On This Day 14/05/1998 Arab Strap

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On this day, 14 May 1998, Scottish indie rock band Arab Strap played Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach. The band had just released their second studio album Philophobia which peaked at #37 in the UK album charts. NME named Philophobia the 17th best album of 1998. In 2012, Fact placed the album at number 91 on its "100 Best Albums of the 1990s" list.

Vocalist and drummer Aidan Moffat and multi-instrumentalist Malcolm Middleton grew up in Falkirk, Scotland, and bonded over their mutual love for Drag City recording artists such as Will Oldham (who at the time recorded under the name Palace Brothers) and Smog. They began collaborating in 1995, and their debut album, The Week Never Starts Round Here, was released the following year. At this point Gary Miller and David Gow joined the band and became the rhythm section, creating a more dynamic live experience when the band started touring.

Over the course of their ten-year existence, Arab Strap worked with numerous musicians, including Jenny Reeve and Stacey Sievewright, as well as Adele Bethel, who went on to form Sons and Daughters. Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian featured on the album Philophobia, but the Belle & Sebastian album/song "The Boy with the Arab Strap" would later create something of a feud between Moffat and Murdoch.

Arab Strap's marked characteristics include sordid, personal, yet honest, lyrics – described by the NME as "fly on the duvet vignettes". Like fellow Scottish band The Proclaimers, their lyrics are sung in their native Scots tongue. At first essentially an electro-acoustic band with a brooding, spare sound, later albums and gigs saw them develop a fuller sound that drew deeply on both indie and dance music.

On This Day 02/05/1992 Everly Brothers

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On this day, 02/05/1992, legendary singing duo the Everly Brothers played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall.

They began writing and recording their own music in 1956, and their first hit song came in 1957, with "Bye Bye Love", written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. The song hit No. 1 in the spring of 1957, and additional hits would follow through 1958, many of them written by the Bryants, including "Wake Up Little Susie", "All I Have to Do Is Dream", and "Problems".

In 1960, they signed with Warner Bros. Records and recorded "Cathy's Clown", written by the brothers themselves, which was their biggest selling single. The brothers enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in 1961, and their output dropped off, though additional hit singles continued through 1962, with "That's Old Fashioned (That's the Way Love Should Be)" being their last top-10 hit.

The group was highly influential on the music of the generation that followed it. Many of the top acts of the 1960s were heavily influenced by the close-harmony singing and acoustic guitar playing of the Everly Brothers, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Bee Gees, and Simon & Garfunkel.

In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked the Everly Brothers No. 1 on its list of the 20 Greatest Duos of All Time. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class of 1986, and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2001. Don was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2019, earning the organization's first Iconic Riff Award for his distinctive rhythm guitar intro to the Everlys' massive 1957 hit "Wake Up Little Susie".

Review - South Wales Echo - Dan O’Neill

On This Day 29/04/1997 Billy Bragg

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On this day, 29 April 1997, singer, songwriter, musician, author and political activist Billy Bragg played Cardiff University.

His music blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs, with lyrics that mostly span political or romantic themes. His activism is centred on social change and left-wing political causes.

Bragg released the album William Bloke in 1996 after taking time off to help new partner Juliet Wills raise their son Jack. (There is a reference to him in the track "Brickbat": "Now you'll find me with the baby, in the bathroom.") After the ambitious instrumentation of Don't Try This at Home, it was a simpler record, musically, more personal and even spiritual, lyrically (its title a pun on the name of 18th-century English poet William Blake, who is referenced in the song "Upfield").

Around that time, Nora Guthrie (daughter of American folk artist Woody Guthrie) asked Bragg to set some of her father's unrecorded lyrics to music. The result was a collaboration with the band Wilco and Natalie Merchant (with whom Bragg had worked previously). They released the album Mermaid Avenue in 1998,[33] and Mermaid Avenue Vol. II in 2000. The first album was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Contemporary Folk Album category. A third batch, Mermaid Avenue Vol III, and The Complete Sessions followed in 2012 to mark Woody Guthrie's centennial.

A rift with Wilco over mixing and sequencing the first album led to Bragg recruiting his own band, The Blokes, to promote the album live. The Blokes included keyboardist Ian McLagan, who had been a member of Bragg's boyhood heroes The Faces. The documentary film Man in the Sand depicts the roles of Nora Guthrie, Bragg, and Wilco in the creation of the Mermaid Avenue albums.

Setlist

She's Got a New Spell

The World Turned Upside Down

(Leon Rosselson cover)

Goalhanger

The Man in the Iron Mask

To Have and to Have Not

Levi Stubbs' Tears

Accident Waiting to Happen

The Boy Done Good

Greetings to the New Brunette

The Saturday Boy

Brickbat

Upfield

Sexuality

Between the Wars

Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

There Is Power in a Union

A New England

(Father's version)

On This Day 26/04/1994 Tori Amos

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On this day, 26 April 1994, American singer-songwriter and pianist Tori Amos played Cardiff’s St David’s Hall on her Under The Pink tour.

She had recently released her second studio album Under The Pink with the album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart on the back of the hit single "Cornflake Girl", and peaked at number 12 in the US.

The singer-songwriter continued to offer piano-driven rock songs dealing with religion, gender, and sexuality. In addition to featuring more cryptic lyrics and experimental song structures, Amos invited in reggae influences on the single "Cornflake Girl", prepared piano on "Bells for Her" by John Philip Shenale, and Debussy-inspired piano lines on "Yes, Anastasia".

Amos performed the Under the Pink tour from February through November 1994, encompassing many of the same stops as on her previous world tour. A limited edition release of the album commemorating the Australian tour included a second disc entitled More Pink, a collection of rare B-sides like "Little Drummer Boy" and a cover version of Joni Mitchell's "A Case of You", was issued in November 1994. During this period, she also contributed the song "Butterfly" to the soundtrack for the 1994 movie Higher Learning, as well as a cover of the R.E.M. song "Losing My Religion".

The original track listing included the B-side "Honey", which was left off the album at the last minute. Amos has since voiced great regret for this:

"There were certain songs that were supposed to be on the record that got kicked off. 'Honey' was supposed to be on the record and, in retrospect, I wish it had been. I kicked it off for 'The Wrong Band'. Under the Pink wept when 'Honey' wasn't on, and she still is angry with me about it."

The album was recorded in Taos, New Mexico in a hacienda. The album artwork features several Native American and New Mexican references in the photography. The album is also notable as the last Amos album to feature the production of Eric Rosse as they split that year.

Setlist

Precious Things
Pretty Good Year
Crucify
Leather
Icicle
God
Silent All These Years
The Waitress
Happy Phantom
Bells for Her
Me and a Gun
Baker Baker

Encore 1:
Cornflake Girl
A Case of You

Encore 2:
Past the Mission
Smells Like Teen Spirit

Encore 3:
Mother

On This Day 05/04/1997 Bryan Adams

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On this day, 5 April 1997, Canadian rocker Bryan Adams played the Cardiff International Arena on his 18 Till I Die tour.

Orn November 5, 1959, the Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and photographer his estimated to have sold between 75 million and more than 100 million records and singles worldwide, placing him on the list of best-selling music artists.

Adams was the most played artist on Canadian radio in the 2010s and has had 25 top-15 singles in Canada and a dozen or more in the US, UK, and Australia.

In June 1996, the album 18 til I Die was released. It contained the songs: "The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You" (number 1 in Canada), "Let's Make a Night to Remember" (number 1 in Canada), ] "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" (number 1 in Canada), and "Star", which is included in the soundtrack of the film Jack.

The album reached number 22 on the UK charts while also reaching number two in Australia and number four in Canada. The album was less successful in the US only reaching number 31 on the Billboard 200, but was certified platinum in the United States by the RIAA. 18 til I Die was certified three times platinum in Canada and Australia and two times platinum in the UK.

In November 1996, "I Finally Found Someone" was released, which was recorded by Bryan Adams and Barbra Streisand as part of the soundtrack of Streisand's self-directed film The Mirror Has Two Faces. The song was nominated for an Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards. It peaked at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In November 1997, Adams penned new lyrics to the Jean-Jacques Goldman song "Puisque tu pars" also written that month, remade as Let's Talk About Love recorded by Celine Dion.

On This Day 22/03/1993 Jesus Jones

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On this day, 22 March 1993, alternative rock band Jesus Jones played Cardiff University. The band had recently released their third studio album Perverse.

Jesus Jones, especially band leader Mike Edwards, conceived Perverse as a darker, more contemporary album. Fusing rave and techno music into more traditional rock and pop song structures, the album is heavier than its predecessors with a much greater inclusion of industrial music and features lyrics that concern the future. Edwards wrote the lyrics of the album during the band's 1991 tour, using a Roland W-30 sampler to conceive songs in their earliest stages.

According to Trouser Press, Perverse "enjoys the historical distinction of being the first album recorded entirely (except for Edwards' vocals) on computer." The band recorded the entire album onto floppy disks in Edwards' house, which were then used on his computer to turn the music into "zeroes and ones".

Edwards described it as "the second rock album of the nineties," after The Young Gods' T.V. Sky, due to both albums embracing full-on computer technology. Although the band were ridiculed at the time for the recording process, it later became an influential technique.

Upon its release, Perverse peaked at number 6 on the UK Albums Chart.

Set List

Spiral

Good Thing

International Bright Young Thing

Magazine

The Devil You Know

The Right Decision

Right Here, Right Now

Love To War

Don’t Believe It

Zeroes and Ones

Real, Real, Real

Idiot Stare

Encore: Who? Where? Why?

On This Day 09/03/1995 Radiohead

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On this day, 9 March 1995, rock band Radiohead played Cardiff University following the release of their second album The Bends.

The album was driven by dense riffs and ethereal atmospheres from the three guitarists, with greater use of keyboards than their debut.

It received stronger reviews for its songwriting and performances.

While Radiohead were seen as outsiders to the Britpop scene that dominated music media at the time, they were finally successful in their home country with The Bends, as singles "Fake Plastic Trees", "High and Dry", "Just", and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" made their way to chart success.

Formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards), brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals) and Philip Selway (drums, percussion).

Tour Setlist

The Bends
Just
Anyone Can Play Guitar
Bones
Permanent Daylight
High & Dry
Black Star
Prove Yourself
Stop Whispering
Vegetable
Fake Plastic Trees
Blow Out
Creep
My Iron Lung
You
Banana Co.
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Ripcord

On This Day 04/03/1998 Deftones

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On this day, 4 September 1998, American alternative metal band the Deftones played Cardiff University on their Around The Fur tour.

Formed in Sacramento, California in 1988. They were formed by frontman Chino Moreno, lead guitarist Stephen Carpenter and drummer Abe Cunningham, with bassist Chi Cheng and keyboardist and turntablist Frank Delgado joining the line-up in 1990 and 1999, respectively. The band's experimental nature has led some critics to describe them as "the Radiohead of metal"

Deftones' second album, Around the Fur, was recorded at Studio Litho in Seattle, Washington and produced by Date. Released on October 28, 1997, the album was dedicated to Dana Wells, the late stepson of the singer Max Cavalera of Sepultura, Soulfly and Cavalera Conspiracy. Cavalera also collaborated on "Headup", a tribute to Wells. Although not yet a member of the band, Delgado was credited as "audio" on five of the album's tracks. Cunningham's wife, Annalynn, provided guest vocals on "MX".

"When we went in to make this record, we really didn't have a set idea of what we wanted to come out with", said Moreno in a 1998 interview with Chart magazine. However, he felt that the album "fell into place" once the band had settled into the studio.

The band expanded its sound, spending more time with Date and giving more thought to the album's production. Cunningham varied his drum sound and experimented by using different types of snare drum on almost every track.

The album was praised for its loud-soft dynamics, the flow of the tracks, Moreno's unusual vocals, and the strong rhythm-section performance of Cheng and Cunningham. Stephen Thomas Erlewine's retrospective review noted that "while they don't have catchy riffs or a fully developed sound, Around the Fur suggests they're about to come into their own".