Purr proudly presents Circulus, Ye Hotte Puppyes, The Panther Girls

Event information

Purr Proudly Presents:
A Medieval Christmas with Circulus & Ye Hotte Puppyes (The Hot Puppies)

on Saturday 15th December at Purr @ Cube Cinema
, Dove Street South, Bristol, BS2 8JB

Plus psych/medieval/folk/prog/Christmas-themed DJing courtesy of The World Famous Purr DJs & King Arthur’s Court Dance-floor Shapes Thrown By The elegantly fabulous Panther Girls

Doors 7.30pm, Tickets £7.50, concs/adv £6.50

Available in advance from www.wegottickets.com

Further info: Delia on 07985 309 475 or delia@purr.org.uk

More info at www.purr.org.uk & www.cubecinema.com



Circulus

Michael Tyack - Vocals, Guitars, Saz, Cittern


Lo Polidoro - Vocals

Sam Kelly - Drums, Vocals

Ollie Parfitt - Keyboards, moog

George Parfitt - bass

Will Summers - Flutes, Recorders, Crumhorns, Shawm

Victor Hugo Llamas - Bongos, Percussion


In the summer of 2005, England was attacked by a seven-strong band of medieval fantasists with a soundtrack of ancient wind instruments, 70s Moog synthesisers and ghostly harmonies. This concoction proved too potent for many: alternative rock fans, clutching their parts of shame in horror, ran screaming towards the nearest Franz Ferdinand album. Folkies took one look at Circulus’s horse’s heads and high-waisted dresses, scowled, and poured a pint of ale over their heads. Cynical rock critics protected themselves against the onslaught by dismissing the whole thing as an elaborate hoax. But some of the braver elements of society, including children, the elderly and a herd of cows in Cornwall, listened to the masterful playing, appreciated the imagination and character at work, and jumped for joy.


As Michael Tyack implores us to “remember the showers bring up the flowers” in the depths of midwinter, wind instrumentalist Will Summers performs a rauch pfeifer solo that will thrill students of the Elizabethan era.


Circulus are a psychedelic rock band on a quest for the new that follows a path forged by history. Their adventure visits places where young princes locked up in towers while away the hours by practising dance moves, and they are searching, through the mysteries of melody, for the perfect song. They want you to join them


“More inspired by ‘Greensleeves’ than Gang Of Four, Circulus are out of step with any music made since the War of the Roses. They replace skinny ties and crack with doublet, hose and songs like ‘Power To The Pixies!’ But the deft way that they weave together sea shanties and flutes with synths pushes their music from the realm of the daft into oddly affecting. Power to the pixies!“ – NME


"A tripped-out prog homage to both '70s psych and 12th-century chamber music. It's all about the burning scarecrows, see. The mystical mash-up of a lute, a Moog and various Arabic-sounding woodwind instruments is a bit like beef ice cream: unusual, but somehow right." www.playlouder.com


“Mad, bad blend of Moog, lute and massed choral arrangements that puts the Polyphonic Spree to shame.” - NME


“Circulus are undoubtedly the best psychedelic neo-medieval folk-rock band in Britain.” – Observer


Maybe Circulus signify the rebirth of prog: in this crazy, mixed-up, paradoxical world we live in, it has to be said - they are so tragically unhip they are actually cooler than anything we've seen in a while. www.playlouder.com


“Playful toddlers group together and dance before the band, dogs bark and appear to be running around invisible objects. Suddenly there’s a stage invasion. The little people want to dance with the band and mum’s too stoned to stop them. “I didn't make it to Woodstock,” shouts a gruff voice, “but Tavistock will do.” - No Class


“With rauch pfeifers, crumhorns, psychedelic guitar solos, squealing vintage synthesisers and songs about pixies and burning scarecrows they are so far removed from anything else, so blithely unconcerned with any contemporary notions of cool, that it makes for genuinely shocking listening. It is by turns preposterous, unsettling, tear-jerkingly beautiful and wonderfully refreshing: the one thing it is not is a concerted effort to storm the charts by sounding a bit like Coldplay or Franz Ferdinand. But it is merely the tip of the iceberg, the musical wing of a wilfully skewed world view that Tyack has been formulating since a visit to America in the late 80s, when homesickness led him to begin attending Elizabethan music concerts.” - Guardian


“If you were to insult Circulus, I would do my best to bare-knuckle box the crud out of you on the spot, even if you were Geoff Capes." - Tom Cox, journalist


“Even Britain's most renowned hippy-loathers - John Lydon, & Julie Burchill - might start thinking that the path to personal fulfilment lay in wearing a cape and listening exclusively to madrigals and long-forgotten ‘70s bands like Fresh Maggots and Dr Strangely Strange.” - Guardian


"I f*cking hate your band. You're like a really f*cking bad acid trip." - Ali Rawlings, band manager


“Circulus are no sartorial slouches, all splendidly rocking the medieval-minstrel-meets-70s-weirdy-beardy-folkster look. Then there’s the pointy-hooded monk on bongos (and, sadly, that’s not a sentence I have to type often).A Moog-generated drone and the band gather front-of-stage for a bout of close-harmony chanting, before they rip into some prime psychedelic folk-prog with added antiquarianism. Wow. It certainly beats watching yet another bunch of chancers pretending it’s the 1980s. Why not pretend it’s the 1380s instead?Fantastic total powered-up melody with hints of west coast pop, only medieval, innit? Forsooth, they rocketh verily.” – Kitten Painting


The bands two albums ‘The Lick On The Tip Of An Envelope Yet To Be Sent’ and ‘Clocks Are Like People’ are available from http://www.riseaboverecords.com/index2.asp Plus limited Cdsingle ‘Song Of Our Despair’


www.myspace.com/circulus

www.Circulus.org



Ye Hotte Puppyes (aka The Hot Puppies)


Becky Newman – vocals

Beth Gibson – keyboards, vocals, theremin

Luke Taylor – guitars, vocals

Ben Faircloth – bass

Bert Wood – drums


Tonight the Purr favourites will be performing a specially-prepared thematically-inclined set of tunes.


Cool and slightly quirky boy/girl punk pop from Cardiff. NME, Artrocker, DiS and The Observer are all firmly behind them, with plenty of radio play backup from the likes of Huw Stevens and Marc Riley. Their style radiates energy and their songs are executed with equal measures of sugar and spite. The band cite Devo, Add N to (X) and early Blondie as influences. Tonight they’ll be previewing tracks from the soon-to-be-released 2nd album Blue Hands. A truly excellent and not-to-be-missed live band.


“With song titles, band name and label name all scoring high on this cool-o-meter. The Hot Puppies are as fantastic as waking up in a sea of Oreo cookies with no option but to eat your way to safety. Terry is pummelling smack-disco, but it’s the B-side that makes off with the garlands, being a truly terrific, vitriolic suicide waltz, full of withering put-downs (‘if you tell me that you love me one more time, I shall be sick on your guitar’) and going-home-alone-at-the-end-of-the-night-sadness.” - NME


“Sharp pop – a combination of Blondie’s punk kitsch and the Shirelles’s harmonic lift.” – The Observer


The Hot Puppies – The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful

“Their dark zombie girlband surf tunes ooze that seductic danger scent that made you want to snip locks of mullet off of Nick Cave - the waltzer-pop harpy-wail of new single, ‘Terry’, that sounds like Throwing Muses at a satanic hoedown…puppies, like cujo then. And hot, like brimstone.” - Mark Beaumont, NME


“The Hot Puppies are a hard-rocking band with balls, who still manage to sound like they should be playing a smoky jazz club somewhere. Or even a honky-tonk: plenty of tremelo guitar and a closing number ‘How come you don’t hold me no more?’ that recalls Hank Williams’, ‘Why don’t you love me like you used to?’, gives the set that country tinge.”- Artrocker


“Standing at the lip of the stage, barefoot and looking like a young Tori Amos, I’ts Becky and her gorgeously yearning voice that makes The Hot Puppies the heartbreakingly cool band that they are. Black cocktail dresses, romantic decadence and sounding like David Bowie singing the ‘grease’ soundtrack are quite clearly pointers to the way forward.” - Gigwise


“The Hot Puppies are possibly one of the most outstanding bands of the year. Their sound ranges from sugary 50’s American diner to stomping Yeah Yeah Yeahs post- punk, via Aretha-style soul. Becky’s sultry vocals and feline onstage demeanor make you feel like there’s no one else in the room. She harmonises with Beth, creating a sound that is painstakingly heartfelt and mature beyond their years as a band.” Neily Alimohama, Glasgow University Guardian


“So boys and girls, get out your sparkly glad-rags, slap on the eyeliner and lip-gloss, head for the nearest dance hall and insist that they play The Hot Puppies all night long.” - Whisperin & Hollerin


Website: www.thehotpuppies.com My Space: www.myspace.com/thehotpuppies



The Panther Girls

Purr’s fabulous in-house dance-troupe cut some (castle) floor shapes to the stylish court tunes of Circulus, as well as some special seasonally-themed frugs. They’ve danced with Los Campesinos! Remi Nicole, Friends Of The Bride, The Hot Puppies, Crystal Castles, Help She Can’t Swim and many more. They’ve appeared in Bath, Bristol, London, Cardiff, Margham Deer Park and on tables in Paris. They are the fabulous Panther Girls and have moves too myriad to put into words. Be warned, they’ve got claws as well as ears!

www.myspace.com/thepanthergirls


Advance Tickets: www.wegottickets.com