In The Words Of by

Carl Marsh

rock music, then you’d be at a loss if you could not witness these guys in action. I chatted with founding member Luke Bradshaw ahead of the gig in Cardiff at the New Theatre on Thursday, 3rd August.

Intro Rant

Can somebody please explain why the Council feels the need to keep going on about ‘our’ carbon footprint and the rest of that climate propaganda on everything they send out? Only recently have I been informed that black bin bags won’t be collected every two weeks but three. And if you want garden waste collected, you’ll need to pay a charge. All in the name of saving the planet. And what is my council tax covering if not grass cuttings? Virtue signalling by the clowns in power whilst they don’t abide by said rules they pontificate about… give me a break! This is pure dogma. If China, Brazil, Russia, the Middle East, India and many more areas of the World avoid all of this climate stuff, why should we not ask them what they know that we obviously don’t? The West is no more than the laughingstock of the World. And they are being left behind on so many things.

Greta (what’s her name), that expert from the age of 13 or 14 on the death throws of the planet, sent out a Tweet [now deleted] on how the earth would be dead in five years. That World demise date was in June 2023. Obviously, her “expert” informer [Handler?] didn’t have his crystal ball(s) working adequately as we are all still here, reading my salient(?) points!

Interviews

Two interviews this month.

The Ultimate Classic Rock Show, perhaps as the name suggests, the Ultimate Classic Rock Show! I do not doubt that. If, like me, you are a fan of

Regarding factual and intelligent conversational channels on YouTube, TRIGGERnometry is the pinnacle. It is hosted by comedians Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster. It proves you can be lighthearted while dealing with real-world problems and controversial chats without getting taken off YouTube. I chatted with Konstantin by video, and yes, he is the guy that did that fantastic free speech at the Oxford Union in 2022 that was plastered all over the internet and decent news channels. I like the guy. Please look at TRIGGERnometry on YouTube, or listen to the podcast via many providers of that listening medium.

Enjoy July, the sun, and the fun that the summer month will bring.

Carl Marsh

Twitter - @InTheWordsOf_CM

YouTube - InTheWordsOf

I’ll keep this short. I attended the Ivy in Cardiff for its summer soirée at the end of June. Let me say that it was my fault that I turned up a little late to sample any of the food, although I did get one of the prawn balls, which itself was delicious. The venue is always exquisite, the staff attentive and fun, and also very amenable when explaining the drinks, which compared to some bars, is quite a rarity these days. In what was quite a relaxed and small affair, as previously, it has been quite busy for events I have attended, but this time, it was so perfect.

Music Review

Sigur Ros - ATTA

The first studio album in over ten years, and one that came out of the blue as none of the fans knew it was even suggested one was in production, let alone due for release. Admired the World over for the vocals of Jonsi, bassist Georg Holm and multi-instrumentalist Kjartan Sveinsson - who returns after leaving the band in 2012. This new album is a more introverted one than previous offerings, with it looking within itself rather than outwardly. And seeing as the World has been a little like that these last few years, why would the new record not be like it is - this is what Sigur Ros does; they read the room... A sublime offering by one of my favourite bands.

CREATIVE WALES SHOWCASE - REVIEW

The drinks… well, let’s say that Carl wasn’t driving, and I had not eaten more than one prawn ball. So… you can see where this is going! I had a fantastic night, and I was able to sample a few(!) various drinks on offer. The cocktails were my favourite, and... I fell asleep on the journey home. I want to come back and sample the food and no more than two drinks next time, as I am meant to be a professional, hahaha!

It’s hard to think about a genre this would come under, so I just put the above header. Creative Wales had its first event at The Depot in Cardiff in June, three years since it was launched, but obviously, the chaos of the last few years stopped any big event like this! In short, it’s allowing people from all walks of life in Wales to enter the creative industries. This could be film, TV, music production, gaming, etc. I got to hear from a plethora of speakers from companies such as Bad Wolf, who create a lot of TV content like His Dark Materials, I Hate Suzie and A Discovery of Witches. Also, there were other much smaller companies, yet nonetheless, still as important, as the key message was Wales is taking its creativity seriously and investing in all its homegrown talents, whether discovered or yet-to-be-discovered. And rightly so. I must mention that 265 paid placements have been created via this scheme over the last 3 three years, with many more on the horizon. If you or anyone you know is interested in what I have mentioned above, please have an online search for Creative Wales.

All words by,

Words by Carl Marsh

Twitter - @InTheWordsOf_CM

YouTube - InTheWordsOf

When it comes to rock shows, there’s no better than The Ultimate Classic Rock Show. All Welsh, all with the skills, and more! I spoke to founding member Luke Bradshaw about the ‘ins and outs’ of doing it all [promoting, booking, press, etc.] themselves.

Carl Marsh

How easy was it to get the band where it is now? With all of you being professionals that will have travelled with many bands/musicians worldwide, perhaps it was pretty hard to get together and to gel as band members.

Luke Bradshaw

I started it with a silent partner in 2005, a guy who had nothing to do with music. He just thought it was a good business opportunity. Consequently, I ran the whole thing and naively thought I could do it. And it was just like impossible. We got some shows in London as we’d started working with a promoter, but they went bankrupt. So, I put the band on the back burner to come back to it another time. I went off and did tours for other people. All the people in the band now are people I’ve worked with on tours or shows. And they’re all Welsh too. So, logistically, a lot easier. I suppose we started it back in 2017 with the group of people doing it now. I said, “Look, if we’re going to do it, we need to do it as a team and almost as a cooperative where everybody’s invested in it financially and from a playing business point of view”. And it worked out much better because, in all, eight of us are company directors. So that’s kind of how we came together. And honestly, in 2017, we didn’t know how well it would work. We booked half a dozen shows to tip our toes in the water. And it sold well. It went down really well, so we had a conversation that we know it works, so we’d chuck a bit of money in it and do it properly now. And ever since then, it’s just built and built and built. We don’t work through any other promoters. We do everything ourselves. The venues we book ourselves. Every element of it, we do ourselves, from the logistics to the promoting, the advertising. We do everything.

Carl Marsh

Is that because you’ve got the skill set there amongst yourselves, for example, someone’s good at PR, someone’s good at marketing, finance, etc.?

Luke Bradshaw

Exactly that, yeah. So pretty much everybody, the seven of us on stage and then there’s a light, sound and tour manager, but everybody who’s on stage and tour manager are all the companies directors, so everybody’s got an offstage role as well. For argument’s sake, the bass player is also a web designer; he does all the web stuff for us. The tour manager is a promoter. The drummer is also an accountant. So he does all the company accounts. We do everything ourselves. I can’t remember the last time we outsourced any work!

Carl Marsh

That’s a fantastic set-up you’ve got; it’s what people want to hear about and the backstory of how you do it all yourself. People love stories like that.

Luke Bradshaw

Well, it’s funny you say that as I used to do a lot of work with a promoter about 15 years ago worldwide. And he came to see the show last year; he came up to us afterwards and said, “Well, I’m annoyed because I can’t offer you anything, as there is nothing I can offer you that you’re not doing so well yourselves!” In a nice complimentary way, that’s validation that we are doing something right.

The Ultimate Classic Rock Show - New Theatre, CardiffThursday 3rd August

TRIGGERnometry is the best free-speech YouTube show I watch on that platform. It is hosted by comedians Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster. This show has fascinating guests, often controversial to some, but always fact-based and fun-but-serious conversations. They’ve both even been on The Joe Rogan Experience!

Carl Marsh

When it comes to your YouTube channel ‘TRIGGERnometry’, is anyone ever going to beor perhaps has already been - off-limits? Maybe someone that you and your co-host Francis both thought that you’d want to get on board but wouldn’t at this/that moment in time?

Konstantin Kisin

I think there are people who some ‘other people’ would want us to get on that we don’t want to get on. So, it’s not like there are people we want to get on but won’t because we’re too afraid. It’s just there are some people we don’t want to have on the show. So, I think it’s more a case of that. Yeah, but everyone that we’d like to get on the show, that we can physically get on, and they will come on, we’ll get them on.

Carl Marsh

I saw one recently with Nigel Ng, the Malaysian comic and creator of ‘Uncle Roger’, and to hear his story about how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) banned all of his social media and things like that. I mean, that’s like, gotta be up there with one of your dream guests?

Konstantin Kisin

We know Nigel from back in the comedy circuit days. So I think he was keen to come and speak to us for that reason where maybe he wouldn’t go and chat with other people. Yeah, he was a great guest. And we always like having comedians on because it’s always light-hearted; there’s an element of laughter, which is important. Otherwise, given the serious topics that we usually talk about. It can be a bit heavy, you know?

Carl Marsh

But by having such guests on the show, are you guys fearful that if you ever get any gigs in China, and because you had them talking about China, you might not want to go there in fear of any governmental retribution?

Konstantin Kisin

Well, I think the reality is… we probably… there’s a couple, maybe two or three countries in the world where we couldn’t go already. [Laughter] And it just comes with the territory. You have to accept that. So yeah, but China is definitely one of them. But it wouldn’t even be because of Nigel; we’ve had far more critical guests of the Chinese regime on the show in the past, talking about much more serious stuff as well, like not just cancelling social media but what’s happening to the Uyghurs and so on.

Carl Marsh

Does this mean that you don’t try to shy away from anything - when it comes to YouTube censorship strikes - which could lead to any of your videos or channel getting taken down?

Konstantin Kisin

Well, I’ll be honest with you, and I know it sounds a bit weird, but we don’t really think about it at all. We consider, “What are the conversations we want to have?” If we think something’s interesting, we’ll have the conversation. And, you know, we haven’t had… I don’t remember a single time we’ve had a conversation where we’re like,” Oh, yeah, we’d love to get this person on, but what if we get a strike?” Like, we genuinely don’t think about it like that.

Watch the TRIGGERnometry show on YouTube and podcast on many other podcast providers.

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