On This Day 22/09/2002 Hell Is For Heroes

On this day, 22 September 2002, London post-hardcore band Hell Is For Heroes played Cardiff’s Barfly.

Will McGonagle and Joe Birch were previously in the British band Symposium. Their final release was in 1999 and, by the end of 2000, due to personal and musical differences, and problems with their record label, they had split up. Before long they joined up with their former school friends, James Findlay and Tom O'Donoghue, to form what would become with Hell is for Heroes, but they still lacked a lead singer. Justin Schlosberg was recruited through mutual friends.

In January 2001, they had performed their first gig at The Half Moon in Putney, London. In March that year they toured as support for Sunna, along with Biffy Clyro, and at the end of that tour they had recruited a loyal fan base which meant the band caught the attention of major record labels. In July 2001, they signed with EMI. It took all that year before Hell Is for Heroes released their debut single on Superior Quality Recordings. It was a double A-side, featuring two songs that would later appear on their debut album, "Sick/Happy" and "Cut Down".

The band next released "You Drove Me To It" with the B-sides "Things Fall Apart" and "Kill the Silence" in January 2002. That year saw the release of two more singles, "I Can Climb Mountains" and "Nightvision". The latter track included "Folded Paper Figures" on the B-side, which became popular with their fanbase, and was later re-recorded and used on their second album.

Hell Is for Heroes released their debut album in February 2003 on EMI. The Neon Handshake was produced and recorded in Los Angeles at Sound City Studios and mixed in Umeå, Sweden at Tonteknik by Pelle Henricsson and Eskil Lövström. The band's A&R was managed by Duncan Illing. The band and their A&R left EMI in 2004. The band released its second album Transmit Disrupt independently, before signing a deal with Burning Heart Records, who subsequently re-released it in 2006. Their final self-titled album was released through Golf Records in 2007.

Their debut album was voted the 58th best British rock album ever, by the readers of Kerrang! magazine in the 19 February 2005 issue.

On This Day 16/08/2002 Death Cab For Cutie

On this day, 16 August 2002, American rock band Death Cab For Cutie played Cardiff’s Barfly.

Formed in Bellingham, Washington, in 1997. The band is currently composed of Ben Gibbard (vocals, guitar, piano), Nick Harmer (bass), Dave Depper (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals), Zac Rae (keyboards, guitar), and Jason McGerr (drums).

The band was originally a solo project by Gibbard, who expanded the project into a complete group upon getting a record deal.

They released their debut album, Something About Airplanes, in 1998. The band's fourth album, 2003's Transatlanticism, broke into the mainstream both critically and commercially; its songs were featured in various TV series and films.

The band's major label debut for Atlantic Records, 2005's Plans, went platinum.

Setlist

Bend to Squares

Photobooth

For What Reason

Why You'd Want to Live Here

We Laugh Indoors

A Movie Script Ending

Company Calls

Technicolor Girls

Pictures in an Exhibition

Information Travels Faster

Blacking Out the Friction

Atmosphere

(Joy Division cover)

Styrofoam Plates

On This Day 04/06/2005 Arctic Monkeys

On this day, 4 June 2005, rock band Arctic Monkeys played Cardiff’s Barfly with support provided by Stoney.

Arctic Monkeys were one of the first bands to come to public attention via the Internet, with commentators suggesting they represented a change in how new bands are promoted and marketed.

Their debut album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not (2006), received acclaim and topped the UK Albums Chart, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in British chart history at the time. It won Best British Album at the 2007 Brit Awards and has been hailed as one of the greatest debut albums.

In the United Kingdom, Arctic Monkeys became the first independent-label band to debut at number one in the UK with their first five albums.

They have won seven Brit Awards, winning Best British Group and British Album of the Year three times, becoming the first band to ever "do the double"—that is, win in both categories—three times; a Mercury Prize for Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not; an Ivor Novello Award and 20 NME Awards.

They have been nominated for nine Grammy Awards, and received Mercury Prize nominations in 2007, 2013, 2018 and 2023. Both Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not and AM are included in NME and different editions of Rolling Stone's lists of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

On This Day 27/04/2005 Martha Wainwright

On this day, 27 April 2005, Montreal singer /songwriter and musician Martha Wainwright played Cardiff’s Barfly. She had just released her self-titled debut album. Support was provided by Jonathan Rice.

Wainwright is the daughter of musicians Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III and the younger sister of singer–composer Rufus Wainwright.

The album earned Wainwright a nomination for New Artist of the Year at the 2006 Juno Awards. The album also reached number 43 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.

Her debut album featured contributions from her mother, Kate McGarrigle, her brother, Rufus Wainwright, her cousin, Lily Lanken, as well as organ and saxophone from Garth Hudson of The Band. Pitchfork wrote that the album "proves Martha Wainwright has a strong, distinct, fully formed musical identity, which would be just as impressive by any other name."

On This Day 13/03/2010 Katatonia

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On this day, 13 March 2010, Swedish heavy metal band Katatonia played Cardiff’s Barfly on their NewNight Over Europe Tour.

Formed in Stockholm in 1991 by Jonas Renkse and Anders Nyström, the band started as a studio-only project for the duo, as an outlet for the band's love of death metal. Increasing popularity led them to add more band members for live performances, though outside of the band's founders, the lineup was a constantly changing, revolving door of musicians throughout the 1990s, notably including Mikael Åkerfeldt of the band Opeth for a period.

After two death/doom albums, Dance of December Souls (1993) and Brave Murder Day (1996), problems with Renkse's vocal cords coupled with new musical influences led the band away from the screamed vocals of death metal to a more traditional, melodic form of heavy metal music.

The band released two more albums, Discouraged Ones (1998) and Tonight's Decision (1999), before settling into a stable quintet lineup for all of the 2000s. The band released four more albums with said lineup: Last Fair Deal Gone Down (2001), Viva Emptiness (2003), The Great Cold Distance (2006) and Night Is the New Day (2009), with the band slowly moving away from their metal sound while adding more progressive rock sounds to their work over time.

While lineup changes started up again into the 2010s, Renkse and Nyström persisted, and the band continued on to release their ninth and tenth studio albums, Dead End Kings (2012) and The Fall of Hearts (2016).

Setlist

Forsaker

Consternation

Liberation

Day and Then the Shade

Onward Into Battle

Soil's Song

Wealth

Teargas

Saw You Drown

Idle Blood

My Twin

The Longest Year

Criminals

July

Evidence

Encore:

Dispossession

Ghost of the Sun

On This Day 22/02/2005 Willy Mason

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On this day, 22 February 2005, American singer/songwriter Willy Mason played Cardiff’s Barfly. He had recently released his first full-length album Where The Humans Eat.

It was recorded in Catskill, New York in early May 2004. Songs were mostly recorded live, and feature Mason singing and playing guitar (adding cello, accordion, and vibraphone in the studio), and his younger brother Sam on drums. Mason wanted to capture the atmosphere of a live performance in the recordings, and tried to avoid re-recording songs: “I made a rule that we couldn’t record any of the songs in more than three takes. It allows you to make mistakes and accept those mistakes. Listening back, sometimes the wrong notes are the best parts of the song, the imperfections are what keeps it spontaneous and live-feeling."

The album's two singles, "Oxygen" and "So Long", charted on the UK Singles Chart, and the album reached No. 38 on the UK Albums Chart in 2005. The song "Oxygen" was covered by the operatic soprano Renée Fleming on her 2010 album Dark Hope.

On This Day 17/11/2006 Mr Scruff

On this day, 17 November 2006, English record producer and DJ Mr. Scruff played Cardiff University.

His most notable hit, "Get a Move On!", is built around "Bird's Lament (In Memory of Charlie Parker)" by Moondog and has been used in several commercials, ranging from Lincoln and Volvo automobiles to France Télécom and GEICO insurance. The song also samples Shifty Henry's "Hyping Woman Blues" and led to a renewal of interest in Henry's compositions.

In 2004, Mr. Scruff released Keep It Solid Steel Volume 1, the first of what is intended to be a series of several DJ mixed compilation CDs for Ninja Tune's Solid Steel series of artist mixes.These mixes are designed to recreate the eclectic genres one would expect to hear at a Mr. Scruff club night. In November 2006, Ninja Tune confirmed that the eighth Solid Steel record would be mixed by J Rocc and the ninth would be Volume 2 from Mr. Scruff. Other Solid Steel mixes have been released by fellow Ninja Tune artists including The Herbaliser, Hexstatic, DJ Food, and Amon Tobin.

He has a wide array of remixes to his name and has also produced tracks for others – notably "Echo of Quiet and Green" for sometimes-collaborator Niko on her 2004 album Life on Earth. Niko returned the favour by appearing on the track "Come Alive" from the Trouser Jazz album.

Having performed regularly at The Big Chill Festival in Eastnor Castle deer park, Ledbury, Herefordshire, Mr. Scruff was asked in 2006 to select the tracks for the compilation album, Big Chill Classics.

On This Day 15/09/2004 Susperia

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On this day, 15 September 2004, Norwegian thrash metal band Susperia played Cardiff’s Barfly. The had recently released their third studio album Unlimited

Formed in October 1998 by Tjodalv and Cyrus the band was originally named Seven Sins, but since there was another band with that name they changed it to the title of the horror film Suspiria, changing the spelling to avoid a clash with Suspiria, a gothic rock band that also took its name from the film.

On their early albums, the band experimented with a mixture of black and thrash metal. Testament, one of the members' favorite bands, was a major influence, and by the time the album Unlimited was released, the black metal elements had disappeared. Instead, the band gave more space to influences from heavy metal. Today, Susperia are generally regarded as a melodic thrash metal band.

The lyrics written by singer Athera are personal and either purely fictional or autobiographical. Politics and religion are not dealt with, nor are certain concepts. Athera uses both guttural and clean vocals.

Susperia is not a Satanic band, though their lyrics tend to criticise and question the views and morals of Christianity.