Let’s go girls.
GIGS
NOV 12: SURGEONS GIRL W/ SENOR CHUGGER @ Paradise Garage, Cardiff, 17:00
The City Road venue formerly known as Milgi / Blue Honey / Eartha has changed hands once more. It now occupies a space between Roath’s own Jazz Kissa and tidy dance floor, with extensive happy hours. Rly nice stuff! This edition of TTN features no less than THREE P.G events: first up, a live session with Sinead McMillan AKA Surgeons Girl. The Bristol producer’s analogue studies connect dots between Laurie Spiegel, rave fatigue, speedy bubblers and sci-fi mystique. Last month’s ‘Sever’ was her most evocative release yet
NOV 17: THE ORB W/ SPECIAL GUESTS @ Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, 19:00
The Comedown Kings return to Bad Trip city. I’ll be honest: I have no idea what an Orb show is like these days, but this tour marks the 30th anniversary of the UK CHART-TOPPING U.F.Orb, ergo this is a great opportunity for all you original geezers to get misty-eyed. Reclaim your misspent days! Clwb seems like an intimate affair given recent visits have seen them fill up Tramshed and The Glee Club. Could be nice!
NOV 23: SACHASOM, TANGERINECAT, MIDDING @ Porters, Cardiff, 20:00
I’ve talked about Sachasom a lot on ‘ere: ‘weirdo Welsh hip-hop fermentations, the spirit of Dilla et al corrupted by the ineffable weight of ‘Welshness’, whatever that is. Broken, beguiling, good.’ They’ll be supporting tAngerinecAt, a Welsh-Ukrainian duo layering the influences of singer Eugene Purpurovsky’s upbringing over brooding electro-industrial menace. If you’re really lucky they’ll bring the hurdy-gurdy. Cardiff grunge-funsters Midding are also on the bill
NOV 24: NAWR PRESENTS: PAT DATBLYGU, SACHASOM @ Ty Tawe, Swansea
Yet more great stuff from NAWR: Sachasom heads west where he’ll open for Pat Morgan, one half of Datblygu. I had the idea for TTN cliking through awful quality Datblygu vids on YouTube, and I think Dave’s death is still keenly felt by many. RIP. Pat’s recent work has seen her involved in experimental, improvisational works including performances in NAWR, and support for Gwenno and Canolfan Hamdden.
NOV 24 / 25: DAN JOHNSON @ Shift, Cardiff, 19:30
A quick google reveals that Dan Johnson was the drummer for ‘Love and Death’, the Christian Metal band founded by Korn Guitarist Brian ‘Head’ Welch. Alas, this is not he, but rather the Bristol-based improv percussionist and performance artist of the same name. Dan has been variously embroiled in that particular city’s weirdo scene through the years, including work with EP/64, Yama Warashi, Silver Waves, GNOD, etc. His solo sets are great: long crescendos that unfurl like fists into claws. Dan will be doing two separate performances, and also some workshops at Shift: see here for details
NOV 26: ALMOST CHRISTMAS CARNAGE ALLDAYER: THANK, NAILBREAKER, MODERN TECHNOLOGY, THE REFLECTING SKIN, DEADPOP, MAES Y CIRCLES, CINZA, SPÜNDAY @ The Moon, Cardiff, 14:00
Day-drinkers unite: CC’s reign of terror continues with this hefty, pre-advent bust-up at The Moon. Front to back noise rock action, with a cosmig interlude from locals Maes Y Circles. Particularly keen on The Reflecting Skin, whose S/T is the scummiest thing I’ve heard this year, and Rushden’s Nailbreaker, whose ‘COPE’ EP is top material: contemptuous bars delivered over sculpted noise and burnt-to-bits rhythms. Death Grips meets Cremation Lily I reckon, via Northamptonshire (Yup that’ll do – ED)
DEC 1: NO WHERE NEAR W/PEO NEQUAD, MARC HEATLEY, SHREDDIES, PLEASURE GARDENS, ARDAL BICNIC @ 1 Fox Lane, Cardiff, 19:30
Splott-based arts studio 1 Fox Lane opens its doors for a night of homegrown electronics and visual arts. Peo Nequad is Jake Andrewbright, who has previously gone under the name Jiujuk. His set last September was a treat; an improvised tour through his flooded archive of dubby, half-finished house, all of it rippling with delicate, new-born energy. Whether he’ll do something similar under this moniker, I can’t tell you. Live sets from studio resident Marc Heatley and Electribe enthusiast Shreddies. Last time I saw Shreddies I felt like I was sprinting down this one-way corridor of pure blue light, looked a lot like this one part of Stuttgart airport. Good, in other words. Can’t find any info on Pleasure Gardens or Ardal Bicnic but I’m sure these too are good.
There is some great stuff happening at SHIFT next month which I will surely include in the December edition, but in case you want to check it out now and buy some tickets: Sia Ahmad and Raymond MacDonald on Dec 9, and Able Noise and Tara Clerkin Trio on Dec 18
CLUBS
NOV 18: ANDI, RANDOLPH & MORTIMER, DAVID J BULL & ESTHER @ Paradise Garden, Cardiff, 20:00
NYC’s Andi Harriman brings tough tunes for tough buggers—so you know I’ll be there. EBM, new beat and foundry floor techno
NOV 19: FEEL THE DRIVE @ Buffalo, Cardiff, 21:00
Italo, Hi-NRG, Euro Beat and all the good stuff. Seth Booth (for it is him) has also released some new material ahead of the night, his ‘contemporary take on the feel, pulse and unrelenting drive of Hi-NRG and Italo’. It’s free!
NOV 25: HEADSPACE @ Paradise Garden, Cardiff, 20:00
Cardiff’s Headspace bring jungle and IDM (I Dunno Mun!), my impression of Headspace is that it’s always been a v raucous affair, so I’m interested to see how they’ll approach things in a comparatively relaxed venue. Perhaps they won’t change a thing! Class
ANY JUNGLE IN GUY? PART ONE!
Guy Evans is a Cardiff-born-and-based DJ / producer whose been at it for over thirty years. He has been a central figure in the capital’s underground across multiple eras, has watched clubs come and go, and has opened for virtually everyone that matters. In recent years he’s had numerous releases on labels worldwide, with his rough-n-ready, straight-to-tape techno dug out and cut to wax some twenty years after he’d made it.
Strangely, it wasn’t until 2011 that I first heard Guy’s name, when I lived some 300 miles away, and I didn’t actually see him play till 2015. We’ve been friends since then, once playing together upstairs at Jacobs. It was an absolute pleasure to sit down with him for a very long chat about his beginnings, how Cardiff has changed, techno archaeology, dubplates from Taunton and much more.
I spoke with Guy at The Lansdowne. He also sent along some extra stuff via email a week later. I’ve edited our chat for brevity and clarity, inserting the extras where appropriate. I’ve also decided to split this interview in two: it’s a long one, and since I’ve wanted Guy in the newsletter from day one, I think it’s only fair to include all his experiences. In this first half we’ve spoken mainly about the early days. Tune in next month for part two, by which point DJ Pato Canton had sat down with us.
X: I’ve never asked: where in Cardiff are you from?
G: I’m from Llanedeyrn. Those estates were built in the sixties so there were loads of young families growing up there at the same time. Could be a bit wild, a bit rough—Llanederyn High School was an intense experience—but it was a great community.
Unfortunately, I grew up in a highly chaotic household, with a lot of daily abuse. It was hard. My dad was great, he was very supportive and loving, but I didn’t grow up with much confidence. And so for me, later in life, to be able to release my music worldwide and get good feedback has meant a great deal to me. I’ve never taken it for granted.
X: How did you get started in music?
G: It was a musical household. My dad was a jazz-blues guitarist, he’d play Brecon Jazz every year, I have memories of him playing melodies which are still stuck in my head. A lot of people say my tunes have this melodic quality about them and I reckon it comes from that. Then there’s my two older brothers, Gavin and Russ. Gavin was a dj, he would play in places like Nero’s and Bogies, a lot of punk and psychobilly. He was also in the band Demented Are Go, a psychobilly group, big in Europe! He took me to a rehearsal once and that’s stuck with me.
Meanwhile, Russ had a huge record collection. Both he and Gavin gave me lots of records over the years. Gavin gave me certain records which made a big impact, one was Malcolm X No Sell Out, such an amazing tune: a tough as hell beat sampling all those Malcolm X speeches. That’s quite intense when you’re twelve years old in Llanedeyrn. Grandmaster Flash Wheels of Steel was another one. It was around that time when anyone could put a record on a turntable and scratch it. I think hip-hop has always had this DIY quality to it; anyone can do it, it’s empowering.
I bought my first turntable off a mate for a fiver, and my dad bought me my first mixer, we’re talking so basic: no pitch control on the decks, mono inputs, no EQs, all you could really play with was volume. Later I’d upgrade to a pair of belt drives and a proper mixer, got them in Tandy or somewhere. It was all hip-hop and electro first; I remember buying Street Sounds Volume 7 just round the corner at Maelfa Shopping Centre *laughs*, I suppose you’d call that stuff electro-funk now. For me and my mates it all sounded so futuristic.
X: Presumably there was a lot of radio too
G: Absolutely. Before Pete Tong there was Jeff Young, I’d listen to his Radio 1 show religiously. That was the only place you could really hear any Chicago House, in the early to mid 80s. I sent him a mix I made on my brother’s four-track recorder, back then you’d use them to make these super intricate ‘pause-button mixes’: you’d pause the tape at the start an eight-bar break and drop another track in, and then because you’ve got four tracks to play with, you’ve got room to drop in your own samples or whatever.
Gavin gave me certain records which made a big impact, one was Malcolm X No Sell Out, such an amazing tune: a tough as hell beat sampling all those Malcolm X speeches. That’s quite intense when you’re eight years old in Llanedeyrn.
That pause button got used so much it eventually snapped off, my brother was not best pleased. Eventually I got a letter back off Jeff saying thanks for the tape, but the quality’s not good enough, even though he loved the mix. I was still thrilled to hear from him though, and later some of those mixes got played by Tristan B on Radio Bristol. That was the first airplay I got, I must have been about 15, 16.
X: You would have still been in school then?
G: Yeh, I was playing house parties around the time I was doing my GCSEs, carrying my decks across the street with my mates. If you just imagine this nerd walking round the school in his headphones, obsessed with acid house… It’s funny looking back: it was years before I understood how those sounds were even made. I’d be looking through guitar magazines, looking at pictures of wah-wah pedals and all sorts, asking myself, ‘is it something to do with that?!’ It was so hard to come across the knowledge back then.
X: So how did you get into production?
G: Small things at first, a mate of mine lent me a Casio CZ-1000, but the big thing was OctaMED, which was basically a DAW on the Amiga [DAW stands for Digital Audio Workstation, like Ableton or Pro Tools]. In terms of the ability it gave you to improvise and play around with clips, make stuff on the fly, I genuinely think OctaMED was every bit as good as Ableton.
Obviously there were limits, like there was only four audio channels, or eight at very low quality. On its own it sounded pretty weak, but by then I was working at the recording studio at Grassroots [a Cardiff youth support group] and had access to some amazing gear. They had an Alesis Quadraverb which they let me unscrew from the rack and borrow some weekends. It put the quality of things in another dimension. I’d run it home on the Friday and would have till Monday to make music, a countdown basically, it was a hell of an incentive, because I certainly didn’t have the money to buy my own. It was the same when someone didn’t show up to their booking in the studio: suddenly you’ve got two hours to make a tune. A lot of my stuff I’ve put out is the product of those time-constraints.
It was years before I understood how those sounds were even made. I’d be looking through guitar magazines, looking at pictures of wah-wah pedals and all sorts, asking myself, ‘is it something to do with that?!’
Everything was sample-based then, no soft-synths: OctaMED could do you a sine-wave bass, and you could play with the waveform, but that was it. In studios I’d find CDs loaded with all the now-classic drum machine sounds, and so I’d use these a lot.
X: Let’s talk about clubs in Cardiff. Do you remember the first you went to?
G: It was The Venue on Charles Street, off Queen Street, not far from Grassroots. It was a basement, Cardiff DJ Paul Lyons playing and it was an amazing time because Unique 3 The Theme had just come out! I think we spent most of it sat by the subwoofers.
I played my first set at The Square Club, which was on St Mary’s Street, near the bus station. That was a real melting pot of people, I remember there was a big queer crowd and a load of other heads, I learnt a lot being there. My brother and his mates would play upstairs while we’d play downstairs, my twin brother Greg would bring along projectors for psychedelic visuals. That first time I played was with my friend Justin Barate, I think we had like half a crate of records between us? And so we ended up playing the same thing like six times over the whole night *laughs*, it was class. We played a lot of early Warp, early Nightmares on Wax, that kind of thing. After that we ran a night every Wednesday there called ‘Mental Cube’, and another one called ‘Pharmaceutical Chaos’, which I suppose speaks for itself given the rave culture at the time.
After that I got asked to play at Valentino’s, which at the time DJ Mag were calling the ‘third best club in the uk’ *laughs*. It’s strange: I feel like Valentino’s was where The Moon club is now, except the building felt a lot bigger? I suppose redevelopment might mean it’s different in there today.
X: Perhaps they were using both floors too, like The Moon used to
G: Yeh totally, there was two floors. I’ll never forget my first time there, you would not believe the volume: back then there was basically no restrictions. Completely packed out too, and what’s interesting is there was no guest DJs, it was strictly residents like Paul Lyons, DJ Silva, DJ Spex, who sadly passed away, and Pablo P. It wasn’t until later they actually booked someone, which was Grooverider of all people. I was a resident by then and so I played that night, it was amazing. This was around 1991, 92, and it was an incredible scene to be a part of.
X: How is it different from today?
G: For me the big difference is that back then, it was all just one genre: there wasn’t so much distinction between house, techno, breaks, acid, we all just piled in. Of course, it might just be that we were the only night of its kind, and so people didn’t have a choice! By that point I was playing all over the place: Clwb was putting on a night called Juice Joint, Metros were doing things, there was stuff at The Hippo Club and The Bristol Hotel on Penarth Road, The Philharmonic, The Big Windsor down the docks, a bunch of stuff at the Student Union—Time Flies was the name of the event, and we’d play the chill out room—and loads more. I think that’s another key difference today: there’s way less venues.
As for today, it is what it is, I think people still have amazing nights out in Cardiff, but the combo of that genre fragmentation, the lack of venues and the relatively small population means it can be difficult. There was a time when the drum’n’bass crowd may have all come down the same night as the techno crowd, and it would be good to see that sort of thing again I reckon.
We’ll leave it there for now: tune in next month for more on Guy’s time at Grassroots, Someset war-dubz, and the unexpected revival of Guy’s career which has led to releases—both archival and new—on All Caps, NORD Records, Hypercolour, and an appearance on Boiler Room.
LATELY I HAVE MOSTLY BEEN LISTENING TO:
- Saw this YouTube upload of a knackered tape from Celestial Court, some sort of new age label from Indonesia. It’s called Sha’aban Yahya’s Return to Jogja. Crunched-up, digitalised gamelan excursions, the business imo
- Gitara is a music doc explaining why and how Azerbaijan has adopted the electric guitar as a national instrument. This blew my head clean off, not just the outrageous technical ability on show (see 17:00 for genuine shred king) but simply because it was my first encounter with something truly distinct and impassioned. Cannot recommend enough, some truly amazing things going on here (what is going on at 29:50? Incredible)
- Enjoyed this thread from tarotplane on their favourite ‘Kosmiche’ records, liked this one in particular: Älgarnas Trädgard - Framtiden ar ett Svavande Skepp, Forankrat I Forntiden space rock from the dark ages. Google translate tells me this means ‘The Future is a Floating Ship, Anchored in Antiquity’, and to that I say, alright alright.
F1 FORUM: THE END!!
I think Pierre speaks for all of us. Well done Max. I was especially impressed by Mexico, where for ten, fifteen laps or so it looked like we were going to get a race. And then we didn’t. I am glad is Vettel is leaving, partly because it would just be quite sad having him around much longer, but mostly because I cannot wait to see how hard they manage to fuck up Alonso’s life. Or maybe he’ll win?! Who can say?
CAN I INTEREST YOU IN THE PAPER
If you enjoy the newsletter, you may also enjoy this new venture I’ve been involved in, THE PAPER, accurately described by Stan as “Wales’ first ever publication” – have you ever asked for nothing when you know you’re owed something? Has heartbreak ever ground you into dust? Have you ever been to Port Talbot? Then THE PAPER might be for you: 130+ pages of ‘miscellaneous’ content from some truly sorry Welsh contributors. Features the first EVER in-print review of The Pepsi-Cola Addict by June Gibbons, an interview with Ian Bone, Britain’s Most Dangerous Pensioner (our own interview is more fun imo), and loads more including a short story off me about Leckwith Woods, municipal impotence and spiritual dearth. All the good stuff baby. It costs that much because it’s massive (really, it is the biggest magazine I’ve ever held in my hands) and cost loads to make. Help us make another one.
Xavier Boucherat is a Cardiff-based musician and writer. You can listen to and read his work here. Through the Night is published monthly on Substack. You can subscribe below.
If you are a recording artist in Wales or from Wales making anything freaky, I’d love to hear your stuff, particularly if you’re from a group that traditionally lacks representation. You can email me at throughthenightwales@gmail.com
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