On This Day 26/10/1989 Blurt

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On this day, 26 October 1989, rock band Blurt played Cardiff’s Square Club. The band had released their fifth studio album Kenny Rogers' Greatest Hit (Take 2). Support was provided by Foreign Legion.

Founded in 1979 in Stroud, Gloucestershire by poet, saxophonist and puppeteer Ted Milton along with Milton's brother Jake, formerly of psychedelic group Quintessence, on drums and Peter Creese on guitar.

After three albums Creese left the band to be replaced by Herman Martin on synthesizers who, after a year of constant touring left the band, and was replaced by Steve Eagles, former member of Satan's Rats, The Photos and Bang Bang Machine.

Shortly thereafter Jake Milton left to be replaced by Nic Murcott, who was subsequently replaced by Paul Wigens.

Most of Blurt's compositions feature simple, repetitive, minimalistic guitar and/or saxophone phrases, but they can also explore more abstract musical territories, often serving as an atmospheric backdrop for Ted Milton's existentialist poetry.

On This Day 25/10/1980 Captain Beefheart

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On this day, 25 October 1980, American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Captain Beefheart played Cardiff University. Beefheart had just released his eleventh studio albumDoc at the Radar Station

The album cover was painted by Don Van Vliet. It was placed at number forty-nine on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Album Covers in November 14th, 1991 issue.

Although about half of the album's songs are based on old musical ideas, Mike Barnes states that "most of the revamping work built on skeletal ideas and fragments ... would have mouldered away in the vaults had they not been exhumed and transformed into full-blown, totally convincing new material".[11] The tracks "A Carrot is as Close as a Rabbit Gets to a Diamond", "Flavor Bud Living" and "Brickbats" were originally intended and recorded for the unreleased album Bat Chain Puller.

John French (the original drummer in the Magic Band) rejoined Beefheart for this album. He played guitar on all songs, plus bass ("Sheriff of Hong Kong"), drums ("Ashtray Heart" and "Sheriff of Hong Kong"), and marimba ("Making Love to a Vampire with a Monkey on My Knee"). He also sings the second vocal on "Dirty Blue Gene".

Setlist

Nowadays a Woman's Gotta Hit a Man

Abba Zaba

Hot Head

Dirty Blue Gene

Safe as Milk

Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles

Flavor Bud Living

(with Gary Lucas)

One Red Rose That I Mean

The Dust Blows Forward 'n' the Dust Blows Back

Improvisation

Doctor Dark

My Human Gets Me Blues

Sugar 'n' Spikes

Dropout Boogie

Kandy Korn

Suction Prints

On This Day 24/10/1978 Dr Feelgood

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On this day, 24 October 1978, rock band Dr Feelgood played Cardiff Top Rank with support provided by Squeeze.

The band were formed on Canvey Island in 1971 by Johnson, Brilleaux and Sparks, who had all been members of existing R&B bands, and soon added drummer John Martin.

They took their name from a 1962 record by the American blues pianist and singer Willie Perryman (also known as "Piano Red") called "Dr. Feel-Good", which Perryman recorded under the name of Dr. Feelgood & the Interns.

The song was covered by several British beat groups in the 1960s, including Johnny Kidd & the Pirates. The term is also a slang term for heroin or for a physician who is willing to over-prescribe drugs.

Dr Feelgood are best known for early singles such as "She Does It Right", "Roxette", "Back in the Night" and "Milk and Alcohol", Feelgood’s Guitarist Wilko Johnson left the group because of conflicts with Lee Brilleaux the previous year. He was replaced by John 'Gypie' Mayo.

With Mayo, the band was never as popular as with Johnson but still enjoyed their only Top Ten hit single in 1979, with "Milk and Alcohol".

Squeeze had just released their first EP and their self-titled debut album (March 1978) the album was the source of two singles ("Take Me I'm Yours" and "Bang Bang") produced by the band themselves.

On This Day 23/10/1990 Pop Will Eat Itself

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On this day, 23 October 1990, alternative rock band Pop Will Eat Itself played Cardiff University. On the same day the band released their third studio album Cure For Sanity.

Upon its release, the album entered the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for two weeks, peaking at number 33, and re-entered the chart when it was re-released in July 1991, staying there for one week at number 58.

Cure for Sanity is less light-hearted than prior albums, "mixing a couple of more serious efforts with a new slew of catchy, immediate singles and not-bad album cuts".The album features a dancier and more electronica based sound, eschewing the guitars of previous and future albums.

Formed in 1986 in Stourbridge in the West Midlands of England with members from Birmingham, Coventry and the Black Country. Initially known as a grebo act, they changed style to incorporate sample-driven indie and industrial rock.

Graham Crabb describes their sound as "electronic, punk, alternative hip-hop, hybrid music for fucking, fighting & smoking cigars". Their highest-charting single was the 1993 top-ten hit "Get the Girl! Kill the Baddies!". After initially disbanding in 1996, and having a brief reformation in 2005, they issued their first release in more than five years in 2010.

On This Day 22/10/1988 Roachford

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On this day, 22 October 1988, rock band Roachford played Cardiff University. The band, lead by vocalist Andrew Roachford had just released their debut album Roachford which peaked at #11 in the UK album charts.

Andrew Roachford was born in London, England to parents of West Indian descent. The band of the same name was formed in 1987, the line-up featuring Andrew Roachford (vocals, keyboards, percussion), Chris Taylor (drums), Hawi Gondwe (guitars) and Derrick Taylor (bass guitar).

By 1988, the band were touring, supporting acts such as Terence Trent D'Arby and the Christians. Shortly afterward, a seven-album recording contract with Columbia was signed. They went on to have a string of success throughout the 1990s, becoming Columbia's biggest-selling UK act for ten years.

On This Day 21/10/1988 The Wonder Stuff

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On this day, 21 October 1988, alternative rock band The Wonder Stuff played Cardiff University. The band had just released their debut album The Eight Legged Groove Machine .

The original line-up of Miles Hunt (whose uncle Bill Hunt was keyboard player with ELO and Wizzard) on vocals and guitar; Malcolm Treece on guitar and vocals; bassist Rob "The Bass Thing" Jones (died July 1993); and Martin Gilks (died April 2006) on drums grew from Hunt and Treece's collaboration with future members of Pop Will Eat Itself in a band called From Eden that featured Hunt on drums.

The Wonder Stuff were formed on 19 March 1986 (their name reportedly came from a remark made about a very young Hunt by John Lennon and in September that year recorded a self-financed debut EP, A Wonderful Day.

After finding management with Birmingham promoter Les Johnson and signing with Polydor Records for £80,000 in 1987, the group released a series of singles including "Unbearable", "Give Give Give, Me More More More", "A Wish Away" and "It's Yer Money I'm After Baby" (their first Top 40 entry) that featured on their debut album The Eight Legged Groove Machine, which was released in August 1988 (UK No. 18). This preceded a first headlining nineteen-date national tour, 'Groovers on Manoeuvres'.

A non-album single, "Who Wants to Be the Disco King?" was released in March 1989 and was followed by UK, European, and United States tours and appearances at the Reading and Glastonbury festivals.

Melody Maker made The Eight Legged Groove Machine one of their albums of the year for 1988, judging it, "A rollicking debut from the only band with enough wit, energy, charisma and acumen to cross over from loutish grebo into raffish pop."

Setlist

Goodbye Fatman

A Wish Away

Give, Give, Give Me More, More, More

Grin

Like a Merry Go Round

No, for the 13th Time

Ruby Horse

The Animals and Me

Unbearable

(Acoustic)

It's Yer Money I'm After, Baby

Ten Trenches Deep

Poison

Red Berry Joy Town

Astley in the Noose

Unbearable

On This Day 20/10/1976 Deaf School

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On this day, 20 October 1976, art/rock band Deaf School played Cardiff University. The band had just released their debut album 2nd Honeymoon.

Formed in Liverpool, England, in January 1974, between 1976 and 1978, the year in which they split up, Deaf School recorded three albums for the Warner Brothers label.

The first album's art rock style had roots in cabaret, and later releases moved towards a harder punk rock sound. Deaf School have been recognized as an important influence on many British musicians. According to Frankie Goes to Hollywood singer Holly Johnson: "They revived Liverpool music for a generation." The journalist, author and founder of Mojo, Paul Du Noyer, went further: "In the whole history of Liverpool music two bands matter most, one is The Beatles and the other is Deaf School."

Nearly all the group's members went on to enjoy successful careers, notably guitarist Clive Langer, who produced Madness and Dexys Midnight Runners, two non-Liverpool acts which cite Deaf School as an influence. Langer also co-wrote (with Elvis Costello) the song "Shipbuilding".

On This Day 19/10/1988 Deacon Blue

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On this day, 19 October 1988, Scottish rock band Deacon Blue played Cardiff University on their Through The Villages And Towns tour.

This predominantly Glaswegian act became one of the top-selling UK bands of the late 1980s/early 1990s. The group's members were Ricky Ross, Lorraine McIntosh, James Prime, Dougie Vipond, Ewan Vernal and Graeme Kelling.

Ross, a former school teacher originally from Dundee, was the group's frontman, penning the vast majority of Deacon Blue's songs. He married female vocalist Lorraine McIntosh in the later years of the band's career. McIntosh, born May 1964 in Glasgow joined the band in 1987 as a vocalist.

The band's first album, Raintown, produced by Jon Kelly and released in 1987, is regarded by many as the band's finest effort, spawning the singles "Dignity", "Chocolate Girl" and "Loaded". Many consider Raintown to be a concept album, since nearly all the songs contribute to the overall theme of being stuck in a dead-end life in a deprived city longing for something better. The city that the album's title refers to is Glasgow, and the memorable cover art of the album is a shot of the River Clyde's docks taken on a miserable day from Kelvingrove Park.

The second album, 1988's When The World Knows Your Name, was the band's most commercially successful, with the mega-selling singles "Real Gone Kid", "Wages Day" and "Fergus Sings The Blues". However, music critics began deriding the band at this stage for pursuing commercial success over artistic quality, citing the earlier achievements of Raintown.

Setlist

Fergus Sings the Blues

The Very Thing

Love's Great Fears

Born Again

This Changing Light

One Hundred Things

Raintown

Circus Lights

Chocolate Girl

Loaded / A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall

He Looks Like Spencer Tracy Now

Real Gone Kid

Wages Day

Dignity

Long Distance Love / When Will You Make My Telephone Ring?

Ragman

Town to Be Blamed / Tinseltown in the Rain

Suffering

Not Fade Away / Ain't That Good News