#james apollo

In 2018 I was lucky enough to be asked to contribute to and exhibit in the brilliant Cardiff Women in Music Week, as curated by the unstoppable and Liz Hunt of The Moon in Cardiff, without whom the Cardiff music scene would be all the more poorer.

Anais Mitchell, Clwb Ifor Bach

Islet, Swn Festival

Gryff Rhys, Clwb Ifor Bach

Y Niwl, Swn Festival

Strange News From Another Star, Undertone

Joanna Gruesome, Swn Festival

Below is my accompanying essay:

Mine is a wandering road through music. There is no real start or end as I’ve been involved in all aspects of making, playing and managing. Photography and writing were always passions of mine and I studied each formally as well just having fun with them. Those, combined with a love of music, a background in opera, a musician mother, partner and friends meant some level of involvement was inevitable. A naturally organised and (ever so slightly) bossy person, I started helping my partner Joshua Caole and others with booking their shows and tours. I enjoyed the romance of packing a car up and driving around Europe on tour with Josh. There was some blagging and bullshitting at first and a very steep learning curve. I put together press packs from guides on the internet to sell these acts to venues and promoters. I started emailing and phoning people blindly and the ones who responded I built working relationships with for future acts. Booking my first tour for a US act (James Apollo) I came up against a very well-respected London promoter who both called me out on my blagging but also respected me for trying so hard to get this band the best shows I could. After a couple of successful tours, more people asked me to book for them. My biggest project to date was a tour for Christiaan Webb, Jimmy Webb’s son, which was crafted with a lot of love together with his Welsh brothers, the Musicbox studios and rehearsal rooms crew. Musicbox is the lifeblood of Cardiff music and without Mark and Bernie we’d all be lost. A big tip. Spreadsheets are a booker’s friend. Many many spreadsheets. For contacts, tour day plans, keeping track of what gear the venue will provide, what length set the band has to play… have one for everything.

As I was already going to a lot of shows, I took my camera. It was a natural progression and felt like a higher level of interaction. Some of my shots proved popular when bands or events shared them online and found their way into the press. Taking photos of bands that you know gets you to the front of the crowd and from there, once you have work to show people, it’s not hard to get press passes or interest from others who want you to shoot them. I would often work as an official photographer at a festival which is where all my Sŵn shots come from. Approaching festivals and asking to take photos for free one year can lead to a more official position the next.

Everything I’ve done, however, including more recently helping a new venue with their programming, has been sporadic due to the fact that I have increasingly severe ME. When I enjoyed runs of moderately good health some years ago I could dip my toe into different waters, just a little - I could book bands, take photos, manage tours - but all in a very limited capacity. Other photographers could shoot all day, every day. I also required huge rest periods after the smallest amounts of activity so even during my best times I could never fully be immersed in music as my health always had to come first. Sadly, as my disease has progressed and I have become far more severely affected, my involvement in the industry has understandably waned. The majority of the last 5 years have been spent in bed, in hospital or in a wheelchair so it means a lot personally that anyone has noticed my contributions to Cardiff music, especially as a person with disabilities. I often worry I disappear from memory when I’m alone in my room, able only to watch the ceiling and unable to move even to the bathroom without help. The rights of those with disabilities is therefore as important to me as gender equality and I’ve been really happy to see projects like Gig Buddies come to Cardiff. Notably, however, whilst venues and promoters are more and more prepared for disabled customers, few are ever ready for disabled people in the industry itself. Trying to make sure my artist parking for a festival was accessible on walking sticks one year was incredibly complicated and issues like these seem to confuse whomever is at the other end of the phone as it’s just not expected. This is something I have had to confront much more often than sexism. Turning up on sticks, in a wheelchair and still commanding attention, trust and respect is distressingly difficult. Whenever I can take photos or interact with music, however, I do. Tenacity is definitely crucial. It has been a while since I could physically push my way to the front of a show and take photos though so these days I’m more of an email warrior.

Photography to me is the urge to capture real moments. I sometimes think this makes me less creative than other photographers who dream up magical landscapes, but that’s just not what interests me. It’s more about documenting emotion and moments in a visually interesting way, especially with live music. For that reason I never cared much for photographing stadium shows and big festivals, despite the visual artistry involved in the production. I prefer small venues and intimacy. Photographers I admire include Lomokev who is a wonderful guy based in Brighton who first came to the fore taking photos at raves on his then very unfashionable Russian Lomo cameras as he crawled through the grass.

I’ve always been able to project a confidence (it’s totally fake) and when needed, a slight arrogance. This has got me through moments where gender could have been a barrier, I think. Especially in photography. My tutor, the unforgettable “Dr Fred(ericks)” told me if you ever worried you didn’t belong somewhere or felt under-experienced for a shoot, turn up with all the gear you have and barge on through.

The relationship between women and anyone identifying as anything but male with the music industry is obviously a troubled one. I believe I possibly take a different stance to some people, however, due to a uniquely multi-generational view. My mother (though she loathes me to tell anyone) was the real trailblazer. She was a session player at some big studios whilst she was still unmentionably young. The stories she has told me; the assaults and assumption of women as complicit sexual objects regardless of their actual involvement in the music are disgusting and have influenced my view of a lot of industry big-hitters. They are also far removed from the still deep-rooted but nowhere near as toxic sexism I’ve encountered. She went and did it all though and lived through horrible situations for the love of music. Today, I truly believe there has been progress. I think it’s sometimes important to just recognise that instead of worrying how far there is still to go. Progress has occurred not just in the role women play in music but in the way in which we engage in discourse about gender, sex and even consent. It is important to remember women have always played key roles in music and sound engineering. There are women in every great rock story who showed up, got on with it and earned respect. Music was never a no-go area for women but we had to prove ourselves to an unjust degree and put up with a lot of shit and assumptions that men don’t have to. I feel like banging the drum incessantly about inequality in music sometimes does an injustice to all those in the industry who support everyone around them and lift each other up regardless of gender. There are some great people out there and they are the only way forward. No path is impossible for women in music; Sound engineers (one particular woman in Hamburg I will never forget), musicians (Liela Moss is one of the most underrated front-people in rock), bookers, tour managers, and the Liz Hunts of the world, who appear to somehow do everything, are making sure the roads that have been forged stay open and flow with more and more talent.

The best advice any woman in music ever gave to me was from Take That’s first booking agent, a wonderfully Ab Fab-esque woman who told me to go out there and “kill them with kindness”. She meant it as an all-encompassing ethos, but I feel it is especially pertinent to women in male-dominated spheres. For example, when the worst kind of promoters think they can walk all over a female tour manager because she’s no way going to stand up for the band and fight for the fee they’re owed that night and you respond with calm but strong insistence rather than shouting or cowering away it is then that you see something really interesting start to happen and they listen.

“Charming fragility” MOJO // “Intrinsically beautiful” Uncut // “Daring and impressive” DIY

James Apollo shares ‘Two Lanes’ music video Watch here: http://youtu.be/WgWVV6HaF7o New album Angelorum out now via Code 7 / Marterry Music

With his new album Angelorium just released this month, James Apollo has unveiled a music video for ‘Two Lanes’. Shot in the studio, this video captures James in his element, collaborating with his band, and carving out the sonic shape of this progressive and momentous track with layers of percussion. “I was traveling hard as ‘Two Lanes’ started to take shape,” Apollo says. “I burned hard to the crossroads. No east, no west, just four wheels. Two lanes, blood-blurred eyes and a yearn that the ghosts on the horizon will materialize when the sun burns back around.” The driving rhythm of ‘Two Lanes’ harbours the troubled sounds of James’ new album, which nearly never saw the light of day after the initial sessions of Angelorum were lost in a fire that took Minneapolis's Underwood Studios, and the home of producer Mark Stockert. But James is no stranger to setbacks. 2010 left James unable to walk following a motorcycle accident in Brooklyn, resulting in a year of rehabilitation, as well as having to learn how to walk again. A determined creative force, James has continually used his obstacles as a musical motive. Having previously collaborated with indie hero Damien Juardo, who produced his last album, Little War, Little Less, Apollo was bestowed with a fascination in musical arrangement, evidenced by Angeloum’s rich and varied musicianship. The album is a bold statement from a continually inspired musician, unafraid to remain stoic and persistently push musical and personal boundaries. Having conquered his UK headline tour in April, James Apollo will return to our shores later this year.

“Charming fragility” MOJO // “Intrinsically beautiful” Uncut // “Daring and impressive” DIY

James Apollo shares ‘Two Lanes’ music video Watch here: http://youtu.be/WgWVV6HaF7o New album Angelorum out now via Code 7 / Marterry Music

With his new album Angelorium just released this month, James Apollo has unveiled a music video for ‘Two Lanes’. Shot in the studio, this video captures James in his element, collaborating with his band, and carving out the sonic shape of this progressive and momentous track with layers of percussion. “I was traveling hard as ‘Two Lanes’ started to take shape,” Apollo says. “I burned hard to the crossroads. No east, no west, just four wheels. Two lanes, blood-blurred eyes and a yearn that the ghosts on the horizon will materialize when the sun burns back around.” The driving rhythm of ‘Two Lanes’ harbours the troubled sounds of James’ new album, which nearly never saw the light of day after the initial sessions of Angelorum were lost in a fire that took Minneapolis's Underwood Studios, and the home of producer Mark Stockert. But James is no stranger to setbacks. 2010 left James unable to walk following a motorcycle accident in Brooklyn, resulting in a year of rehabilitation, as well as having to learn how to walk again. A determined creative force, James has continually used his obstacles as a musical motive. Having previously collaborated with indie hero Damien Juardo, who produced his last album, Little War, Little Less, Apollo was bestowed with a fascination in musical arrangement, evidenced by Angeloum’s rich and varied musicianship. The album is a bold statement from a continually inspired musician, unafraid to remain stoic and persistently push musical and personal boundaries. Having conquered his UK headline tour in April, James Apollo will return to our shores later this year.

Seasick Mama's Daytrotter session is now available on vinyl! Don't miss the opportunity to pick up this limited edition split LP with James Apollo!

It’s easy to marvel at the precision of a really well made watch or a Formula One engine. At least I’m into that kind of thing. Exquisite synchronization makes me feel good inside, a bit like music. And we had music that made me feel Swiss watch perfect at Roots this week. When Missy Raines plays bass and Mike Compton plays mandolin, she on the one and he on the answering two, something uplifting and numinous happens. She pushes and he pulls. It’s immaculately quantized, yet incredibly human, like a heart. Everything I ever learned to appreciate about string-band timing and feel is wrapped up in that relaxed, tick-tock, rock-steady beat. And there’s nobody better in the world than these veterans, the heartbeat of the Helen Highwater String Band. Don’t worry, I’ll gush about band-mates Shad Cobb and David Grier for other reasons shortly. But I woke up after the show thinking about the boom-chick, boom-chick mantra evoked by these bluegrass shamans.

The preoccupation with authenticity in roots music is not just some trope. It’s not a game or a cliché that we writer types dwell on because we can’t think of anything else to talk about. It’s as close to the heart of what matters about folk music as redemption is to religion or improvement is to sports. Authenticity is the highest, best calling of the art form. But what does it mean?

That’s a big subject of course, but one test is to ask whether an artist would do it the same way for an audience of a thousand or of a million or of two. Would they do it with no expectation of return, simply because they had to? And when you’re listening, can you feel screens and filters and mediators, as with country radio? Or does it feel like a human being speaking in words and musical gestures so vivid they could stroke your cheek or shove you in the chest?