When we are scouting bands for these frankly tremendous, if we do say so ourselves, monthly nights in Cardiff Arts Institute, we open our hearts to all ages, all genres and all eccentricities. The one thing we ask of our bands is to provide you all a rollicking good time at whatever personal cost. Henrys Funeral Shoe, We//Are//Animal. Django Django. All bloody magnificent.

Janice Graham Band

For this month we have sent our dedicated team of national scouts on a quest of Herculean proportions to bring to surface one of the finest indie-ska-jazz diamond mines hitherto unexplored. They are The Janice Graham Band. They are from Manchester. And endearingly so. Their songs are brimming with Northern pathos and a breezy provincial cool. Their live shows are crackles of youthful vigour – comprising refined sing-a-long choruses with imaginative, often minimalist ska residues. The end result is a hell of a lot of knees feeling the inevitable pressure to buckle to the beat. We implore you to listen to the slinky, dark little number Easy available on their website – www.janicegrahamband.com/songs – hear their sleek, measured trumpet parps. Their smart lyrics. Their subtly sinister undertones. Hear them for yourselves, goddamnit.

If that doesn’t even vaguely interest you, then you are very miserly indeed.

August 26th isn’t historically renowned for wonderful things happening.

Let’s change that for 2010. It’s our duty.
……………………………………
www.janicegrahamband.com
www.myspace.com/janicegrahamband

26/08/10 Cardiff Arts Institute / Free Entry!

LOVE MMP!

The festivals are all in full flow. Crazy parties in over-populated fields. Losing your tent amidst a sea of others. Meditating at a tree somewhere in Suffolk. But don’t let all of these far-flung moments of excitement distract you from the incredible things happening before your eyes here in Cardiff. Over the last two months we have brought together some genuinely shit-hot talent to enthrall and entertain. We’ve seen the psych-art-pop powers of Django Django give us a full-on lip-kiss, not to mention the immensely gifted electro-drone-rock of We//Are//Animal. However, we at MMP are simply unrelenting in our desire to make going to live music as exciting as possible, so this time we have invited down R ‘n’ B, garage spanglers Thee Vicars to step into our sauna of the scintillating.

As always, we are sourcing our bands from the ripened well of musical talent across the country. Widely acknowledged as one of the finest, most filthy sounding rock acts rising through the ranks, Thee Vicars may dress like respectable gentlemen but are capable of summoning enough live energy to power the Caribbean. Recent album Psychotic Beat saw NME claim that they were ‘approaching a revelation’ giving it 8/10 in the process. MOJO and The Guardian have also acknowledged their tight but lairy garage beats. The Miniature Music Press now invites you to opens your arms and hearts to their rip-snorting, tail-sporting, leg-contorting, shuffle-courting stomps.

As always we don’t rest until we have two support acts for you to slobber on. In-keeping with the old-school R ‘n’ B sound of the headliners, we have opted for the blues-rock maniacal mayhem of Henry’s Funeral Shoe.

Having personally witnessed these chaps in swaggering action just a month or so ago, we can testify to their innate magnificence.

Plus, as an extra-special treat we have the euphoric, good-time, 60s-tinged pop-rock of Houdini Dax.

Houdini Dax

This is an avalanche of the ace. A tornado of the terrific. A whirlwind of the wonderful.

Who’d want to miss that?

Thee Vicars. Cardiff Arts Institute. 22nd July 2010. Woop bloody woop!!

x MMP

We love Cardiff. We like the disquieting bustle of its increasingly warm evenings. We like the way the Taff bends through it like a sun-glinting shimmer. And we love the people. Especially all of you MMP readers. That’s why we’re offering you monthly treats of top quality, pulse-racing, pant-plastering, knee-trembling and awe-transcending live music in the Cardiff Arts Institute. Last time we gave you Django Django who tore down the walls of the Institute before building them back up using the power of the sound wave. This month we have directed our MMP radars to the North of this lovely country and brought down the phenomenal We//Are//Animal.

we are animal

For those who have heard them, we need not worry telling you any more. Give yourselves a pat on the back for your exquisite taste and we’ll see you on June 17th. For those who haven’t then, my giddy aunt, what have you been doing? Recent single 1268 was released on the magnificent Too Pure Singles Club, the people responsible for discovering PJ Harvey and Stereolab among numerous others. As well as this being a prestigious label to release through, it’s made all the more commendable by the track being a bangingly tight indie vessel, powered by electro pistons.

And it’s no one-off. Album Idolise is a mighty collection of gruff-throated, intelligent, kraut-synth-rock with one lip-smacking hook lined up after another. That all the songs were recorded the same day they were written merely substantiates the myth that these fellas are pure musical mavericks. That when playing live they independently bust each and every one of their testicles in the name of entertainment adorns them with the MMP stamp of approval.

As always, we wouldn’t just put on a show featuring one of the country’s fastest rising bands. That would be too easy. Instead, we back it up with some of the finest acts our own city has to offer.

Oui Messy

Our feature on Oui Messy should give you an idea into how extraordinary their post-punk voodoo can be. Throw in the prodigious, menacing, and mentally ace industrial-electro of VVOLVES (formerly Zimmermans) and you, my friend, have a banquet of the bloody brilliant.

Cardiff Arts Institute. 17th June. Be there.

www.myspace.com/weareanimal
www.myspace.com/vvolves
www.myspace.com/ouimessy

Let’s say a prayer for the visionaries. Every now and then a band emerges with such a scope of imagination it makes you question why most other bands are so ordinary. The Beta Band were a band with such a vision, producing alternative hook-laden pop seemingly crafted from the narratives of your dreams. And now we have Django Django. Hailing from East London via Edinburgh, this four-piece are turning mammoth industry heads with their incredibly fresh blend of modern psychedelia, electronica and pop intelligence.

The Guardian are on board describing them as ‘psychedelic art pop at its best’. The NME have nailed their flag to the mast – ‘some of the most exciting, weird and clever pop music you’ll hear this year’. The Miniature Music Press are unashamedly joining the bandwagon and saying – listen to this bloody band and tell us they’re not incredible, if you do we’ll slap your uncultured face. Tasty support will be provided from none other than genre-bouncing madman Zwolf and Cardiff’s very own jerky psych-funk pineapples, The Method. Frankly, it will be a love-carnival of the fantastic. A pilgrimage to the sea of awesomeness. And we want to share it with you. Let’s do this together! 8pm Doors £tbc