Pretty Shitty City

The Garage in Uplands – 21st February 2009

Opening with their own song, Quietly Coughing, new stoner rock and roll band “The Pigs” don’t come across as your usual new local band. These guys don’t follow mainstream indie or punk like the rest of them; they like to take matters into their own hands. The trio coming from Mumbles and Bonymaen (watch your cars guys) seem to have a genuine click with each other and it seems obvious that they all hold strong relationships, which shows when they play on stage. With former guitarist from The Guffries; Jackson Pope – son of the blues musician Mal Pope, as their front man, The Pigs give off a good reputation with their chunky bass lines and cleverly distorted riffs. Jackson’s right-hand-man, and his brother (would you believe?) in this ensemble, Lewis Pope seems the quiet one of the trio, as he seems very settled on making his meaty bass riffs perfect. Apparently Jackson has had the idea of The Pigs lingering around for quite some time, but only recently has it come to surface. He was so determined for this idea to come into reality that he actually asked Lewis to learn to play bass just to be a part of the whole experience. The drummer, Daniel seems like he knows what he’s doing, and looks like he wants to have some fun whilst playing his shows.

One of the main things that I respect these guys for is the fact that they don’t try and define their band with one specific genre. To tell you the truth it’s very hard to! New bands these days seem to make music that’s easy to play which makes them sound good and make the crowd happy, these guys play what makes THEM happy and what THEY think is good. I think it’s a statement “Screw You” to the rest of the bands out there that follow mainstream, and even try and call themselves unique.

Having only been together for around five months, the band, although very in tune with each other, don’t seem to be putting on very much of a “show” so to speak. Except for Jackson, who does make some movement around the stage, the band is very standstill. There was no communication with the crowd and there was no knowing what songs were played and so on. This though isn’t a devastating thing; this is very common of a young band coming out of its shell. Once the guys get over this phase, then personally I see nothing wrong with them, they’ll be everywhere; around South Wales at least.

Watch this space

Beth Daniels

I’ve been keen to check out the Framework Social events ever since I’d first heard about them, but I was also a bit apprehensive. What kind of people go out to bake bread and listen to music?

Last Tuesday I finally plucked up some courage, spurred on partly by the fact that I had my own promotion to do (thanks for letting me flyer guys :) ), and ventured down to St. James Social Club to see some art.

That’s what Framework is basically; a place for people to perform, watch and interact with (or is that intra-act?) art.

I arrived early-ish so that I could take a seat comfortably and watch from the sidelines (not very sociable, I know). The organisers were friendly and they filled me in on the programme of events. I payed my £2 (proceeds going to Oxjam on this occasion) and went to the bar.

St. James’ Social Club is a great little venue for performance, with the tables and chairs arranged in a sort-of U shape around the dance floor come stage. Its worth mentioning that Swansea Jazzland organise events here every Wednesday.

So what happens at the Social?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Bloodhound Gang came to Swansea last Sunday; headlining a weekend of bands and music put together by Sin City as an alternative to the short notice cancellation of Fflam.

I arrived a little late and missed the first support act Kiddo 360, but its okay I’ve seen them before… Next up were the Illegal Amigoz, the Swansea / Llanelli based pop punkers were tight and full of pop-hooks, ska beats and sing-along choruses with a whiff of nu-metal. Vocalist Alex is a strong frontman and their combined experience shows, despite them being relatively young.

An enthusiastic crowd gathered, waiting for the Bloodhound Gang, hungry for music and entertainment in the form of dumb white rap. A Jägermeister machine sat waiting for abuse on the side of the stage. When they arrived on stage, the screen at the back read ‘Good Evening, Pretty Shitty City’ and I can only assume that they were referring to this site. ;)

For a few songs, I tried to keep my amateur-journalistic cool and stand appreciatively at the back, but this got boring very quickly so we pushed forward and ended up at the deepest, darkest, sweatiest bit of any gig; the moshpit. The gang’s unique style of comedy-punk-techno-rap went down well and between songs the crowd’s screams were ringing in my ears.

You can’t really judge the Bloodhound Gang on serious musical merit, but they are certainly masters at referencing and executing low-brow popular culture. Between songs they kept us all entertained with anecdotes and jokes. Jared, the bassist who is prone to getting naked, spoke of beautiful Welsh girls, and even though he thought that Charlotte Church had put on more weight than the entire band put together, he’d still like to “take a shit on her tits”.

I left feeling sweaty and happy. Roll on more gigs at Sin City.