The Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds show in Cardiff on 6th November was truly stunning - so much so that I was very glad to have broken the habit of a lifetime, sold my soul and ventured to the Motorpoint Arena. Two nights later, though, I seized the opportunity to return to my (grass)roots, savouring a three-band bill at Tiny Rebel headlined by Thee Alcoholics and also featuring Barry lunatics I Am Drug.
Buzz report here.
I was very sorry to learn of the death of Mick Felton, co-founder and long-time publisher at Seren Books. As the obituary posted on Seren's blog observes, "[i]t is hard to argue that anyone has done more for the heritage and sustenance of English-language publishing in Wales over the past forty years".
Mick certainly "provid[ed] opportunities for the next generation of writers" - but the next generation of publishing professionals too. When I pitched up at Seren's Bridgend office for a week's work experience in 2006, Mick welcomed me on board, and the one day a week I volunteered there for the next six months helped to offset the mind-numbing tedium of a council admin job.
Being a small operation, Seren was very often all hands to the pump, and Mick generously gave me the opportunity to get a feel for several aspects of the job/business - from giving an initial assessment of submissions, to doing text layout, to compiling indexes, to parcelling up books ordered via the website.
As the obituary hints, Mick was resolute in the face of the numerous challenges of running a small publishing house on a shoestring, managing to remain unruffled and dry humoured no matter what life threw his way. That he also found the time to act as a mentor for publishing novices like myself was greatly appreciated.
After leaving Seren in 2007, and spending the next ten years in Oxfordshire, I didn't see much of Mick at all - but since returning to South Wales the odd encounter at book launches/readings and in the foyer at Chapter presented opportunities for a catch-up. Given that he had not long left Seren, a business to which he dedicated so much time and energy, his retirement was indeed "cruelly short".
The latter has to be one of the most intense shows I've ever been to, for obvious reasons. Back in 2005, when Low were touring their incredible LP The Great Destroyer, I remember Sparhawk telling the audience at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton how his young son had been dancing away to Napalm Death in the empty venue before the gig - and now here Cyrus Sparhawk was, on stage playing bass with his dad, on the anniversary of his mum Mimi Parker's passing. It was an emotional gut punch of a gig, and a beacon of positivity on a day when political events in the US plunged the world into greater darkness.
And it got me thinking again: just how good would it have been to see Low on the Mountain Stage at Green Man in 2022, with that backdrop?
Buzz review here.
Buzz review here.
With the dust settling on the inaugural Cardiff Music Festival, it's time for an appraisal - cue Bill Cummings' opinion piece on God Is In The TV.
There's been plenty of snark and cynicism (including round these parts), and in the article Dan Porter and Ed Townend suggest that credit should be given where it's due.
But another interviewee, Lloyd Griffiths, argues that much more can and should be done to support the local music scene. Certainly, it's fair to say that "the idea that everything is rosy is absurd" - not least because grassroots music venues have continued to close at an alarming rate since Cardiff was christened a "Music City".
Cummings cuts through the PR crap, offering a nuanced evaluation of whether bringing Llais, Swn and more under the Cardiff Music Festival banner was beneficial, and calling for "a clearly defined music strategy" for the city.
Buzz write-up here.
Last Thursday, John Grant returned to Cardiff, a city he holds dear, with fast-rising Black Country two-piece Big Special in tow. It was my first encounter with the former Czars frontman - think John Goodman playing the works of Elton John - and is very unlikely to be my last.
Buzz review here.
Writing last year about the boom in music memoirs, and indeed books about music in general, the Guardian's Alex Petridis cited "the existence of three music imprints at major publishers" as one of the main factors. Inevitably, it couldn't last forever, and yesterday brought the unexpected announcement that Nine Eight Books is effectively no more, the imprint's founder Pete Selby leaving as part of a restructuring process by parent publisher Bonnier.
Selby is - by all accounts and by all testimonies subsequently posted on Twitter - an exceptional publisher. Some might try to argue that the books put out by Nine Eight would have found a publisher anyway, but that would totally ignore the fact that in many cases the books wouldn't even exist without Selby's tireless enthusiasm, encouragement and drive.
One author who's said as much is Ian Wade, whose 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer kept me thoroughly entertained on a mammoth coach journey in the summer. Also most enjoyable was Nige Tassell's Whatever Happened To The C86 Kids?, the subject of discussion at a great evening in Cardiff back in January.
Perhaps I've been living in a rose-tinted bubble, but the news was all the more shocking given the praise lavished on three other Nine Eight publications in particular: Miki Berenyi's Fingers Crossed, Will Hodgkinson's Street-Level Superstar (about Lawrence from Felt/Denim) and Reach For The Stars by Michael Cragg, who did a superb job of selling it at Green Man last year.
Presumably Bonnier's decision has been at least partly motivated by finances, so maybe the music book sector isn't in quite such rude good health as I'd imagined. Either way, as the generous reaction from competitor imprint White Rabbit underlined, the demise of Nine Eight is to be mourned - a sobering reminder of the fragility of the ecosystem.
Here's hoping Selby rallies and is back helping to bring top-quality music books into the world before too long.
While the pessimist in me fears this is merely a futile Canute-like attempt to hold back an inevitable tide, it's good to see so many creative types come out against the unlicensed use of work for training generative AI models. That (mis)use has been branded "a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works" in a statement signed by over 10,000 people, including Thom Yorke, Kazuo Ishiguro, Robert Smith, Julianne Moore and Kevin Bacon.
Part of what vexes me about all this is that it's unclear what the actual value of this training is. Adverts and puff pieces about AI are everywhere, and yet there doesn't seem to be any real idea of how it might be used in a way that isn't cynical and destructive.
More broadly, it seems that everyone's too bedazzled by what AI can do to give serious consideration to the wider implications and risks - for art, for technology, for the environment, and more. A classic case of "Just because we can, doesn't mean we should".
When it comes to histories of the rave/club scene in the North West, the Hacienda always hogs the headlines. But, as Fergal Kinney noted a few years ago in an article for the Guardian, things were arguably as lively - if not even livelier - in Blackburn. And now Daniel Dylan Wray has painted a vivid portrait of goings-on in Liverpool.
Friends who went to university in the city caught the very tail end of the period Wray writes about and have vouched for the veracity of the depiction of Voodoo in particular: "dark, sweaty and relentless", according to interviewee Nick Burcombe.
Dance culture at that time completely passed me by - or, more accurately, was deliberately avoided. But articles like Wray's, and books like Richard Norris' Strange Things Are Happening, convey the excitement so convincingly that I've developed a very belated feeling of having majorly missed out.
"Do you want to know the secret?" was a line that leapt out at me on Goat's self-titled sixth album. Finally, it feels that I'm starting to understand the secret of Goat themselves - a band who had for many years somehow passed me by. But then came a headline set on Green Man's Far Out Stage and the soundtrack to Shane Meadows' TV adaptation of Benjamin Myers' The Gallows Pole, and now an album that discovering WITCH primed me to love.
Buzz review here.
If you had to guess who might declare "The Velvets and the Stooges were just like a road map", The Jesus & Mary Chain's Jim Reid would probably be top of the list. And sure enough, his Quietus Baker's Dozen is largely predictable rather than pretentiously obscure, featuring a selection of seminal albums by the likes of the Saints, Suicide, Joy Division and the New York Dolls that were formative influences on the brothers Reid's own band.
It's equally no shock to read him extolling the virtues of the Beatles' Revolver as a true game changer, but the warm words about Mark Lanegan's Bubblegum and in particular Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day are more surprising.
And then there's the Cobbs' Trophies For Lovemaking!, an album that he discovered in his luggage after a US jaunt with Freeheat. Of all the things that could have accidentally found their way into his bag following what was by his own admission "more of a fucking drinking and drugs tour of American than a rock and roll tour", he's probably fortunate that it was an obscure record.
Happy tenth birthday to the wonderful Detectorists, thoroughly deserving of this tribute to its "low-key charm" by the Guardian's David Renshaw.
The key to that charm is the series' gentle humour. Creator and lead actor Mackenzie Crook explains that he "deliberately set out to write something uncynical and removed from the awkward 'cringe comedy' that was prevalent at the time". Renshaw mentions Crook's breakthrough role as Gareth in The Office, but refrains from explicitly noting that shows like The Office were precisely what Crook was reacting against with his own creation.
Detectorists, Renshaw observes, is "not a sitcom chasing belly laughs". It's not relentless or desperate in that way. On the contrary, it's subtle and character driven - primarily by the relationship between Crook's Andy and Toby Jones' Lance, but also by a superb supporting cast. The calibre of the acting is exceptional, and the pub beer garden scene between Lance and Sophie Thompson's Sheila - well, that's phenomenal, by any standards.
Renshaw is right to single out the show's portrayal of male friendship for special mention, and for the way that it seems to foreshadow the marvellous Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, currently back on the Beeb for a seventh series. (Indeed, Crook has said elsewhere that the hobby/obsession that brought Andy and Lance together might well have been fishing rather than metal detecting.)
Crook and Jones appear natural and at ease in each other's company, and it's little surprise to learn that it was a joy to be a part of, Jones declaring: "Those three summers we spent shooting felt like a holiday." More of a revelation was the fact that the series was inspired by a particular episode of Time Team - one that stood out in my memory too.
That there won't be any more episodes is a disappointment in a way, but also reassuring, in that there's no risk of what we already have being tarnished. "[N]obody should be sad", says Crook - and they won't be if they succumb to the temptation to rewatch.
In introducing an interview with Treble founder Jeff Terich in the spring, I wrote about the need to celebrate dogged stalwarts/veterans of the music media landscape rather than merely moaning when magazines and sites fold. The same goes for new arrivals on the scene. It takes laudable courage to set up a new platform in the current climate, so hats off to the former Pitchfork staffers who've just launched Hearing Things.
The About page not only describes the new site in bold terms as "a bulwark against all the bullshit" and lays out the considerable credentials of the founders; it also (refreshingly) outlines its policy of editorial independence and clarifies exactly what that means.
A smattering of reviews and features have already been posted, including this engaging Julianne Escobedo Shepherd interview with Kathleen Hanna, which covers her recently published memoir Rebel Girl, the "really joyous atmosphere" of live gigs and getting the key to the city of Olympia (and an apology).
Better still is the conversation that Los Campesinos! frontman Gareth had with Ryan Dombal - the latter, like me, a long-time fan who clearly feels as though he's grown up alongside the band. Gareth talks lyrics, ethics and politics (remaining cagey on whether he's having a pop at Idles on 'Long Throes'), but perhaps most fascinating is the revealing insight into the economics of being a well-established mid-tier band and what being DIY at that level really means.
I must say I didn't see this coming: Metz going on "indefinite hiatus". Not least because latest album Up On Gravity Hill, released in April, is not only arguably their strongest to date but also seemed to herald an exciting new direction in dialling up the melodicism and nuance without really dialling down the muscularity.
On reflection, though, I guess that may have been the problem. In the absence of any rationale/explanation other than that they've been slogging away in the noise-rock trenches for over 15 years, there's a fair chance that not everyone in the band is keen on taking this particular fork in the road and that musical differences stand behind the decision. A great shame if so.
Was the time ever more ripe for a new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album? No Title As Of 13 February 2024, 28,340 Dead finds the post-rock heavyweights on as fine form as ever, staring the horrors of the contemporary moment straight in the face but daring to see salvation in art.
Buzz review here.
Park House is too impressive a building to be allowed to stand empty - but I'll admit that the news that Tom Simmons is to take it on makes me slightly nervous.
On the one hand, the chef's operations in Pontcanna and Canton - the restaurant Thomas and two branches of cafe/bakery Ground - seem to be thriving (and rightly so), and the move will be funded through a loan from the Welsh Government's Town Centre Regeneration scheme rather than directly out of Simmons' own pocket.
On the other hand, though, I can't help but wonder whether the place isn't something of a poisoned chalice, after the sudden closure of the previous resident restaurant last year left a bitter taste in a few mouths. Even looking beyond the financial aspects, Simmons will be taking a big gamble. Here's hoping his expansionist vision doesn't leave his existing establishments stretched and result in a compromise on quality.
Who better to document the final few days of steelmaking in Port Talbot than Jon Pountney, the man who's been busy creating a photographic record of how heavy industry has shaped the Welsh landscape?
This BBC article gives only a small taster of a series that looks set to follow in the lineage of Mik Critchlow's images of Woodhorn Colliery and, closer to home, the recently publicised pictures taken by Huw Powell as production ceased at the East Moors Steelworks in 1978.
Venturing into the belly of the beast has evidently been quite an experience for Pountney: "I didn't know what to expect, and you're basically met with a very large dark room where there is a river of molten metal running through the middle. You've never seen anything like it - it's this incredible, almost volcanic elemental thing, which is quite terrifying."
Also allowed access was photographer and filmmaker Mark Griffiths, who underlined what the closure will mean for the town: "The ripple effect is going to be phenomenal. It's not just the steel workers that are impacted, it's the surrounding infrastructure, it's the local businesses, it's the communities that are going to be ripped apart and devastated by this."
For those of us who regularly pass Port Talbot on the M4, a smokeless skyline is going to seem very strange. How long will the chimney stacks survive?
There might come a time when I tire of the current trend/revival of folk horror films, but it's probably some way off yet.
Starve Acre has been the latest to hit cinema screens, and it ticks all the boxes: dramatic windswept rural environment (the Yorkshire moors); a 1970s setting, and accompanying colour palette of muddy browns and mossy greens; horror that has its roots in personal tragedy; themes of exhumation, sacrifice and resurrection; a chilling score that works perfectly in tandem with the images.
Matt Smith does a decent (if perhaps inadvertent) Ted Hughes impression, as an emotionally repressed archaeology lecturer compelled to dig up things that are best left buried. But it's Morfydd Clark, as his deeply traumatised wife, who truly deserves the plaudits.
Starve Acre has been criticised in some quarters for being devoid of jump scares, but, for me, that totally misses the point. This isn't some cheap, gore-laden US fright fest; it's a far more subtle film, one that progresses at a deliberately slow pace, moving inexorably to a truly, grimly memorable concluding tableau. You have to suspend disbelief on occasion, admittedly, but then it wouldn't be a horror film if you didn't.
New Public Service Broadcasting album The Last Flight would most likely have been a revelation if I hadn't heard its predecessors. Familiarity dulls its impact somewhat, but there are a few novel diversions and the subject matter - the life and death of intrepid aviator Amelia Earhart - ensures that it exerts an emotional pull that carries you along to the bleak, tragic climax.
Buzz review here.
Typical - no sooner had I just about started to get my head around black midi than they split. Geordie Greep has wasted no time in putting out The New Sound, an idiosyncratic solo record boasting sensational musicianship and packed with what he told NME are "bizarre, horrible" love songs. Buzz review here.
Greep spoke to Eden Tizard of the Quietus about the genesis of The New Sound, its Latin American influences and the joy of collaboration - a helpful read if you're struggling to make sense of what is an undeniably challenging album.
It's one thing to greet the availability of Cardiff Council funding to support grassroots music venues with cautious optimism, as I did a week ago. It's quite another to claim that the city's music scene has enjoyed an "amazing revival" since the dark days of 2017.
In fairness to Sophie Williams, the author of the article in question, the use of the offending phrase may well have been the work of a rogue Guardian sub-editor; certainly, Williams' piece is more nuanced than that.
Yet she does still seem to get caught up in the positivity, parroting the council's lines without pausing to consider what the buzzwords might mean and how the vision might actually be realised. The noises might be moderately encouraging, but it's far too soon to trumpet any strategy as a triumph. As for the Cardiff Music City malarkey, the inclination is to quote Alan Partridge to Lynn: "They've rebadged it, you fool!"
I know some people on the ground who read the article and felt gaslit, pointing out that the current reality hardly justifies buoyant boasts. Only in the last few days, Carnedd have been evicted from Willcox House, left homeless at cruelly short notice having been kept in the dark about the sale of the building. In the circumstances, it's entirely understandable why Williams' rose-tinted article has stuck in a few throats.
Buzz review here.
Listen to Alan Sparhawk talk about White Roses, My God - his debut solo LP, and first since the death of his wife and Low bandmate Mimi Parker - and it's clear that it's not so much an album that he consciously wanted to make as one that he simply HAD to make: "[I]n hindsight, I can see now that it must have been what needed to come out of me." It's almost as though he was merely a conduit through which the songs and words were channelled.
That the record is a challenging listen is not a surprise, but that it sounds the way it does may raise a few eyebrows. One thing's for certain: it's going to make for a very intense evening when he comes to Clwb in November.
Buzz review here.
Reading Alex Deller's Guardian interview with David Yow and Duane Denison, I was reminded of the fact that The Jesus Lizard and forebears Scratch Acid are a grievous omission from Our Band Could Be Your Life (though they do get a mention). But perhaps Michael Azerrad decided that there was only room to devote one chapter to a bunch of Texas-raised fuckheads in his otherwise impeccable tome, and Butthole Surfers understandably got the nod.
Yow and Denison's mob may never have quite scaled the heights/plumbed the depths of their fellow Lone Star State natives, but they certainly got into their fair share of scrapes, particularly on stage, and Yow's penchant for nudity and (in Deller's words) "parlour tricks involving his scrotum" earned him a certain level of notoriety.
Unsurprisingly, Yow is quoted as declaring "I love it when things get out of hand" - and he's not alone. Denison too claims: "We want mindless mayhem along with an element of sophistication - that was always our thing."
The guitarist expands on that with a description that brilliantly captures the tensions in The Jesus Lizard's music: "To me, David's voice was almost like a free jazz saxophone. There was always the dichotomy between being this very organised working unit and the more free-range kind of thing." (This, it occurs to me, is very much also true of Les Savy Fav and Tim Harrington.)
What's great about new album Rack is that age doesn't seem to have dulled those edges - but touring it brings its own challenges for a band whose members are all now in their 60s. Fair play to Yow for acknowledging that if he wants to come close to performing in the way he used to, he needs the help of a personal trainer to get into shape.
I'll leave the final word to him, on getting back together and playing shows: "[I]t seemed like fucking an old girlfriend." Charming.
First a glimmer of hope for the arts nationally, and things may finally be looking up locally too. Cardiff's designation as a "Music City" has been a running joke for some time, but at last there may be signs that that's changing.
The inaugural Cardiff City Music Festival kicked off last night with The Orb and Leftfield at the Arena, taking the pre-existing Swn, Llais and the Welsh Music Prize under its umbrella and featuring lots of industry-based events as well as gigs. My tips are to see teenage grunge punks The Meritones at the Moon on 2nd October (superb at the Lansdowne recently, and partial to a cover of Mclusky's 'Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues') and to listen to Huw Stephens and Neil Collins talk about their new books on Welsh music at the same venue on the 12th.
More importantly in the long term (though no doubt in the short term for some places that are particularly struggling), Cardiff Council has announced funding to help small venues in the city to survive and make improvements. Council Leader Huw Thomas is quoted as saying that "Cardiff's grassroots venues play a vital role in the city's music scene. They provide important opportunities for local artists to develop and build audiences, act as a focal point for communities, and help make Cardiff the vibrant, exciting place that we know and love." It's good to hear that recognition, but even more to know that there will be cash to back it up. Much more can and indeed should be done at a local level as well as nationally, but it's a start.
And there's positive news from down the road in Swansea too, where the Music Venue Trust have continued their sterling work in support of the sector by buying the Bunkhouse. The move will ease the strain of paying inflated rent to a rapacious commercial landlord and also make money available for building repairs and insurance. Given that ownership has been identified as one of grassroots venues' biggest challenges, it's heartening to see this scheme in action, especially close to home.
Precious little that Labour have said or done since taking charge has come close to inspiring me to believe that genuine change is on the way; for the most part, it's been profoundly depressing to think that these are supposedly the good guys. But Lisa Nandy's interview with the Guardian's Pippa Crerar did at least give cause for (very cautious) optimism.
Not only has the Culture Secretary declared an end to the "culture wars" regularly provoked by the Tories, she also claimed that Labour are going to take significant steps in reversing the damage done by their predecessors.
Primarily, the focus will be ensuring that opportunities are available to all, starting with rebalancing the school curriculum. The Tories took the opposite approach: "Over the last 14 years, there's been a vandalism of the arts. Violent indifference to areas of the country that are becoming arts deserts. They were just not interested in arts everywhere, for everyone."
For someone who has regularly banged on about access being arguably the biggest issue in the arts, this is very much music to the ears. Of course, it remains to be seen whether these are merely fine words or whether there's a real commitment (political and financial) to make the vision a reality.
It's a sad fact that those with the loudest voices and most self-confidence are often the most deluded about their own abilities, while those plagued by self-doubt and imposter syndrome are the ones who possess genuine talent. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it and doing Katy J Pearson a disservice, but her new album Someday, Now feels like the creation of someone with an increasingly strong (and justifiable) faith in herself as a songwriter and performer.
Buzz review here.
Buzz review here.
No matter what Arcade Fire have since become, no matter the extent of Win Butler's misdemeanours - for me, nothing can ever detract from Funeral, or at least from the memory of first discovering it. It's one of those albums that instantly demanded absolute devotion but rewarded it handsomely, and remains a record whose songs still routinely get the hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
It seems that Stereogum's Ian Cohen, assessing the album two decades after its release, broadly agrees. In an astute appraisal of a record that expresses "capital-e Emotions with such intensity that it blots out everything in existence", he offers context and reflection on how it changed the landscape, but also doesn't shy away from acknowledging the criticisms of those who found it "bombastic, indulgent, cringe", the work of over-earnest, pious "tryhards".
Unlike Cohen, I never really saw Funeral in relation to US indie rock acts. For me, Arcade Fire's origins in Montreal invited comparisons with other recent products of the city - most notably, Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The two collectives' commitment to rock convention clearly differed significantly, but they seemed to share a sense of urgency and an attitude of politically charged defiance. These were secular hymns to stimulate the head and stir the heart.
Cohen ventures that "Arcade Fire's visions of love and danger and rebellion stood out for their childlike whimsy". For me, they didn't at the time - but perhaps they do now, with hindsight look somewhat whimsical, even naive, just as Godspeed's simultaneously apocalyptic and desperately hopeful narratives no longer seem to hold quite the same power.
But then again maybe this says more about my own (growing?) cynicism, twenty years on. As Cohen observes, a large part of what went wrong for Arcade Fire (after another two very fine albums in Neon Bible and The Suburbs) was their subsequent abandonment of sincerity and retreat into cynicism. To those for whom Funeral "truly felt like a matter of life and death", myself included, this inevitably seemed to be a cruel betrayal.
Belated congratulations to English Teacher for their Mercury Prize win. I may have been a bit lukewarm about their live show, but debut LP This Could Be Texas boasts plenty of quality beyond those stand-out singles.
As Laura Molloy has noted in an article for Dazed, the victory had significance beyond the band themselves. Shockingly, they were the first winners based outside the capital for nearly ten years.
Tracing how English Teacher managed to buck that depressing trend, Molloy writes: "The saying goes that it takes a village to raise a child, but it often takes a city to forge a great band." The city in question - Leeds - has developed an ecosystem conducive to musical creativity and critical to English Teacher's success: accessible independent venues, a supportive local radio programme with clout (BBC Introducing West Yorkshire) and an array of funding and development organisations.
But, as Molloy notes, we shouldn't be too hasty in celebrating English Teacher's triumph with unalloyed delight. After all, each of those elements that make up the ecosystem are under strain in Leeds and elsewhere: financial support drying up, radio stations folding or being merged, grassroots venues closing down at an alarming rate. Molloy is right to end with a stark warning: "[I]f our music scenes continue to be an afterthought, both by the government and the wider industry, we may be waiting longer than a decade for the next winner outside the M25."
My biggest musical regret of the year is not finding a way to get to one of the Jane's Addiction shows in May/June. Given the events of the last couple of days, those who were able to see the alt-rock legends can now consider themselves even more fortunate.
It never seemed plausible that the only casualty of Saturday's onstage bust-up between Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro in Boston would be the Bridgeport show the following night - especially when Farrell's wife poured petrol on the flames - and sure enough the remainder of their US tour has been scrapped so they can "take some time away as a group".
That's the official line, anyway. Navarro, Stephen Perkins and Eric Avery have released a separate statement citing "a continuing pattern of behavior and the mental health difficulties of our singer Perry Farrell", and insisting that "concern for his personal health and safety as well as our own" meant that cancellation was the only possible course of action.
Navarro and Farrell have always had a combustible relationship, and the latter is clearly an eccentric character, to say the very least. Time will tell if this spells the end of the reformation, but the signs certainly don't look good. A bitter disappointment, given that (I gather) they seemed to be having such a great time in each other's company at the Roundhouse.
The episode has prompted the Guardian's Dave Simpson to pull together a list of famously fractious bands. Notably, the flashpoints are often between siblings (Oasis, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Kinks) - but always between men...
A quarter of a century is a long time, but with Rack you'd hardly think The Jesus Lizard had been away. It's instantly identifiable as them, and instantly likeable. Buzz review here.
Listening to the album takes me back to my one face-to-face encounter with them, in Nottingham in October 1998. The band's initial end may have been nigh, but David Yow was on feral form and I recall the microcosmic water cycle in operation in Rock City's Disco 2, whereby steam was rising from the rowdy crowd, condensing into droplets on the mirrored ceiling of the dancefloor and falling back down on the audience like sweaty rain. As with Fugazi, I feel as though I didn't fully appreciate what I was witnessing. Youth is wasted on the young etc etc.
To mark the album's release, Yow spoke to Patrick Clarke for the Quietus' Baker's Dozen feature. His picks can be roughly categorised as either British big-hitters (Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. T-Rex), US punk/hardcore bands (Dickies, Fear) or deranged post-punk (The Birthday Party, Flipper). When he suggests that "the best three-band bill possible would be (in any order) AC/DC, Ramones and Motorhead" - "Zero fucking around!" - it's pretty much impossible to disagree, and there are some wise and touching words for The Jesus Lizard's producer and friend Steve Albini: "I'm glad Steve gave a public sort of expression of regret for some of the drastic insensitivities from his younger years. I miss him like crazy."
Every local music scene needs spaces in which to germinate, grow and thrive. I've written before about how the Mermaid was critical to Birmingham's mid-1980s punk and grindcore scene, making mention of the Home Of Metal project to commemorate the boozer and its place in history. Here's some of the fruits of the project's labours: a short film featuring members of house band Napalm Death and a couple of regular punters talking about what made it so special.
Jon Pountney's Allure Of Ruins (recent Cardiff exhibition reviewed here) is an important project in terms of what it says about Wales' industrial past and post-industrial present, so it was nice to see it get wider exposure via the platform of a BBC article.
The images emphasise the unconventional aesthetic appeal of countless sites that were once noisy hives of intense human activity but are now not "protected or loved or used", but Pountney is not merely content to present us with ruin porn; on the contrary, there's an agenda behind the project. As he says of the stunning Cwmystwyth in Ceredigion, "[i]f it was anywhere else in the world, it would have a visitor centre and boards telling you this view was this, but obviously in Wales we only do castles". The message is clear: Wales should do more to recognise, celebrate and conserve its industrial heritage.Talk about taking one for the team. There are war correspondents who would baulk at the prospect of being sent to cover Summer of '99 (aka the "Creed Cruise"), so credit to Luke Winkie for having the courage to go along and report back in the form of a Slate article. That said, his claim that the band's first performance of the weekend "was, without a doubt, one of the best rock shows I've ever seen" has me thinking he may have been suffering from shellshock or Stockholm syndrome.
Even more remarkable than Creed's apparently resurgent popularity among younger fans is the fact that frontman Scott Stapp has been cast as Frank Sinatra in a forthcoming biopic of Ronald Reagan. I'll give that a wide berth, thanks.
Lunch menus don't come much more special than at Gorse - take my word for it. Chef Tom Waters has been talking to Buzz's Emma Way about the philosophy behind the Pontcanna restaurant, as well as the positives and pitfalls of previously operating as a pop-up.
Emma's also spoken to Sam Elliott - chef and proprietor of the wonderful Pasture - about his baby being ranked 48th in the 101 World's Best Steak Restaurants. But, as he noted, it's not all about flame-grilled meat - veggies can work very well cooked over fire, too. Even still, it was a surprise to learn that more than half of Pasture's dishes are vegetarian or vegan.
Thrilling one minute, utterly infuriating the next (often on the same album and sometimes even within the same song), polarising indie-rock eccentrics the Fiery Furnaces have recently received the Toppermost treatment courtesy of first-time writer but long-time music enthusiast Nick Portnell.
As ever, there's a temptation to quibble - my selection would include two of the Friedbergers' more conventionally structured, accessible tracks, 'Evergreen' and 'My Egyptian Grammar', just to show that (to paraphrase Stewart Lee) they can write pop songs, but they just choose not to.
Some might also grumble about the inclusion of only one track from Blueberry Boat - but it's definitely the right one: the spectacular rollercoaster ride that is 'Chris Michaels', one of several songs on that record astutely described as "mini rock operas for those of us who previously regarded all rock operas to be shit".
There's also no argument from me about the decision to pick the opening trio of tracks from 2007's Widow City - 'The Philadelphia Grand Jury', 'Duplexes Of The Dead' and 'Automatic Husband' - because they all work so well together. Blueberry Boat is often cited as their magnum opus, and as an obscenely ambitious flurry of ideas I guess it is, but Widow City is arguably the better album, or at least it certainly doesn't test your patience anywhere near as regularly.
In the course of the piece, Nick nails Eleanor Friedberger's lyrics ("dense, complex and consistently baffling" - yet somehow also genius) and mentions their extraordinary live shows, which, far from being a linear sequence of songs, were "epic medleys" in which certain fragments would crop up, sink from view and then resurface later. The involvement of Sebadoh rhythm section Jason Loewenstein and Bob D'Amico helped. It'd be great to live that Widow City tour gig in Birmingham again...
1984 began - as does Ian Wade's recently published book of the same name - with Frankie Goes To Hollywood's bold, brash 'Relax' making a big bang. But it wasn't the best debut pop single of the year. That accolade belonged to Pet Shop Boys' 'West End Girls' - even if the original Bobby Orlando version went under the radar on initial release and only came to prominence late the following year, in substantially reworked and rerecorded form.
In this piece for the Quietus, Matthew Lindsay traces the evolution of a genuinely iconic song - from the flash of inspiration that brought those instantly arresting opening lines into Neil Tennant's head, to the single's international chart-topping feats. Lindsay captures its grainy moodiness and pinpoints how it ambitiously and subtly synthesises a whole host of musical and literary influences - a rich culture clash of high brow and low brow.
I'd never really thought of 'West End Girls' as a rap song until Tennant pointed it out, but it's a peculiarly English take on the genre, seeming "to reroute rap back to W H Auden reciting 'Night Mail', back to Edith Sitwell, as if they'd played an integral role in hip hop evolution".
The single voted the best #1 of all time by Guardian critics in 2020 - "perfect pop equilibrium", according to Laura Snapes - is perhaps most striking, however, for its evocation of place: "[It] remains the ultimate ode to how thrilling and unforgiving life in the capital can be, 'all the promise it held', as Tennant said, as well as all its potential perils."
It came as little surprise to learn that Benjamin Myers is busy turning his latest novel Rare Singles into a screenplay. On the page, this tale of survival, redemption and Northern soul already has all the hallmarks of a winning feelgood film. Buzz review here.
By roundabout way of promoting the book, Myers has been in conversation with his friend and fellow author Pat Barker for the Guardian, reflecting on northernness, the creative process and writing outside/beyond your own experience.
Meanwhile, for the Quietus, he's penned a paean to the three-minute pop song - a reasonably flexible definition that references everyone from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Minor Threat, Mogwai and Jane's Addiction to Kate Bush, Gong and the Supremes.
Green Man kicks off in earnest today, but I'd wager that few of those attending will have much of a idea of the sheer amount of work, stress and courage involved in putting it on. I'll admit that I didn't - until I read this Guardian article in which the festival's managing director Fiona Stewart (among others) talks about the myriad logistical challenges and strains (some unique/unexpected, some perennial), and how the preparations begin years in advance.
Perhaps the most startling statistic in the piece comes from Jon Rostron of the Association of Independent Festivals, who claims that festivals now need to sell 98 per cent of their total ticket allocation just to survive. This year's Green Man sold out instantly, but the regular announcements on social media suggest that another of the article's featured festivals, Sea Power's shindig Krankenhaus, may be struggling to meet those targets - and Capsule's marvellous experimental festival Supersonic in Birmingham too. Fingers crossed that they both pull through to fight another day.
Serendipity being what it is, I had my head deep in Ian Wade's new book 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer when I came across Peter J Walsh's images of the 20,000-strong demonstration against Clause 28 in Manchester in February 1988. They're an indication that even if pop music did properly come out of the closet in the early 1980s, by the end of the decade Thatcher's government had succeeded in actively frustrating and indeed undoing much of the wider social and cultural progress that had been made.
Thankfully, the clause was later repealed and the situation is significantly improved today, but the photos are also a timely reminder not to be complacent and to recognise that hard-won freedoms and rights can be eroded and removed as well as granted - a fact that is particularly relevant with respect to the current predicament of trans people.
On the other side of the Atlantic to Walsh, and a few years earlier, fellow photographer Nicholas Blair sensitively documented the emergent gay scene in the US. His images have been collected in Castro To Christopher: Gay Streets Of America 1979-1986, a book hailed by Huck's Miss Rosen as telling "an epic story of creativity, community, strength, joy, and resistance on two coasts". Illustrating the perennial struggle against bigotry and discrimination is important, obviously, but so too are positive, celebratory portrayals of the culture and those within it.
"[A] slow meandering walk without an obvious goal is sometimes much more enjoyable than going in a straight line from place to place", writes Geoff Nicholson in Walking On Thin Air. That's a philosophy to which I suspect Daryl Leeworthy also subscribes, if his new book is anything to go by. That said, Ponty Is It? Travels In A Valleys Town does have an overarching goal: painting a portrait of the town that is currently playing host to the Eisteddfod.
As for the rest of us, lockdown restricted Leeworthy to exploring only his immediate environs - but unlike most, he was prompted to write a book about it. "Walking was how I coped with my isolation", he confesses. "My constant companion during the pandemic was Ponty itself. We argued with each other, we revealed ourselves anew, and in the end, we learned to live together - like a couple, long married, who have threatened divorce but who realise, in moments of travail, that they were once in love and perhaps still are."
Buzz review here.
WITCH / HUTCH / DACTYL TERRA, 30TH JULY 2024, CARDIFF CLWB IFOR BACH
Back in the 1970s, rock dinosaurs roamed the earth; half a century on, South Wales' Dactyl Terra offer an aerial overview of that past. Their bop 'n' stomp boasts a heady groove but also a lightness of touch, suggestive of what might have transpired had the fun-lovin' Super Furries taken greater inspiration from the more serious psych stylings of their transatlantic pals Dead Meadow. New album Fee Fi Fo Fum is out on Dactyl Terra's own label, the wonderfully named Wasabi Overload, and the foursome generate a welcome level of heat without making us feel the burn.
Maybe it's just the fact that summer is belatedly upon us, but self-proclaimed "twang-pop post-yacht rock soft psychers" Hutch seem perfectly attuned to the season. The Brighton-based longhairs' first track in particular - a serenely melodic daydream of a daydream that recalls DIIV, It Hugs Back and Cardiff natives Sock - is redolent of hot, hazy summer afternoons blissfully zoning out at outdoor festivals, marvelling at individual blades of grass. They subsequently pick up the pace a little, but it's always a canter, never a sprint.
Such music often speaks of dejection, regret and narcotised apathy, but Hutch exude the happy-go-lucky joie de vivre suggested by the title of their EP Smile And Wave, whether giving the intro to The Who's 'Pinball Wizard' a fresh lick of paint on 'Rainbow' or paying homage to a legendary local shop on 'Radiator Centre'. Sure, there are levels of whimsy that would ordinarily stick in my throat, but it's counterbalanced by charm, musicianship and, in the final song (about snails), a genuinely goosebump-inducing climax. Fortunately for beaming frontman Jack Pritchard (think The Darkness' Justin Hawkins after three days stuck in a trouser press), who can't stop telling us how delighted they are to be here, it's fair to say they're welcome back anytime.
Few comebacks are quite as remarkable as that of tonight's headliners. WITCH formed in the newly independent Zambia in 1972 and soon earned the nickname the "Zambian Beatles", establishing themselves on record and through six-hour-long gigs as the ambassadors for "Zamrock" - less a style of music than a rich stew of Afrobeat heavily flavoured with Western influences (particularly funk and hard rock). But, as the 1970s wore on, political authoritarianism tightened its grip, and, tragically, the AIDS epidemic ravaged the band as it did the nation, reportedly taking the lives of all but one original member, vocalist Emanuel "Jagari" Chanda. After a pivot to disco, the collective disbanded in the late 1980s.
Fast forward to 2012, and - after years working as a music lecturer and gemstone miner - Chanda was inspired by rabid cratedigger enthusiasm and reissues to bring WITCH back to life, with the help of the band's now UK-based disco-era keyboardist Patrick Mwondela, lured away from a career in data protection. Since then, everything has snowballed: a 2019 documentary directed by Gio Arlotta (now the band's manager), festival appearances (including at Green Man in 2022) - and finally, in 2023, Zango, their first studio album for nearly four decades.
Is it any wonder, then, that tonight's set has a joyous, celebratory feel from the off? Chanda and Mwondela are front and centre of course, the former in particular energised by the crowd's appreciation (as well as the occasional piece of fruit), but their resurrection of WITCH clearly also hinges on the assistance of a strong and cosmopolitan supporting cast. They're a rag-tag bunch, including a poodle-haired Bulgaria-via-Switzerland guitar whizz, a metalhead bassist in a Rage Against The Machine T-shirt and a percussionist wearing white dungarees and a bucket had, but collectively they convey the vibrancy for which WITCH are famed.
Hard rock riffs rub up against loose-limbed jive on 'By The Time You Realise', a warning to wise up and mend your ways or face losing your partner; the slinky rhythmic groove of the bilingual 'Waile' underlines how Mwondela won his role in the band; and 'Introduction' from the debut LP of the same name sounds exactly like what inspired it - vintage US garage rock heard through a cheap radio. Chanda explains the stigma attached to being a musician in Zambia, especially in the disapproving eyes of paramours' parents, and tells us that if we don't buy Zango "I'm going to swim back home - and your waters aren't safe".
WITCH orginally stood for "We Intend To Cause Havoc" - as Stewart Lee once said of the IRA, they were "gentlemen terrorists" who thought it was only fair to give advance warning. But, according to Mwondela, it now means "We Intend To Cause Harmony, Healing And Bring Hope" - a laudable mission in troubled times. They can still kick up chaos, though, concluding with a riotous cover of Rufus Thomas' 'Do The Funky Chicken' and a stage invasion that (if my eyes don't deceive me) features Sam from Hang Fire/Sam And Shauna's Big Cook-Out on backing vocals.
As Mwondela told Buzz's own Billy Edwards in the run-up to the show, "a lot of people come to shows to experience the energy and warmth". On that measure, no one leaves remotely disappointed.
(An edited version of this review appeared on the Buzz website.)
I'm no Neil Young aficionado, but I generally like what I know - and genuinely love On The Beach, his bleak, cynical 1974 masterpiece.
In a pithy article marking the album's 50th birthday, the Atlantic's Elisabeth Nelson puts the release in context: five years after Woodstock, during which time the US had experienced "the circus of Watergate, the brutally pointless slog of Vietnam, and the gradual deevolution of the counterculture ethos".
Her characterisation of the record is spot on: "[a] solemn folk-rock autopsy" that "examined the rapidly corrupting values of a hippie era founded on notions of social justice and equality - an era that eventually came to embody something far darker and more compromised".
It's bold to claim that On The Beach was "possibly the first time that a minted rock star actively sought to alienate a devoted fanbase", but it certainly helped to set a precedent subsequently followed by countless artists and bands disgusted by what they've become and the followers they've attracted. If only all such deliberately repellent records sounded so good.
These Pages Sing is the newest magazine on the Welsh literary scene, with the call for submissions for its inaugural issue open until 15th August. I spoke to founder Perry Wyatt for Buzz about her background and her intentions and hopes for the publication.
I'll still maintain that my little corner of Twitter is broadly speaking a place of positivity and a source of cultural nourishment. But the platform has been an absolute horror show over the past few days: video after video of unprovoked violence against non-white people, looting of shops, hotels housing asylum seekers being torched and stormed by baying mobs.
And, as Carole Cadwalladr set out in an article for the Observer, social media is not only reflecting the chaos, disorder and hate but actively generating them, its algorithms designed to function as a "polarisation engine" that then fans the flames.
It's not a problem particular to the UK. As Cadwalladr notes, "what we are witnessing is part of a global phenomenon - rising populism and authoritarianism underpinned by deep-rooted structural changes in communication". What is most concerning, she notes, is that "although academics, researchers and policymakers increasingly understand the problem, almost nothing has been done to address it". If the current unrest doesn't prompt urgent attempts to tackle the issue in this country, at least, then it's hard to see what will.
Of course, it should be added that social media isn't the sole spark that has caused the conflagration. The mainstream media have also been complicit. It's appalling to see the Daily Mail wringing its hands in dismay at the violent actions of racist thugs when its front pages have repeatedly stoked the fire. The BBC aren't immune to criticism either, given Question Time's recurrent platforming of Nigel Farage. Cadwalladr herself may not be to blame, and neither may her employers - but the mainstream media as a whole need to take a long, hard look in the mirror.
It seems that No. 5, the successor to long-standing Romilly Crescent restaurant Bully's, is to close after only a year - but the prospect of what's coming next has got me licking my lips.
It's safe to say that Tommy Heaney and Dave Killick are whatever the chef equivalent of a supergroup is. The latter has been instrumental in putting the Heathcock firmly on the gastropub map, while Heaney should need no introduction, as the proprietor of both Heaney's - currently (and understandably) ranked the finest restaurant in Wales - and the neighbouring Uisce, opposite the new premises.
As with most of the best ideas, the as-yet-unnamed venture was conceived over a pint, and Heaney is promising that it will offer "a new concept for Cardiff" - a bold claim, but one that he and Killick are certainly capable of delivering on.
Too many cooks spoil the broth? In this case, I very much doubt it.
Less welcome, however, is the announcement that Poca faces an uncertain future. The small-plates restaurant, situated a short hop from Romilly Crescent on Kings Road, will soon be closing its doors because the building is being sold and they can't raise the revenue to buy it. The Instagram post states that they will be "reassess[ing] the situation in the coming months", but there's no certainty that the restaurant will be resurrected elsewhere.
It's a stark reminder that business can be good and you can have earned plaudits from local food writers, and yet the rug can still be yanked out from under your feet with little warning.