Gringo Records 10th Anniversary Spectacular

Gringo Records 10th Anniversary Spectacular at The Art Organisation, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Sat 09 Jun

Review by Joshua Cole

It was exactly ten years ago when the founders of Gringo Records picked up their first release from the pressing plant. Ten years later to the day, on a hot and sunny Saturday afternoon in Nottingham, twelve acts from Gringo’s past and present (as well as a few friends) come together to celebrate a small and wonderful label reaching double figures...»

The Art Organisation

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Reynolds

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Part Chimp

Timbo - Ex beach chimp rescued in 1999.This adult chimp has had a tragic past,severely mistreated as a youngster on the beaches of Naples,he was left for dead by his "owner".Now you can adopt him!

Jonny - Ex NASA.Famously "missing" on splash down during Apollo tests in 1960's.In actuality Jonny was picked up by Phillipino pirates and sold into slavery in Bangkok where he was found by a British business man looking for a wife who returned him to our sanctuary.Please adopt him!

Nick - After being cruely addicted to drugs by his "master",this young chimp was badly neglected and left tied up and tap dancing for four days raising an unprecedented £7.50 (an organ grinding record).Before he broke free and went on a withdrawl fuelled rampage through the streets of Lisbon.Now fully rehabiliated you can adopt him.

Iain - Ex circus chimp,kidnapped as a baby from Edinburgh petting zoo,he made the headlines in the zoo when his budding modelling career with PG Tips came to an abrupt end when an ex from his circus past exposed him to be a gorilla.Ensuing bouts of schizophrenia and depression led him to be abandoned at our sanctuary.Please give this gorilla a home! »

Bilge Pump

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Souvaris

"Souvaris is a figure from previous times, rejuvenated by the power of modern historical research and presented to you, the eager consumer, in order to display his relevance to modern living. Souvaris was a radical eighteenth century theologian wrongly denied his place in the annals of history purely by dint of his illiteracy and occasional "anti-social" behaviour. His queenly antics, previously frowned on by academic circles, take on a new light in modern circumstances. Watch! as he eloquently spouts forth a torrent, nay a blitz of enlightening and empowering diatribes! Tempered and caged only by his brutish keepers, who wield deathsticks of sound that seek to drown his tortured genius in textured layers of rhythmic drone and facile melody."

souvaris are a 6 piece instrumental collective exploring tone, melody, rhythm and noise in vast and intricately constructed arrangements designed to envelop and overwhelm the listener. following a string of successful gigs and john peel airplay last year, this summer sees a host of new shows in support of their long awaited debut ep due on telesphere recordings at the end of july. file alongside the likes of godspeed you black emperor!, slint, my bloody valentine, labradford, sonic youth, low and mogwai, but be mindful of their insistence at pushing the boundaries of the traditional ‘song’ definition, length and structure beyond anything heard before.»

Hey Colossus

Hey Colossus are as big as their name suggests. Musically that is, not in terms of waistline. Comprising two ex members of Stanton, one former member of I'm Being Good, a former member of Yeast and a current member of econoline, they play stoner rock with a dark, metallic edge. Or something; basically they play loud rock music with plenty of shouting in it, and they play it well. Nice.»

Lords

Crazy blues-fuelled riffage!

Take some Beefheart, liberally splash some contemporary DC punk spunk about the place and voila: Lords. Kinda. Suffice to say this band is both odd and very rocking.

Designer Babies

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The Unit Ama

Christian Alderson (drums)
Jason Etherington (bass)
Steven Malley (guitar/vocals)

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Sailors

Nick (front)
Sophie (back)
Hugues (left)
Jon (right)

While obviously not something to be recommended, if you are going to suffer any degree of hearing impairment there are plenty of worse ways for it to happen than through regular exposure to The Melvins – which is exactly what happened to a pre-Sailors Nick Jones when he was King Buzzo’s merchandise boy. And, while avoiding the crassly simplistic jibe (“Deaf singer? Yeah, they sound like it”), the damage done has exerted a profound, potentially unique, influence over the nature of the band’s music. The threat of exacerbating hearing loss, combined with the geographical separation of its members (currently split between Leeds and Newcastle), has led to Sailors’ live shows becoming increasingly sporadic, lending each of them the air of an event to be cherished.

Maybe it’s the impact of Nick’s partial deafness, maybe because the infrequency of live shows has forced Sailors to find a way of working that is uniquely theirs, or maybe it’s just down to the combination of personalities involved that mean time and again Sailors undermine any attempt to identify obvious or consistent reference points. One listen to the four tracks on their debut EP might bring to mind a succession of generally long forgotten names like Head of David or The Blue Aeroplanes, Fire Engines, Wire, or Screaming Blue Messiahs. Listen again and it might just as easily be The Birthday Party or Girls Against Boys. But, the thing is, apart from in the most fleeting, obscure or superficial of ways, they don’t really sound like any of these groups. Or, to put it another way, they sound like all of them, often simultaneously.

All of which leaves Sailors frustratingly elusive (which, at a time when it seems the mechanics of marketing demand content that is ever more clearly defined, can only be a good thing), something that could just make Sailors one of the most fashionable group around – or one of the least. But either way, that it seems unlikely to be of too great a concern to them might just prove to be their greatest strength of all.

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