Wednesday 10th July
The Dublin Castle
Clem Cattini: My Life Through The Eye Of A Tornado
At The Rock n Roll Book Club
Get Cheap Tickets Here

Hear Bugbear in conversation with Clem Cattini and Bip Wetherall at Boogaloo Radio by clicking on the pic above. Loads of ace tunes and chipper chat on ‘Bugbear’s Tales’, your fortnightly look at launch pad venue voodoo.( Or vooduu, coz this episode stars the brilliant Ese Okorodudu of Vooduu People fame). Any road we certainly have an absorbing chat with Clem here, a good taster for the book club happening July 10th. Clem Cattini is the legendary drummer whose career spans over 60 years, beginning in the mid-1950s. In 1960 Clem teamed up with Johnny Kidd and The Pirates, resulting in the classic recording of arguably Britain’s greatest rock and roll record, Shakin’ All Over. Clem became involved with maverick record producer Joe Meek and The Tornados were formed as the Holloway Rd house band, which led to the recording of the worldwide hit Telstar, the first British record to reach the number one spot in the American Billboard charts in 1963. Clem playd studio sessions with the likes of Big Jim Sullivan, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and Tony Meehan, hired to put down the tracks for hundreds of hit records during those crazy days of the 60s and the 70s. From The Top of the Pops Orchestra to turning down both Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney’s Wings, Through The Eye Of A Tornado is an affectionate look back over an unparalleled career, with Clem and friends recalling the early days of the British rock and roll scene around Soho. Q and A by Julie Hamill with interruptions and sonic illustrations by the mysterious Joe Geek. (OK it’s Tony)

Magical Blue Orchids Shows, East and West
Fri 12 July
The Water Rats
Blue Orchids with Cult Figures and Vukovar
Get Cheap Tickets Here

Sat 13 July
The Bell Inn, Bath
The Blue Orchids with Invisible Eyes and Brutal Wounds
Get Cheap Tickets Here

Blue Orchids, as a post punk psychedelic adjunct to Fall -world are well established in the music enthusiast’s consciousness, and yes, Martin Bramah was a founding father of The Fall [more], and as expressed recently might have reasonable grounds to even call himself The Fall, well, why not…but then he’s not daft. Perhaps people could do with reconnecting with Martin’s oeuvre a little more deeply than obsessing over the ex Fall schtick, specially what with the recent albums being a succession of magik pop psych masterpieces choc stock (oh yes) with fabulous gems full of rich, resonant sounds and stinging, esoteric lyrics. Last year’s “Righteous Harmony Fist” was a total triumph, one of them stick to the turntable type records you used to know and love in the seventies and eighties. And the accompanying live shows were remarkable. A definite air of the ‘wow man we’re not worthy’ was rife amidst the awestruck punters in the Dublin Castle six months ago as they shook the embers of harmonic feedback off their clothing and made off into the night. That was a superb Blue Orchids show. Well there’s more on the way. Including what Martin Bramah calls, “the first covers concept album” the centrepiece of which is, “a pivotal anomaly”, an unseen Mark E Smith lyric from 1977, which Bramah has only now set to music. ‘The Magical Record Of Blue Orchids’ comes out on Tiny Global Productions on 7 June 2019 on CD and vinyl formats. Nuggets from The Penny Saints, The Aardvarks, The Growlers’, Crystal Stilts are promised and there’s an album of new Blue Orchids original material not far behind. Buy the records, attend the gigs, appreciate the illusive magic of Blue Orchids. A very special group.

Superb Supports Both Shows

Cult Figures – Having just released their nigh on 40 years in the making debut album, the very wonderful and very recommended ‘The 116 Ploughs A Lonely Furrow’, Swell Maps associates and West Midlands post punk/indie psych heroes Cult Figures have been astounding all comers with their remarkable live shows all these years later. Much fun, bridging the gap perfectly betwixt joyous irreverence and hard nosed intensity. Something for everyone then, oh, and they go back in the studio for album the second shortly. Perhaps that’ll win some gongs to go alongside guitarist Jonathan Hodgson’s two (count ’em) Baftas. High School Art with bite.

Vukovar – Post punk informed indie pop with a bleak industrial undertow, heavy on the atmos, but they’ve some nice melodies in their widescreen soundscapes. (Ex The Bordellos, Carina Nebula, Gharials and Neurotic Wreck) “Vukovar hails from the Brutalist wastelands in the North of England. Ultra-Realism. Depravity. Monotony. Concrete. Hedonism. Silence. Vukovar are idealists, voyeurs and totalitarian”.

Invisible Eyes – Dan Harper rocks the much admired Frome/Bath based ambient/dance/techno project Invisible System, but this is of course his cosmiche rocknroll outing… a meld of groove riff type psychedelia (Hawkwind, Here And Now, Ozrics) and a bit of Loop like post Stooges wall of ramalama and Steve Hillage like guitar wizardry via some urgent post punk head mangling riddims…because there’s a really great head mangling riddim section! Love the nasty ass keys too. . They do like a ‘Feral psyche out’… as should you madam.

Brutal Wounds – Tim Kirby’s new gnarly upbeat post punk cum garage rocknroll band – think Ruts, Gang Of 4, Godfathers, an excellently impassioned vocal and chugging, crisp riffology. Dynamic stuff. ‘Reviving the angst and pain of the 80’s and 90’s’ Featuring Tim Kirby (Diatribe/The Loveless/The Cabal, Andy Curry (Hidden Bloom) and Jim Johnston (Monk & Canatella/Hexit)