South Wales has always boasted a vibrant and exciting live music scene, highlighted perhaps by the 1990s when Newport’s legendary venue TJ’s played host to a number of high profile bands including Oasis, Manic Street Preachers, Green Day, The Offspring and Skunk Anansie. It is also allegedly the place where Kurt Cobain, who would have turned 46 last week, proposed to Courtney Love.
The turn of the millennium was equally bright, it seemed, with Bridgend producing both Funeral for A Friend and Bullet for My Valentine in the early 2000s. Both bands rapidly gained popularity amongst the new generation of Welsh gig-goers, and were shortly followed by The Blackout and Kids In Glass Houses from Merthyr Tydfil and Cardiff respectively.
Towards the end of the decade, however, things turned a bit stale. Venues started closing, then relocating, only to end up closing again. The much loved founder and owner of TJ’s, John Sicolo passed away in 2010, followed by the sale of the venue at auction. Just 5 months after this huge blow to the live scene, Barfly announced the closure of their Cardiff venue. It seemed like everything was imploding.
So what does the future hold for Welsh music? Well, new venues always help and South Wales has been treated to some lovely new hotspots. The Moon Club in Cardiff is one of the latest venues to open its doors, and has already made its intentions of supporting live music clear by hosting a Free for All festival this past January with 100 bands playing over the course of the month and free entry to everything. Ash Sicolo, the grandson of TJ’s founder John, has also opened his own venue the 200 Club in Newport. The walls of which are lined with posters and memorabilia from the golden era of his grandfathers club.
Bands also help. And Wales has bands in abundance. I’m going to dig a little deeper than the obvious names you might expect to shine this year, such as Straight Lines, who will no doubt have a successful 2013. My aim is to introduce you to a few bands to keep an eye on during 2013 so that you don’t miss them explode, whenever that might happen. Each of them is out playing live across the UK and all of them are recording something for release this year.
Cut Ribbons
From Llanelli, Cut Ribbons have already turned heads at the BBC at were selected for the Introducing Stage at Reading last year, as well as having their track ‘Paper Shields’ on the Radio 1 Introducing playlist. That particular track is still available for free download at www.cutribbons.co.uk.
Fronted by Aled Rees and Anna Griffiths, whose combined vocal talents produce some magnificent harmonies, Cut Ribbons’ new single ‘Luna’ is due for release in early April and you can hear the unedited version here:
The People The Poet
Formerly Tiger Please, the name change came because they felt the music & songs they were producing were bigger than the 5 guys who started out. Rather than just making good music, now they are telling the stories of the people around them. Family, friends and fans. Hence, the People the Poet.
They will be setting off on their first tour as support to Charlie Simpson in late March, playing venues across the UK. The dates for this, as well as 2 new tracks ‘Sing’ and ‘Being Human’ can be found on their Facebook page.
Peasant’s King
Formed in January 2012, it took just 11 months for these Pontypridd boys to have almost every Radio 1 DJ worth mentioning to be rambling on about how much they loved their single Antidotes, which you can see here:
Zane Lowe, Fearne Cotton, Greg James and Scott Mills all shared the sentiments of Huw Stephens when he said, “What an absolute pleasure to press play on this. They sound brilliant and they’re doing absolutely everything right, right now. Good luck to them in 2013. Looking forward to hearing more…” “What an absolute pleasure to press play on
this. They sound brilliant and they’re doing everything right, right now. Good luck to them in 2013.”
Fjords
Cardiff-based Fjords are making a name for themselves. Fast. Their first EP Dead Diamonds was released in September 2012 to critical acclaim and is available on iTunes or from www.spillersrecords.co.uk You can also hear some tracks from Dead Diamonds here:
This electro/alternative quintet have already been mentioned on numerous ‘Next Big Thing’ lists and are currently back in the Manics’ studio recording some brand new material for 2013. You won’t want to miss it when it drops.
In The Firing Line
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting these lads from Tonyrefail and it’s not often you can say this, but as well as being bloody good performers, they’re genuinely nice people too. Despite initially forming in 2005, the band have been through some trials and have had to reorganise the roster a little. And with nothing released yet, there’s no surprise that they are flying under a lot of radars at the moment. They are currently in the studio recording what will be their debut release Fled From The Underground, and if the record packs as much of a punch as their live shows then we’ll all be in for a treat. Keep your ears clean on these guys.
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