Don’t forget that today is the first day of our @wearecardiff Instagram Project – where the Instagram account is handed over to a Cardiffian for a month. You can spend March in the company of Rhian Richards – enjoy!
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The We Are Cardiff Instagram Project: March – Rhian Richards
Oh howdy there, good people. I bring you joyeous and exciting tidings of our We Are Cardiff Instagram Project! I set up a We Are Cardiff @wearecardiff Instagram account a couple of weeks ago, with the intention of passing it around to different people in the city for a month at time, to get a Cardiffian’s-eye view of happenings in different places.
The first couple of weeks were me, in and around Cardiff Bay. But I’m very happy to announce that the first month – the month of MARCH 2014 – will be attacked by Rhian Richards! Rhian is normally on Instagram on @rhirhigabor, but has agreed to take on March for We Are Cardiff. Here’s a little bit about Rhian. Enjoy! Helia x
I moved to Cardiff in May 2013 but have lived here before between 1998 and 2003. It’s changed a lot since those days!
On weekends I like watching films, meeting up with friends, cooking, going for walks and taking photos.
I have an obsession with castles and places of historical interest so I love exploring them and taking pictures so my favourite Cardiff haunts so far are Castell Coch, Cardiff Castle and Sain Ffagan.
I also love nice restaurants and bars. Among my favourites are The Potted Pig, The Cosy Club, Bills and Mezza Luna. Nom!
On a Wednesday night you can usually catch me in line at The Odeon Cinema in the Red Dragon Centre waiting to geek out with a good film.
I also enjoy horse riding and get back in the saddle whenever I can. I go to Cardiff Riding School in Pontcanna Fields.
FOLLOW RHIAN’S MONTH ON THE WE ARE CARDIFF INSTAGRAM PROJECT HERE
If you’d like to commandeer the We Are Cardiff Instagram for a month, email wearecardiff@gmail.com, with a brief description of where you live / work / what your leisure activities entail. Get involved, like!
The Broadway Project – Luke Rice
“The thing about Broadway, they always welcome you with open arms” – Brooke Shields
Luke Rice recently completed a photography project about Broadway, a long road filled with shops and houses that lies between Clifton Street and Newport Road in south east Cardiff. He tells us about the road, and about his photographs.
According to the Welsh Government, Adamsdown is one of the most deprived parts of Wales.
I grew up in Adamsdown in the 1990s, and currently live around 10 minutes walk away. My current commute means that I cycle down the road nearly every day.
On the surface Broadway looks a bit unloved, it is a road to pass through, to get from A – B, not really a road in which you would want to stop and explore. It is fair to say that it is slightly less glamorous than its famous cousin in New York.
“Broadway is really my life” – Vanessa Williams
“I believe we have to bring Broadway a little Latino flair. We have to keep it alive” – Ricky Martin
“My one ambition was to go to Broadway, and I never gave up on that dream” – David Hasselhoff
“A lot of people now don’t know I’ve been on Broadway” – Wesley Snipes
“It wasn’t until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it” – Julie Andrews
“The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can’t get work in the movies” – Bette Davis
“Being on Broadway is the modern equivalent of being a monk. I sleep a lot, eat a lot, and rest a lot” – Hugh Jackman
After spending a few days walking up and down, taking photographs, I realised that there was some beauty to this beast. In addition, I noticed some positive signs that things are (slowly) starting to change for the better. Presumably attracted by cheap rents, recent migrants and artists are starting to open restaurants, cafes, yoga and art studios.
Broadway is a strange and fascinating place, full of contrasts and colours. I feel that Broadway has a lot of potential to be a destination in its own right, not just a through road. Maybe we could look over the pond for inspiration … a theatre on Broadway perhaps?
I currently work for a charity called SWEA. I am working on a community, programme called Cynefin which aims to bring together residents & relevant professionals to work towards shared sustainability projects. My work focuses on the wards of Adamsdown, Cathays and Roath. It is hard but very rewarding at times.
I have modest aspirations: I want to be healthy & happy, I want to experience new sounds, sights, tastes, adventures. I want to meet lots of interesting people from interesting places. I want to spend my life working on things that attempt to make the world a better place (even in a very very small way).
Luke Rice is 29 and a Cardiff native. He grew up in Roath and Adamsdown but has spent time in Bristol and Camden. He currently lives in Roath, very close to the Gate. He loves living in this area because of its vibrancy, multiculturalism, proximity to nice parks and the city centre, nice cafes/bars and the fact that it is a little rough round the edges. You can see the rest of his photography project about Broadway on his Flickr.
From Now On Festival – review and interview with Shape Records
So, at the weekend I went along to From Now On Festival, a two day event held over in Chapter Arts Centre and curated by Mark Thomas from Shape Records.
Mark is one of those people who I’ve known for years, and has fingers in pretty much all local musical pies. He runs a label, his band Islet are Pitchfork approved, and this weekend he picked out a load of crazy noisemakers for people to listen to. Mark has been playing in bands since he was a teenager, though his main one is Islet, and his old one with his two brothers was called Attack + Defend. They set up Shape Records together back in 2007, and have released a fair bit since then, mainly limited edition vinyl pressings. With Islet, Mark has been lucky enough to play festivals and gigs all over the world – “it’s a very fun thing to be a part of”, as he tells me.
This is Mark (or Sparky, as I like to call him. I’m unsure as to whether he likes it, but there you go). This was taken at Swn Festival. Doesn’t he cut a dashing figure?
Anyway. I had a spiffing time at From Now On. Friday night was a total mess of weird noises made with harps, guitars, synths and god knows what else, bookended with the superbly crafted tunes of Gwenno (at the start) and Richard Dawson (at the end).
Gwenno (you know her, she was in the Pipettes, right?)
(apologies for the crap pic, you can blame my camera phone)
Then there was Rhodri Davies. I walked in and saw a man with a harp. Ah, this will be nice and mellow, I thought. NOT SO. Never thought the musical boundaries of distorted drone would be pushed – by a harp.
Trwbador (this pair are from Carmarthenshire, and they played right lovely twinkly electro-pop)
Bridget Hayden – slow paced distorted guitar and vocals – reminiscent of early PJ Harvey (though I would have liked to have heard more of her voice)
Lucky Dragons got everyone to put their hands together to make music, beautiful music!
Richard Dawson closed off the first night. He sings traditional-style English ballads with a massive voice and his tiny guitar – interspersed by breaking into Abba, Journey, and various other pop hits. Brilliant.
Day Two consisted of more excellent music, ales, cups of tea, and sweet potato fries. Which is why Chapter is such a great venue for watching bands!
First up was Tender Prey, aka Laura Bryon, featuring two members of Islet on drums and bass, yeah?
After that was Hail! The Planes. I don’t have much luck with their gigs. I’ve seen them three times before – once my friend’s bag got stolen, the other time we had been out drinking the night before and got there in time for the last song, and then a few years back at Swn Festival, they were on on the Sunday after a very long weekend of boozing and not sleeping, me and two friends sat at the back of their set in Undertone on a sofa, then got the giggles so badly that we were massively shushed by everyone at the back of the room and in the end had to leave. Anyway, I managed to see the whole set, and it was great!
After that I went to listen to Aidan Richard Taylor and Kim Da Costa weave together some music and visuals – bended by lights …
Then it was time for some melodic, dreamy stoner rock from R. Seiliog. It was HEAVY and it was GREAT.
Then came my undoubted highlight of the night – which was the Peski Records Silent Disco – by far the weirdest silent disco I’ve ever been to. One channel had a DJ playing some deadly beats, another was soundtracking the screen in the middle of the room (playing old disco records and various other random things), and then another – well, I’ve no idea how to describe it, other than it sounded like a man doing the shipping forecast over members of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop trying out sounds for a new sci-fi programme. It was brilliant!
The festival was closed off by Euros Childs! Isn’t it a lovely day, eh?
Other shots, from around the festival over the weekend…
I had a great time at the festival. One of my favourite things about things like this in Cardiff is the likelihood of bumping into everyone you know there, as I did. Lovely to catch up with people! In fact, there were so many ‘Cardiff band-scene’ people there that one of my companions wondered how many new bands were being formed right there, in the miasma of knitwear, beards and sparkly jumpers, outside the Theatre in Chapter, before our very eyes…
I guess we can look forward to seeing them all perform next year, eh!
Mark was kind enough to answer a few questions for me about the festival. Overall, it was a great couple of days. Roll on the second one!
Have you ever run a festival before?
Mark: No, I’ve been putting on live events in Cardiff for years and always wanted to put on something more ambitious. When the opportunity came to work in collaboration with Chapter and the PRS For music Foundation it gave the platform to realise that.
How did you pick the line up?
Mark: Each of the acts has been chosen for their leftfield approach and individuality. There is a strong independent spirit to many of the acts in the sense that many operate without a record label or music industry representation. It’s music that challenges the boundaries and operates outside of the mainstream.
What local bands will be ruling the world soon?
Mark: On a world level Cate Le Bon is going from strength to strength at the moment and it’s brilliant to see her getting the recognition she deserves.
What bands generally are you excited by at the moment?
Mark: Well, we’re releasing a record by a band called from Wrexham called Mowbird so I’ve been listening to that almost constantly. I’m very excited about them!
How would you describe the music scene in Cardiff generally?
Mark: I love it, I’ve been involved with music in Cardiff for over 10 years now and people come and go (still miss Kruger) but there is a very supportive and strong backbone to the whole scene with places like Clwb Ifor Bach, Spillers Records and Music Box being particularly vital and good to know. It’s big enough that you can never know everyone involved but it’s small enough that you can feel comfortable & reasonably worthy!
If you had some friends visiting Cardiff for the weekend, what would you tell them they HAD to do to fully enjoy the city?
Mark: I’m pretty partial to a Frankies, which is a takeaway pizzeria on Mackintosh Place! Also a wander round Cardiff indoor market is a good way of getting a true Cardiffy flavour.
Thanks Mark! All photographs in this post were taken by Adam Chard and me, Helia Phoenix.
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From Now On Festival, 14 – 15 February 2014, Chapter Arts Centre
Gah! Is it just me or is this week dragging ON forever? Anyway, for those music lovers who are looking for something to do this weekend, the We Are Cardiff flag will be flying (and by that I mean I’ll be drunk and draped over the speakers) at Chapter Arts Centre on Friday and Saturday for From Now On festival. It’s been put together by Mark of Shape Records, and is a new festival of adventurous and experimental music.
Friday 14th Feb 7pm – 11pm: Lucky Dragons, Rhodri Davies, Bridget Hayden, Richard Dawson, Trwbador, Gwenno and more
Saturday 15th Feb 3pm – 11pm: Euros Childs, Serafina Steer, Davies & Dawson: Hen Ogledd, Laura J Martin, Dan Haywood, Thought Forms, Trust Fund, R Seiliog, The Jelas, Tender Prey, Hail! The Planes + Micro Peski Nacht
Tickets: £25 two day Festival ticket (no booking fee) here
£12 Friday only ticket (no booking fee) here
£15 Saturday only ticket (no booking fee) here
(You can also buy tickets in person at the Chapter box office or from Spillers Records)
Check out the From Now On website for background info and to hear snippets of the artists who’ll be performing …
I’ve been trying to get Mark to do a We Are Cardiff for about four years now (unsuccessfully, he keeps running away from me every time I mention it), but I’ve managed to squeeze a mini interview out of him, which you’ll be treated to next week, along with photos from the event.
See you there, yeah?
Helia x
We Are Cardiff featured on Guardian Cities
At the end of a crazy busy week on the blog (in terms of visitors and page views, it’s been our busiest week ever AND we had our busiest day EVER on Tuesday!), we finish up by being featured on Guardian cities as one of the best city blogs around the world.
Obviously I’m totally chuffed that the blog has made it on there, but ever heard of Guardian cities? No, neither had I. Well, here’s some background to it:
“Guardian Cities was launched in 2014 to create a fresh and engaging hub for reporting and discussing urban life and the future of cities around the world. The site will host opinion and analysis from a range of voices across the globe, along with news, graphics and data…” (to read more, go here: About the Guardian cities site)
So there you go. Watch this space for more on that!
In other news, we’ve totally set ourselves up on Instagram. Follow We Are Cardiff on Instagram!
You can also like our We Are Cardiff Facebook Page or tweet tweet at us on Twitter @WeAreCardiff …
That’s it for this week, I think! Enjoy the rugby, for those watching it tomorrow – and have a great weekend all!
x
Spotlight on Roath
The Albany pub – one of Roath’s landmarks
Now, Cardiff is a beautiful and varied city, with many neighbourhoods that people are very proud of. We’ve featured over 100 Cardiffians on this site since it launched nearly four years ago, and the Roath/Penylan area has been our most fertile in terms of participants for the project. Now, I’m not going to get into listing reasons why Roath is better than everywhere else, if only because the city’s Roath versus Canton east/west divide issue nearly brought people to blows at our film premiere at Chapter last year … but there’s no denying it’s a lively part of the city with a hell of a lot going on.
Roath also has a pretty special blog that covers local news, events and features local people. The RoathCardiff hyperlocal blog does great work in galvanising the local community, and was rewarded for its hard work when it won the TalkTalk Digital Heroes awards (presented at the House of Commons! Fancy, eh?). The folk who run RoathCardiff have also helped out with We Are Cardiff before (big thanks Matt!), so by way of a thank you, I thought I’d dedicate a post to the wonder of the RoathCardiff blog.
If you live in the local area, RoathCardiff.net is a pretty ace source of information about news, happenings, and events around there. It’s also really easy to contact the blog’s admin team to get involved, or get your news on there to spread it to local people.
Here’s what they say about themselves…
“The RoathCardiff website is a place for local news, views and events from this wonderful area of the Welsh capital.
We will be sharing when Roath makes the news, what residents of Roath are up to and interesting events going on in and around the area. We’ll also have some local history and nice pictures for good measure.
If you’ve got something you’d like to see on the site just get in touch and we’ll do our best to feature it.
We also tweet from @RoathCardiff, where we pump out a vast amount of information about the local area and what people are up to. We suggest following us for updates.”
To give you an idea of the sorts of things they cover, check out the last few news stories posted on the site:
Feb 1, 2014 Mackintosh Lawn Tennis Club’s men are team of the year
Jan 27, 2014 Changes to Claude Place Albany Road junction
Jan 20, 2014Sherman Theatre Spring Season
They’ve even got a local history section on their website, for those of you interested in finding out about the area
Roath Park’s old refreshment house – a bit different from the ice cream vans of today!
You can watch the video of what RoathCardiff is, and why it’s so great below.
CONNECT WITH ROATHCARDIFF:
– on the RoathCardiff blog
Want to check out all the We Are Cardiff Roath entries? Browse the We Are Cardiff Roath archive
All photos were nabbed totally without permission from RoathCardiff.net
Cardiff council’s proposed arts and culture budget cuts
New Theatre Cardiff under threat from council budget cuts… photo by Tom Beardshaw
We don’t often post things like this, but as our local rag the Western Mail reports, Cardiff council budget cuts are threatening a number of the city’s cultural venues. We don’t have that many! We need to keep the ones we have! The New Theatre and St David’s Hall are under threat, and a number of Cardiff-based arts organisations also face grant cuts.
Read more details about the proposed cuts on the Western Mail’s website here: Cardiff cultural venues under threat as subsidies set to be slashed
Cardiff Council are currently running a public consultation on the proposed cuts – not just to arts but to a whole load of different services. The consultation runs until Friday 13 February 2014, and the opinions gathered will be fed into the proposed new budget – due to be discussed by the cabinet on February 20 and debated at full council on February 27. Access the survey about the proposed arts and culture cuts here
There’s also a petition that’s been set up to stop the proposed sale of St David’s Hall and the New Theatre … go here to access that petition: Change.org – Stop the proposed sale of St David’s Hall and New Theatre
What do you think about the budget cuts proposed? Make sure you take part in the consultation above, and leave your comments below.
We Are Cardiff – watch our film – online!
Well hello there neighbours! Happy new year.
Why not celebrate by watching the film we made about Cardiff last year? We Are Cardiff – Portrait of a City is NOW AVAILABLE TO WATCH ONLINE!
Check it out:
See how the film was put together on the blog: We Are Cardiff – Portrait of a City
Background to the project is below.
So. We Are Cardiff is a website that invites residents of Cardiff to share their stories about living in the city. We’re kind of a hyperlocal site, but rather than choosing what news to share, we let the residents speak.
The website was created as a response to the endless barrage of negative news we saw on TV and in national newspapers about Cardiff – programme after programme and story after story about how Cardiff is the drunk capital of the UK, full of nothing but hen and stag parties, and with little else to offer apart from a stadium and more pubs per square mile along the stretch of St Mary Street.
For the people who live in Cardiff, while this version of the city might be true (between the hours of 10-2am on Friday and Saturday nights), for the other 160 hours of a typical week, Cardiff is quite a different place. It boasts lots of amazing independent businesses, some fantastic coastline, hugely redeveloped areas and a bunch of great artistic and cultural communities. Plus we have more parks-per-person than any other major UK city.
We’re super proud of our city, which is why we started the website. We don’t censor what people write on there – residents are encouraged to write their ‘true’ stories of living in the city, be they positive or negative. But the point is there are multiple points of views and many different sides to a city like Cardiff besides the tiny portion that might catch the news.
We started up the We Are Cardiff website to provide an alternative view of the city. And the film we’re now making is a logical progression of that. We want to show you what it’s like to spend a year in the city if you aren’t on a stag do, nor interested in ‘booze-cruising’ up the main drag of St Mary Street … there are many brilliant things happening here. We want you to spend a year with us enjoying them!
Some wonderful local community groups helped us with the project, including:
– Riverside Community Allotment Project (part of RCMA)
– The National Theatre of Wales
– The Tiger Bay Brawlers roller derby team
– The Welsh Burlesque festival
We really love our city and hopefully made a film that showcases how wonderful, creative and supportive a place to live it can be.
TRAILERS FOR THE FILM
We Are Cardiff: 2013 in review
Oh hai there!
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
Street seen: home
“I’ve lived in Roath for a few years now. I really like it there.”
As seen in: Riverside
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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Street seen: foot power
“Cardiff is such a small size. It’s so easy to walk around. You’re local to everywhere here!”
As seen in: Riverside
Photograph by Helia Phoenix
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We Are Cardiff 