Elfin Saddle are a Canadian duo on Constellation Records who play mystical folk with a touch of post-apocalypse. As well as music they make films and art installations, and their latest release Saddle includes a half-hour called animation Wurld.
It’s basically a potted history of civilisation, filmed in a Bagpuss style in their back-yard over several months. We’ll be showing the full film at the Hare and Hounds next Sunday.
Occasionally two parts of your world come together in a strange and unexpected way, throwing a different light on each. I’m thinking of Steven Segal playing live in Bilston, and also of Thursday 17th February, when Crispin Hellion Glover touches down in Wolverhampton as part of a brief UK tour.
We know Glover mainly for twitchy, intense roles in Back to the Future, River’s Edge and Willard (pictured), or for his performance art acid wigout on Letterman. Even in Wild at Heart it seems as though he’s wandered in from another, slightly weirder film. As it turns out, Glover has been using pay-cheques from the likes of Charlie’s Angels to bankroll a trilogy of his own, far weirder films, employing a cast with Down’s Syndrome to probe at various taboos and provide an antidote to one of his bugbears, the corporate media.
At the Light House event next week he will present his second feature It Is Fine, Everything Is Fine! and perform his Big Slide Show. Decidedly not for everyone, but a unique evening and it won’t be happening again in these parts any time soon.
Thanks to all who partook in the recent Town Called Panic giveaway. DVDs of Panic and the Hammer and Tongs Collection are winging their way to the following lucky people…
Joely Broad, Winterley
Hana Wright, Sunderland
Immogen, Bromsgrove
Giuseppa Barresi, Solihull
Elizabeth Billinger, Daventry
The answer was The Pic Pic Andre Shoow.
Next week sees the DVD release of A Town Called Panic (aka Panique au Village), the demented Belgian toy animation which we screened at Green Man Festival earlier this year. This touching tale of Cowboy, Indian, Horse and 50 million bricks is being promoted by UK outfit Hammer and Tongs (Son of Rambow), who also happen to have their own DVD coming out – a collection of their inventive shorts and music videos for the likes of Pulp, Vampire Weekend and Supergrass.
Both are eminently ownable, and if you want a copy of each for £0.00 just write back to info [at] 7inch.org.uk with PANIC in the header and the answer to this question…
Q) The directors of Town Called Panic first made their name with a TV cartoon in the late 90s. What was it called?
Five winners will be revealed at the end of November. (Yes, we realise that Google has made this form of quiz pretty much redundant. But what the heck.)
**Update** Last chance to enter – we’ll be fishing five out of the hat on Monday 22nd Nov.
Sometime this month I’m hoping to get over to Nottingham for Christian Marclay’s The Clock. Researchers spent God knows how long trawling for footage of clocks from thousands of movies, in order to build up a twenty-four hour film which covers the entire clock-face; apparently clips of 5am were particularly tricky to find. The film runs at the New Art Exchange until 5 January as part of the British Art Show. Most of the time it’s only showing during the day, but you can see the full monty at an all-night event on 10th December.
While we’re on artists film in the Midlands, Warwick Arts Centre have two forbidding structures in their gallery at the moment which contain films by last year’s Jarman Award winner Lindsay Seers. The show is called it has to be this way2 and runs at the Mead Gallery until 11 December.
Noticed any footprints on your car recently? Here’s a man jumping over cars in Digbeth.
Via Dom, who is off to Portland in a couple of weeks. Good luck Dom!
Sparkhill Home Guard on the steps of the Carlton Cinema in 1940.
Seventy years ago tomorrow, on the night of 25 October 1940, an incendiary bomb fell into the orchestra pit at the Carlton Cinema in Taunton Road, Balsall Heath. It was in the middle of a screening of the Dorothy Lamour thriller Typhoon, and 19 people were killed. Just one horrible event amongst many during Birmingham’s Blitz – over 40 were killed elsewhere in the city that night alone, according to this online database – but I pass this particular spot every day on the way to work and thought it was worth noting.
The cinema survived and reopened in 1943, considered a cut above some of the other local picture-houses; it was one of the first in Birmingham to have a lift. The photo above (from Victor J. Price’s ‘Birmingham Cinemas’) was taken in the early 80s after it had shifted from films to clubnights and gigs – including one by local post-punkers The Au Pairs, by the look of the poster. (Also note the IRA/NF graffiti)
The building was demolished in 1985, and now on the site there’s a memorial garden with 19 stones to commemorate those who died.
As you might know we send out regular emails about our gigs and other things going on. We used to post all of these online, but on the whole I like keeping these things email-only; the format just seems wrong for a blog. But then again sometimes we’ll stick them up here… This one includes a spate of upcoming filmnights. To receive future updates, stick your address in the box on the left.
hello,
This Wednesday sees 7 Inch Cinema visiting the Victoria pub
for a one-off special to mark the close of the Birmingham Book
Festival…
(more…)
This 1999 animation by Jonathan Hodgson is showing at next week’s Footnotes event, part of a clutch of shorts adapted from poems or short stories. It’s based on a Charles Bukowski tale and features the melt-making tones of Mr Peter Blegvad.
