As part of Flat Pack Festival in collaboration with Home Of Metal
Screening of: The Song Remains the Same & talk by Chris Phipps

@ South Birmingham College
Saturday 14th 16:00pm
£4
Tickets http://online.citybreak.com/search/other/ShowOther.aspx?onlineid=1786809303&pids=89479

Dir. Peter Clifton & Joe Massot
UK/USA 1976, 137 mins
Feat. Robert Plant; Jimmy Page; John Bonham; John Paul Jones

Back in the day when psychedelic concept movies were compulsory for any self-respecting rock band, Led Zeppelin took the plunge with this patchy but often entertaining document of their 1973 Houses of the Holy tour. The meat of the film is a performance at Madison Square Gardens shot over three nights in which the group steam through ‘Stairway’, ‘Black Dog’, ‘Heartbreaker’ and the rest to thunderous effect. Also scattered through the movie are fantasy sequences which Spinal Tap might have cringed at, including Plant rescuing a fair maiden and Page meeting a hermit up a mountain. The simplest and most touching is John Bonham’s, shot on his farm near Droitwich.

The making-of story is an epic in its own right, and today’s special screening will include a talk by Birmingham-born documentary maker and music historian Chris Phipps. Combining personal anecdotes with music fact and urban fiction, Phipps will provide a unique decoding of a band and film which often defy description. As he says, “you may leave with more questions than answers, but that’s Zeppelin.”

For further info about Flatpack Festival:
http://www.flatpackfestival.org.uk/

Don’t forget you can upload your photos, ticket stubs, programs etc to the Home Of Metal Archive

A piece written by Plan B Magazines editor Louis Patterson on the Guardian Blog about the Home Of Metal project. It seems has stirred quite a debate, though some people have clearly missed the point of the article  which is not saying that Birmingham isn’t a musical city but rather we haven’t marketed ourselves as such despite our rich musical heritage.

Just in time for our next Home Of Metal event which is due to take place in the Waterhall Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday 7th of Feb 11am – 4pm, a short taster film put together from our previous open days at Wolverhampton Art Gallery as part of Hello Digital (1000 in attendance) followed by an evening event at New Art Gallery Walsall  with a special live performance by Einstellung.
Special guests for Saturday 7th will include music archivist Chris Phipps, producer of the documentary Motor City Music Years, and assistant producer of The Tube. He will be in conversation with Johnny Doom at 1pm, followed by a screening of his documentary which profiled the rock history of the West Midlands.

Photographer Barry Lewis will also be at the museum taking photographs of Metal fans for the Guardian Saturday Magazine – some of you may remember him from his White Tent project which he set up  with Rhubarb Rhubarb in the Bull Ring.

The film was created by Ella Turner, Matt Taylor and Martin Poyntz-Roberts and of course the project could not happen with out the hard work of the our volunteers.

Unfortunately I didn’t make it to the Open Day at the New Art Gallery Walsall on the eve of November the 6th 2008 but judging by what I’ve seen, heard and read it proved to be a well attended, fantastic event. Well done to all involved, the seeds are sprouting up all over the place.

I was honoured to be chaufeur for Lisa (Capsule) and the film crew - Ella Turner, Matt Taylor and Martin Poyntz-Roberts on Sunday 23rd November 2008.

We were lucky enough to be able to go to the Crown Plaza Hotel for an interview with Tony Iommi prior to his Walk of Stars Award ceremony outside the Rep and ICC. Unfortunately I sat outside in the hotel hallway while Lisa,the film crew and Steve Gerrard - photographer went into his room – boohoo – yet we were all given official passes (and I managed to make up for it later!)

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Ella,Martin,Matt and Lisa preparing for the interview and them going in to do it!!!

Following the interview we braved the rainy weather and walked over to the Kerrang! stage, very pleased to say die hard fans had also braved the elements, yet like us most of them had decided to shelter in the front of the Symphony Hall.

Jenny (Capsule) joined us and whilst we were waiting Lisa gave a squeal of delight as we spotted 2 very famous faces heading for the loos! When they reappeared Lisa gave them some well timed and appreciated advice on where to head and I got a photo of Ronnie Dio and Vinnie Appice who currently are in the band Heaven and Hell with Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler.

Wow! – right place, right time!!

Unfortunately the weather wasn’t being kind as we joined the crowds and helped Johnny Doom to give out blow up guitars. My pass proved very useful as it meant I could go right to the front of the stage to get some photos.

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Once Tony had accepted his award he was whisked away in a nice car back to the hotel and with Johnny and his friends we all went to the Yardbird Jazz Club for a well deserved drink and warm-up. It was here that I discovered that we were going to Tony’s after award party back at the hotel!!!

Well it was very interesting with all sorts of people and sunday lunch in a mouthfull!!!!( Mini yorkshire puds with roast beef n mustard were my fave snack doing the rounds!) Being chaufeur I was on the apple juice whilst the others were sipping champagne, yet my brain was in gear and when I saw the opportunity I took it (thankyou to the lady behind the bar whos name I didn’t catch but who kindly lent me a permanent marker) I went and asked Tony Iommi to sign my pass and he was really lovely and did it!!!

Having eaten a wide range of snacks including mini cones of fish n chips! It was time to go and I really couldn’t resist – my cheek got the better of me and I grabbed Martin gave him my phone and asked Tony if I could get a picture with him before I left – Joy – he agreed, and I returned the favour and got a picture of Martin on his camera. WOW, Amazing – any one thinking of volunteering for this project should definately give it a go – who knows where and who it will enable you to meet. Meeting Tony Iommi was definately a great way to finish 2008!

And so we are now just 4 days away from the Open Day and over the last few weeks Ambassadors and the Home of Metal have been busy behind the scenes working towards this being a great event.

We had a meeting at Creative Alliance on Wed Jan 21st where we discussed plans and the website.

We met again (during the start of the snow) at the Waterhall,Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery to see the space and discuss roles and jobs for the coming week. I also delivered images to Jenny which I have sourced over the last few weeks from the archives at Birmingham Central Library – old images of music venues which Chris Phipps will be discussing at the Open Day on Saturday.Some of the images I sourced went to Ben Javens last week and he has produced a wonderful leaflet to accompany Chris Phipps pilot tour.

Copyright prohibits me from uploading these images at the moment yet we’ve been given permission to exhibit them on Saturday so alongwith all the other amazing memorabillia and activities happening it is well worth making your way to the Waterhall any time between 11am and 4pm this Saturday. If you are unable to attend please,please sign up on our website and upload your own stories and images.

A big well done to Ant Ramm @Open Advantage - web developer and Ian Richards@Heavy Objects – web designer the website looks and functions brilliantly and is enabling seeds to shoot up all over the world.

HOME of METAL is well and truly planted, the roots are strong and will hopefully continue to develop into an eternally wondrous, healthy monster-sized evergreen – 2011 should prove to be a good year for this species!

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