SWN begain in 2007 as when BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and Cardiff promoter John Rostron returned from Austin’s SXSW Festival and decided to start their own multi venue festival in Cardiff. Cardiff, the Welsh capital, had no contemporary music festival, and a history of started – but stopped – events in the city’s Coopers Field. So, over three days in November 2007, over one hundred bands and DJs played including The Cribs, Edwyn Collins, Sky Larkin, Two Gallants, Kotki Dwa, The Duke Spirit, The Bobby McGees, David Holmes, Annie Mac, Slow Club, Black Lips, Eugene McGuinness, Sons and Daughters, Steve Lamacq, Cassius, Shrag, Those Dancing Days, Bass Clef, Loefah, Bobby Conn, The Duloks, Mr Huw, Pagan Wanderer Lu, The Gentle Good, The School, 9bach, Sam Isaac and Pony Up. In that first year people got to see a then unknown Yeasayer play an afternoon slot in the 150 capacity Buffalo Bar. The upcoming American artist Beirut played an incredible show in the equally incredible Point venue in Cardiff Bay. Cherry Ghost played at Chapter Arts Centre shortly before his debut album went Top 10. It was a thrilling success – loads of people, amazing bands, an event the likes of which Cardiff hadn’t seen since BBC Radio 1 took over Cardiff in 2000.
Excited to do it again, and curious to see if people would still be interested in the event a second time, the second SWN Festival was scheduled for November 2008. We added two full days of seminars at the recently opened Atrium building, bringing music industry experts to Wales, and including a talk from Scouting For Girls dicussing their rise to popularity on the same night they were playing a show at Cardiff International Arena. We opened up new spaces to music – most noticable the Reardon Smith Lecture Theatre of the National Museum Cardiff, which hadn’t been used for a rock concert for 30 years. The legendary Young Marble Giants, who’d only played one show in the best part of two decades, reformed for an amazing concert to reopen the space. We also promoted concerts in The Gate, a mixed use converted church in the Roath area of Cardiff, introducing the venue to promoters and an audience who then returned through the year. Close to 150 bands and djs played SWN Festival 2008, including Joy Formidable, Attack and Defend, Euros Childs, The Peth, Clinic, Pete and the Pirates, The Chapman Family, Rolo Tomassi, Clare Maguire, Casio Kids, Golden Silvers, Micachu and the Shapes, James Yuill, Richard James, Rob da Bank, Goldie Lookin Chain, High Contrast, Genod Droog, Alex Dingley, Derwyddon Dr Gonzo, Legowelt, The Muscle Club, Skatar, The Big Pink, It Hugs Back, Cats in Paris, Thomas Tantrum, Truckers Of Husk, Volcano!, Das Wanderlust, John Head, King Cannibal, Gwyneth Glyn, Y Diwygiad, Pixel h8, Future Of The Left, Agoskodo Teliverek, Amazing Baby, Flashguns, Peggy Sue, Stephen Fretwell, Broken Records, Skinnyman and Colorama. The Big Pink played a slot first on at Clwb Ifor Bach and would go on to the front page of most UK music magazines, a Top 10 album and much acclaim. The Joy Formidable would headline an NME Radar Live Tour. Clare Maguire’s show was only her second ever. She played downstairs in Glo Bar to maybe 50 people, most of whom were A&R who’d pegged it up to Cardiff. She was signed as a result. SWN Festival 2008 was a delight.
As 2009 began we were beginning to be asked to present SWN stages at other peoples’ events. We couldn’t say no. Here was an opportunity to take predominantly new Welsh bands out to other events and help promote other peoples events into Wales. We went up to Salford for Sounds From The Other City where a then unknown Welsh act, Marina & The Diamonds played our stage. Within a year she’d be a Top 10 artist. We hosted a stage at Camden Crawl. We took an unknown Islet to Unconvention in Swansea where they played, got seen, got blogged about, got an A&R frenzy and got a full page in NME. We worked on SWN Festival 2009, moving it almost a full month earlier into October so as not to clash with Rugby Internationals at the Millennium Stadium. We fretted that the move would put people off. It didn’t. SWN Festival 2009 was an incredible success. More people came than ever before, and came from far and wide. In 2009 you could have (or did) see The Drums play upstairs in Dempseys Bar, Marina And The Diamonds play Chapter Arts Centre, Girls and Cate Le Bon play Y Fuwch Goch, Los Campesinos! play and curate The Gate. All these gigs were completely sold out. Victorian English Gentleman’s Club opened the festival playing in a gallery in the National Museum Cardiff. Elsewhere you could see Gaggle, Gallops!, Zun Zun Egui, Pulled Apart By Horses, Copy Haho, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Strange News From Another Star, Dananananakroyd, Slow Club, Islet, Right Hand Left Hand, The Leisure Society, Martin Carr, Unicorn Kid, Gold Panda, Three Trapped Tigers, Jonquil, Fiction, Nadine Shah, Hafaliadau=Equations, The Crookes, Stornoway, Wild Beasts, Beth Jeans Houghton, Cymdeithias Yr Hobos Unig, Johnny Foreigner, Talons, Exit International, Daedelus, Jakwob, DJ Gemmy, The Twilight Sad, Chris TT, Mitchell Museum, Tim And Sam’s Tim And Sam Band with Tim and Sam and Broken Family Band amongst others. There were more seminars and panels. We collected money for charity from all those attending on the guestlist and through some events in partnership with Oxfam.SWN Festival 2009 closed with a Silent Disco at Cardiff University Students Union. Three years in, SWN Festival was now a fixture in the Welsh calendar.
In 2010 SWN Festival also gave birth to SWN Presents. SWN Presents has become the name for all our events outside of the festival – as we’ve begun promoting concerts, mostly in Cardiff, filling the gaps to bring more music to Wales. You can see all those shows at www.swnpresents.com. We went out curating more stages for events too as exciting approaches are made for us to partner with other happenings – Camden Crawl, In The City, Artes Mundi, The Pierhead Sessions, HowTheLightGetsIn, Stag & Dagger and Sounds From The Other City.We were also asked by Cardiff Council to curate the opening night of Cardiff’s Admiral Big Weekend – a free music event to 10,000 people – where we invited The Blackout, Los Campesinos!, Racehorses and Samoans to play. SWN Festival 2010 took place over Oct 21-23rd, now comfortable in this new October slot, and all these bands played Swans, Paul, Heaton, Perfume Genius, Meic Stevens, Tom Gray, Melys, Kids In Glass Houses (who played in Spillers Records!), Egyptian Hip Hop, Truckers of Husk, Racehorses, Peggy Sue, Trembling Bells, Lets Wrestle, Beach Fossils, Islet, The Ex, Happy Birthday, Gwilym Gold, Sibrydion, Sweet Baboo, Gavin Butler (The Blackout), Pete Lawrie, Cocknbullkid, James Blackshaw, Colorama, Bryn Fon, Wilder, Cate Le Bon, A la Fiste, Al Lewis, Alex Dingley, Alphabet Backwards, Among Brothers, Arabot, Attack and Defend, Bare Left, Bastions, Becoming Real, Bellini, Black Spiders, Books, Brandyman, Breichiau Hir, Brown Brogues, Calories, Chad Valley, Crash Disco, Cut Ribbons, Cyrion, Dad Rocks, Dam Mantle, Derwyddion Dr Gonzo, Dog is Dead, Drains, Dry the River, Dutch Uncles, Ellen and the Escapades, Enbe, Evening Chorus, Exit International, Fair Ohs, Fiction, Gildas, Good the Boys, H Hawkline, Henry’s Funeral Shoe, Houdini Dax, Huw M, Inconsiderate Parking, Joe Worricker, John Mouse, Jonathan Powell, Kamikaze Veterans, Kutosis, La La Vasquez, Little Fish, Lucky Delucci, Magic Kids, Masters in France, Mimas, Mitchell Museum, Mr Huw, Munich Munich, Nedry, Nos Sadwrn Bach, O Children, Ok, Oui Messy, P Money, Plyci, Primary 1, Pull in Emergency, Quinoline Yellow, Raphaelites, Reaper in Sicily, Right Hand Left Hand, Samoans, Scriber, Shake Aletti, Sion, Russell Jones, Spectrals, Stagecoach, Standard Fare, Still Corners, Stricken City, Sun Drums, Tall Ships, Talons, Teeth, The Computers, The Gentle Good, The Guns, The Keys, The Last Republic, The Lay Lows, The School, The Vaccines, Threatmantics, Throats, To The Bones, Tom Williams and The Boat, Trwbador, Union Jackals, Veronica Falls, Victorian English, Gentlemans Club, Violas, Visions Of Trees, VVolves, We Are Animal, White Ring, Wickes, Wounds, Y Bandana, Y Niwl, Young Legionnaire, Young Rebel Set, Yuctan and Zwolf.
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