[ originally published 08/08/2015 ]
YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS
The Globe, Cardiff - 8th August 2015
Support: Headfall, The Irascibles, Guto Pryce (DJ set)
Grassroots is a project operating in Cardiff that for more than three decades has been helping young people develop their skills in the arts, be they musicians, budding record producers, sound technicians, film-makers, animators, etc. But above all, it's about supporting troubled and vulnerable youngsters and helping them to do something creative. Typically, Grassroots, like many projects that actually do something useful in society, is under threat thanks to council budget cuts. The thing with Grassroots is it has many friends and supporters.
Thirty-odd years ago, a young band just starting out was helped by Grassroots providing them with rehearsal space. On Thursday night, that band played its first show in their home city for seven years at a benefit show for the charity. Young Marble Giants don't play much, but when they do, they're guaranteed a full venue. It was already filling up nicely by the time the first band arrived on stage, featuring a couple of familiar faces. The Irascibles feature Phil and Drew Moxham of YMG and play a brand of country-tinged garage rock that I imagine would have gone down well at somewhere like the 40 Watt Club in Athens, GA. sometime during the mid-80s.
I can't imagine anything by the second band of the evening going down well anywhere. Headfall were just awful. I suppose they would say they were an experimental art new wave kind of thing, like the Velvet Underground meets Wire, perhaps. The thing is, both those bands had a point. They sounded like they knew what they were doing and the music they made inspired generations of musicians after them. Headfall only inspired me to want to find the venue's electrical master switch and turn everything off. I've heard bands playing their first rehearsal that sounded more convincing.
Young Marble Giants treated the audience to a nearly hour-long set of faves from their sadly small back catalogue interspersed with some anecdotes about Grassroots and the venue. Alison relayed how she saw her first ever film at the Globe back in the days it was a cinema, and the last ever film it hosted (An Officer And A Gentleman, apparently). She also owns one of the mirrors that graced the cinema's halls. Their beautifully sparse and eerie music resonated around this great little venue. Most of the set consisted of tracks from their only studio album 'Colossal Youth' (released 35 years ago, if you please!), with highlights (for me) being Credit In The Straight World, Choci Loni, Wurlitzer Jukebox and that wonderful album title track.
It was a delight to catch one of the most revered and influential Welsh bands of all time still able to spellbind their audience as if it were still 1980. The fact they only play once in a blue moon these days makes it even more of a privilege. Actually, wasn't there an actual blue moon this week? Point made.
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