Scene Report: Cardiff June 2010
By: Jen Long
Cardiff is the capital city of Wales; home to Charlotte Church and the oldest record store in the world, Spillers Records. These are facts that get repeated in the introduction to nearly every single piece I have ever read about the Cardiff music scene. Occasionally someone will throw in the Super Furry Animals, emo rock or Los Campesinos! But mostly, it’s Spillers and Charlotte Church.
And don’t get me wrong, Spillers is a brilliant record store, Los Campesinos! a fantastic band, and the mighty SFA are practically royalty round these parts, but for the sake of this article I’m going to ignore them. What I’m about to write is entirely subjective and in no way a complete guide to Cardiff music. It’s just a brief overview of a few things, people, places and bands that I think, right now, make my city pretty great.
Let’s start with the best bit, the bands…
[hyener]
BANDS
Hyener are four piece from the city’s centre. They formed about three years ago when Jon and Ben started writing songs together. Then they disappeared into a rehearsal room for eighteen months, played three gigs, and then disappeared again. They’ve just started gigging proper and have two strong recordings under their belt. I love how they melt post-punk with a prog-pop sensibility and attention to detail production. It’s like early YACHT if YACHT had been listening to only Fleetwood Mac.
http://www.myspace.com/hyener
MWC are a trio from further West down the M4, but they’re always gigging about Cardiff and I think they live here now too. They recently inked a publishing deal and there’s a mini buzz about them in the city. They’re another band that have spent a good amount of time getting their sound just right before tackling the live thing. They write epic, floating pop songs that sound a bit like The Postal Service and White Belt Yellow Tag arguing over synth pads.
http://www.myspace.com/manwithoutcountry
Islet are very much a Cardiff band. I want to use some kind of ‘formed out of the ashes of’ line, but that’s not really true. They just seemed to fall together and it made perfect sense. They have four members; JT and Mark who are brothers and used to be in attack+defend together; Emma who used to be in The Victorian English Gentlemens Club; and Alex who’s in Fredrick Stanley Star and Them Squirrels with JT. Got that?
The basic story goes, they formed, played Unconvention in Swansea, web geek Andrew Dubber made them a website because they didn’t have a Myspace, everyone went a bit hype mad on them, they ignored everyone and kept working their brilliant live show. They’ve just released their debut mini-album through Turnstile (Girls, Swanton Bombs) and Shape. More on Shape later. I can’t really compare them to anyone. Islet are a sound unto themselves, and an awe inspiring one at that. Oh, and they have their own website now too – http://isletislet.com
[D'vinyl records]
PLACES
Here are some good places in Cardiff, two of which are partly responsible for their being anything of a music scene here.
Music Box is a rehearsal/recording space run by some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. If you head down on any given day you’re likely to find Kids in Glass Houses, The Blackout, Lostprophets or any number of small local groups holed up in one of it’s many rooms. One of the guys that runs it is Mark Foley of Future of the Left lyrics fame. He’s also in a brilliant band called Strange News From Another Star.
The reason Music Box is so awesome is because it’s affordable, the rooms are well kept, the equipment works, and most importantly, the people who run it really care about bands and music.
Clwb Ifor Bach (or ‘The Welsh Club’) is a music venue in the very centre of the city. It has three floors, some brilliant club nights, and dead cheap booze. But, the reason it’s so good is again down to the people running it. And again, they’re super friendly, smart people with a genuine care and passion for the music they work with.
Not only do they help local promoters put on shows and give local bands well-publicised support slots, they bring in acts from across the UK and abroad early on. There’s not a massive amount of people in Cardiff so it takes a fairly large band to sell a show out. Clwb are great because they keep promoting the bands they believe in until finally the room is packed.
Yes, Spillers is a fantastic record shopping experience, but there’s a cheeky little hole in the Roath area of Cardiff that’s exciting in a whole other way. D’Vinyl is overwhelming. A narrow room off a busy junction, when you walk in for the first time you won’t know where to look. Racks of CDs rise above crates of vinyl by stacks of books against walls of signed seven inches by boxes of cassettes and rails of more vinyl and shelves of compilations clinging on for dear life as flailing t-shirts catch against them over crates of yet more vinyl. You need a good hour or so to find anything here but it is most definitely worth the adventure.
[Peggy Sue]
PEOPLE
These are three people who I think make the Cardiff music scene better.
Liz Hunt
Liz is probably best known outside of Cardiff as the singer in indie-pop group The School, but within the city she also puts on shows under the Loose banner. Over the last few years she’s booked the likes of Parenthetical Girls, Dirty Projectors, Abe Vigoda, Of Montreal, Peggy Sue, Times New Viking… It’s safe to say that without Liz there would be far fewer fantastic bands gracing stages in this city, and we’d all have to make many more trips across the bridge to Bristol. Her tireless efforts to promote some of the best bands about may sometimes go unnoticed in terms of audience size, but my years of gig going in this city would not have been half as good without her.
Alexander Pennie
It’s really easy to make jokes about Alex. He was the one in The Automatic who left blah, blah, blah… But right now he’s helping a lot of people and a lot of bands in and around Cardiff make music here far more vibrant and exciting. Whether he’s screaming his lungs out to the hedonistically heavy hardcore of Goodtime Boys, hooking up his own DIY basement shows, or driving broke indie bands across the country in his van, Alex is a guy with his heart in the right place and an enviable passion for the music he loves.
Romesh Dodangoda
If there’s one sound that South Wales is known for, it’s our emo rock. Think Lostprophets, The Blackout, Funeral For A Friend, and Kids in Glass Houses. It’s an easy thing to knock, especially if you’re not from the city and spend a lot of time reading Pitchfork, but it’s the most supportive, encouraging and productive scene in Cardiff, and there’s one man at the helm of it.
Romesh is a record producer. He did the first albums for KIGH and The Blackout. He did the fourth FFAF album. He’s the nicest man you could hope to meet, he’s sh*t hot at his job, and he loves his bands. Oh, and you can usually find him in Clwb on the weekend encouraging whatever band he’s brought to our city to get ‘steaming.’ What a guy.
[SWN festival]
THINGS
Some cool things happen in our city. Such as...
Swn Festival
Now in its fourth year, Swn happens every October for three fun filled days. The festival is curated by Radio 1’s Huw Stephens. He started it back in 2001 with local promoter John Rostron after visiting the likes of SXSW and Airwaves in Iceland.
The thing that makes Swn stand out is its line up. It focuses on new and underground artists instead of those that are just doing the rounds at the festivals given time. Swn get local promoters or credible indie labels/organisations to curate some stages and there are panels during the day for anyone interested in learning more about different parts of the music industry. This festival not only attracts people to our city but makes residents who’d usually only hit the Great Hall to see MGMT (I’m looking at you, students) get excited about new music.
The Junket Club
OK, I’ll admit straight off that I’ve never been to one of these things. I don’t like comedy unless it’s offensive and delivered by Sarah Silverman, but if I did, I would go to Junket Club. They find weird places to put on excellent upcoming comedians and even send out handmade tickets and stuff. I thought I’d put them in here because the stories I hear from the nights always make me smile, even if the jokes might not.
Shape Records
Shape Records is run by Mark from Islet. After starting up the label to put out his old band’s debut album he kept going releasing local acts such as Evils and Fredrick Stanley Star. He also puts on shows under the Shape Functions name and is a really nice, if slightly strange man. If he’s not booking a show or putting out another record he’s probably starting another band. I can’t imagine what music in Cardiff would have been like over the last few years without Mark and his brothers, and I don’t want to.
So there you go. Sorry if anyone from Cardiff is reading and I’ve left you or your band or somewhere super important out. Hopefully Rockfeedback will let me do this again and I can write about you then. See you in Spillers.
Artists in this article: Man Without Country, Los Campesinos!, Islet, Super Furry Animals, Hyener