Special edition of RIFFS Journal for the Home of Metal Symposium: Music Heritage, People and Place

Friday’s Home of Metal symposium at BCU will see the production of the latest edition of the RIFFS ‘zine.

Riffs: Experimental writing on popular music is an emerging and exciting journal at Birmingham City University.

RIffs offers a creative and experimental space for writing and thinking about popular music, in addition to an online forum for the publication and hosting of high calibre research in the area of popular music studies.

This special edition will be created on site during the symposium and all are welcome to make a contribution based on the following guidelines and focus.

Whether your contribution takes the form of a piece of factual or creative writing (poem, story, song) or drawing, collage or photograph (or other), we are interested in your responses to the Home of Metal project and events. 

You might have insights, reviews and comments on the exhibition and the people who visited it. 

You might have been inspired by the exhibition or and its purpose to celebrate metal music and the band Black Sabbath.

By all means use your contribution to respond to issues on the day at the symposium in its presentations, performances and exhibitions (see schedule!).

In addition, you might wish to consider one or more of the following more general questions to inspire your submission:

What is (your) music heritage?

How do people inspired make music heritage?

What are the important places in your music heritage?

How does music make your home?

Any submission can be made in hard copy on the day but do try to keep it to a side of A4 or A3 to allow for copying.

In addition, we welcome contributions for the cover design of this special edition.

Here’s a version that uses and image produced by BCU Student and Home of Metal volunteer Paulina Krawiec:

Download this template (or pick up a hard copy at the symposium on Friday).

Don’t worry if you are unable to attend – send your contribution or cover suggestion anyway as a digital file to: paul.long@bcu.ac.uk