Issue 155

Swansea Bay Dockers Union

14th May 2007

Feeling intimidated by the local media's open support for Apollo, the band managed to step their performance up a notch and win DV8's BOTB competition.

Believing that "image is everything," the band stormed through the semi's straight into a tough final. Claiming influence from Jimi Hendrix to Rick Rubin, they also say that "Rhys Chatham's A Crimson Grail was a big influence on our overall sound, as was John Cage's earlier stuff."

They were also keen to talk about local bands, "there's a bevy of emerging talent in South Wales at the moment," they added that "Fred Zeppelin has been performing his unique takes on classic tracks for years and he definitely deserves some recognition. Manic Street Teachers manage to hold down day jobs in the education sector whilst subtly rocking out," - it seems no one told these boys that the key to clever sarcasm is subtlety...

When asked about interest from record companies, they joked that "we have had some interest from Blue Note and Ipecac records, but they just didn't cut the mustard in the professionality stakes. They didn't even look at our five-year financial plans."

American jazz-based record label Blue Note seems to be their dream label, whilst joking about the prospect of getting signed it's apparent that they have a few more steps to take before getting out into the real world of music and promoting themselves as a serious band.

Playing at the Summer Ball will be their biggest gig to date, hopefully this will be the push they need to make it from student band to the big time - they've got the talent, let's just hope they have the motivation to impress 4,000 students at the Summer Ball.

Waterfront Online