PrettyInScarlett

Many moons ago, we saw bright young things Kitty, Daisy & Lewis touring their debut album at Clwb Ifor Bach and were suitably impressed with their r'n'b/blues/swing/rock/you name it mix.  Moving forward 8 years and the recorded output of the band (definitely still bright and young!) has strengthened - I strongly recommend listening to latest album The Third - a lot more original writing and plenty of sass. The opportunity to hear them live again was a definite yes. Not to mention a good excuse for a weekend trip to Sheffield.  Dosed up on Remo's coffee and with a pit stop at The Devonshire Cat , we arrived at The Plug to see support band Kiziah and The Kings from Doncaster. We'd not researched the band before, but they are a pretty funky mix of soul/rock/reggae with a very confident manner; and a pretty good front singer with Kiziah. An enjoyable set - their sounds are available (and definitely worth a listen) at Bandcamp , Soundcloud etc.  Tan Tan an...

Something of a late review.... M and I went to see Melissa Auf der Maur at Mavericks on 5th November - first 'dingy venue' gig in Ottawa. Not that Mavericks is at all bad - seemed on first impressions to be a mixture of The Boardwalk and Clwb Ifor Bach. Nice and cosy, although the 'locals' seem to drink less. In keeping with the usual pattern of support bands, the touring support Final Flash (whom I believe are from Montreal) were quite interesting and obviously had some solid fans in the crowd, but local support The Balconies left a lot to be desired (although they also had a few keen fans). The young lady fronting The Balconies seemed to run out of breath part way through lines. They were clearly targeting the catchy-tunes-trio idea but said front-woman also lacked sufficient guitar skills to really pull it off. Melissa (and band - who also doubled up as road crew but were very polished players) played a set mixed from new album Out Of Our Minds and previous solo ...

Something of a quiet start to the year for us for one reason or another, so I picked a random band off the Clwb Ifor Bach website and came up with Strange News from Another Star , playing last Friday 5 th February. First time at Clwb Ifor Bach for a while, and it was full (too often there's been an audience just in double figures!) - though as all bands (2 supports, Goodtime Boys and Panic Basket) were local that's not too surprising. I won't waste much time on the dire Panic Basket except to say that screaming "12345678" does not constitute a song! Goodtime Boys were better but neither much our thing. The main guy from SNFAS , Jimmy Watkins, has a good line in banter, starting the gig with a poem about the residents of St Mellons , and with printed flyers satirising David Cameron! Again, the style of music is probably not our thing (more in the line of my earlier student taste) but certainly interesting and worth checking out. They were described as '...

Summer finally seems to be on its way, along with 2 excellent shows in a week! Another first on Tuesday 19 th - a concert in the Cardiff University School of Music 's hall. Originally booked as a 'why not' kind of thing, the recital by Emma Johnson (clarinet) and Pascal Rogé (piano) was very interesting. The set (courtesy of the CUSM website): Weber – Sylvana Variations Debussy – Rhapsodie Brahms – Sonata op. 120 no. 1 in F minor Bernstein – Sonata Stravinsky – Three pieces for clarinet solo Debussy – La Cathedrale Engloutie (from Preludes Book 1) Aaron Copland – Nocturne Milhaud – Scaramouche Suite Personal favourites from the evening, both Debussy pieces and the encores, which were Debussy's 'la fille au cheveux de lin ' and a Benny Goodman solo (not sure which) on the clarinet. The hall was fairly full and show well received, so all in all a good warm up for the duo's later concert at Cadogan Hall, London on 28 th May. Back to something a l...

Somewhat back to reality after Sigur Rós' extravaganza. Not in the least mundane, though! Wednesday 19th we went to Clwb Ifor Bach to see Cage The Elephant headlining (after their stint supporting The Subways earlier this year). A short word on the support (although we missed 1st band Bleached Wail so can't really comment -try their myspace ): average but pretty forgettable. Obviously friends of Cage the Elephant, Autovaughn were, all in all, pretty dull. They weren't awful, and were pretty competent musicians, but just didn't have any real variety or selling point. Not so with Cage The Elephant . I recall from their support slot with The Subways that they had a very confident prescence, and singer Matt Schulz then had a vague resemblance to a young Mick Jagger. Not any more (hair now shorter and blonde) but the confidence is, if anything, even easier. Handily, their songs (set was, bar 1 song, from current selftitled debut album) have a great combination of new and ...

An impromptu booking led M and I to a different kind of Saturday night in Cardiff. M had given me Kitty, Daisy and Lewis ' selftitled 1st LP (I'll discount the 'A-Z' compilation as an album proper, as it only has 1 song of theirs) as a birthday present, and luckily I checked my email to find an invitation from Spillers to get our glad ragged selves down to Clwb Ifor Bach for Sat 30 th August, as the band were indeed in town. Kitty, Daisy and Lewis are 3 siblings playing their own mix of old rock n roll, r'n'b , country and blues (plus parents for guitar/double bass onstage). I found a brief summary article on Wikipedia here . M thought there would be 6 people there, I thought it would be busier than than, and happily I was right! DJ Johnny Dodgem provided a very suitable set prior to the live set, but what support was meant to be there, wasn't, so we had a bit of a wait for K D and L to arrive onstage . But no matter. Obviously, most of the set was ta...

Back to small venues after the E Street Extravaganza, and a treat, really, our second Sugars experience. A quick line about the support bands -for once they were at least ok! The first up, Jodie Daniels , just him and an acoustic guitar, he wasn't bad at all for his first ever show! Next (local) band Sixty were pretty polished but fairly unoriginal (except for a cover of 1990s hit Rhythm Is A Dancer). Unfortunately, friends of both supports had made up a good section of the audience, who then left, so it was (again) a pretty small gathering for The Sugars! Pah. They missed out! I managed to get a snap of the set, which, amended for a few changes, was: Seamstress (not sure of 2nd song), Fairy Tales, Heaven Knows, Serenade, Monsters, All My Children, Mama, Everybody Yell, Gossip, W T M H, Black Friday. The changes -well, there was a problem with an amp after Heaven Knows, but nobody minded that much. Especially not us, trialling earplugs for the first time and they definitely work! N...

Good things come to those who get the tickets, indeed. Two outings this week, first up on 26th were Long Blondes in a very crowded top room at Clwb Ifor Bach. The Steel City theme extended as far as support from Yorkshire rapper Kid Acne , who was new to us but hilariously entertaining! Quite a few similarities with Arctic Monkeys (although I'm not sure I've ever seen any Monkey wearing a flat cap). The main set started off with current single Century. The majority of the set was from forthcoming album Couples, plus some very old favourites that didn't make Someone To Take You Home (I assume so, as we didn't recognise them), with only Lust In The Movies and Giddy Stratospheres (last song of the set) making it. Excellent show, my only real criticism that it was too short and there was no encore! Although the encore problem was due to the venue and an album launch for someone else! Second outing on 27th, back to The Point to see old (or rather young) favourites The Subway...