20th Birthday Party Page

SIAN EVANS
(of KOSHEEN)
Talking to Meltdown founder Paul Clarke about her roots in Meltdown

Since forming in the late 90's, Kosheen have proved that success doesn't have to come on someone else's terms. Fusing the plaintive, potent vocals of singer Sian Evans with the darkly intimate electronica of Darren Decoder and Markee Substance, Kosheen create songs where the sounds tell the story as much as the lyrics while the boundaries of genres are blurred and challenged. Crowds of up to 17,000 have since seen the band play in Europe, Australia, South Africa, Asia, even America where fans who had only heard Kosheen via Napster knew all the lyrics before anything had ever officially been played there. The LA Times proclaimed the band one of four hot new electronica acts to watch for and the band won the Global Dance Music Award in Miami in recognition of their international influence. Kosheen's compelling, anthemic track 'Hide U' reached number 6 in the UK, while 'Catch' hit number 15 and 'Hungry' reached number 13. The accompanying album, 'Resist', went on to reach number 8 in the UK and made the top 30 in Australia, The Netherlands, Belgium and Greece. It has since sold half a million copies worldwide.

Brought up in a small town in South Wales, Sian had left home at 16 and moved to Cardiff to escape, living in squats and friends houses while working several jobs at once and travelling to parties and festivals all over the country. It was then that she played ‘floor spots’ at Meltdown nights – then at Chapter Arts Centre – and came across musicians and a passion for music which still inspire her. At the height of the rave scene, in 1991, she gave birth to her son, Yves, and was forced to reassess her priorities. For the next four years, Sian and her son split their time between environmental protests like Newbury and working at summer festivals. It was all she needed to give her a taste for living outdoors and so in 1996, Sian moved into a tepee on a traveller's site in the Brechfa forest for nine months.

I spoke to Sian as she was driving around Cheddar Gorge. Sian did regular ‘floor spots’ at Meltdown back in the days the club was based in Chapter Arts Centre. “It was really hard to get the mike back off me – and I’m still like that”. “I really enjoyed Meltdown. It was homely and friendly with a really positive vibe” she recollects. “I’d played covers in other venues, but this was more of an innovative place. It was inspiring to see people writing their own material, and also the jamming and improvising – I think that’s where you find the real bliss of music”. Among the musicians who inspired her she remembers Phil Racz, Andy Moore, the Jacknife Disciples and Krissy Jenkins. And with her current solo experiments Sian is reconnecting with some of the musicians she first came across at Meltdown. “Working with Simon (Kingman) is a dream. And Sartori – who I first met at Meltdown when I saw his band Wase – is a wonderful person and musician’. Sian’s set at the birthday gig is in the spirit of Meltdown still being used as a space to innovate and experiment as well as entertain. “I love the organic feel of working with acoustic instruments. I enjoy all the studio based creativity with Kosheen, but there’s something special about performing live, that moment when you all make eye contact and count in the song”. Her set will mix acoustic takes on Kosheen classics, and brand new material. “We’ll be playing an acoustic version of Hungry, and we’ve come up with an arrangement of Hide U which has a sort of latin feel” . Though there’s a new Kosheen album in the offing early next year which Sian enthused about, she said “I’m also really pleased to be exploring other musical collaborations and reconnecting with musicians that inspired me when I started out playing Meltdowns”.
Paul Clarke

“Stylish and sultry” Heat

“The gorgeous vocals of Sian Evans”

Cosmopolitan

“Emotive, anthemic and achingly beautiful”

Vanity Fair

“Sian Evans's towering vocals” The Guardian

www.myspace.com/kosheen1

NO FIT STATE CIRCUS & MELTDOWN
Paul Clarke – Meltdown co-founder – talks to Ali Williams, No Fit State Circus supremo and joint founder, about their roots in Meltdown and joint Birthday Party at the Point.

Meltdown began in the tiny downstairs bar at Chapter Arts Centre in 1986, and within months a bunch of five wastrels and vagabonds – Ali, Tom, Pete, Richie and Dave Id - styling themselves ‘Balls Up Jugglers’ started using our open stage to fling objects around - clubs, balls, beer glasses, knives ... Tables directly in front of the stage mysteriously emptied - just the odd tumbleweed rolling past. And then, as Meltdown experimented with gigs in the Theatre upstairs, the jugglers mounted unicycles, played with fire, mutated into No Fit State Circus and grew more and more ambitious and deluded. We’ll buy a giant circus tent, they thought. We’ll harness the skills of the whole community for ambitious circus and multi-media spectaculars. We’ll tour the world, to great acclaim, as an insanely innovative and creatively radical circus/theatre collective, winning awards and hearts wherever we go...

And now, 20 years later, we’re sharing a birthday. No Fit State Circus have grown from a bunch of jugglers into an insanely innovative and creatively radical circus/theatre collective who tour the world winning awards and hearts ... etc. Meltdown has expanded exponentially from a bunch of enthusiasts putting on weekly gigs melting down barriers between all forms of music and performance into a bunch of enthusiasts putting on monthly gigs melting down ... Ummm ... You know.

Ali Williams (aka Ali Bi) remembers the early days of No Fit State using innocent Meltdown punters as guinea pigs for their weird and wonderful routines. “I remember Tom dressed up as a tiger jumping through a hoop” she recalls. “We would try out routines at Meltdown before trying them on the public. The stage at Chapter was very small, so it was always a bit kamikaze”. I remind Ali of a particularly scary act - the ‘knife throwing-which-turns-into-juggling routine’ – during which I sat pale faced at the table in front of the stage. “I played Nick Eragua” Ali remembers, “and Dave Id played Uncle Sam throwing knives at me which I caught and threw back”. This was an appropriate political dimension to a hilarious routine as it formed part of a Meltdown benefit to help send Ali to Niceragua – to use her circus skills to bring an element of magic into the lives of children in the war zone.

“Meltdown made an immense contribution both to our development and the growth of the whole Cardiff scene. There were just loads of bands finding a space to play” Ali observes. Her favourites acts included the Howling Sleepers (featuring Chris ‘Cakehole Presley’ Ridgeway), songwriter Sian Donovan and skiffle kings Railroad Bill.

The material developed at Meltdowns – in both the Chapter Bar and the Theatre upstairs – proved a resounding success on the street and in Ali’s words ‘things just grew and grew’. Now No Fit State Circus are acclaimed as the best contemporary circus in the UK and have garnered international recognition including the The Jury Award Tarrega Festival, Spain 2005 and the ‘alternative to Perrier’ TapWater Award at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival. Out of the original 5 founders, two (Ali and Tom) are still at the heart of No Fit State. Community workshops and performances in Cardiff, and the Circus’s apprenticeship scheme, have kept the proportion of local participants high, but performers and collaborators now include acts from across the UK and beyond – including, in this years ImMortal production: Finland, Spain, France, Australia, and Austria.

And so on Saturday November 25th 2006 at the Point , these two amazing South Wales cultural forces combine for an explosive gig celebrating their joint spirit of experiment, their roots in the community, and the astonishing talents they’ve both harnessed and supported over the years. “ We’re really pleased to be able to share with Cardiff audiences some of the amazing acts we’ve toured the world with” Ali observed. No Fit State stars past and present, including Bryony Black, Queen of the hula hoops, Aerialist D’Angle; Simon Deville Tightrope walker, Dangerous Duo featuring Ali Bi and ‘Splott Brother’ Dave Id; and other Magicians, Jugglers, Stiltwalkers etc will rub shoulders with Meltdown proteges from different genres and generations. Sian Evans - the voice of dance mega-band Kosheen, Internationally renowned folk singer-songsmith Julie Murphy, acclaimed angular-indie quartet the Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club, will share the stage with local legends such as Chris Ridgeway and Captain Paranoid. And many major names and ‘new generation’ talents are still to be confirmed - all having in common the experience – like No Fit State - of using the Meltdown stage to learn their craft, experiment, collaborate and find an audience.
Paul Clarke

More Press on No Fit State Circus

“Twenty years on the road, the Cardiff-based outfit continues a radical rethink of traditional circus activities, with not an animal, wild or domestic thankfully in sight ... the sheer variety of the skills, talents and athleticism displayed ... includes trapeze, fire-eating, tumbling, juggling, bungee stunts, tightrope walking, whip cracking, acrobatics, mock fights, stilt walking, gymnastics, aerial ballet and what a girl achieves with hula hoops proves a genuine showstopper” The Stage

“Less of a show - more of an experience that will stay with you forever”” Bath Chronicle

“A no holds barred show, fusing circus, dance, music, theatre

and audio-visual” Vanity Fair

“The future of British Circus” The Guardian

Winner of

Edinburgh Fringe Tap Water Awards 2005

The Jury Award Tarrega Festival, Spain 2005

Guardian UnLtd 3 weeks award 2005

www.nofitstate.com

FERNHILL (Julie Murphy)

There are few folk voices in the world, let alone in Wales, that can still your breath and tingle your spine as effectively as that of Julie Murphy, and the guitar, trumpet and occasional piano settings of Fernhill serve her starkly beautiful interpretations of traditional songs from Wales and beyond perfectly.

Julie still mesmerises audiences in just the way I can remember her doing at the earliest Meltdowns in Chapter Bar. When performing in 2005 at St Davids Hall in Cardiff she spoke of the importance of meltdown to her early development as a performer. ‘Meltdown was really formative for me’ she noted. ‘I was just learning these songs and would go along and inflict myself on the audience’. I beg to differ concerning ‘inflict’. Whether following a knife throwing routine or a six form thrash metal band Julie’s singing, in my recollection, would always stun the raucous, distinctly non-folk-specific audience in Chapter Bar into an enraptured silence. And this for unaccompanied Welsh language ballads as much as for spirited cajun romps with her Trio De Selby (see our 1980s Archive for pics). No wonder Eliza Carthy has called her 'My favourite singer in the world', and the likes of Robert Plant and Danny Thompson have sought to work with her. My only regret is that too often she’s playing to the folk faithful alone. Rock gods and urban rappers alike need to hear this (and she numbers both among her fans and collaborators).

But the magic is still there - still underpinned (as in Meltdown days) by the harp-like guitar and Celtic flute of Ceri Rhys Matthews and now augmented by jazz-edged trumpet and piano from Tomos Williams.

Folk is ‘beyond fashion’ Julie observed when I last saw her in concert. In her hands it is also beyond limits.

At the Meltdown Birthday Party Julie will be duetting with Howling Sleepers/Cakehole Presley singer Chris Ridgeway and (subject to availability) jazz/folk guitar maestro Dylan Fowler.

“My favourite singer in the world” ELIZA CARTHY
"the band at the heart of the welsh renaissance" MOJO
" beautiful voice, excellent band " ROBERT PLANT
"Julie Murphy is a must-see-must-hear singer" TIME OUT
"A wonderfully soulful singer" THE GUARDIAN
"one of the greatest singers in the land" Colin Irwin, fROOTS
www.juliemurphymusic.com

MELTDOWN, JULIE MURPHY AND THE WELSH FOLK RENNAISANCE
“Meltdown is a club, a booking agency, a self-help group and a roadshow all in one … the picture of an organisation on the scale of the KGB emerges, not content until they’ve touched on every facet of modern life”
Folk Roots Magazine 1991

On Sunday December 21st 1986 Julie Murphy first shared a bill with future collaborator Dylan Fowler. Not that either of them remembered this when both clocked me sitting in the front row for their Norwegian Church gig - playing as a duo - in 2005.
“So how do you know Paul?” Dylan asked Julie. “Did you used to play Meltdown too?”

Both were among the musically adventurous ‘floor acts’ to use the Meltdown night in the early years of the clubs existence. And threaded through the comedy, the pop, the juggling, the blues jams and the avant garde performance pieces was an astonishing wealth of local, national and global folk talent.

Over the years since China’s Guo Brothers, Australia’s Mara (featuring Danny Thompson), Italy’s Riccardo Tesi and Alberto Balia, Irish harpist Máire Ni Chathasaigh, Hurdy-Gurdy legend Nigel Eaton and Madagascars Justin Vali Trio shared the stage with (among others) the Kilbride Brothers, Toreth, Callenig, Mabsant, Carreg Lafar, Hassan Erraji, Chilean exiles America Morena, Sian James, SILD, and Julie Murphy’s evolving musical ensembles.

And the fact that this also meant sharing the stage with indie rock bands, jazz combos, country singers, comedians, and knife throwers seemed to enhance the experience. For people passionate about traditional song and instrumental music, Meltdown provided an opportunity to reach a wider audience, opening people’s ears to the stark beauty of the music. Through Meltdown Roadshows Julie Murphy’s Saith Rhyfeddod played the Melrose Festival in Scotland and the Mean Fiddler in London. And through Meltdown’s Sunday sessions in the Club tent at three Pontardawe festivals, acts such as Carreg Lafar and the Blue Horses found themselves booked back as part of the following years’ bill. And the Meltdown-folk connection is as strong as ever 20 years on with (among others) the acoustic ‘old-timey’ music of the Foundlings, the bilingual banjo-balladry of Menna Hughes and the haunting musical landscapes of Estonian/Welsh duo SILD (who’ll be playing the 20th Birthday Party).

Paul Clarke

Everybody has to start somewhere.

Everybody has to start somewhere. Whether you’re an internationally acclaimed contemporary circus troupe such as No Fit State Circus, or a globally feted dance-music diva such as Sian Evans of Kosheen, a critically lauded young indie band a la the Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club, or Eliza Carthy’s favourite folk singer in the world: Fernhill’s Julie Murphy – there has to be somewhere you took your first steps onto a stage, sang your first notes or juggled your first clubs in front of an audience. The weird thing is that when it comes to all of the above, (and Welsh Queen of Pop Cerys Matthews, comedy god Rob Brydon, jazz guitar maestro Dylan Fowler and myriad others), that somewhere is the same place. Meltdown.

That a small Cardiff-based club run for 20 years by unpaid enthusiasts almost entirely on self-generated money can claim early performances by such an impressive and varied roster of performers is remarkable. And that said performers are eager to help celebrate its 20th birthday in a spectacular Party at the Point Cardiff Bay on Sat Nov 25th, speaks volumes for the extraordinary – albeit largely unsung - contribution of Meltdown to the flowering of Welsh culture in the last twenty years (including Cool Cymru, the Welsh Folk Rennaissance etc), and its formative role in their respective careers.

“I really enjoyed Meltdown” says Sian Evans, the front woman of dance act Kosheen, who played Meltdown in its early days at Chapter Arts Centre. “It was homely and friendly with a really positive vibe. I’d played covers in other venues but Meltdown was more of an innovative place. It was inspiring to see people writing their own material and jamming and improvising – I think that’s where you find the real bliss of music”.

“‘Meltdown was really formative for me” says Queen of Welsh Folk Julie Murphy. “I was just learning these traditional songs and would go along and inflict myself on the audience”. That this was on a stage shared with jugglers, indie bands, comedians and all sorts was viewed as a plus by a musician who has since gone on to collaborate with Robert Plant, John Cale, Asian Dub Foundation among others.

Ali Williams (aka Ali Bi) remembers the early days of No Fit State Circus using innocent Meltdown punters as guinea pigs for their weird and wonderful routines. “I remember Tom dressed up as a tiger jumping through a hoop” she recalls. “We would try out routines at Meltdown before trying them on the public. The stage at Chapter was very small, so it was always a bit kamikaze”. Now No Fit State Circus are multi-award winning and Ali coordinates international No Fit State tours featuring forty to sixty performers in a specially designed ‘spaceship-marquee’.

Cerys Matthews who played her first ever gig at Meltdown and would have “loved to have played” the party had touring and family commitments permitted, sends her best wishes: "Happy twentieth birthday meltdown, thanks for all the memories. I wish you well with your next twenty years, and know you’re going to get to do some extraordinary things. Penblwydd Hapus - have a fabulous party”.

It seems the aim of Meltdown set out in 1986 to ‘melt down barriers between all sorts of music and performance; to provide a space for new acts to gain confidence and find an audience, established acts to experiment and collaborate, and audiences to explore new genres, discover new performers, and …’ has paid off in spades. “Just look at whats happening with the Party” says Paul Clarke, co-founder in 1986 and still involved today. “We’ve got all sorts of music and performance from aerialists to indie bands, from magicians to folk singers, from psychedelic swamp rock to table magic . And look at the collaborations such as Julie Murphy duetting with Cakehole Presley’s Chris Ridgeway, and the experiments such as Sian Evans singing Kosheen dance hits (such as Hungry and Hide U) with an acoustic band, and the promoting of new music such as the amazing Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club who we’re hoping to have collaborate with some of the Circus performers. And we’re still championing established performers who deserve wider recognition such as the amazing roots legends the Howling Sleepers – who are specially reforming for the party”.

And on the day that Wales will be battling proudly against the best in the world on the Rugby pitch, its fitting that Welsh performers who gone on to be among the best in the world in their chosen genres are coming together in the capital to celebrate that 'somewhere' that helped them when they started out.

WOMEN MAKE RUNNING AT MELTDOWN

If anyone needed proof of the pre-eminence of women performers in current Welsh culture it comes with the line-up for the 20th birthday party for cutting-edge Cardiff music and performance club Meltdown at the Point on the 25th Nov. Meltdown's famed eclecticism and openess to new performers has seen it act as a launch pad for the careers of an astonishing range of talents over two decades - and the Party brings together acts who have since achieved national, even global recognition in their respective fields.

"Its fascinating that a majority of these are women" observes Meltdown organiser Marega Palser (herself co-lead of art-punk band Naughty and internationally acclaimed performance duo Mr and Mrs Clarke). "We've got Sian Evans from dance act Kosheen who have a global following, folk singer Julie Murphy from Fernhill, rated as one of the best singers in the world by everyone from Eliza Carthy to Robert Plant, the Victorian English Gentlemen’s Club, a two-thirds female indie band whose debut album has been a massive critical success. Even our partners in putting on the Party - No Fit State Circus who are Britain's leading contemporary circus company - are co-ordinated by Ali Williams, an amazing woman whose career highlights have included teaching circus skills to children in the war zones of Niceragua and winning both the (alternative to Perrier) Tap Water Award and Guardian 3-week Award at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival!".

Cerys Matthews' first ever appearance on stage was playing a three song set at a Meltdown with a brand new band - Sweet Catatonia, and she remains grateful for the opportunities Meltdown provided. 'I would have love to have done [the Party]' she told us, had family and touring commitments not intervened. 'happy twentieth birthday meltdown, thanks for all the memories. I wish you well with your next twenty years, and know youre going to get to do some extraordinary things'

Original Meltdown organiser, primary school teacher Sian Donovan - herself an immensely accomplished songwriter - observed 'right from the start Meltdown encouraged women performers to take the stage. We had Women's Voices nights which inspired others to put on similar nights - and which grew and grew until one of them took over the whole New Theatre! And from the outset acts like accapella trio the Milkshakes, singer-songwriter Katell Keineg, and folk duo Les Voix Jumelles one of whom - Nicolette - found fame as a dance music innovator and collaborator with Massive Attack, were inspirations to other women to take that scary step onto the stage".

Sian Evans of Kosheen took her first steps as a performer back in those early days where Meltdowns took place every Sunday in Chapter Arts Centre downstairs bar. "Meltdown was homely and friendly with a really positive vibe” she recollects. “An innovative place with people writing their own material. And also the jamming and improvising – I think that’s where you find the real bliss of music”.

Meltdown committee member Becky Edwards, who is writing a thesis on the Cool Cymru phenomena, commented on the impressive range of women performers who have played Meltdown in the last twelve months. "from riot grrl band the Physicists, to singer-songwriter Cate le Bon, from the Hot Puppies to avant-garde singer-pianist ... whose moved to Cardiff from New Zealand, from the electronica of Applefish to the banjo and beautifully sung ballads of young West Walian Menna Hughes, the range and quality of women performers is incredibly strong".

Paul Clarke, Meltdown co-founder, speculates that one of the reasons ... is that women have always taken a lead role in organising Meltdown. "In the late eighties Sian Donovan, herself a performer and regular Meltdown compere, ensured that we avoided our open-stage format becoming a place for ego-trips or 'gong-show' type cruelty. We gave artists room to fail and encouraged audiences to be supportive".

Freelance journalist Debbie Manley - who in 2005 was voted British Press Awarrds Showbiz Journalist of the Year - was the public face of Meltdown in the nineties and will be returning to compere at the Party. "Everybody has to start somewhere" Debbie observes "and Meltdown's strength has been to provide a welcoming and inspiring space for all performers”.

The Meltdown No Fit State Circus 20th Birthday Party takes place at the Point on Saturday 25th November. A DVD featuring footage from the legendary Meltdown - peppermintpatti benefit for Ladyfest is currently on sale at Spillers and from Hands On.