{"id":32193,"date":"2013-07-31T09:30:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-31T09:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejoycollective.co.uk\/blog\/?p=32193"},"modified":"2014-09-04T11:40:01","modified_gmt":"2014-09-04T11:40:01","slug":"august-preview-live-highlights-this-month-for-cardiff-newport-and-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/preview\/august-preview-live-highlights-this-month-for-cardiff-newport-and-bristol\/","title":{"rendered":"August preview: live highlights this month for Cardiff, Newport and Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

CARS CAN BE BLUE \/ TOTEM TERRORS \/ FRANCESCA\u2019S WORD SALAD \/ SHINY TIGER, Four Bars, 2nd<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n

Like the Lovely Eggs, who play Clwb this week, CCBB arrive in Cardiff fresh from Indietracks and are a similarly, refreshingly coarse antidote to certain elements of the tweepop norm.\u00a0 Finally snared by Liz from the School, it\u2019s heartening to see them make it over at all given the nightmare scenario that befell them on their planned 2008 jaunt with Hotpants Romance; detained on arrival at Manchester airport, they were finally turned back home after a hideous and sadly believable experience with unsympathetic UK immigration officials.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got work visas this time!\u00a0 You live and learn, dudes.\u00a0 In the head-slappingly inane shorthand this \u2018column\u2019 has been built on, CCBB can be likened to a sloppy, punk-pop take on Moldy Peaches\u2019 scatological merriment, or a sex-obsessed Matt & Kim with the pop smarts of Tullycraft.\u00a0 Seek out \u2018Coat Tails\u2019 for starters, a gleeful, withering put-down of second-rate Pitchfork fodder that easily matches Helen Love\u2019s \u2018Long Live The UK Music Scene\u2019 for waspish, perfectly-pitched sarcasm.\u00a0 Funny, catchy, smart and smutty, they\u2019ll be masses of fun.\u00a0 Worth that five-year wait, too.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n

SPIDER KITTEN \/ CEMENTIMENTAL \/ JIMMY ROWE, Le Pub, 3rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Free gig!\u00a0 Rare hometown show for the psych\/doom\/stoner dons whose still-fresh Cougar Club<\/i> will, if there\u2019s any justice, shortly be making the Welsh Music Prize shortlist.\u00a0 They\u2019re also promising up to three new tunes from its follow-up at this gig, suggesting a far shorter wait until the next one.\u00a0 Good. \u00a0Anyone who’s seen Spider Kitten nimbly experimenting with variations on their sound over the years, or attended one of their excellent Loserpalooza events, will know they’ve a healthy disinterest in surrounding themselves with mono-cellular all-metal line-ups.\u00a0 So it is here, with Cementimental returning to Newport to unleash his signatures volleys of bracing electronic scree and circuit-bent machine noise.\u00a0 He’s released a frightening amount of stuff on CD-R, from brain-scouring feedback hell to weirdly hypnotic loops of bubbling found-sound and rancid techno.\u00a0 Last time I saw him and Spider Kitten on the same bill he was wheeling about in a noose of cables while a scratch grindcore band pummelled away behind him.\u00a0 Pretty rad.\u00a0 Replacing the Death Of Her Money on the bill, due largely to Kaskie’s ongoing issues with a broken arm, is the Southern-fried country blues of Jimmy Rowe, whose recent EP is produced by Chi out of Spider Kitten and who performed at the inaugural Loserpalooza alldayer in 2011.\u00a0 This year’s edition is next month and will feature here.\u00a0 How’s that for organisation?<\/p>\n

SHIT & SHINE \/ GNOD \/ BIG NATURALS \/ BIG JOAN \/ H, St John The Baptist Crypt, 3rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Repetition, noise,\u00a0absurdity, madness.\u00a0 These are the weapons of Craig Clouse and whoever\u00a0else is in Shit\u00a0& Shine at the time.\u00a0 Particularly the repetition bit.\u00a0 Remember their Lesson No. 1 show in Clwb in 2008?\u00a0 Huge great monolithic walls of terror-drums, Boredoms and Can and grisly old pigfuck\/industrial bands and Butthole Surfers’ smiling malevolence.\u00a0 They are\/were magnificent.\u00a0 The live shows tend to\u00a0focus heavily on the lengthy drum workouts, so cross your fingers for a rendition of ‘Practicing To Be A Doctor’ and get ready to loosen your neck. \u00a0Mancunian fiends Gnod are a less prankster S&S on marginally less terrifying drugs.\u00a0 Lord knows how many drummers are actually employed on\u00a0Chaudelande<\/em>; it sounds like there are at least three, all of whom are steroid-addled bricklayers.\u00a0 Their bludgeoning attack, coupled with the acidic hurricane of feral guitar noise, marks them out in similar territory to Hey Colossus, with the grimy motorik repetition of Action Beat and a fearsomely hypnotic psych-kraut heat-haze somewhere between Popol Vuh, Oneida and Earl Brutus.\u00a0 I might be in love with this record.\u00a0 They’ve clearly imbibed, amongst many other things,\u00a0 a lot of drone, improv, space rock and blissed-out African psych too.\u00a0 Pick a spot in their catalogue – Chaudelande<\/em>, the splits with S&S or White Hills, any of their CD-R series – and dive in.\u00a0 Elsewhere here, should it be even vaguely necessary to tempt you further, lie several of Bristol’s very finest, with hosts Big Joan, monolithic riff goons Big Naturals and Zamzam records’ H rounding out a spectacular line-up.\u00a0 Do. Not. Miss.<\/p>\n

JOANNA GRUESOME \/ KING OF CATS \/ SOMETHING \/ GINDRINKER \/ IDES, Buffalo, 6th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next Joy Collective-related gig!\u00a0 Along with Reeks Of Effort we are chuffed to co-present this excellent line-up headlined by boy\/girl wonders Joanna Gruesome. \u00a0They’ve done everything right, more than they could ever have imagined; a keened-over demo, single for HHBTM, forthcoming album for Slumberland, produced by man-of-the-hour MJ out of Hookworms.\u00a0 It’s a blinder<\/em> of an album, too; the handful of songs re-recorded from those earlier releases are utterly reborn, toughened and enhanced without a hint of unnecessary gloss or the queasy over-compression that blighted the debuts of recent forebears.\u00a0 It will chime with lovers of recent indie-pop high rankers like Pains Of Being Pure At Heart or Veronica Falls, but it’s the Goo<\/em>-era Sonic Youth squall, clammy Beat Happening faux-innocence\u00a0and swooning, distortion-wracked noisepop melodies that\u00a0pin your heart to the bedroom wall.\u00a0\u00a0You will love it, of course.\u00a0 Lan’s solo project Ides, whose gorgeous, bruised minimalism informs JG’s quieter, Galaxie 500-informed\u00a0moments, opens here, part of a stellar supporting cast.\u00a0 In particular, those unfamiliar with ex-Fantasy Rainbow chap Oliver Catt’s work as Something should make a point of checking him out, thickets of spindly lullaby teased out on banjo and violin which suddenly lurch into giddy, beautiful sunbursts of horns and drums and wonder.\u00a0 YES.<\/p>\n

SAMOANS \/ THIS IS WRECKAGE \/ THE EPICDEMICS, Clwb. 9th<\/strong><\/p>\n

A headline gig to celebrate their first release with a rejigged line-up.\u00a0 ‘Antlers’ is a pocket gem, Samoans’ history to date wrapped up in four minutes; twisty, complex mathy guitar lines\u00a0winds in and out of beautifully atmospheric rock that’s as melodic and accessible as anything on Elevated Reflections<\/em> but tempers the quiet-loud exaltation of ‘Catamaran’ with a little more reflection and poise.\u00a0 Still splendidly reminiscent of Aereogramme, then, but with a bit of early (decent) Biffy Clyro to Dan’s vocal and a bit of early (brilliant) Don Caballero in the intricate, percussion-heavy noodling.\u00a0 Full album this year then, yeah?\u00a0 Alongside them here, the enjoyably ugly racket of This Is Wreckage follows The Epicdemics, who, should you not yet have had the pleasure, are Jimmy and Julia from FOTL and Bernie from Right Hand Left Hand.\u00a0 Less denim and cowboy hats than Strange News, but retaining their penchant for volume, speed and hugely entertaining patter.\u00a0 Be early!<\/p>\n

HARRY & THE POTTERS \/ MARTHA \/ FROZY, Cafe Kino, 14th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Word to the uninitiated: this is for real.\u00a0 Joe and Paul DeGeorge formed H&TP in 2002.\u00a0 Their entire, pretty substantial, recorded output concerns the Harry Potter universe, and they perform dressed as the boy wizard himself.\u00a0 They have inspired an entire cross-genre musical concept – Wizard Rock – that spans indie rock, metal, breakcore and more, and in which bands perform as particular characters, or to their narratives.\u00a0 It is, let’s be fair, completely ludicrous.\u00a0 But that’s the point.\u00a0 It’s also, in the case of H&TP, perfectly possible to enjoy without having seen or read a single entry in the Potter canon; they specialise in yearning, air-punching lo-fi nuggets that variously recall Weezer, GBV, early tweepop Of Montreal and, in particular, trebly, overdriven synthpop like Japanther or Best Fwends.\u00a0 Except about a fictional wizard. They mainly play library or school shows, promoting teen literacy (of course), and this latest UK jaunt is with pretty adorable Durham kids Martha whose emo-tinged indiepop will compete hard for your heart.\u00a0 Wizard Rock, guys.\u00a0 I just don’t know what to think anymore.<\/p>\n

ARBOURETUM \/ ST PIERRE SNAKE INVASION, Exchange, 18th<\/strong><\/p>\n

If ever a band deserved the unpleasant descriptor ‘troubadours’, then Baltimore folk-rock gentlemen Arbouretum fit the saddle.\u00a0 Equal parts buttoned-up Presbyterian Will Oldhams and lo-fi cosmic Neil Youngs across their first three or so albums, a pretty lovely mix assuming you can get behind Dave Heumann’s weighty, austere lyrical concerns, they detoured slightly into windy desert rock for 2010’s The Gathering<\/em>.\u00a0 It wasn’t a move without success, with some cracking drawn-out fuzz-heavy solos that saw them mutate from Dead Meadow choogling into almost Saharan blues, and though music as parched as that could use a little more liquor and fun than Arbouretum offered up there’s still plenty to get your teeth into.\u00a0 Start with Rites Of Uncovering<\/em>, if you want my two pence.\u00a0 Not exactly sure why TSPSI are the choice for support – if you’d have preferred Mclusky if they’d sounded 30% more like the Datsuns, they’re your boys – but there we are.<\/p>\n

THE FLATMATES \/ DESIGN \/ FLOWERS, Exchange, 23rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Spikier of heart and straighter of spine than many contemporaries, the twee\/shambling label never sat well on Bristol’s Flatmates; they shared the knack for pinpoint girl-group harmonies that the Shop Assistants did, but their swirling guitars and punchy, propulsive rhythms were more akin to the Popguns.\u00a0 Songwriter Martin Whitehead’s Subway Organisation label was pivotal in establishing the C86 scene, predating Bristol mainstays Sarah and bridging the gap between indiepop and the fuzzier, poppier end of shoegaze.\u00a0 This reformation\/reunion, cautiously worked out over the last five or so years, sees Whitehead and one other original Flatmate with a new band and new vocalist revisiting the hugely endearing likes of ‘I Could Be In Heaven’ from the tumultuous four years before the original line-up’s messy implosion in 1989.<\/p>\n

THE PIRATE SHIP QUINTET \/ WICKET, Le Pub, 23rd<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two Newport gigs in one month!\u00a0 Unprecedented!\u00a0 Sorry Newport, I am crap.\u00a0 Anyway, here’s another blinder in a generally fairly quiet month; Bristolian post-metal er, septet TPSQ are still a rarely-seen sight, emerging gradually after a five-year gestation period for their full-length debut Rope For No-Hopers<\/em>, they’re apparently more settled and playing more as a result.\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 RFNH<\/em> values the epic slow-build and grandstanding payoff trick more than most post-rock peers, but they’ve the chops to make it work and a pleasing lack of pomposity which means the emotional weight remains but without any unnecessary cheesiness.\u00a0 The presence of a full-time cellist inevitably means Grails are a good reference point, while the lengthy, flab-free panoramas and storming crescendos will recall Red Sparowes, Isis, maybe Neurosis too.\u00a0 Will be nice to see Wicket again, too; supple math-rock dovetails with moody Thrill Jockey ambience and plangent piano on their excellent three-track Bandcamp demo which I’d highly recommend shelling out \u00a32 for.<\/p>\n

HUB FESTIVAL, Various Womanby Street venues, 23rd-25th<\/strong><\/p>\n

A laudable undertaking, and one we’ll feature much more as the line-up takes shape, this three-day festival will see around 150 bands and DJs play across the venues of Cardiff’s most fertile live music area.\u00a0 Clwb, Dempseys\/Four Bars, the Full Moon & Moon Club, City Arms, Fuel and the Cardiff Fashion Quarter warehouse space will all host stuff, and the Joy Collective is very pleased to be a part of it.\u00a0 We’ve got together with our pal Adam from Balderdash to curate the Clwb bill, which is especially nice for us after our planned alldayer in June fell victim to multiple counts of bad luck.\u00a0 We’ll have Right Hand Left Hand, Them Squirrels, Sen Segur, Gwenno, Zail, Y Pencadlys and Shhh…Apes! all playing, and hopefully a bunch of excellent folk DJing for us too.\u00a0 It’s going to be a celebration, and the whole thing will be crazy cheap.\u00a0 Get involved!<\/p>\n

DUCKTAILS \/ CAPE \/ THE CRISIS PROJECT, Louisiana, 24th<\/strong>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

It’s not quite in danger of taking over the day job, but Matt Mondanile’s one-time lo-fi side project, doodle repository and clearing house for song fragments that didn’t make it to his ‘main’ band Real Estate has suddenly become something altogether more composed and substantial.\u00a0 The version of Ducktails heard on this year’s fourth collection\u00a0The Flower Lane<\/em> bears little resemblance to the gauzy, sun-bleached pop heard half-buried under tape hiss and biscuit tin drums on Arcade Dynamics<\/em>, let alone the barely-there collages of his previous efforts.\u00a0 The Arcade Dynamics<\/em> high spots – the countrified Malkmus breeze of ‘Hamilton Road’, the glorious twang and melodic rush of ‘Don’t Make Plans’ – have a clear lineage with the rushes of pure spring that lit up Real Estate’s Days<\/em>, sharing a patch of common ground somewhere between early Shins and the Sea & Cake.\u00a0 On The Flower Lane<\/em>, the jazz-pop arrangements hinted at by the latter influence bloom further into comfortable FM pastiche, and guest performers (Cults, Ford & Lopatin) mould Mondanile’s ideas into something bearing little resemblance to much he’s done before.\u00a0 He’s touring here with a full band, so some of the glossier, twilit pop moves he’s edged into could be on show, but whatever Ducktails turns up expect insidious earworms and relaxed, breezy drone-pop treats.<\/p>\n

MERCHANDISE \/ EAGULLS \/ CHAIN OF FLOWERS, Globe, 27th<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wait, this is a punk band?\u00a0 Merchandise’s ‘breakthrough’ album Totale Nite<\/em>, released on Iowa City micro-indie and tape label Night People, is comprised of many excellent things but hardly suggests the punk and hardcore roots the trio emerged from.\u00a0 Here is the urgency of post-punk, the machine-drum rhythms of\u00a0Darklands<\/em>-era Mary Chain, guitars that swirl shoegazily and (as on the utterly lovely ‘I’ll Be Gone’) pick out glorious glissando solos and Carson Cox’s relaxed, yearning croon, located somewhere between the National’s Matt Berninger and Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis.\u00a0 Cox chooses to stay lower in the mix, a part of the swarming, romantic whole, especially on the more drawn-out likes of ‘Totale Nite’ itself where MBV-style jet engine FX and bursts of blaring saxophone fill out the sound still further.\u00a0 This ought to be a fantastic show, one of the month’s best, not least for some superb support choices – Chain Of Flowers’ own gloomy, agitated post-punk noise is a perfect counterpoint for Merchandise, and anyone who saw visceral, brattish and deafeningly loud Leeds bruisers Eagulls at Swn two years back will know how great they are.\u00a0 Anyone who didn’t, listen to ‘Coffin’ and tell me I’m wrong.\u00a0 Once again: Do. Not. Miss.<\/p>\n

DAUGHN GIBSON, Exchange, 30th<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is a confounding thing.\u00a0 A tombstone-faced, baritone-voiced crooner with a remarkable line in vocal contortions, Daughn Gibson’s debut All Hell<\/em>, released on Pissed Jeans dude Matt Korvette’s White Denim label, samples broadly from country, folk and gospel, dusts the results with subtle electronic flourishes (a stuttering, echo-brushed James Blake treatment here, muted drum patterns there) and provides a timeless-sounding bed for that voice.\u00a0 A little M Ward, a bit Scott Walker, maybe Richard Hawley attempting a Roy Orbison impression,\u00a0words warp at the edges like they’re sliding out of his mouth by accident, slip and slide across the songs and lend it a slightly unreal, plasticky quality.\u00a0 His videos (particularly ‘Kissin On The Blacktop’, from new LP Me Moan<\/em>) add to this, with a weird MTV slick-sheen and\u00a0the\u00a0coked-out, dislocated air of Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant<\/em> remake.\u00a0 His band on the new LP draw from Baroness, and he was previously in stoner dudes Pearls & Brass.\u00a0 All very curious, but certainly worth investigation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CARS CAN BE BLUE \/ TOTEM TERRORS \/ FRANCESCA\u2019S WORD SALAD \/ SHINY TIGER, Four Bars, 2nd Like the Lovely Eggs, who play Clwb this week, CCBB arrive in Cardiff fresh from Indietracks and are a similarly, refreshingly coarse antidote to certain elements of the tweepop norm.\u00a0 Finally snared by Liz from the School, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,458],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlights","category-preview"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}