Live Music: Cut Ribbons at Y Tair Pluen, 19/2/11

 

Cut Ribbons playing at Y Tair Pluen, Cardiff

Of all the incredible music venues Cardiff has to offer, the Y Tair Pluen pub, next to the Owain Glyndwr would probably not be the first on my list to visit. I didn’t even know it staged bands, to be honest. However, after first encountering their name on the list of many promising bands at last year’s Swn Festival, I noticed Cut Ribbons name, and had also been asked to interview them for The Whiteboard Project.

 

Luckily I was right. Hailing from Llanelli, Cut Ribbons have been together since 2009. Members include Aled Rees, Anna Griffiths, Chris James, Shane Lee, and Caio Griffiths. Despite being talent spotted by the musical genius of Huw Stephens and John Rostron who organise Swn Fest, the band are still yet to be signed and are still working on getting the band off the ground doing mostly local gigs, such as the one I found them at.

This is difficult to understand for two reasons, 1. You would be hard pushed to find a friendlier, more deserving group of people when all the arrogant try-hards seem to get recording deals with no problem…Not mentioning any names, Razorlight. 2. When they start playing, it is all too easy to imagine hearing their songs in big, packed venues, or blasting out of your earphones. Their music is amazing.

The venue, a usually sleepy host to old Welsh men drinking Brains, was suddenly filled with a promising large number of people, and an all-encompassing noise that draws you in in such a way that only a few bands are capable of doing. The juxtaposition between heavy instrumental reverberations and the delicate harmony of Aled and Anna’s voices is something quite special, leaving you unsure of whether to mosh or sigh.

Although their repertoire would not manage to fill an album yet, my particular track favourites would have to be When Will The Water and Knock Me Down, the latter of which was included as one of Big Scary Monsters‘ 2010 Collection.

They are a band worth looking out for – a message I would stress to potential fans and record labels.

An Interview with Stagecoach

Sat in a dark corner of one of Cardiff’s more intimate and quirky venues, Buffalo Bar, Luke and Matt from Stagecoach spare some of their precious pre-gig time to talk to me about their UK tour with Johnny Foreigner.

You’ve done 3 gigs so far on the tour, how’s it going?

Luke: Yeah, good. There’s been a good reaction from the crowds, and I think we’re playing to a bunch of new people, which is cool.

What sort of gig-wagon are you sporting for the tour?

L: It’s an ex-Royal Mail van, so it’s big and red, and it’s got a stupid face.

Matt: It’s got, like, a big nose. It looks really clumpy.

L: It was only £700 though, so if he dies after this tour he’ll have served us well.

When does he have to keep going until?

L: The second week of December.

M: In Edinburgh.

L: And then we’ve gotta go all the way back down to London, so about as far as you can go.

Album art for JoFo/Stagecoach split single

So, you’re split CD came out last Monday. Who did the artwork for it?

 

L: There’s a guy called Mark Gamble who does all of our art work, and a guy called Lewis who has always done the Johnny Foreigner art work.

M: It’s a proper split of music and art work, so everyone’s come together for it, which is quite nice.

L: It’s a joint effort, with covering each other.

Did you guys decide to do the split before the tour, or was it a result of going on tour together?

L: It was a nice bonus to go hand in hand with the tour, and Jack, who runs our label (Alcopop!) thought it’d be nice to have something to sell, promoting the gigs, which it does.

How come Johnny Foreigner came over to Alcopop!?

L: I think they were just looking for a different label, they really liked what Alcopop! Did as they have a really nice DIY ethic, and it just seemed like the best label for them when they were looking for something new. And Jack, who runs Alcopop! Has always liked them, so it worked out well.

What was it like covering each other’s records?

L: It was really fun, obviously I can’t speak for them, but me and Matt did the Johnny Foreigner cover, and we had a really good, fun day doing it, at his Mum’s house.

M: We only had like 5 or 6 hours to do it, it would’ve been so good if we’d had a day, or two or three days to do it because we were going to do Suicide Pact, but we just didn’t have enough time. But I kind of had a little idea for Spinderella, so we did that in about 5 hours. It was really good fun.

Were you worried about showing it to them?

L: Yeah, I’ve always been a fan of Johnny Foreigner, so it was a bit scary – we’d at least met Alexi a few times, so it wasn’t so weird. But we were certainly pretty excited to see what they’d done with our stuff as well.

M: Yeah, we heard what they’d done and it was like ‘aaaah, theirs is amazing!’

L: They did an amazing job with all these, like barber shop harmonies and stuff –

M: – it sounds so cool!

L: We’re hoping to do something on tour where you can get a combination of both, so they’ll do some barber shop harmonies on the song, which should be cool.

So would you all be on stage at the same time?

L: Yeah, there’s been some of that going on already.

M: It keeps growing the more we go on tour, so by the time we hit Scotland we’ll just be one big band!

Like a super-band? What would you call yourselves?

L: Jo-Co!

So you’re off to Cambridge tomorrow, will you get to see much of Cardiff?

L: Not really, we were here two or three weeks ago for Swn festival, so this is our second time in a month. That was brilliant. We couldn’t stay around much for that really either – we had to go back to London that night, but I loved it. The feel of it was great.

I saw you there, they put you in a really small venue? (Y Fuwch Goch)

M: Yeah, smaller venues are way better though, I’d rather play to a packed small venue than the same amount of people in a bigger venue, you just get such a good atmosphere in a smaller space.

So, Matt, I saw on Twitter you forgot some of your kit for a gig the other day? How did you get over that one?

M: I forgot like two-thirds of my kit. It was just me and John, our bass player, and we were coming down from London on the first day and loading up the van, and I just left everything apart from my bass drum – stand, stool, pedals, everything was in the boot and I just totally forgot! I managed to have a Bombay mix of Junior’s stuff, and the band before us, Attention Thieves, I nicked a load of their stands and managed to put something together.

That was lucky!

M: It was really lucky, if it had happened tonight, there’s only us and JoFo playing and I would have been a bit stuck!

Nick at Swn Festival 2010 in Y Fuwch Goch

You all like to climb around a lot while you’re performing, is that just something you’ve always done?

 

L: I think it’s nice to bring the show to people, it shows you care more rather than just standing rooted to the spot. It gets the crowd involved more, they can’t avoid it, and it just makes it more fun for everyone. It makes you feel like you’re altogether enjoying the gig, rather than there being two halves; one half band one half audience. If you mess it up it’s more fun.

I liked it at Swn festival when someone shoved their guitar on a guy standing at the front.

L: Poor guy. Someone gets the mandolin every night, whether they like it or not. They always try to escape but they always get it. The one that looks the most scared ends up with it.

Has it ever gone horribly wrong?

L: No, not really.

M: Tom slipped on my bass drum and pretty much took out the whole kit!

L: The first night of the tour as well in Reading he tried to jump the barrier and tripped on a monitor and that collapsed and he just fell through the gap! So, yeah, it goes wrong for Tom, but nobody else.

What have Stagecoach got on for 2011?

L: Hopefully everything. An album, definitely go to Europe, maybe America and Japan. We want to play every day really.

M: That is the dream, just doing it full-time, we’re not quite doing it full-time at the moment and it’s hard working as well as doing gigs. It feels like we’re so close but at the same time not quite there yet, we need that final bump really.

So are you trying to do full-time jobs too?

L: Yeah, four out of five of us are working every day. A couple of guys have been working today and are still on their way down here now, and the whole tour’s been a bit like that. It’s cool though, we won’t ever complain about it because we love it.

M: You’ve got to do it, you’ve got no choice, you still need money to pay the rent.

L: We’ve had a couple of nightmare ones where we’ve had to drive up to Manchester for like an hour, playing, driving straight home and then getting up for work a couple of hours later, I can’t really recommend that to other bands.

M: But those shows have paid off, you get bits of press and stuff. We wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t worth it.

L: Yeah, as long as you get something small out of each gig, even if it’s just one or two more people who love what you do and wouldn’t have heard it before, then it’s worth it.

If you do an album would you make it all new stuff or use some tracks from the EPs you’ve already released?

L: By the time an album comes out there will still be a lot of people who have never heard of us, so it’ll be a case of picking the best bits – re-recording those, and then adding new material for the people who do know us.

M: For people who have been quite loyal and been to all the shows, we wouldn’t want to give them an album of everything they’ve already got. You’ve got to have new stuff. The best of your past and the best of what you can come up with.

L: Yeah, we’ll combine it. And if we do use some of those older tracks, we will re-record them, so it’ll be a new sound.

What other bands at the moment are you most excited about?

L: Some of our best friends are in bands; Hold Your Horse Is, we love, on our sister record label (Big Scary Monsters). My First Tooth on our label are great.

M: They brought out an album this year and it’s just solid!

L: Outside of that there’s a band called the JCQ who I’m quite excited about, it’d be great to do some shows with them at some point.

M: You can’t not mention Pulled Apart By Horses, just because they’re screaming the way forward for bands like us getting recognised and getting out there.

L: Pretty much anything you find on Alcopop! or Big Scary Monsters is 100% awesome. I’d recommend any of those bands, there’s not one bad thing on there.

To get your ears round some of Stagecoach and Johnny Foreigner’s stuff, go to the Alcopop! shop.

Swn Festival. 21-23 October.

The third annual Swn Festival descended on Cardiff for three days of alternative musical offerings at venues across the city. Thursday and Friday night, and all day on Saturday saw over 150 bands play. They are all up-and-coming acts, having been hand picked by the festival’s organisers, Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and Cardiff promoter John Rostron.

One of the reasons why Swn Festival works so well is Cardiff’s range of small, quirky venues positioned conveniently close together. They can be seen on the map below:

View Larger Map

Several of the venues are quite small, which is great as they tend to house bands that are really new and have smaller followings, meaning you can wander into a pub like Dempsey’s and witness a really intimate performance with an amazing new band. There is also quite a high possibility that the band is local, as part of the Swn philosophy is to give a platform to Welsh acts that might not get the chance to play to an audience much bigger than their local village pub.

There was a lot of music over the three days, so I shall only delve into some of my personal festival highlights which would definitely be worth having a listen to or keeping a lookout for next time they are on tour.

The first of these is the Big Scary Monsters record label showcase at Y Fwuch Goch on Thursday night. This featured Dad Rocks, Stagecoach, Mimas, Tall Ships and Talons.

Unfortunately a traffic malfunction meant we missed Dad Rocks, which is a shame as his photo in the Swn leaflet wearing a silver shiny astronaut’s costume made him more than a little bit intriguing.

Stagecoach had a lot of fun in their set, which culminated in the band having a wander around in the audience/on the bar, giving away a guitar to one lucky fellow in the front row, and generally infecting everyone with their shouty brand of pop-rock.

Mimas, clad in their matching purple and yellow hoodies, gave us an offering of quirky tunes, with a particular highlight being the band dissembling the drum kit and basically bashing the hell out of it, creating some great tension – not least because it meant a lot of underwear was put on show.

Tall Ships doing some instrument swapping

Tall Ships, a favourite of mine, never fail to deliver a varied and absorbing set, from soft synths to all out growling guitars and pounding drums, the band swapping instruments between them throughout. A technical fault meant they couldn’t play to their best, but it happens, and the guys coped with it well.

Lastly at Y Fwuch Goch, Talons ended the night with an atmospheric and explosive set of their instrumental math-rock, complete with violins. It was a shame that the venue was so brightly lit, as some murky, brooding darkness would have complemented the music much better.

Young Legionnaire rocking out

Young Legionnaire at Chapter Arts Centre on Friday night was another great experience. It’s a personal preference point, but I really like it when bands have a bit of a chat to the audience – only if they’re funny, mind. Young Legionnaire were though, even sharing their secret song formula with us, “NOISE, stop, NOISE, stop. Do you get the idea?” Their brand of post-hardcore rock is incredibly loud, yet melodic, and had my ears ringing for hours afterwards for all the right reasons.

Cate Le Bon

Lastly, highlights from Saturday would have to be Calories with their solid performance of catchy indie rock, starting their set all wearing some interesting sunglasses because they’d heard Swn Festival was cool…

My First Tooth was only announced to play a couple of days before the festival, and were a real hit with their energetic folk-rock (‘fock’?) Plus, they had a harmonica, you can’t argue with that.

I don’t even know how to describe Cate Le Bon, but I do know that I would like to be her. Her totally individual style that seems to blend ghostly folk and pop with melancholic vocals with a thick Welsh accent, and a little bit of synth thrown in for good measure is unlike anything I’ve ever heard.

Finally there was the legendary Welsh band Islet. Everyone was hyped to see them, and they reciprocated the excitement, bounding around the stage, in the crowd, climbing on speakers, drumming on the ceiling, anything they could to produce their percussion-heavy sound that has to be seen to be believed.

All in all it was an exhilarating, exhausting and educational few days. Swn turns five years old next year, now that will have some special stuff in store…

I also took some photos, of varying quality.