Pretty Shitty City

Sin City are trying to put on a weekend of live music for those of you who have booked hotels / trains / time off work etc. this weekend.

Friday
Face/Off as usual with no bands booked as of yet, but you can pick up free tickets at the usual spots.

Saturday
Suns of Thunder, Lethargy, Bomb The Sun, Prosperina, Johnny Thrash, Marshland Massacre Screaming Eagle & Maria Owen. It all kicks of at 9pm with Skint DJ’s taking it through until 3.30am. Entry is £3.

Sunday
The Bloodhound Gang, Viva Machine, Illegal Amigoz, Kiddo 360 & Thirty Second Echo J.J. Sinatra. Doors are at 6pm and you can get tickets from Derricks for £10.

This should lessen the pain for those of you who were looking forward to Fflam, and hopefuly it will be a success; Something for the Weekend has a nice ring to it. :)

http://www.myspace.com/sincityclub

Total Ams, self described as “a diy swansea-based collective trying to inject some life into a dull and stale music scene”, are putting on their second gig this week at The Schooner in Swansea Marina, right by the nice big hotel off the Monopoly box.

Headlining the night are Aotea, with support from Javafuss , Dead Wolves and Dustvine. Expect noisy, jazzy, prog rock.

If you’ve ever moaned about Swansea’s dull music scene it is compulsory to attend otherwise the ghost of Dylan Thomas will descend from the heavens and smite you from this earth… or something.

If you don’t know where The Schooner is, have a look at this map. The gig takes place on Saturday 7th July at 8:30pm and entry is £4.

http://www.myspace.com/totalams

There are plenty of reasons to leave the house today, so if you’re about why not get down to Monkey for the second of the Swansea Social gigs.

These all ages, early evening shows will only cost a £2 donation and today’s lineup features; Vinyl Stickons, Working Class Heroes & Straw Dogs.

Swansea Social takes place at the Monkey Cafe on Saturday June 9th 5-7pm.
http://www.myspace.com/swanseasocial

Escape must be missing Face/Off, because part of their ‘plan for world domination’ is to launch a brand new rock/alternative night on fridays.

The promoters are offering people the chance to christen the night with a new name. So if you fancy your chances, head over to Giveusaname.com. ( Hmmmm… how about ‘Pretty Shitty City’ :mrgreen: )

In all seriousness though, there are plenty of reasons to get excited. The new teaser flyer currently doing the rounds, which has been designed to look like a scrap book, has plenty of ideas and clues as to what we can expect.

The night, in association with The Office, could potentially have three rooms;

1. Chillout - playing the likes of Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós & Múm
2. Alternative - with The Libertines, The Flaming Lips & CSS
3. Shouty Shouty - Deftones, Slayer & Glassjaw

Plus there is the promise of live acts, with the aim being to book both local acts and some exciting big names. I’ve been reliably informed that the plan is to keep the entry fee for the night at £4, which is an admirable commitment. Lets hope they can pull it off!

Friday nights at Escape Swansea will be launching at the end of June, check back for more info soon.

The Thrills kicked off their new tour at Swansea’s Sin City last Tuesday.

Support was provided by Findlay Brown, whose charming acoustic songs, reminiscent of Nick Drake, were perhaps a little too sleepy for the crowd to stop talking and take notice. So, as a last act, he crouched on the stage and let loose an explosion of electronic noise, to which The Thrills should feel indebted, as it surely focused everyone’s attention towards the stage.

Despite myself, I really like both of The Thrills albums to date. Their unashamed Americanist style and big sound make for great pop songs. I got carried away with the set, to which I knew a surprising amount of lyrics and exactly when to ‘ooh’ every time.

For a moment the themes and lyrics of their songs (e.g. “Nothing Changes Around Here”) seemed to relate perfectly to Swansea and it’s strange, small town/big town mentality. British Suburbia’s obsession with West Coast Americana was so tangible you could almost smell it, or perhaps that was just the cheap vodka and sweat. ;)

The only let downs were the lack of a string section (expected) and that the set seemed to be a little on the short side. Perhaps they just wanted to play a tight, concise set and to escape before getting mobbed by a drunken fan… too late.

Check out Sin City’s website for more upcoming gigs.

Probably three things that you wouldn’t readily put together, but Swansea Photographer Tyron Francis has recently experienced all of them.

Here goes…

1. The first is a loverly shot from the recent Exist party, held at their new outlet, launching a fresh line of tshirt designs. I unfortunately missed the show, but I’m definitely going to pick up one of the tshirts next time I’m in town.

2. Secondly, you can read about Francis’s experience of The Swansea Show. Surpisingly (for the subject matter) it manages to be both witty and interesting, see you at the Dog Show next year! :P

3. And last but not least, he was also lucky enough to spend some time with Daniel Johnston at the Comedy Store in Manchester recently. Read about the meeting here or get some Daniel Johnston initiation here.

http://tfrancisphotographer.blogspot.com/

All images © Tyron Francis

A pretty eclectic line-up will be playing this Saturday (19th May) at Coffee Cesso next to the Waterfront Museum, in aid of Lawrence’s Roundabout Well Appeal. The charity’s aim is to raise money to buy and install roundabout pumps in Africa. As the site explains:

The roundabout playpump combines a children’s roundabout with a pump. The pumps are usually installed in schools to harness the natural energy of children. As the children play on the roundabout they pump water into a holding tank at the rate of 1400 litres per hour. Each pump can provide up to 2500 people with fresh water.

The gigs will be split into a free day event from 12pm to 7pm, and an evening session from 7pm to midnight that’ll cost £10 per head. During the day, we’ve got those African drumming hippies, Shiko, the Ystradgynlais Brass Band, folk duo String Whistle, Becca Lynne, Jennifer Kalviac and the all-female a capella harmonisers, Scarabella.

The evening session will feature Bursting Clouds Hidden Source, an encore from Kalviac, Black Pages, the Welsh urban folk trio Boys From The Hill and Other Peoples Clothes. You can get tickets directly from Coffee Cesso, call 01792 456 100.

The Fflam Line-up is slowly growing and thanks to a heads-up from reader Terry Bigdog, I’ve decided to post a little catch up article.

According to the wise and mighty eFestivals, the line-up so far is:-

Read the rest of this entry »

There are two brand new nights starting at Bar,Co this month.

First off is Vision, launching this Wednesday 4th April. DJ Tonic and friends will be bringing us a mix of Drum n Bass, Hip-Hop, Funk, Broken Beats on selected week nights.

The other new night is Beats and Peices, an Old School Hip-Hop night being presented in association with Pretty Shitty City. The launch night is Wednesday 18th April, hopefully see plenty of you there as this could be the start of a regular line-up of Pretty Shitty City Promotions :D .

Just a quick round-up of my favourite flyer design’s floating around Swansea at the moment. Select them to see a bigger image.