2009 – a year to remember?
by Ben Davis on 1 January, 2010 | 0 comments
Here it is, a short reminder of what happened in 2009, and what a year it was for our local music scene.
Let’s start in January. The doom brothers Mother of Six announced they were to have their song ‘Castell’ featured on the soundtrack of a Canadian online teen/horror show. They also revealed the dates of their infamous tour of Catalonia.
Back in February, in the first of plenty of Gallops related news in 2009, they stormed the Cardiff Barfly. Whilst they were down there they recorded a special live session with BBC Radio 1’s Bethan Elfyn for her ‘Introducing’ show and also a remix session where the Beeb got several producers to re-hash their live tracks.
Chaos Theory Promotions celebrated their 3rd birthday with a monster gig. They wangled 36 Crazyfists to visit Wrexham alongside Poison the Well and Gwen Stacey.
In March, Polly Mackey & the Pleasure Principle had a massively successful SXSW Festival in Texas where they played 9 gigs in 5 days and received a lot of attention from the press and created a buzz with the suits.
Sinner Men were crowned ‘Best band in the region’ when they took the top spot at the Tiv’s Battle of the Bands competition. The Blue Peter badge receivers were Dirty Static and I Am Austin.
The Talbot Bar in Wrexham closed its doors again after only 10 months of trading and success with its Socialist and Kill Club band nights. A massive shame, will it reopen in 2010?
In April, Camera returned to the scene with their free EP download. ‘The Fireflies EP’ featured 5 new tracks which were recorded by Llion Robertson down in Cardiff. World Record Day was celebrated by a newly formed organisation called ‘The Rising Dragons’. 7 local acts played acoustic sets at HMV in Wrexham, including The Roseville Band, Meilir and Mother of Six.
The month of May was when the NME Radar Tour came to Central Station and brought along with them La Roux. She was yet to become a well known name and I seem to remember the buzz about her was increasing around this time. Polly Mackey & the Pleasure Principle supported The Joy Formidable in Liverpool and Gallops headlined Glyndwr University’s Summer Ball but more importantly they played the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend in Swindon, the most important gig of the year for one of our local bands? I think so.
By the time June came around, the scene was in full swing. Polly Mackey & the Pleasure Principle won the Supajam competition which earned them a slot at the Benicassim music festival in Spain. Gallops were featured on Huw Stephens’ ‘Music Sounds Better With Huw’ compilation which featured bands from across the nation.
July was a relatively quiet month compared to earlier months. Danny Gruff released his debut EP ‘The Last of the Big Time Small Time Lads’ which featured 5 tracks which were recorded in Leeds.
In August Polly Mackey & the Pleasure Principle won the ‘Make it Break it’ music awards, which saw them decorated with studio time and A&R sessions at EMI in London.
The Gallops boys set off on their European tour. Joined by Leicester band Minaars, they embarked on a week long adventure which took in Lyon, Paderborn, Geldern and Berlin.
By the time September reared its ugly head it was enlightned by the release of Heal the Last Stand’s debut album ‘What Love is…’ which was released on their own label, ‘Everybody Wants Peace Records’.
In October it was announced that The Django’s were to go their separate ways, a real shame to say goodbye to a much loved band in these parts. The great run of news for Polly Mackey hadn’t waivered, in October she inked a deal with a top London artist management agency who also work with KT Tunstall amongst other big names. Gallops were featured in the background of a Hollyoaks Late show when the cast were filmed at Wakestock.
November saw Mother of Six release their 4 track debut EP across the digital platforms and The Big Beat played to almost 40 000 people as they were the pre match entertainment for the rugby 4 Nations final.
And then we come to the last month, December. Apart from of course the biblical wrexhammusic.co.uk Christmas Spruce, the main news of the month was No Room For Heroes being featured on the Myspace Music launch video and also topping the alternative unsigned charts.
What’s in store for 2010? More of the same and even more I hope.
