MUSIC NEWS EXTRA
Dirty Revolution BBC Wales’ Horizons enterprise scheme, launched by DJ Bethan Elfyn earlier this year with the aim of giving a promotional push to 12 Welsh acts on a monthly basis, is to be supplemented with an extra funding scheme. Titled Launchpad, it will be offering awards of up to £2,000 to bands or artists who apply – that is to say, it’s not intended to bankroll a career, rather be put towards the costs of something like a van (Elfyn’s chosen example). The stipulations for applying: you must be based in Wales, play your own stuff, have been played on Radio Wales or Radio Cymru, and enter by Mon 3 Nov. More at www.bbc.co.uk/horizons While crowdfunding becomes more widely used at all levels of the music industry, the public disgruntlement with the continuing existence of the loathed ‘booking fee’ remains steady. In Cardiff, meanwhile, a new booking platform is being developed which addresses both these factors, likewise people’s increasing desire to know exactly how their money is being spent. Tocyn (tocyn. launchrock.com) is an online box office which allows consumers to donate their
booking fees to local arts charities and community projects. Birthed with the help of Community Music Wales and free fundraising platform Zequs, it’s not operational yet, but is keen to hear from organisations who might either sell on it, or reap its charitable benefits Cardiff sextet Dirty Revolution have taken their extremely jaunty, pointedly political ska-punk sound far and wide in the last few years, releasing two albums and becoming much loved among Europe’s skanking community. As of this month, they’ll be breaking up, signing off with a final gig in Cardiff’s Moon Club on Halloween. The split, announced back in June, is amicable and indeed reluctant: DR vocalist Reb is mother to a two-yearold, and – for now at least – has elected to concentrate on this rather than the band’s tireless touring schedule. There’ll also be a four-song EP, Burn After Listening, available to pre-order now The Coal Exchange, an iconic landmark of Cardiff Bay and fondly recalled in its latter-day capacity as a music venue, has been closed since May last year due
to its innards being structurally unsound. Developers’ plans to purchase it and turn it into flats suggested its days as a vessel for the arts were irrefutably numbered. However, in September its owners GYG Exchange Ltd went into liquidation, citing the cost of owning and maintaining the building. Its future thus in limbo, there’s already been talk of returning it to its former status, with Labour MP for Cardiff South Stephen Doughty forming an ‘action group’ dedicated to this In spite of being a singular and acclaimed Welsh folk talent, both solo and as a member of the band Fernhill, Julie Murphy evidently does not feel pressured to churn out product. A full decade separates her second solo album, Lilac Tree, and its followup, 2012’s A Quiet House. However, Murphy recently announced a new solo full-length, due to be released in 2015. Interest levels will be done no harm by her presence high in the UK album charts of late, as a guest vocalist on Robert Plant’s new Lullaby And... The Ceaseless Roar. Percy enlisted Murphy to interpolate an ancient Welsh ballad on the track Embrace Another Fall
ONE TO WATCH... HMS MORRIS
HMS Morris, the solo project of Heledd Watkins turned curio-pop threepiece, came into being in 2013 but have only properly hit the ground running this year. This year also marks the centenary of HMS Morris, a WWI British war ship. Beyond their name, and their having titled a (digital-only) single from earlier this year Shipping Forecast, there is little that obviously connects the Cardiff-based trio to nautical matters, let alone ones of devastating conflict. As it turns out, HMS Morris’ agreeably inexact take on synthpop, psychedelia and indiepop probably serves them better than if they were playing sea shanties, or were a military brass band. Having played in a short-lived Cardiff band called Bare Left circa 2009, Watkins moved to London and scored some acting and session musician gigs, notably becoming bassist in Emmy The Great. Now relocated to Cardiff, she’s joined in HMS Morris by Sam Roberts (bass/synth) and Wil Roberts (drums), both of whom used to play in Mwsog. This new venture allows them to continue combining electronic and pastoral moods, as showcased on a new two-track single released by north Wales label Blinc. I Grind My Teeth starts off with a deceptively cheap drum machine, quickly swelling into an earworm pop number that recalls Catatonia and The Postal Service in equal measure. I Dream Of The Diner breaks out the creepy garage organ, slyly brooding for most of its 3:44 length but unable to resist a buoyant pop chorus. They often sing in Welsh, too, but – like Candelas, profiled last month – HMS Morris have the potential to find favour far and wide. www.facebook.com/hmsmorrisband
BUZZ 46
one louder IN an attempt to claw back some perspective, I tried thinking of all the genuinely horrific things happening on the planet right now: the murderous fanatics steamrollering the Middle East, the social conditions which created them and the likely death toll exacerbated by the West’s imminent meddling. The diseases, the despots and the disasters. It was futile. Before long, I had to front up and accept that the thing causing me the most vexation today was going to St Fagans’ popular National History Museum and seeing that they were selling bottles of Brains SA for an eyepopping £5.25. I mean, what the hell? What would possess anyone to think that was a logical price for something which was mass-produced in Wales’ largest brewery, travelled a distance of about four miles from said brewery and costs in the region of two quid in local supermarkets? The only demographic I can envisage being willing to pony up that much dough are foreign tourists who are being cavalier with their money because they’re on holiday and/or have no idea how much things ought to cost. Pretty sure, though, that the Museum is mainly patronised by people who live round here, so this nonsense won’t fly with them. I can tell they’re sensible folk by their sturdy unisex clothing. It’s worth noting, if only to stop this reading quite so much like a disgruntled Tripadvisor jeremiad, that ‘beer culture’ (yep) has changed markedly in the last couple of years. People – I refer to myself here, really, but I know there are many others like me – who once would have previously baulked at the idea of paying even £4 for a pint now do just that on the reg. Heck, I might even stretch to £5.25 if it was something really wild and unusual, which is to say not Brains SA. A number of factors come into play here: inflation in general; arsehole pubcos who charge landlords outrageous fees for rent and booze, which has to be passed on to the customer; and the proverbial craft beer revolution, which has led to actual good beer in places that were previously deserts for such stuff. A lot of it comes from overseas and is made in relatively small batches, often with tons of hops, so necessarily costs far more per unit than a bottle of Stella or whatever. There are, of course, undoubtedly chancers who’ve noticed that craft beer is ‘a thing’, taken into account that a fool and his money will be parting, and whacked up the price on some fairly standard ales. All pretty entry level stuff to experts in the beer field, which I certainly don’t claim to be. To make this more general, though, it’s one of many consumer products which the general public have a fixed idea about how much it should cost. The intermittent need to raise the prices of things is sensitive at the best of times, and especially so in a period of economic hardship. One area I’m reasonably well versed in is small-scale/ DIY/etc gigs, entry to which has cost about the same price for as long as I’ve been attending them. In many ways, this is plainly an absurdity, as the costs involved with being in a band or running a music venue are most certainly not the same as they were 15 years ago. Yet getting this message to people in general is tricky, and that’s why it still so often costs a fiver to see three or four bands, one or two of whom might be on tour. Try punting it out at £10, to enable everyone to get paid adequately, and watch as no bugger attends. Hard to think of a snappy turn of phrase to make people understand: maybe “we’re in this together”? STEVE IGNORANT (The Moon Club, Cardiff, Sat 4 Oct), THE STUPIDS (Le Pub, Newport, Sat 4), ADMIRAL SIR CLOUDSLEY SHOVELL (Moon Club, Mon 6), TIR NA NOG (Chapter Arts Centre, Thurs 9), EAGULLS (Clwb Ifor Bach, Sat 11), HAIKU SALUT (Dempseys, Sun 12), THAT FUCKING TANK (Moon Club, Tue 14), PURSON (Static Bar, Swansea, Fri 17), LEFT LANE CRUISER (Le Pub, Sat 18) and THEE FACTION (Le Pub, Fri 31) will be paid adequately for their services in some cases, less so in others. NOEL GARDNER