Do you speak guitar? Could you parse the seemingly identical layers of lofi fuzz to reveal three separate young bands tonight? Funny how tiny differences equal big outcomes: every act on this bill deals in scrappy noise to some degree but only one steps above the wash to become anything more than vaguely enjoyable scuzz. Basically, you need to away the fact that JOANNA GRUESOME ARE FUCKING BRILLIANT, and effortlessly better than openers Mowbird, whose angular zeal is fine enough, if a little unmemorable, and headliners Black Tambourines, who jitter through tight indie that arrives frayed and febrile. The latter band are like some modern day Merseybeat combo, head wobbling and ooh-ing over songs that strut awkwardly towards pop greatness but never quite get there. Their rush of breathless clattering is a benign tonic while it lasts though, and comes with plenty shy boy charm.

 So why are Joanna Gruesome so good? All their imperfections are their strengths: anything mumbled against them in the crowd gets too easily batted back. They’ve got a singer who murmers like she’s crippled with stagefright and/or boredom? Well fuck you, it’s another layer of perfect lofi guitar noise. They’re a bunch of skinny legged kids who look like they can barely dress themselves? Well fuck you, they’re the kids who’ve won through knowing no separation between DIY moshpit, unselfconscious love of music and making a racket yourself. Their version of Galaxie 500′s ‘Tugboat’ is a good calling card: verses that are sleepy, dreamy, stumbling into crashing sections that junk the choruses for howling guitar waves. JG originals are sweet too, sometimes literally: boy/girl vocals (estimated first shave date for male singer: 2017) are honeyed but not cloying, lost in six string distortion that’s a brilliant crush of wailing, stabbing notes and bullseye melody. “Twee Sonic Youth” is too trite – Joanna Gruesome are cute and rough, gangly and huggable, with rocks in their cardigans. Start stalking them now.

David Tattersall needs a hobby.  The Wave Pictures’ ever-boyish frontman has released a dizzying amount of music since 2006′s Sophie became the first collection to see general release; five full-length albums, two EPs, a solo LP, countless singles and at least two self-released collaborative albums.  Asked to contribute a Springsteen cover to Where It’s At Is Where You Are’s 2009 tribute record, they turned in a whole album’s worth and gave it away with a single.  Given the regularity with which TWP turned out CD-R collections in their Cardiff-dwelling years – all filled with deliciously literate, pointed pop, sometimes knowingly and charmingly clumsy, often tethered to swooningly memorable choruses – this compulsion to write, record, release must stretch to a couple of hundred songs over nearly a decade.

In keeping with this tireless pace, May’s Beer In The Breakers is followed swiftly by The Lobster Boat, a collaboration with one Howard Hughes of French outfit Coming Soon.  If the songs are collaborations, they reinforce what’s become a classic Wave Pictures template; much in the way that Tattersall’s early duets with Andre Herman Dune were dominated by the latter’s sing-speak and mordant, bitter phrasing, so Hughes’ contributions are initially hard to distinguish.  The wordy, observational lyrics are as acute as ever, the vocals a shade more grave in tone, but the songcraft and brilliantly unorthodox, anachronistic guitar solos are unmistakeable.  The touring band takes the album’s name and features personnel from both bands; a tour blog, with a few bonus live tracks and covers, is found at http://lobsterboat.tumblr.com/.

THE LOBSTER BOAT
(feat. David & Franic Wave Pictures)
SPECTRES
DANCERS
& THE JOY COLLECTIVE DJS

Monday 26th September 8pm
Buffalo, Cardiff
Ages: 18+
£4 adv / £5 doors – http://www.wegottickets.com/event/129313
http://www.buffalocardiff.com/
241 cocktails til 10pm
Bottles from £2, pints from £2.50, wine from £1.80, Tequila/Sambuca £2 til 11pm

****************************

THE LOBSTER BOAT is a side project of Dave Tattersall (from THE WAVE PICTURES) and Howard Hughes (from COMING SOON) – but this live show will feature Franic Wave Pictures.

It was written and recorded in a few days in Paris & London. They were inspired by CAPTAIN BEEFHEART, HOWLIN’ WOLF, THE ROLLING STONES, STANLEY BRINKS, CRISPIN GLOVER, FRIDAY THE 13TH (final chapter), BRUCE WILLIS and ELMORE LEONARD.

Have a listen: http://soundcloud.com/wiaiwya/sets/howard-hughes-david-tattersall/

SPECTRES – Bristol based noisy swirly freak out, a bit like Sonic Youth.

DANCERS – new noise pop band originally from North Wales.

Sat 20th Aug | 7.30pm | £12.50adv | All Ages (under 16s with adult)

Damnably & Go Ape Present 30th Anniversary Tour!

SHONEN KNIFE
www.myspace.com/shonenknife

The Japanese all girl Rock trio celebrate 30 years of groundbreaking poppy-punk Osaka rock and their 15th album ‘Free time’.

Formed in 1981 from a love of the Ramones, they were one of Kurt Cobain’s (Nirvana) favourite bands and toured with Nivana, Sonic Youth and The Breeders. They are the most influential Japanese band in history. As Naoko said “2011 is our 30th anniversary, let’s ROCK!”

“When I finally got to see them live, I was transformed into a hysterical nine-year-old girl at a Beatles concert.” – Kurt Cobain

+ NO CARS
www.nocars.bandcamp.com/al​bum/yoko-eats-whales
www.myspace.com/nocars

‘No cars’ means ‘farmers’ in Japanese and No Cars are three 17 year old girls from Japan, now residing in Brighton and London. They sing cute and quirky songs on oddball subjects. Their debut album ‘Yoko Eats Whales’ includes songs about David Bowie, farms, octopus and sellotape! Possessing a quirky fun garage pop sound you’ll probably hear in the next Tarantino movie, No Cars “play 1950s heartbreak classics with the odd screaming breakdown thrown in to keep the punks happy. No Cars are a bubblegum band, and the audience is chewing.” -Artrocker magazine.

+ PARRINGTON JACKSON
www.facebook.com/ParringtonJackson?sk=app_178091127385

A melting pot of varied influences, Parrington Jackson are inspired by life’s many twists, tales, woes and conspiracies. Heavily guitar driven, the Bristol based band have established a collaborative writing ethos that shines through in the diversity of their music – one which aims to be catchy yet challenging, always seeking to surprise and entertain. They have previously supported Best Coast, The Vaselines, iLiKETRAiNS and O.Children.

“Brilliant – like Radiohead driven by the spirit of Hawkwind!” – Venue Magazine

Fleece website:
www.thefleece.co.uk

TICKETS:

www.bristolticketshop.co.uk/cgi-bin/shop.cgi?group=Fleece

www.seetickets.com/see/price.asp?code=561749

www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_south&query=detail&event=448584

www.gigantic.com/gigantic/home_shonen_knife.html

SHONEN KNIFE (30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR)
THE VICTORIAN ENGLISH GENTLEMEN’S CLUB
SUPER CUTE VOICES
& THE SCHOOL DJS

Sunday 21st August
7.30pm
£8.50 adv / £10 doors
Tickets from WeGotTickets / Buffalo / Spillers
+ 20% meal discount with a ticket

We’re thrilled to welcome back all-female Japanese pop punk/garage rock band SHONEN KNIFE! Forming in 1981, over the years they’ve found fans in SONIC YOUTH, KURT COBAIN, REDD KROSS and SULTANS OF PING.

Citing their main influences as 60s girl groups and THE RAMONES, they return with a new album ‘Free Time’, and recent single ‘Perfect Freedom’ has just made STEVE LAMACQ’s Rebel Playlist on 6Music.Shonen Knife Myspace

 

NEXT JOY PRESENTATION!  Admire the music of LIARS, SONIC YOUTH, ONEIDA?  Like your guitars to sound like insistent alarms on malfunctioning factory equipment?  Enjoy cooing, falsetto vocals, dribbling sweetly melodic but largely unintelligible goo into your ear?  Well SWITCH ON, chum, because this is right up your street.

COLD PUMAS are nominally from Brighton and sound like hot, malfunctioning strobe lights.  Shuddering, repetitive guitars, insistent Kraut-ish drumming and vocals which mutter and coo like ‘They Were Wrong’-era Liars.  Two EPs and a split 7″ with Male Bonding exist to date, the latter on guitarist Dan’s own label Faux Discx.  Check out ‘Jela’ below for unequivocal evidence of why you need to see this lot:

Tour partners FRIENDO feature on one of the aforementioned Cold Pumas EPs along with guitarist/vocalist Michael Wallace’s better-known band Women, and strands of the opaque art-rock of that band continue through to his new group’s debut LP.  Released to some acclaim on a self-issued cassette in 2009, and subsequently reissued on vinyl by Secretly Canadian subsidiary St Ives Records, Cold Toads’ sticky DIY harmonies and tangle of acoustic guitars, drone and percussion recall the early efforts of Woods, The Microphones or even Dinosaur Jr.  Very nice.

SATURDAY’S KIDS need little introduction in these pages.  We like them a bit.  We’ve put them on before, having opened for Action Beat for us last year, and charted their swift rise from the promising newcomers supporting Shitty Limits in Le Pub two years ago to shapers of muscular noise rock and sludgy punk reminiscent of SST-era Sonic Youth, Flipper, Trail of Dead and more.  They’ll be on unfavourably early at this one, so don’t be late.  See you there, right?  RIGHT.

LESSON NO.1 & THE JOY COLLECTIVE PRESENT

COLD PUMAS
From Brighton, Cold Pumas play madly repetitive and shiny guitar abuse, locking down riffs that are both loudly motorik and shimmeringly melodic. They have releases on Upset The Rhythm and Faux Discx and make a hypnotic racket that fans of ABE VIGODA, BOREDOMS and SONIC YOUTH will lean into. http://coldpumas.bandcamp.com

FRIENDO
Another three-piece, this time from Calgary, Canada and featuring current or ex members of a million other bands (notably WOMEN, but also Azeda Booth, Topless Mongos, Puberty and more). Friendo’s scrappy rocking fits a band who started as an experiment in playing unfamiliar instruments: charming, dreamy home-recorded gold that might make you think of SEBADOH, VIVIAN GIRLS or early PAVEMENT. http://friendo.bandcamp.com/

SATURDAY’S KIDS
Having just released two records on the exciting 10” format – one a split with Exeter band Kids return, one a five-tracker all to themselves – Welsh quartet Saturday’s Kids, who are in fact suitable for any day of the week, have ample evidence out there of their rampaging evolution. They still sound like a slashing noisy punk band a lot of the time, but are also indulging their taste for tricksy instrumental bits and quiet, measured guitar parts that fans of SONIC YOUTH, MOSS ICON or CODEINE might eff with. http://www.saturdayskids.org/

Buffalo Bar, Cardiff
Friday 8th July
£5
7PM – 10PM (EARLY GIG)

http://lessonnumberone.blogspot.com/

http://www.thejoycollective.co.uk

http://www.buffalocardiff.com

LESSON NO.1 & THE JOY COLLECTIVE PRESENT

KELLIES

From Buenos Aires, Kellies are three multi-lingual ladies who play a righteous mix of catchy garage rock, pared-down post punk and clattering fun noises. Sometimes known as Las Kellies, their latest (self-titled) album continues the band’s work of recalling THE SLITS, ESG, DEVO, RAINCOATS and generally being great. You can hear a lot of stuff here:
http://kellies.bandcamp.com/

JAMES JAMES
New venture for Simon and Rich, the rhythm section from Cardiff’s excellent KING ALEXANDER. JJ make hypnotic, spacious rock moves that layer up guitar, drums and sampled hums that NO AGE, TRANS AM and other weirdos would be proud of. They’ll join the internet one day too.

BELLIES
Return gig for Bristol’s Bellies after last year’s Undertone triumph. Nat and Debi are current or former members of THE JELAS and DRUNK GRANNY, which should give you a rough idea what to expect: awesome, free hollering that fans of LILIPUT, WET DOG and ERASE ERRATA will dig.
http://www.myspace.com/hungrybellies

+ general wrongness/rightness from DJ Casey Raymond (Club Foot Foot/Stacking Chairs)

BUFFALO BAR, CARDIFF
SUNDAY JUNE 19TH
£5
8PM

http://lessonnumberone.blogspot.com/
www.thejoycollective.co.uk
www.buffalocardiff.com

Excellent poster by lucycharlotteburns@yahoo.com

Grr. GRR. Loud, dense, tricksy noisy noise. By men. Assumed. Going to take a wild punt on these gigs and hope they satisfy that clever/caveman part of the brain: Everyone To The Anderson play both, and if the excitable witterings of people saying they mix up a hearty broth of post rock jinking and beatdown riffage is halfway there I will be a happy rabbit. The day after, at the Mothers Ruin, looks equally nutricious: joining ETTA will be fleet of bees attack rock courtesy of Glaswegian guitar/drums/tinnitus duo Bronto Skylift, and utterly brilliant, pointilist art pop, not-going-to-stop-going-on-about-them Brizzle band The Jelas. Talk about cats with Colin. If you like. But go to these gigs.

EVERYONE TO THE ANDERSON
& supports

Saturday 11th June
7pm-10pm *early show*

£3 entry

Q AND NOT U meets FUGAZI meets SHELLAC – awesome riffs, mathy rhythms, inventive, catchy and undeniably amazing!

Everyone To The Anderson MySpace

======================

Hello beautiful people of Bristol. Just when you thought it was safe to leave the house on a sunday, this gig rises up like a whale beneith your boat.

headlining will be glasgows finest noise merchants:

BRONTO SKYLIFT

http://www.myspace.com/brontoskylift

“It’s not often a two-piece like Bronto Skylift, for all their visceral intensity, are afforded the good will they need to progress. However, half an hour spent in the company of this savage drum ‘n’ guitar combo reveals an undeniable, primal appeal. Certainly, Eagle/Falcon is a satisfying appetiser; the jarring riffs and powerhouse drumming by turns tastefully recollecting Helmet and The Bronx. But live – where flailing arms and precise jazz-fills leave jaws on the floor – you will find this band on fire.” [Johnny Langlands]
-The Skinny 25/02/09

“Bronto Skylift’s impromptu gig in the campsite proved that this duo have enough energy in their set to power a small town.”
- The News of the World

“Just two chaps making an awful lot of noise…”
- BBC INTRODUCING with Annie McGuire

=========================================

Main Support will be from Brightons most beautiful:

EVERYONE TO THE ANDERSON

http://everyonetotheandersonmusic.bandcamp.com/

Honing their sound through 2 EPs released through a Huw Stephens’ Label of the Week Toy Soldier Records, The Man Born From Inside Of A Horse is the full length debut from Brighton’s EVERYONE TO THE ANDERSON. Recorded over several months in a disused industrial unit on the outskirts of Brighton amidst ‘varying moods and weather conditions’, The Man Born From Inside Of A Horse journeys from stabbing rhythms to sea shanties to textured soundscapes over the course of 11 songs and 26 minutes.
Having shared stages with the likes of Biffy Clyro, Micachu & The Shapes and Rolo Tomassi as well as Brighton contemporaries Esben & the Witch, Blood Red Shoes and Ghost of a Thousand, ETTA could well be the next band to break out of the city’s thriving musical scene.
If You Like: Battles, Foals, Les Savy Fav, Health

=========================================

And opening the destruction will be Bristols sexual lizards

THE JELAS

If you haven’t seen them before then you must be dead. The Jelas have more starts and stops then a train from london to edinburgh but their half hour journey feels liked you’re locked in the toilet with Cameron Diaz. ;0)

A £2 donation would be appreicated. Touring bands have to eat you know.

Thanks

Jim

05/15/11 SARABETH TUCEK plus Carwyn Ellis (Colorama), Rachel Taylor-Beales & Joshua Caole
 at Buffalo Bar, Cardiff – 19:30

Sunday 15th May 2011
Gathered In Song presents…

SARABETH TUCEK

A dark horse if ever there was one, US singer-songwriter Sarabeth Tucek has been likened to Cat Power, Nico, Natalie Merchant, Hope Sandoval and Karens Dalton & Carpenter. She’s inspired Laura Marling, toured with Ray Lamontagne and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and opened for Bob Dylan.

Tucek came to the attention of the indie scene whilst working with Bill Callahan on the album Goodbye Little Doll by EZT (i.e., singer/songwriter and occasional Will Oldham collaborator Colin Michael Gagon). She sung on the Smog album ‘ Supper’ and appeared in the rockumentary ‘Dig!’ which chronicled the relationship between The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. She co-wrote a number of songs with Anton Newcombe, released on BJM’s ‘We Are The Radio’ EP. The release included a track she wrote that Anton named ‘Seer’, later re-recorded by Sarabeth for her debut single, the stunning ‘Something For You’.

Much of her work, produced by Ethan Johns and Luther Russell, evokes memories of classic mid-seventies Neil Young.

Her own time has now surely come as she arrives in the UK to tour her second album ‘Get Well Soon’, out in April on the Sonic Cathedral label.

“an extraordinary voice that hovers intriguingly between Karen Carpenter and Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis, borrowing occasionally from Neil Young’s hesitant vibrato and, yes, from Dylan’s ability to hurl half a dozen more syllables into a line than you were expecting” The Times

“The most beautiful single of the year” NME

“Amazingly accomplished” The Times

http://sarabethtucek.wordpress.com/

Tickets will be onsale 10th April from We Got Tickets, priced £6.00.
Entry on the door will be £7.00
Doors open 7.30pm

========================

MON 9 MAY

LESSON NO.1 in association with PUS presents:

ANTA
Multi-discipline Bristol underground scene dudes (members of – and this won’t cover it by a long chalk – GONGA, GEISHA, ROSE KEMP’s band and BOXCAR ALDOUS HUXLEY), together as a settled quartet since 2009, play proper cosmic and totally unashamed prog rock with lots of synths and no singing. They have an album on the new DIOGENES label, a spinoff of Geoff Barrow’s INVADA, called ‘The Tree That Bears The Equine Fruit’. You might well like it if you like KING CRIMSON, ANCESTORS (the Tee Pee ones), ASTRA (the Rise Above ones), TANGERINE DREAM or the last two COMETS ON FIRE albums. http://www.anta.me.uk/

PUS
Is this the first show of 2011 for these scattered-around-South Wales doom dealing dudes? If it isn’t I will look stupid and/or forgetful. Pus are a quartet who play blackened crusty sludge metal with everything in the red. They have a demo called ‘Colin’, which you can probably still buy, and are recommended to fans of EYEHATEGOD, ELECTRIC WIZARD, WINTER, UNEARTHLY TRANCE etc. http://www.myspace.com/pushatesyou

THORUN
Big riffs bustin’ out of Orange amps from this band, who are again from a variety of locations in South Wales, and are still only a handful of gigs old. Thorun have a debut EP available to download free at http://thorun.bandcamp.com/ – if you like KYUSS, SLEEP, KARMA TO BURN, SPIRIT CARAVAN and of course SABBATH you will be on pretty solid ground here. http://thorun.wordpress.com/

ALL HAPPENING AT: Buffalo, Windsor Place, Cardiff

8pm-11pm

£4 on the door

http://lessonnumberone.blogspot.com/
http://www.buffalocardiff.com/