MUSIC NEWS EXTRA
BBC Radio Wales celebrated its Music Day on Fri 19 Apr, and perhaps the most noteworthy item among a plethora of live sessions and interviews with wirelessfriendly Welsh acts was the unveiling of the first new music by the Manic Street Preachers for three years. It’ s called See It Like Sutherland, which probably refers to Welsh painter Graham Sutherland, and is instrumental, although quite plausibly because the vocals haven’ t been recorded yet. As it stands, it’ s fair to say it’ s not one of their punkier moments, but has quite a nice echoey yacht rock vibe. Given how many bootleg edits of that new Daft Punk song went up within hours of its online unveiling, some bright spark should have a crack at this too
For over a decade now, the Wakestock festival has been offering combination entertainment: the minority interest aquatic sport of wakeboarding and indie / dance acts enjoyed by people in their late teens. Over time, the wakeboarding has played an ever smaller a fiddle to the music, and 2013’ s lineup – Example, Bastille, Rudimental, Magnetic Man and Twin Atlantic top the bill – maintains this disparity. It takes place from Fri 12-Sun
14 July in Abersoch, north Wales, so outside Buzz’ s catchment area – but unsigned Welsh bands are encouraged to enter a competition to win a slot on the Sunday. Judged by Radio Cymru’ s Lisa Gwilym, if you fancy it send some music, biog info and a link to listen online to info @ wakestock. couk
Taking place on Sat 31 Aug, this year’ s Mardi Gras – that is to say, the Cardiff-Wales LGBT Mardi Gras – will be hosted, for the first time, in the Millennium Stadium, across from its established home in Coopers Field. Not totally convinced that this is going to do wonders for the general atmosphere – 10 hours is a long time to spend in a sports stadium at the best of times – but it promises the same assortment of cabaret, funfair rides, qualified advisors, LGBT-friendly traders and music. Rylan Clark, him off of The X Factor and some other rubbish, is the initial‘ big name’ announced.“ Cardiff, let’ s‘ av it up Rylan Style!” he has been quoted as exclaiming
The Rockfield Country Music Festival, held at Perthyne Farm near Monmouth and due to take place from Thurs 30 May
ONE TO WATCH...
until Sun 2 June, has been postponed until 2014. Wales’ only country weekender since beginning in 2010, preparations were going well this year, with over 20 live acts booked and some 3,600 country fans expected to attend. However, main organiser Norman Crockett, who only has one leg due to being hit by a drunk driver’ s car in his youth, now also needs a hip replacement operation which will render him hospital bed-bound for all of May and June. Preparations thus made near-impossible, the festival will take a break for a year, with all acts invited to return for the next one
More months than not, there’ s the option of giving over one of these paragraphs to a band who were never hugely successful, but have reformed for the one-off delectation of a small but appreciate audience. This time it’ s Nameless, who formed in north Wales in the late 90s, moved to Cardiff and played many loud and energetic gigs in the region before dismantling some time in the mid-00s. A sort of glam-speckled take on industrial punk and non-embarrassing goth – part Manics, part Big Black, part lots of other things – they will throw themselves around Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach on Fri 12 July
TOTEM TERRORS
Just before the year was out, the news nibs column that sits atop this one included a brief mention of Totem Terrors’ efforts to get their debut album pressed up on vinyl, by appealing to prospective fans’ better nature via Kickstarter. While this process hedges one’ s bets – if not enough people pay upfront to reach the stated target, all who paid get their money back, and that’ s that – it’ s also kinda bold, in that if you fail, the page sits there squawking your ignominy. Forever. Yet Totem Terrors, a duo formed in Cardiff( initially a trio, and called Joy Of Sex) and living between there and Brighton, did not fail. As a result, you can now buy their album, the perhaps knowingly titled Repeat Play Torrent Rar, on virginally white 45 rpm 12” vinyl.( Everyone who pledged the necessary cash has a copy, but this doesn’ t equal all the copies pressed.) Although there are many evident differences, this willingness to baldly talk about the budgets involved in indie music of this nature recalls late-70s DIY punk bands like Desperate Bicycles. Musically, TT – Rosie Smith plus Max Hicks, who was once in punkish Swansea outfit Cubare – bat from the end of the postpunk pavilion which spawned Young Marble Giants and The Raincoats. Minimal arrangements, lyrics which are literate without being wanky and a willingness to emphasise the feminine. A drum machine increases the pared-back feel, and over the last couple of years the pair have found a fairly unique voice within south Wales’ bands. Hopefully this LP will be a springboard for recognition elsewhere. www. totemterrors. com one louder IT was all looking rosy this April for Cardiff’ s 411 nightclub. They had booked, in their words,“ probably the single biggest event of the year ANYWHERE” – namely Jazzy Jeff, seminal hip-hop DJ and scourge of Uncle Phil. They couldn’ t have predicted that just six days beforehand, Margaret Thatcher would die aged 87 – prompting a worldwide frenzy of invective and scoresettling which, once the dust had cleared somewhat, amounted to an even bigger event than their own. Browsing photos from the night, it’ s good that people managed to cast off the weight of an emotional week and throw some shapes. Prior to that, reactions to the demise of a woman repeatedly called‘ divisive’ incorporated the full spectrum of human feelings. Many felt that we had lost a great leader and bulwark against socialism and liberal woolliness. I know this because I read people saying it, either strangers on the internet or right-wing opinion-havers of note who I’ m unlikely ever to meet. Many others were delighted that Thatcher was dead, and said so very clearly, sometimes over and over again. I know this because they did it via social networks I also move in, next to a picture of their face in many cases. From a pool of a good few hundred people who were compelled to say something about Thatch on my F * ceb ** k, no-one – not a sausage – expressed sadness at her passing. Some invoked a basic principle of all humans deserving respect in death no matter their conduct in life, but that seemed to be about as close as an‘ alternative voice’ got. I should stress that I’ m not telling you this because I believe my experiences to be universal. On the contrary, this has left me feeling slightly uncomfortable about the rarefied lens through which I apparently view social matters. I tend not to be especially vocal on political issues, not because I don’ t have long-held beliefs but because I usually feel terribly inarticulate and rarely have anything to say that someone else couldn’ t do a better job of. I’ ve never moved in activist circles, really, nor consciously tried to surround myself with people who think the same way as I do. And yet a lightning rod event like this can give the impression of near-uniformity. There are obvious reasons why it might be so. Most of my acquaintances are under 40; around 70 % of Conservative voters in the 2010 election were over 40. Cardiff, while hardly impoverished as modern cities go, has never held much attraction for the upper classes. Tory representation in government round these parts has always been minimal, I daresay for solid historical reasons. More specifically, a lot of people I know play in bands, work at venues, shake tailfeathers at gigs and so forth. People talk sometimes of genres like indie or punk as being‘ conservative’, but the idea of actually voting Conservative is genuinely taboo. Which perhaps doesn’ t explain my problem so much as exacerbate it – if it is a problem. If it’ s generally assumed that‘ rockers’ or‘ ravers’ lean left politically, this is because of people who, over decades, have hollered until their minority voices were heard. Inadvertently, this has also created a complacent culture – they dress like me and go to the same places, they’ re bound to share my views on other stuff too! Moreover, people who step outside accepted boundaries of opinion are liable to get a shoe pie for their troubles. I’ m pretty sure the conclusion to this isn’ t‘ it would be cool to have more bigots at gigs’, but as usual, I’ m unsure what it might otherwise be. CRYPTOPSY and CATTLE DECAPITATION( Bogiez, Cardiff, Wed 1 May) is a‘ death party’ of a quite different kind. HEY COLOSSUS, THE DEATH OF HER MONEY and HOGSLAYER( Undertone, Fri 3), STHC’ s bank holiday halfdayer with lots of cool melodic punk bands( Gwdihw, Sun 5), KING TUFF, JOANNA GRUESOME and CHAIN OF FLOWERS( Clwb Ifor Bach, Fri 10), ANDY CAIRNS from Therapy?( 200 Club, Newport, Wed 15), PURLING HISS, Chain Of Flowers and ROUGH MUSIC( Undertone, Mon 20), THE JEFFREY LEWIS / PETER STAMPFEL BAND( Moon Club, Mon 27) and ÅRABROT, The Death Of Her Money and PROSPERINA( Undertone, Wed 29) are celebrations of life, from where I’ m sitting. NOEL GARDNER
BUZZ 42