and added to the Home Of Metal archive.
The event will be hosted by none other than Brummie of the year, Kerrang! Radio presenter Johnny Doom, with a host of guests, as well as a selection of memorabilia which will be on display.

The event is free – all welcome.

KK Downing, Nige Halford & Myself (quite some time ago!)

Hello Folks! Hope you’ve all had a Very Metal Christmas and are looking forward to a cool New Year!

Following the success of the Walsall open evening, the Steel Mill asked me to put together a special report of how the Home Of Metal project is going. The Steel Mill, as I’m sure you may be wondering, is the official website of KK Downing, one of the two awesome Judas Priest guitarists.

So just before the Christmas break I put some bits and pieces together, along with some cool photos taken by Stuart, Najma and Lisa.

You can check it out at www.kkdowning.net

In a recent interview for Stool Pigeon music paper Rob Halford (lead singer of Judas Priest) had this to say about the Home Of Metal project. (interview by John Doran)

I was in Birmingham recently talking to Jenny and Lisa who run Capsule who are running a scheme that I think you might be interested in. They’re trying to get Birmingham and the West Midlands recognized as the Home Of Metal. The idea seems to be to get  that region of the UK recognized and have something there in the same way that you have the Rock n’Roll hall of fame in Cleveland in the US. I was wondering if you thought this was a good idea and if you had any theories on why the Black Country had produced so much legendary heavy metal and hard rock.

“Firstly, I am aware of it. It was brought to my attention just recently because they had a get together in my home town of Walsall in the Walsall Art Gallery and it was really well attended. It was the second one with the first one being at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton I think. So it seems to be picking up steam in a really short space of time. I know all about it and I’ve been on their website, which is brilliant and I think it is fantastic to recognize something as valuable and important as what they’re representing  with all the hard work they’re putting into making this great moment available for everyone to check out. And it is great, you do get the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame over in Cleveland in the States and various institutions around the world that have been created for certain types of music and that should certainly be the case for the Brits – and the Midlands especially as regards metal. You’ve got pioneering bands that have come from that part of the world and have left a significant mark in the picture of rock & roll.”