Meltdown and the Cardiff Summer Festival
As co-ordinator and Director of the Cardiff Summer festival I knew at the beginning that my knowledge of world music..indeed any music was pretty awful. However I sought those in the biz who knew..Paul Clarke, Mike (coal exchange) Johnson, Mark from Terra, big bearded fellow? [was that me? - Ed], Jed Williams, Debbie Manley - who’s now with the Sunday People (and who got the Mock Turtles) and others were brought together in my front living room. Loads of beers later we devised a structure for Cardiff Festival Music Gigs: Big Weekend, The Hayes –summer and Europe week gigs ( with food!!! From local suppliers), Cardiff Bay ( who can ever forget Angelique Kidjo who Paul took me to see at Reading Womad). Each person was given a budget and created their own little haven at the festival. It was really hard work with the Council who wanted to own the lot. but I persevered and over time ( we are talking years now) the group delivered and Cardiff and the music scene ( I hope) was the better for it. What we created was a series of great musical interludes, right smack bang in the middle of where people walk. The booze flowed, people stood in the rain, and the Cardiff audience loved it. (not too sure about St David’s Hall patrons who on leaving their performance came across a vibrant Hayes - though they joined in). We need to bring that back again, a surprise round every corner, music mix eclectic and diverse, to celebrate our real time music richness……
Once one of the group suggested Chaka Demis and Pliers (they were big at the time). I phoned up the agency and asked if they were any good live (dUH)……..on the night as I stood on top of City Hall with the chief of police… I saw the whole of Butetown turn out for a set that got Cardiff rocking.. Ok - music may not be my bag but I thank all those who joined me and supported me at the time to make Cardiff an inspirational city. We led where now others follow. Finally may I ask. Where are we now and how do we want the future to continue??
Mike Chubb
Late 1980s Chapter Bar
I can remember leaping up from the front row of the audience onto the Meltdown stage one time, when the Lost T-shirts of Atlantis were playing. I was trying to catch a pint glass balanced on top of a guitar amp before it fell and poured what passed for beer in the Chapter bar all down inside the amp. Chris the lead singer/guitarist (think his name is Chris) was a bit surprised and thought it great that someone was mobbing the stage.
Bumped into Chris once or twice in the bar next to Jongleurs in Battersea, round about '96. They used to have live blues and R&B in there on Monday nights. Just realised it's ten years on from then. And rather shocked by your reminder that it's 20 years since the birth of Meltdown. Bloody hell. That's cheered me up no end.
Ken Richman, London, Feb 2006
Wot ever happened to Lord Jim?
J Jagus
GOOD work on the website. It looks great. Nice comments , hilarious photos. God bless us all in our callow youth.
I last saw Steve Penrose [Thieves - late 1980s] in a condo near Windsor about 6 years ago, trying to put together teeny bop bands. I agree that he was a genius.
Alison Clash, Feb 2006
The Meltdown Christmas Party, Clwb Ifor Bach, 18th of December 2005
Clwb Ifor Bach is like the Tardis. From the outside it has the appearance of a medium-sized (and somewhat gloomy) pub but, once through the squeaky double-doors, and you’re in a massive three-layered venue which the Meltdown organization monopolizes in its entirety once a year for the Meltdown Christmas Party. It’s normally a humdinger with more bands and performers than you could shake a stick at (although why anyone would actually want to shake sticks at bands is beyond me) and all bases covered from rock and jazz to folk and comedy. Last year (check the gig report from the archive) the boys went on last in the downstairs bar but, this year, they were upstairs at the more civilized hour of nine and they were preceded by Alison Clash so, naturally, Mike and Andy and Stew had some extra work to do whilst I had a pint with Ayres and watched from the sidelines. The sound was good and Al went down really well…as did the Soda’s. It was a bit quiet to begin with but during ‘Sad Baby’ the whole place erupted and bodies were jumping and pogo-ing in the aisles (why do they always wait until the last bleedin’ number??). Things were running late so the lads had to curtail their set but, as they say, always leave em wanting more. As Christmas Meltdown bashes go this one seemed a bit thin audience-wise but, as ever, it was fun and it’s always a joy to play Clwb Ifor Bach.
The Soda Men
From: www.sodamen.co.uk
BOB THE BAKER
“Shw mae Paul,
Now there's a strange thing..........................finding you in web search results.
You might just (not) remember me from Chapter Bar in the late 80's. Then I was often known as 'Bob the Baker', but preferred the name I still use, 'Ianto Fullpelt'.
I have played with my younger son, Ross, now 24, as mAbAtAd for a number of years now. We have about 50 songs between us and we are always looking for opportunities to play”.
Rob Hughes
The Meltdown Christmans Party,
Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff, Sunday 19th December 2004
The omens weren’t good. An onstage time of 12.30. Half past bleedin’ midnight!!! And on a Sunday night too…
…and with the Alabama 3 playing at the same time upstairs…
you’d have forgiven the boys for whisking through an edited highlights of their set and buggering off early…
but no… wait…
it was easily the best gig of the year!
Of course, to begin with it looked like being the worst. Railroad Bill finished a hugely attractive set and left the punters shouting for more. Then they left the stage and the entire audience left with them to see Alabama 3 on the upstairs stage.
Oh well.
The Soda’s took to the stage in a philosophic way and proceeded a rather lacklustre set full of weary mistakes when…all of a sudden..people started to crowd down from the upstairs bit and began to shake their asses to the Soda Men groove. Morega from Naughty did a sterling job of getting people dancing and soon the whole joint was rockier than the US government’s record on human rights.
Three (count ‘em) encores later the boys went off to massive adulation and acclaim…(well…a gaggle of CD buyers and promoters anyway). It was 2.30 and they’d played for hours. Good though. Bit of a buzz. Nice to be back at Clwb Ifor. Love the Swinging Sixties feel of Womanby Street. Coming out it felt like the Marquee in 66.
Not that we’d know of course.
The Soda Men
From: www.sodamen.co.uk
Meldown, Journeys,
Cardiff, Sunday 28th of November 2004
Hoegaarden and Kirin on draught..bloody hell..things are looking up at the new-look Journeys! Mind you…Stew looked a bit glum on discovering that there was no cider. (Still, as Marie Antoinette once said ‘let them drink beer’. Or something like that.)
Yes, the inside of Journeys now looks like one of those pseudo-minimalist interiors you see in the property pages of middling to smart papers..all white and ersatz docklands. There’s even a Chinese lantern by the side of the stage!
None of the Soda boys were particularly chirpy tonight..to be honest, they were grumpy as f**k. Still, they had a decent excuse..all of them had colds. Ayres had been dropping herbal medicine all day but, despite this, he was still as miserable as a bus-full of Morrissey impersonators. Mike had stupidly agreed to play with every other band on the bill (although one of these bands was the ever-so splendid Alison Clash- actually..come to think of it..Stew and Andy played in her band too…no wonder Ayres looked a bit left out and wobbly-lipped). So..the omens weren’t good but..wait..
It was superb.
Easily one of the best gigs the boys have done. Well worth the wait (see previous Meltdown entry for what happened at Journeys last time when Andy hurt his back picking up his amp- he’s invested in a new one now by the way which is approximately the size of a box of Swan Vesta’s!). Cheering crowds..the sale of a CD. Blimey..it was too good to be true! Back to the bar…pints of Hoegaarden all round please!
Cold? What cold??
The Soda Men
From: www.sodamen.co.uk
Meltdown, Journeys
Cardiff, Sunday April 25 2004
Quite a dramatic one this. We were initially going to be playing a short set simply to highlight a few new numbers but then the headliner pulled out a few days before the gig so the promoter, Paul Clarke, asked us if we’d mind doing a full set to close the evening. We said ok and turned up clutching our fully-loaded set-lists only for Andy to suffer some kind of bizarre accident whilst carrying his bass amp to the venue. ‘Oh dear’, he said, (or words to that effect), ‘I’ve done something really painful to my back’ (I am paraphrasing here by the way), ‘perhaps I should go home, have a cup of tea, rest awhile, and then I’ll turn up later’. We said ‘fine’ (for we are blessed with synchronicity) but, as the time came for us to go on it was clear that Andy was ‘on the bench’. Since we are not party to a Man Utd-type ‘squad-system’ we were stuffed without our loyal pal so we decided that, after everything, we should revert back to support seeing as we couldn’t really do a lot of the songs without bass (I know the White Stripes can do this sort of thing really well but we didn’t really fancy it). So, Mike and Ayres did three songs together before being joined by Stewart for a blistering ‘Catch A Ride’ and ‘Hoping and Praying’. We’ve got another gig here in August. Hopefully,by then, we should be back to full-strength. (Andy is fine now by the way. We’re beginning to suspect that it was just a cunning ploy to watch ‘Heartbeat’).
The Soda Men
From: www.sodamen.co.uk
Meltdown Xmas Cake 2005
Clwb Ifor Bach
thank you for asking us to play at the [2005] Xmas Meltdown- we all had a great night and we enjoyed the appreciative crowd that Meltdown attracts (sometimes hard to get in Cardiff!!).
