922 THE SWINDON SHUFFLE, Various Swindon Venues, Friday 8th and Saturday 9th August 2014

This is, I’m ashamed to say, the first time I’ve partaken in the delights of the Swindon Shuffle, an annual event around the town to showcase the best of Swindon’s unsigned, up-and-coming and veteran acts. It’s now in its’ eighth year, after my friend Rich Craven was sat in the Vic one night and came up with the concept of a Swindon version of the Camden Crawl… Still, better late than never, and this year my recent interest in the excellent Nudy Bronque was the key factor in my attendance. They’re up the Vic, so so am I!

Rach and the kids were camping in our back garden Friday night – I hate camping, me, so this was also an excellent reason to get out of that! So I parked up around the corner from the Vic about 9, bumping into Swindon’s punk rock queen Debby for a chat before wandering into the back room, expecting to see The Racket, scheduled for 9. Instead, a well-attended room were bathing in the aural candyfloss of WILDEST DREAMS, the new musical brainchild of Zoe Mead, apparently a well-known name in local rock circles. First time I’d come across her or her music, and I was impressed; the 2-girl plus boy drummer trio played some wistful ethereal mood music midway between the lazy indie pop of The Sundays, and the more woozy shoegaze of Slowdive. I caught an unexpected half dozen of these dreamy soundscapes, their penultimate number, a more upbeat, haunting and pseudo-Goth one possibly called “Solitude” being my favourite of their set. Made me miss 2:54 a little, a very favourable start.

A quick chat with MC Ed Dyer revealed the Vic was running late, so my upsetting clash wouldn’t happen and I had time to go round to The Castle to catch the on-time set from FAYE ROGERS. Having chatted through most of her quietly impressive set at Riffs last time out, I was determined to pay attention this time! Faye had some technical issues during opener “Thunder”, but ploughed admirably through, getting her lovelorn little acoustic numbers back on track by 3^rd number, the heart-achingly beautiful “I Can’t Help But Love You”. This was a stark, raw little gem of a set, delivered by Faye in a pure, innocent sounding voice reminiscent of Harriet Sunday or Madder Rose’s Mary Lorsen, with sparse yet fitting musical embellishment from her backing band. “He’s Not Himself” was my highlight, a darkly dramatic but no less heart-tugging paean to her grandfather, who suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease, the chilling musical layers articulating the despair of the situation as succinctly as the lyric. I’m glad I paid attention this time, as this was a splendid set from a naturally talented, self-effacing young voice.

Quick chat with Faye and her mum, my old BT colleague Stella, before hot-footing back over to the by-now completely rammed Vic back room, for NUDY BRONQUE’s entrance at 10.30 after a fiddly set-up. Aiden, arms aloft, led the band (a 4-piece tonight, again augmented by their producer on keyboards!) into the Pulp-esque opener “Luggage” which segued straight into “Yoo Hoo”, the usual schizophrenic chord/ tempo/ mood changes immediately a feature, often a little frustratingly so, as you’re never entirely sure with Nudy Bronque, when one song actually finishes and another begins! But then that sense of unpredictability, that feeling of flying by the seat of your pants, is all part of the Nudy Bronque charm, right kids? Third (I think!) number “Allsorts” featured the stripped back base as the background to Aiden’s vocal gymnastics and pseudo-yodels, and eye-catching shape throwing and general frontman showing off! “No Wives, No Children” highlighted the fact that this band aren’t scared of often using almost complete silence as a feature of their songs, a sign of real confidence in my view, before switching suddenly to cacophonous noise in the same number! “No Wives”, for me also reminiscent of Boston’s Rocketscience’s excellent song “Killjoy”, segued effortlessly into the galloping Orange Juice “Blue Boy”-esque rodeo ride of “Peachy Keen”, their best number tonight, Aiden throwing in a “Hound Dog” reference before delivering the hook through a toy bull-horn. Barking mad!

A rocking “Juliet Ottewell” was the precursor to the denouement; a stretched, epic “Space Travel 2013 By Phone”, featuring another cacophonous, discordant outro which saw Aiden screaming the title through the bull horn again before seemingly thanking everyone in the packed room individually. Excellent stuff; this is not “wacky” or “funny” by design, it’s just pure entertainment, and tonight the Bronque took the showcase occasion of a packed Shuffle Vic and really upped their game, delivering probably the best performance I’ve seen from them. Well done boys!

I grabbed the list as MC Ed announced a 15 minute break, “to clear up [Nudy Bronque’s] bloody mess,” before headliners British Harlem. By now, this old boy was flagging a little so, with an early start for tomorrow, I said my farewells and left.

However, there was more Shuffling in prospect on Saturday! Having picked up Evan for his Summer stay with us, and having dropped Logan off for a playdate, we took a drive into town for a couple of Shuffle shows. Firstly, we headed into a sun-drenched lunchtime Central Library courtyard, bumping into Danny and Ellen (acting as MC for the afternoon), catching the last knockings of DAVE CORRIGAN’s strumalong kitchen sink drama and Americana tinged set, accompanied by Nudy Bronque’s producer on keyboards! Then we enjoyed another FAYE ROGERS set, a truncated 5-song version of last nights’, with “I Can’t Help But Love You” and “He’s Not Himself” again the highlights, Faye this time accompanied just by her guitarist and the set consequently having a more pastoral feel.

Then we grabbed pasty lunch and took a walk down to That’s Entertainment for SIMON HALL. I was expecting an outdoor full band set, but this would have been in direct competition with the big band noise from Wharf Green, so Si played a solo set in the shop window. Much more overt a delivery than other Shuffle performers so far, and generally falling between the blue collar anthems of The Gaslight Anthem and the heart-on-sleeve raw angst of Dashboard Confessional, this was again a fine set punctuated by no little wit (“I fell off my doorstep, so if my guitar playing sounds ham-fisted, it’s because my fist looks like a ham!”). I thoroughly enjoyed his own “Face For Radio”, a warts-and-all road movie for all bottom of the bill workaday acts, a well-observed “Fisherman’s Blues” which made up for a slightly incongruous “True Colours” (yup, the Cyndi Lauper song!), and some nice incisive lyricism elsewhere (“it’s been my mission to make bad decisions” and “I wrapped four chords around a girl who I thought meant the world to me” being 2 of my favourites). Shame no more than a dozen punters availed themselves of this nice little set.

So that was me all shuffled off for the day, as an overtired daughter necessitated a departure from town thereafter. Still, I’ve really enjoyed my first taste of The Swindon Shuffle; after all this time travelling around seeing bands, I’m finding that there’s good stuff right on my doorstep, especially Nudy Bronque, definitely my favourite Swindon band since Tim’s early You Are Here days, and who might be the first band to deservedly gain more national exposure since, ooh, XTC and Shriekback??? Either way, long may Swindon Shuffle, and in future I’ll be shuffling along with it!

918 NUDY BRONQUE, Port Erin, Oui Legionnaires, Swindon the Victoria, Thursday 5 June 2014

Keeping it local tonight for this “Songs Of Praise”-promoted evening, showcasing a spritely young trio who are increasingly becoming my favourite Swindon band since probably the early days of You Are Here, in Nudy Bronque. I was impressed by both their quirky and arty music, difficult to define and pigeonhole but easy to enjoy, and their fresh fun approach to the “live” performance, last time out at Riffs, so here we are again for some more Nudy stuff and nonsense!

 

No idea on start times so I took a risk that it might be later, and picked Dean up at 8.30 for the trundle up the hill. I was right! We had time for a drink and chinwag with the arriving Nudy boys, plus tonight’s promoter Dave Franklin (who, rather handily, kept popping out of the backroom venue to let us know when bands were due on!), before slinging some coinage into the donations bucket for entrance, and checking out openers, Cheltenham’s Oui Legionnaires. A young trio, they kicked off with the tousled vocalist playing a Dashboard Confessional-like impassioned acoustic opener from the floor, in front of the sparse crowd, before joining his bandmates onstage and hitting the “rock out!” button squarely. They kicked up a high-octane thrilling post-hardcore/ thrashy EMO collision of noise and driving riffery, in a Seafood locking horns with Rival Schools and Husker Du kind of way. Some splendid strident choruses with conflicting/ competing harmony lines, as well as some Biffy-like tempo changes, also impressed, as did their onstage humour (viz. the vocalist being shy about introducing a number called "Fuck You Nottingham!”). Their set finished as it started; on the floor, with an acoustic Frank Turner-esque duet to eternal youth, with a hook of, “you’re just jealous cos we’re young and in love”. Impressive stuff. I’d have bought a CD if they had any (“our ex-guitarist still has them around his house in Gloucester!”), but rest assured I‘ll check this lot out again.

 

Port Erin, next up, were a different proposition; another trio, they started off intriguingly with a windswept US-alt country sounding opener evoking Shearwater or Grizzly Bear, but then their intricacies and fiddly riffery veered for me too uncomfortably close to Proggy clever-cleverness for the sake of it. A final, straight-forward rocker, showed better potential; they’re another band I’d happily check out again, if they kept things simpler!

 

Beef eventually turned up and we caught up, hearing his recent Spanish holiday horror story, before wandering in for headliners Nudy Bronque about 10.30. Introduced onstage as, “3 idiots with guitars and drums,” they were clearly playing to familiar faces and delivered a relaxed, fun set from the off. Opener “Luggage” set the tone early, a Pulp-like glam kitsch opener delivered with a swish and a swagger by vocalist and rivetting frontman Aiden. Clearly a big old showoff in his youth but finding the perfect outlet for his flamboyant tendencies and deep, old-beyond-his-years vocals, Aiden’s stage persona is part Jarvis Cocker, part Russell Brand, but all entertaining. The 60’s tinged kitchen sink drama of “No Wives, No Children” saw some yodelling vocals and squally guitar in equal measure, but the subsequent “Peachy Keen” was a real early highlight, the Orange Juice “Blue Boy” drumbeat gallop dovetailing into the hooky chorus and more thrilling discordant noise. Superb stuff, although the onstage banter (“in 10 years’ time they’ll say the world wasn’t ready for Nudy Bronque!”) and switching on of the drumkit’s striplights received as many cheers from the crowd as the song itself!

 

This lot don’t ever stray too far from the quirk (surely if “quirky” is an adjective, “quirk” should be a noun!?); even during their most straight-forward number, the upbeat Vaccines-fest indie rock of “Juliet Ottewell”, they stripped back the middle 8 to feature more of Aiden’s deep, resonant vocal histrionics and some comedic stage-prowling and menacing stares into the crowd. Again, final number “Space Travel 2013 By Phone” started with an art-school stomp and ended in a thrashy cacophony of noise, with Aiden delivering guitar riffery whilst rolling on the floor. They squeezed in an encore, the splendid and ridiculously catchy “Bottled Blonde”, which was introduced by the boys as, “the best song ever!” and was tonight’s excellent exclamation point on another little gem of a set from a band who deserve wider recognition. Hopefully they’re not too far from getting it!

907 NUDY BRONQUE, The Intercepteurs, The Get-Outs, Faye Rogers, Swindon Greatfield Riffs Bar, Saturday 22 March 2014

A promise kept, this one, to check out a very promising young Swindon Band in Nudy Bronque. I’d seen this lot deliver the highlight of the night in their perfect reading of Gomez’ “Whipping Piccadilly” at the “12 Bands Of Christmas” up the Vic in December, and promised myself I’d check out their own material the first chance I got. So this was it, a local stop on a short jaunt around the South West to promote their current “Moondog” EP, incredibly though only the second time I’ve ever been to Riffs!

Nevertheless, I drove out after an evening at my ‘rents stuffing myself with Chinese food, hitting the venue at 8.30 and thus wandering in midway through opener Faye Rogers’ set. The daughter of old friend Stella, she weaved some pastoral, wistful and eminently listenable tuneage over the general hubbub, delivering them with a pure, innocent sounding voice which recalled Harriet from The Sundays, or Tanya from Belly. Good stuff for starters, although I confess I only half paid attention as I ran into Rich Craven, in town from Oxford, and caught up with a similar anal retentive music fan!

Carried on with the chat with Rich and his mate Rich May during the other 2 supports – inside for The Get-Outs, a noisy and formulaic but quite tuneful actually post-grunge nu-punk trio who at their best recalled “Copper Blue”-era Sugar; and outside during The Interpreteurs’ ska stylings. I don’t like ska. Simple as that, really.

Good company and music chat (plus Mr. Craven’s huge pizza!) had hastened the time along, so it was 10 to 11 when we re-entered the by-now crammed venue, and I popped down the busy front for Nudy Bronque’s arrival onstage at 11. The young trio burst into the yelping mutant garage rock of opener “Bottled Blonde”, vocalist Aidan already an angular, swaggering presence with a deep, resonant vocal style recalling Jarvis Cocker (not the only Pulp comparison in evidence, for me at least…), and the confidence of a natural frontman (which made it all more surprising when Dave Franklin later revealed Aidan wasn’t their original vocalist!).

Nudy Bronque’s sound is a melting pot of influences – dashes of the quirky, “His’n’Hers”-era Pulp, the ramshackly jangle of early Orange Juice or the dissonant cacophony of Fire Engines, even some of the Vaccines 50’s Buddy Holly-isms – but distilled into a unique, original and quintessentially English sound. “Crazy But I Love Him” was a reverb-soaked jangle-fest with a doo-wop rhythmic base, which melted impressively into a strident chorus noise-fest, then a touching rendition of the Velvet Underground’s comedown ballad “Sunday Morning” diffused the frantic mood very well. The set highlight came a couple of numbers later, with the tremendous, galloping “Peachy Keen”, the chorus collapsing into some deliciously discordant guitar noise. By this time the trio was augmented by an impromptu appearance from their EP producer, embellishing the sound with some keyboard colour, then picking up the bass while the normal bassist played some squeezebox. The final number “Space Travel 2013 By Phone” was a slow-burn into a squalling crescendo, allowing Aidan to indulge in some primal screaming. A great end to a swift half-hour, but the band were persuaded on for an unplanned encore of “What’s It Gonna Be?”, the terrace chant chorus seemingly acting as a metaphor for this young and very promising band.

Calls for further encores went unrequited (“we’ve not rehearsed any more songs!” the band offered as an excuse) as I said my farewells, taxi-ing Mr. May home and getting home myself about ¼ to 1, reflecting on Nudy Bronque’s performance. What’s it gonna be? I don’t honestly know, but at the moment all things are possible, with the right breaks. Either way it’ll be a strange and entertaining ride, and one I’m firmly planning to be on!