MUSIC NEWS EXTRA


As inevitable a sight every June in Swansea as a sunburnt man passed out with an empty bottle of White Ace by his side, the Escape Into The Park festival has announced its 2011 lineup. Its headliners, grime hitmakers Chipmunk and Tinchy Stryder, betray an attempt to move with the times; this has been greeted with widespread derision by South Wales’ dedicated raver faction, especially those who check for hardcore or drum’n’bass, which no longer have dedicated tents. That said, trance and hardstyle still have their own arenas, and CYNT have secured many drum’n’bass and dubstep biggies


Grassroots, the Cardiff rstudio which was central to the development of the city’s punk scene in the late 70s, and later housed most of South Wales’ biggest 90s bands as they recorded their early demos, has re-opened after refurbishment. “Bigger rehearsal space, drum booth, upgraded equipment, still passionate about young people’s musical aspirations!” says Mike Botzaropulos


from Grassroots, pointing to the studio’s emphasis on youth development. There’s also the chance for bands to play in the Coffee Bar, the area associated with Cardiffian punk history


Howl Griff, a chirpy psych-indie ensemble who emerged from the Welsh language guitar scene, released a single called Bluebirds – so titled because while they were recording it, they could hear Cardiff City fans singing at Ninian Park – about 18 months ago. It received minimal fanfare, but is being re-released on Mon 2 May, again on the Dockrad label. Presumably a nod to the promotion hopes of the Bluebirds themselves, the patronage of DJs like Lauren Laverne has provided an extra boost. Its parent album, The Hum, will also be reissued in the next couple of months


Dizzyjam is a Cardiff merchandise company founded by Neil Cocker and Dafydd Griffiths, who both have grounding in the city’s music scene. The


ONE TO WATCH... REVOKER


In my capacity as the listings editor of this publication, it’s often the case that you continually see, and type in, names without giving much thought to who they are or what they do. When a band called A470 started to appear on the lower reaches of various local lineups a few years back, for a short while I confused them with The A470 Experiment – a live electronica kinda band from the early 00s who vanished without trace – but that was about it. Only last year, when a Rhymney Valley metal quartet called Revoker signed to Roadrunner and started getting press as a consequence, did I twig that they were in fact A470, renamed for a potential audience who neither know nor care about the road of that name. Maybe, then, you have been watching Revoker for a while – they can already boast Radio 1 airplay, a Download slot last year and tours supporting labelmates Soulfly and Rob Zombie – but the start of May marks the release of Revenge For The Ruthless, their debut album. Seeing as all successful metal, or metal-influenced, bands from Wales in the last decade found a sizeable audience with their first LP, swift results will likely be imperative for both band and label. Soundwise, there’s no real reason why it couldn’t. Although tailored to a metal audience, with mastering by the esteemed Andy Sneap, it’s slick and boasts huge choruses, with evident influences including Metallica from ...Justice... onwards, Pantera, Machine Head and Black Label Society. How much opportunity 2011 holds for a band of this nature to stick their heads above the parapet remains to be seen. www.revoker.net


BUZZ 46


selling point of their model – Dizzyjam sell shirts, hoodies etc online for their clients, who don’t have to buy in bulk and risk a box of unsold stock – has proved popular, Cocker and Griffiths recently accruing their 1,000th client. To celebrate, they’re having a party in Cardiff Arts Institute on Sat 21 May. Ninja Tune audiovisual champs Hexstatic will be headlining, with other guests including Channel Swimmer and Bristol’s Bedmo Disco DJs


Recent talk of arts funding has been dominated by the UK-wide cuts. However, many publically-indebted organisations are still thriving, one scheme being Beyond Borders 2011, a series of grants handed out by the PRS For Music Foundation. Welsh beneficiaries include Geraint Ffrancon, an experimental musician who will develop Channel Weather Symmetry, an outdoor sound installation in Brean Down (England) and Rhossili (Wales); and White Noise Sound, psych-rockers from Swansea, who will be teaming up with Belfast techno geezer Phil Keiran


HARD to say why, exactly, but I never really aligned myself to one specific, identifiable subculture when I was growing up. It might be down to living in Cornwall until I was 18 (most people my age dressed in Australian surf apparel and listened to grunge, but I have too poor a sense of balance to ever be good at surfing, and for someone getting ‘into music’ just as the CIA assassinated Kurt Cobain, there wasn’t much in the genre that a wedge-haircutted yokel could build his personality around). It might be that I didn’t have any income or allowance throughout most of my teens (to follow some culture or movement tends to require financial outlay). It might be that music-wise, I figured out pretty quickly that I liked a bit of more or less everything; as such, it didn’t really make sense to focus on one area to the exclusion of others. That’s pretty much been the case for the last 15 years. Obviously there are genres or subgenres that I take a greater interest in than others, and buy/listen to/write about more; also there are huge swathes of music that I basically know dick all about. My point is, I’ve never self-identified as a punk or indie kid or raver or metalhead or anything else like that. Maybe other people think of me as one of those things. I’ve never asked anyone. I don’t suppose many people have call to think about it. I think about it quite a bit, though, because I have a tendency to be quite self-involved, as you may realise if you’ve ever read previous editions of this column, or count the number of ‘I’s in this one. These thoughts consist partly of wondering how different my life would have been if I’d picked one subculture and stuck with it, and partly of trying to evaluate which is more noble: to dedicate yourself to, and cheer for, one particular societal/cultural path, or to just wander aimlessly through life enjoying small manageable pieces of entertainment, one at a time. I’m happy doing the second one; it feels logical to me and I’ve now lived in Cardiff for long enough that if I go to, say, a club night on my own, there’ll probably be someone I recognise there. There is, however, a prominent school of thought that going about your biz this way, and just wandering around the store nibbling the free samples that other people took their time and effort creating, is poor form. Idle and reticent and cowardly. I believe there is a word often used here which begins with H, but I wear a device that gives me a muscle-disabling shock if I type it, so I can’t. However, it appears demonstra- bly true that ‘youth tribes’, or similar middle-aged social anthropology term, have been declining over the last couple of decades. Mirroring the suggestion that in future centuries, everyone on the planet will be a kind of light brown due to racial integration, in immi- nent decades I wonder if there will be very few people who self-identify as metalheads or freaky beatniks or ham radio enthusiasts, and instead a lumpen sump of folks who just, you know, dig a bunch of stuff really. That’s right – I’m saying that if you mainly like one type of music, you’re a racist. Good reading skills. Eclectic May: JIMMY ISLIP, BEDFORD FALLS and others (Buffalo Lounge, Cardiff, Tue 3); Jamaican dancehall icons MR VEGAS and GAPPY RANKS (Mil- lennium Music Hall, Cardiff, Thurs 5); FUCKED UP and Denmark’s incredible ICEAGE (Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Sat 7, afternoon); SOILENT GREEN (MMH, Sat 7, evening); ANTA, PUS and THORUN (Buffalo, Mon 9); IRON CHIC, DAVE HOUSE and others (Exist Skatepark, Swansea, Wed 11); ANAAL NATHRAKH (The Globe, Cardiff, Sat 14); THANK YOU (Under- tone, Cardiff, Thurs 19) and DESECRATION (Meze Lounge, Newport, Thurs 26). NOEL GARDNER


one louder


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80