Swn Diaries // Day 2

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Fiction

Words by Jen Long & Laura Snapes. Photographs courtesy of Jonathan Fisher.

Hello, it’s Jen Long here. Just filling in the blog for Laura because I got her super drunk last night at Clwb Ifor Bach and we stayed up until 5am drinking in my living room and she has now lost the ability to write. It was awesome.

Last night we held our BBC Introducing Night at Chapter Arts Centre. It’s one of those places that truly fits into the cliché of exactly how you think an Arts Centre would be, and exactly how one should be. The plus side of this was lovely cakes, the downside was puzzled looks on the faces of several 50 somethings as Daniel Drains crawled under the stage, masked and screaming.

Drains are a new Cardiff three piece formed from members of Kutosis and Samoans. They played their first gig in my kitchen in July. They’re fucking awesome. Think Death From Above meets Mclusky in masks.

Bastions were chosen to play the same room by Adam Walton from BBC Radio Wales. North Wales hardcore, they were insanely good and incredibly emotive. The singer and drummer emitted the kind of passion you’d see at a Former Ghosts show except, you know, hardcore. Kind of like Glassjaw without the Violence. Everyone was pretty blown away.

Young Legionnaire headlined the Stiwdio (Welsh for Studio, y’all) Stage. They are Paul Mullen (youcodenameis:milo, The Automatic), Gordon Moakes (Bloc Party) and Dean Pearson. I’m not sure if Dean’s been in a band before, but he is a lethal drummer. They had to stop the set about 4 times to piece the kit back together. Young Legionnaire are post-rock with an indie heart edge. And the bass line on ‘Nova Scotia’ sounds like Bloc Party at their Silent Alarm finest, which is cool with me.

On our other stage Peggy Sue headlined. I don’t think there’s a band in the UK that make me want to shushhh people more than Peggy Sue. How can people talk during their set? They’re the most breathtaking, beautiful and completely captivating performers in the UK. Everytime I see them I remember how totally stunned I feel after their sets. Great songs, charming banter, and drummer Olly looks like he’s dancing while he plays. Amazing.

Brandyman

Also, The Victorian English Gentlemens Club played before them. Just so you know, there’s actually no apostrophe in their name. So please don’t think I’m poor with my grammar, yeah. They’ve been going for a few years now; I remember going to see them thinking they were rock stars when I was at Uni. They’ve recently undergone another line up change after Emma left for Islet. Adam and Louise are now joined by James on drums who used to play in Red Light Company (originally a Cardiff band called Dirty Perfect). VEG Club are now mind blowing. It’s like they’ve finally realised their inner rock. Plus they have this weird child doll on stage with them which is creepy as fuck.

After work I went to see Raffertie at Buffalo – what a fucking master. He makes songs sound like things you never thought possible, although you still kind of know it’s Wild Beasts you’re singing along to. I know that doesn’t make much sense, but I’m hoping the mystery I’ve created has left you dying to see him for yourself.

Anyway, it turned out standing sober by myself in a crowd of ravers wasn’t the best fun, so I went to Clwb and met Laura, who will now take back over this blog post…

Hello. Right, after a good restorative draft of wheat beer, the POWER of WORDS (and the caps lock button) has returned to my fingerlings. We were pretty well behaved on Thursday night, so woke up fresh and daisyfaced on Friday morning and zipped off to the Chapter Arts Centre (best bacon sandwiches EVER, generally gorgeous venue) to talk on a panel for the Welsh Music Foundation. They are a quite excellent organisation that provide support for Welsh musicians (really? No shit.), and they hold ace seminars such as these to inform and empower people working in the music industry. Music! Yeah! This panel was called Going Live, and we (John Rostron, Darren ex-Funeral For A Friend, a promoter chap called Dave and local radio hero Adam Walton) talked about gigs, putting on gigs, bad gigs, good gigs, promotion, do we need promoters, payment, backdrops ETC. All the other sorts on the panel either put on gigs or play gigs themselves, so I think I was there as the “professional” fan, soterspeak. I said that promoters can act as a stamp of approval – if I’ve not heard of a band who are being put on by ATP/Swn/Upset The Rhythm/Lono Records/ILL FIT, then chances are I’d go anyway as I trust them lot with my lugholes.

Welsh Music Foundation panel

ANYWAY. Then there was pints and pie, and then Fiction downstairs in Clwb. We only caught the last song, which your esteemed photographer thinks had surf pop rhythms, but was more “shimmery… stuff” (quoted verbatim). They reminded me more of a taken apart and rearranged Foals (lots of the bands here sound a bit like Foals, we note), a nice jigsaw puzzle of interesting rhythmic bits, but not many songs. But as I say, we only saw one of them. (Can you tell I’m having trouble remembering? Note to self: take more notes.)

Then we galloped upstairs for Brandyman. Their frontman is a “deranged Victorian hotel porter who isn’t happy about having been brought to the modern era,” (says Jonathan. Very good.). He barks like Mark E. Smith (“this song’s about Manchester. 1819,” he drawls in a Northern brogue), castigates like The Pop Group’s Mark Stewart, and mutters apocalyptic nonsense like Slint’s Brian McMahan. His name is DC Gates; what else could he be but a rancorous, industrial post-punk excoriator? One thing is for sure: he is one of the CREEPIEST frontmen I have ever seen. I spend much of their set giggling to myself at his excellent flamboyance; he mutters and ponders, judges the crowd with his eyes, every elbow twitch and shoulder shrug adds an extra bit of “fuck you!” to his songs. He is royally, regally contemptuous. “This is a Mogwai cover.” It’s not. “I want you to split in half, you all know the words, sing along and I’ll judge the best side.” The words are “RRRAWWWWRGGGHRAGERAGERAAAAWWRRR.” We do not know them. They have some excellent, more coherent words later on: “I AM BRINGING FORTH THE METAL!” “THE MISSION WILL PREVAIL!” At one stage, he makes The Metal Claw and hisses. We must not forget, there are three other chaps in the band too (one with one of those annoying “Bob Marley” t-shirts with a picture of Jimi Hendrix. Yes, yes, you are very clever.), and they bring to mind The Jesus Lizard. Brandyman: excellent.

The next band are quite the contrast. The programme promises that Trwbador are Cardiff’s answer to Deerhoof. We arrive and there are people sat on the floor. It is all extremely cute: they certainly have (copy) the wispier bits of Satomi’s childlike croon, but never unleash a proper Deerhoofian (yeah, I went there) racket. During one song, after busying herself pushing pedals with her tartan socked-feet and twiddling with a table that looks like the dashboard of a rocket with trajectory set to “twee”, the lady singer squeaks “beep” into the microphone. It is so mild, it would not count as road rage in a traffic jam of mice.

After paying a quick visit to Jon Hillcock in the Model Inn (he is compering), it’s back to Clwb for Truckers Of Husk. It is MEGABUSY, there is nothing to be seen but heads bobbing in approval. It is a big noisy mathy thrashy delight.

Gwilym Gold

Gwilym Gold is on at Undertone. Apparently he’s also in Golden Silvers, which I did not know, but I liked the cut of his moniker, so we went for a gander. SO GLAD WE DID. He looks like Oliver Sim garbed up as a new romantic, and sounds a little like his xx too – lovely wobbly bass, glowy electronics, and beautiful songs. That’s not the world’s greatest description as I was too in awe of all his button pressing and flashy lights and organ pedals to take notes. He sits at a dual organ, with twelve pedals beneath his nice pointy brogues, a very swish Mac, and boxes with tons of lights and fizzwigs and buttons. Normally, I get incredibly bored of watching electronic-based music within about two minutes, but he was fascinating; you could see where every sound was coming from, examine precisely how he did it, and become engrossed to the extent that you were willing him to hit THAT BUTTON THERE, and when he did, it was even more glorious. Please listen to him, you must.

I said yesterday that I wouldn’t waste words and valuable band-seeing time on being mean about stuff, but as we walk past the Model Inn, we hear the world’s most DREADFUL cover of ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ echoing out of the upper room, and imagine poor Jon trapped up there in cover band hell, like some indie (and far shorter-locked) Rapunzel. We rescue him, and during the mission we (we have now absorbed the lovely Stacey from The Art Of into our pack) do shots with Jon and Huw Stephens. If this were Swn bingo, I think we just won.

Tanked up and lairy (bit tiddly and super giggly), we decide we have had enough of these bands, and want to DANCE. Which we do, for hours, with more shots, before ending up back at Jen’s with Stricken City (her house is a shelter for poor homeless indie bands, there are six of us there tonight, and twice as many tomorrow) drinking vodka and juice, and being very silly. Suddenly it is five to five, and that is why large portions of this diary probably do not make sense.

Join me tomorrow for the final instalment of my Swn blog, which will entail bands. And more chips. And maybe more pie. Probably. CAN I GO TO BED NOW PLEASE?

Trwbador