I'm John Rostron, a Cardiff ne'er do well. I book or promote live music shows for venues in Cardiff and also promote some special gigs around Cardiff, Wales and beyond under the banner of SWN (it's pronounced 'soon' and is Welsh for 'noise'). I also co-curate and promote the annual SWN Festival in Cardiff with Huw Stephens. Occasionally I put out records on my little label My Kung Fu too. I also run Sleeveface with my friend Carl Morris. You can message me on john(at)plugtwo(dot)com.
BAND OF SKULLS have announced details of an Autumn tour including a very special show in Cardiff's very own Coal Exchange on Sunday December 2nd 2012. The gritty, raw, bluesy rock trio BAND OF SKULLS will be stopping in a venue that has become a must for a lot of big touring acts. The reason is simple, it's truly beautiful. As part of the band's biggest U.K. headline tour to date this will be nothing but awesome!
The band released their second album, Sweet Sour in February and entered the UK album chart at number 14, that week’s highest new entry. The album was recorded at Rockfield Studios in Wales with producer Ian Davenport and mixed in Los Angeles by Nick Launay (Nick Cave / PIL / Yeah Yeah Yeahs). It has been one of the standout albums of the year and if you've not heard it you're missing out.
BAND OF SKULLS spring 2012 UK headline tour culminated with a sold-out London Roundhouse show in March. They appeared at this year’s SxSW and Coachella festivals and have already performed at this summer’s Isle of Wight & T in the Park festivals. The band are supporting Red Hot Chili Peppers in the U.S. across six huge dates, plus performing as special guests at Kasabian’s upcoming Brixton Academy gig. With also a main stage set at Reading & Leeds still to come.
This will no doubt be a stand out show on the tour, and will leave you speechless...
Co-promoting the Welsh Autumn tour JODIE MARIE with supports
Saturday 29th September Muni Arts Centre, Pontypridd £12 Adv from Box Office - 01443 485934 | www.muni.rct-arts.org |
Monday 1st October St David's Hall, Cardiff £11/£10(Conc) Adv from Box Office - 029 2087 8444 | www.stdavidshallcardiff.co.uk |
Jodie Marie
The story of Jodie Marie starts off something like a joke – “man walks into a pub…” – and ends up like a fairy-tale. It’s the kind of thing that only happens in films, or dreams. But happen it did, and here she is, the brightest new star of 2012, already. After all, outrageous fortune often happens to those with outrageous talent.
Four years ago, Roy Langley was holidaying in Narberth, Pembrokeshire. He walked into... well, not a pub exactly, but a little bed-and-breakfast in the small West Wales town. The landlady overheard her guest telling a fellow guest about how his son worked in the music industry in London; how his then 22-year-old offspring, Toby L, co-ran a label, publishing and management company, Transgressive. Then and now the indie consistently punches above its weight, discovering, signing and/or releasing the best artists around: Noisettes, Foals, Graham Coxon, Johnny Flynn, Two Door Cinema Club.
The landlady knew a singer. A 16-year-old local girl whose plumber dad was doing some work in the B&B. The teenager had sung at the Eisteddfod, the age-old Welsh cultural festival, and was a big draw at local weddings. She did a great cover of Patsy Cline’s Crazy and her version of Bette Midler’s Wind Beneath My Wings was to die for. Maybe her guest from London would like to hear her CD and give it to his son?
Roy, perhaps, raised his eyebrows. But it would have been churlish to refuse. The plumber fetched a CD from home and gave it to the landlady, who promptly played it to the holidaymaker. Then he called the kid from the management and record company…
The rest is herstory. Jodie Marie had lift-off. A preternaturally gifted singer-songwriter with an elegant yet piercing light-blues touch, she might be the third point in a triangle formed by Joan Baez and Carole King. Or she might be her own woman, a young artist who has spent the four years since her Big Break not chasing a pot of record company gold but working in the studio shadows, working with some of the best in the business, honing her songwriting craft.
“Probably because I was so young, I hadn’t really matured in my songwriting,” reflects Jodie Marie, now 20. So, encouraged by the interest from Transgressive’s management, Jodie Marie bunkered down with Bernard Butler. The onetime Suede-guitarist-turned-producer is renowned for his empathetic and elevational work with new and emerging talent. “One of the first songs Bernard and I wrote, when I was 16, was Single Blank Canvas,” she says of the song that, this summer, became her first single. A gentle drift of a song with piercingly direct lyrics, Single Blank Canvas showcases Jodie Marie’s bell-clear, heartfelt, heartwarming voice. “And it’s really the same today as it is when we first did it four years ago.”
Working in Ray Davies’ Konk studios, Edwyn Collins’ studio, and in Butler’s own place, the pair worked and worked at their own pace, the songs pouring out.
“Bernard really helped me – I’d never played, apart from my GSCE stuff, any of my songs to anyone before. I’d write them away in my room and just hide them. And playing him my songs was probably one of the scariest things I’ve ever done! But he got me singing a couple of cover songs first, just to ease myself into it. He was just brilliant at making sure I felt as comfortable as possible.”
The finger-snapping I Got You was another gem from an early session with Butler – Jodie thinks she was 17 at the time – and is one of the most upbeat songs on Jodie Marie’s debut album Mountain Echo, set for release early next year.
“I’d listened to some Sixties music when I was a kid, but it was stuff like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and this song is really far from that sort of style. I did listen to Aretha Franklin, but I can’t say she was a huge influence… I’ve always wanted to have that… not Motown beat but just that happy rhythmic feel behind it. I tend to write quite sad songs more often,” she adds with a smile, “but I’d written so many of them, I wanted to bring some uplift to the album – a song that people could be refreshed by. And just go, ‘ah, there is a light at the end of the tunnel!’ But that was a really, nice easy song to write.”
Jodie also worked with Ed Harcourt, the singer-songwriter whose rich, evocative Lustre album was one of the stone-cold classics of 2010. “Ed has a small studio but it’s a hugely inspirational place ’cause it just has so much stuff, instruments everywhere your eyes go, on the walls, the floor. It’s just such a great atmosphere and place to work. We were writing two songs a day when we started. He’s just got so many great ideas, a wide variety.”
A cornerstone song, and the one that gives the album its title, is Mountain Echo. As with another Jodie/Harcourt song – Like A Runaway – it reflects the then-teenager’s homesickness as she travelled back and forth to London from her family home in Wales. But the gorgeous, battered-heart melancholy of Mountain Echo has deeper resonance still.
“Ed was really good friends with Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse, and we were in for a writing session the morning he found out he’d passed away. So there was a bit of a dark feeling to the day when I went in, and I suggested to Ed I that I go home and give him some space. But he wanted to write. So we came up with Mountain Echo – we wanted to write something that was really sad but really beautiful at the same time.”
When she felt that she and her songs were ready, Jodie Marie eventually agreed, in September last year, to sign with Decca. She began recording her album at the beginning of this year. Harcourt and Butler were the producers, and the focus was on capturing the spectral beauty of Jodie’s songs, and the moment – the entirety of the album was recorded live, save for the addition of strings at Konk.
But Jodie Marie, the girl who waited, who was “discovered” in the most unlikely of circumstances, is still open to chance. After all, it’s how she got here… A couple of months ago, she had the opportunity to write for a couple of days with Jimmy Hogarth. She’d long wanted to collaborate with the Grammy-winning writer of songs for, amongst others, Amy Winehouse, Corinne Bailey Rae and KT Tunstall. Her album was ostensibly finished but what the hell...
“Jimmy and I wanted to write something with a bluesy feel,” says the girl who’s been singing since she was six, playing piano and guitar for just as long, and been soaked in her parents’ Bonnie Raitt and Elmore James’ records her whole life. “Something quite powerful. And On The Road just came out of that session.”
Scheduled as her next single, the song is the perfect pen-portrait of the end of relationship, and the beginning of something new.
“I wanted to write an album that people could relate to,” says easy-going, hard-working, fully-focused Jodie Marie. “I’ve always loved music that I can turn to if I’m feeling sad, or needing a pick-me-up, and I’m sure everyone’s the same. So I wanted to make an album that could tick on every aspect of emotion, and be as true to life as possible.
“My songs are about something that’s happened to me, in my heart – Greeny Blue, for example,” she says of the spartan, singer-and-her-guitar-and-her-tears gem, “is probably one of the most important songs I’ve written. I really wanted to put across how I was feeling, because it was not a great time… Or the songs are about something I’ve seen someone really close to me go through.”
But in all of them, there’s an undeniable, irresistible unifying factor.
“It’s just trying to nail the emotion,” says Jodie Marie, “and try and get exactly how people feel when they go through these situations. I just want everyone to really relate to my songs.”
THEY say some things are written in the stars, but for the members of The Earth, gravitational pull would be a more apt metaphor.
Call it fate, luck or co-incidence but although the three core members of the group have only been in each other’s musical orbit for a short space of time their industry has been out of this world.
Brought together by twin titans of the Welsh music scene Mark Roberts, formerly of stratospheric hitmakers Catatonia and Dafydd Ieuan - the rhythmic pulse of leftfield pop alchemists Super Furry Animals, the line up is completed by the formidable presence of Dionne Bennett.
Until recently seen bolstering Hollywood star Rhys Ifans’s loose-limbed indie rock crew The Peth on backing vocals, she’s stepped out of the shadows and into the spotlight to find her natural home.
A towering presence both physically and vocally, this particular Miss Dynamite who was born and brought up in South London, has put her sizeable stamp on The Earth’s heavenly soul-packed sound.
The band’s impressive creations are big, bold soul pop songs that reverberate with Motown’s rousing four to the floor grooves, and at other times – pared down and stripped back - they bruise the emotions with the earthy gutsiness of Alabama Shakes.
These are fertile times for the group who have hit a rich seam of songwriting form.
“At the moment we’re putting the finishing touches to the first album,” says Mark. “And we’ve completed half of the next album as well.”
“It’s great at the minute,” agrees Dionne. “Whenever we meet up we’re either finishing something off or starting something else. It’s really exciting because we don’t know what’s going to come out next.
“It’s reached the point now,” interjects Daf, “when we’re expecting something to happen.
“I’m overwhelmed by it. I never expected it to be as easy as it was, it’s been so creative and you can indulge yourself in it.
“It’s fun because it’s so natural and effortless, even though there’s a lot of effort being put into it,” adds the Furries sticksman who has been overseeing sessions at his Strangetown Records studio in Cardiff – a centre of collaborative excellence if recent output is any yardstick.
“I have the utmost respect for Mark and Daf,” confides Dionne who relocated to Wales when she fell in love with a Welshman and found herself at the opposite end of the M4. “I’m working with two people who are great people who have achieved great things, things that I want to do myself. Sometimes I am in awe. I was at the beginning. I’ve learnt so much from them.”
The feeling of admiration is evidently mutual.
“When Dionne puts her stamp on a song it just comes out totally different to what I was expecting,” states Mark. “She constantly surprises me where she goes with it. Always in a good way.”
Using iconic and gritty female voices as Tina Turner and Merry Clayton - whose powder keg vocals ignite The Rolling Stones’ rock ‘n’ soul classic Gimme Shelter - as a blueprint for their soulful ideology, theirs is a sound that that manages the neat trick of smearing lipstick on your face while pushing dirt under your fingernails.
“When we were talking about those singers, there were things I could hear in Dionne’s voice that I thought we could apply to a really sort of ballsy sound,” explains Daf.
It’s a coming together that marries the glamour of The Supremes to the earthiness of Janis Joplin and transports it via a psychedelic lightning rod to an altogether different plane.
Songs such as Rubbish Man – the first single to be released from The Earth, is symptomatic of this universal approach; an exercise in soul and teeth baring in equal measure underpinned by a blistering Northern Soul beat.
“We’re just talking about real life and relationships in our lyrics,” says Dionne. “I like Rubbish Man, the message is simple. I find it quite funny and so true. You know, it’s when you meet someone and they’re just crap. Then when they’ve moved on and you know that woman who is with that person now, she’s going to find out how rubbish they are,” adds the singer, whose cracked laughter crackles with experience on this issue.
For the future, the stage awaits. The band have played two shows thus far – the first in the improbable surrounds of a Welsh cider festival.
“It was the perfect low-key gig to launch the band, even though there were plenty of drunken people there and one man walking around in a Mankini,” laughs Mark.
They admit they’re still finding their feet but are now champing at bit to free up the fruits of their labours.
“We want to get out there and let everyone hear it and enjoy it as much as we do,” enthuses Dionne. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do my whole life. Now we just want to play and play and play.”
Tuesday 11th September 2012 The Coal Exchange, Cardiff Bay 7.30pm / 18+ show *SOLD OUT*
Take note of the date: Tuesday 11th September 2012. Because it's going to be memorable one! We're very happy to announce that experimental pop trio The XX will be making a the trip across the border to the Welsh capital for a long-awaited Cardiff show, in the stunning most beautiful of venues 'The Coal Exchange, Cardiff Bay'.
Swn are extremely proud to host Mercury Music Prize winners, The XX, in Cardiff. It's one of the biggest shows that we've announced this year and you'll have to be quick to snap up tickets!
A limited number of pre-sale tickets are available to members of The XX mailing list from 9am this Wednesday, which you can subscribe to 'here'. Following that, tickets will be on general sale from 9am Friday 27th July from www.swnpresents.com & www.thexx.info as well as a limited number of 100 physical tickets available from Spillers Records (31 Morgan Arcade, Cardiff, CF10 1AF)
The XX's Cardiff performance comes only a day after the release of their highly-anticipated second album, Coexist. If their new single Angels is anything to go by, you're in for a heavenly treat, Cardiff!
Today's the day! With three months to go until it all begins, we're very excited to announce the first 80 acts who will be playing at this year's 6th annual Sŵn Festival 2012.
Our four day multi-venue festival will be held this year between Thursday 18th - Sunday 21st October 2012 and is promising to be the best of the best and we hope you agree. Along with this year's first announcement of 80 acts, we have also re-launched our shiny new festival website (www.swnfest.com) as well as creating an all new Facebook page where Sŵn Festival goers can share their Sŵn festival highlights. Post your stories/photos/videos on the time-line and we'll highlight our favourites. You can also keep up to date with all of the latest festival news at www.facebook.com/SwnFestival
Since 2007 Cardiff has played host to the annual Sŵn Festival, bringing some of the newest and most exciting local, national and international acts to the Welsh capital. The festival is now moving into its 6th year, with the most ambitious festival plans to date. Whilst still focusing on new and emerging acts, the festival will also play host to some well established headline acts, as well as broadening the programme to include arts based fringe events. We have loads to tell you about in the coming months leading up to the festival in October so hold on to your hats.
THE LINEUP SO FAR....
A Girl Called Ruth
Afro Cluster
Al Lewis
Among Brothers
Arcane Roots
Bo Ningen
Brotherhood Of The Lake
Chain Of Flowers
Charlotte Church
Clock Opera
Death At Sea
Denuo
Django Django
Draw Me Stories
Dry The River
Errors
Eugene Francis Jnr
Exit International
Falls
Faye
Feed The Rhino
Fire Season
Fist Of The First Man
Gallops!
Gallows
Glass Pear
Golden Fable
Greta Isaac
Gulp
Hey Sholay
Hysterical Injury
Irma Vep
Islet
Jemma Roper
Jewellers
Joanna Gruesome
John Grant
Katell Keineg
Lanterns On The Lake
Laura J Martin
Liars
Manhattan Coast
Marc O'Reilly
Micachu & The Shapes
Milk Maid
Mowbird
Nebula
No Ceremony
No Thee No Ess
Out Of The Woods
Paper Aeroplanes
Peace
PINS
Prosperina
Quiet Marauder
Rangda
Rozi Plain
Rusty Shackle
Sam Airey
Scritti Politti
Sex Hands
Shy And The Fight
Sion Russell Jones
The Adelines
The Ash And The Oak
The Bright Young People
The Invisible
The Knox
The Lovely Eggs
The School
The Vestals
This Many Boyfriends
Tomos Lewis
Torches
Turbowolf
Urban Development Vocal Collective (UDVC)
Various Cruelties
Verity Susman
We're No Heroes
Zervas & Pepper
Sŵn Festival 2012 will be hosted across various venues in and around the centre of Cardiff, including - 10 Feet Tall, Buffalo, Chapter Arts Centre, Clwb Ifor Bach, Dempseys, GLAM, Globe, Gwdihw, National Museum Cardiff, O'Neills (Trinity Street), O'Neills (St Mary Street), Cardiff University Students' Union, The Full Moon (wristband exchange), The Gate, The Moon Club & Undertone.
Sŵn Festival 2012 will also be working with the following co-hosts: Adam Walton (Crackling Vinyl), Artrocker, Dizzyjam, Everybody's Stalking, Gathered In Song, Lesson Number 1, Cardiff University's Live Music Society, Moshi Moshi, New Sound Wales, NME Radar, Nyth, Pink Mist, Propaganda, PUSH + RUN, Rockfeedback, Simply Rad, The Line Of Best Fit, Trail Of Press, We Are Cardiff, plus more to be announced.
Tickets will be on sale soon. To be the first to hear about early bird tickets for Sŵn Festival 2012, sign up to the mailing list at www.swnfest.com
There are many ways to get involved in Cardiff's annual multi-venue new music festival. Whether you're a in a band, working with a band, a budding film maker or just want to get involved in any way possible, SŴN FESTIVAL 2012 wants you!
WE WANT YOU! YOU! YOU!
SONICBIDS SŴN FESTIVAL 2012
The first Sŵn Festival 2012 line-up announcement will be made NEXT WEDNESDAY 18th July, along with the launch of a new website.
Sŵn Festival are booking 3 acts in partnership with Sonicbids this year. They are open to bids from signed and unsigned artists based in the UK, Europe, North America and Canada.
To enter for a chance to play at Sŵn Festival 2012 please follow the instructions on the Sonicbids website here
SOUNDTRACK, SŴN & LONDON SHORT FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS:
THE SOUNDTRACK MINI-MUSIC DOC AWARD
The Soundtrack International Film & Music Festival 2012 is pleased to announce the launch of the Soundtrack Mini-Music Doc Award.
Presented in association with Sŵn Festival and the London Short Film Festival, the short form music documentary competition will see submissions whittled down to a shortlist which will be screened throughout the Soundtrack International Film & Music Festival programme and compete for the inaugural Soundtrack Mini-Music Doc Award and a £500 prize. Shortlisted films will also receive screenings at Sŵn Festival (18th-21st October 2012, Cardiff) and London Short Film Festival (July 2013).
WIN A CHANCE TO PLAY SŴN FESTIVAL 2012 WITH DIZZYJAM
Also, as if that wasn't enough, Cardiff merch wizards DIZZYJAM are giving bands, artists and/or DJs the chance to play on their very own stage at Sŵn Festival 2012!
To enter, simply visit the official DIZZYJAM Facebook page, share the competition picture on your own timeline, and post your track or mix in Dizzyjam's comments section. They'll personally select one DJ/Band/Artist to play live at Sŵn Festival this October!
Are you a music person? Set up a FREE online merch shop at
Launched in January 2011, Survivalists mix sci-fi with melodic punk rock. Since their storming debut with Samoans at Buffalo Bar, they have played rock shows with Exit International, Antlered Man, Japanese Voyeurs, Mojo Fury and The Icarus Line, along with a number of headline shows in South Wales and the South West. They have received radio play on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru, as well as numerous online stations.
Survivalists' debut EP 'The Last Bastion', recorded with Charlie Francis (REM, SFA), was released in July 2011. The band are due to record their second EP in August 2012 with Lewis Johns (Bastions, Kerouac, Veils, Goodtime Boys) for an Autumn release.
"With blasts of nasty guitar and some great, dirty bass lines wrapped around catchy tunes, Survivalists have a heady and addictive mix here. Tear It Down in particular is one to hunt out; like much of the EP it has infectious vocal lines, layers of distorted guitars and a sweet melody." - MINIATURE MUSIC PRESS
"These boys are absolutely slamming - saw them at the first show t'other night. Massively impressed. Shexy boys too!" - Scott Andrews, EXIT INTERNATIONAL
“A juggernaut full of distorted cutlery falling out of a tree on to a crowd of whingey Jehovah’s witnesses would make less noise than Survivalists” – Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales
"Survivalists make their own shapes out of the manic abandon and melodies-become-rhythms arrangements of Future of the Left...[but] it's no cringeworthy clone, y'understand: there's a certain wistfulness and a 90s alt.itude, à la Placebo before they turned into stone cold shite." - Noel Gardner, BUZZ Magazine
The Boy Royals bring their sound together with a love of iconic British bands, such as The Who and The Jam whilst blending it with the spikier side of britpop. Their attitude and ability to write such anthemic songs has seen the band sharing stages up and down the UK with the likes of Hard-Fi, Feeder, Lostprophets and The View. The Boy Royals have gained support from numerous BBC Radio 1 and 6 music DJ’s, with their single ‘Teenage Sky’. Steve Lamacq chose them as his ‘new favourite band’ whilst Huw Stephens selected their single to be his ‘next hype’, as well as inviting them to play one of his select showcase nights.
DIRTY GOODS
Dirty Goods are a three piece band who make ‘music to dance to.’ Their sound has been described as “Dirty electronic-infused music, with a sound that call upon the vocal styling of Prince, mixed up with the synth-led sounds of Chromeo and MSTRKRFT” (Liverpool Sound City, 2011). Dirty Goods have had a busy year gigging all around the UK as well as recording their debut album, which is due for release on Necessary Records.
Along with a healthy loyal following in their native Newport, Dirty Goods have had a positive response online. They have racked up over half a million views on YouTube with several early videos, including “Know No Other” featuring Welsh MC ‘Tiny Skitz,’ a track recorded and produced by drummer Michael Gregory (the Hoods). “Know No Other” gathered over 50,000 views in one week and went on to be selected as a featured music video by YouTube.
The band deliver a live show full of energy, be sure to come along and check out Newport’s Dirty Goods.
Facebook: www.facebook.com/dirtygoods
MySpace: www.myspace.com/dirtygoods
Twitter: www.twitter.com/dirtygoods
THE PEOPLE THE POET (Acoustic)
After an impressive four years which has seen the band release two critically acclaimed releases (2009's 'They Don't Change Under Moonlight' and 2010's 'Seasons' EP), tour the length and breadth of the UK including Download and Sonisphere festivals and garner Radio One airplay, Tiger Please kicked off 2012 with the announcement of their official name change!
Their debut album ‘The Narrator’ brought about a realisation that it was time to leave Tiger Please behind and start afresh the new year with the People the Poet. Fans submitted stories to make up the body of the album and the weight of the bands responsibility to do the songs justice has forced a change.
Speaking of the name change, vocalist Leon Stanford states... 'Its sad to part with a name which we've seen so much success with, but we hope you will understand why we felt it was the right time for the change. This is more than just a simple change of a name - it is a tribute to the people who have trusted us with their stories, our fans.'
To showcase and celebrate the bands new direction two new the People the Poet songs can be heard at www.facebook.com/thepeoplethepoet - 'Being Human' (also available as a free download) and Norton produced 'Sing'.
