Black Diamond Bay.

The first Leeds Festival Fringe will see 127 bands and 400 musicians from the city and across Yorkshire perform at nine small music venues.

Taking place from next Thursday to August 25, ahead of Leeds Festival, the not-for-profit event will also raise money for Martin House Children’s Hospice.

The event was the brainchild of promoter and band manager Mickey Thompson.

Mr Thompson is hoping this year’s inaugural fringe festival will set the scene for a permanent new addition to the city’s musical calendar.

He said: “It’s about empowering and assisting the unsigned talent of Leeds – grass roots bands, promoters and venues who are working 24 hours a day.

“Leeds is some five years behind Reading in terms of a fringe event, so I decided that in 2010 things were going to change.

“The response has been huge. We had 300 applications (for bands] to play.”

Mr Thompson, who manages The Red Pills, a Leeds-based rock/punk outfit, was inspired by similar local music weeks in Liverpool, Manchester and London.

Performances will be held at nine city venues including Carpe Diem, the Royal Park Cellars, The Well, The Dry Dock and the Northern Monkey.

Highlights include up-and-coming band Secret Circuits, who will play Cape Diem next Friday, five days after an appearance at the NME’s acclaimed music night at the Koko club in Camden.

Electronic outfit Black Diamond Bay will be another highlight, fresh from signing a new record deal following their triumph at a major battle of the bands contest in Bradford recently.

All the participating music venues will be raising money for Martin House Children’s Hospice at Boston Spa.

People can donate on the night or in advance via www.justgiving.com/leedsfestivalfringe.

Visit www.leedsfestivalfringe.org for more details.

I had spoken to Apple James only once and only briefly. He said ‘Come out to the desert, bring some songs.’ Well we had some songs, me and Tom, so we took them to the desert, just like he said. We figured we could make them hot or bury them in the dunes trying. The dust is all I remember about that time. The dust and the carrion. We didn’t find Apple James. Just footprints and echoes and empty packets of Lucky Strike, crushed by his fists. We came upon the diner just as our water was running out. We’d shot our horses way back. Tom said they slowed us down. He didn’t know what we were looking for out there in the sand and neither did I but he said we’d be better off on our feet and I agreed. We heard the sign first, whining as it swung on rusting hinges. Then in the shimmer of the sun’s glare and all that dust we made out the shape of a diner by a road. That sign told us the establishment was run by Louisiana Pete. We didn’t know him but our tired steps quickened anyway. Inside, Agne Motieciute was serving coffee. She wore her pink waitress uniform with disdain and sang some mournful ballad under her breath as she filled our cups. Her voice was the sweet elixir we’d travelled so far to find. We asked her to join our band. We told her we had songs. She muttered something we didn’t catch but knew it sure wasn’t pleasant and moved to another table. Colin Sutton, a drifter, drunk on cheap moonshine and past glories, looked up from his ham and eggs and said with that ashtray voice of his that he was the fastest bass player in anywhere. He flashed a gypsy smile, betraying teeth of gilded steel. We believed him. He wondered if we wouldn’t happen to be needing a bass player in this band of ours. Seeing the ivory handled knives clipped to his belt, we guessed we might. ‘Well then…’ He said. We fell silent. Ben Ziapour, the local sheriff, young and dangerous, entered the diner. Seeing Colin he flicked his holster open in one hot second, ready for trouble. Colin laughed a jackal laugh and told us he couldn’t shoot for shit, but Ziapour could handle a guitar. ‘I’m the heaviest guitarist between here and anywhere.’ The sheriff weighed in, spitting tobacco on the tiled floor. Motieciute cursed him in a language we may never speak but understand through and through. We guessed we’d need a guitarist too and told him so there and then. ‘There ain’t no band without me’. We turned. Sitting in a booth at the far end was Ben Wilson, a trucker from somewhere with a soul measured in celcius and a past measured in dead bodies. He said he didn’t like the look of any of us people but he was sick of burning up the highways in these parts. He wanted to see Europe. Maybe even the world. He told us he would be doing the drumming. He told us he wanted to keep an eye on everyone. Colin laughed his jackal laugh and said: ‘Well then…’ That’s how it happened. No word a lie.

The desert was no place to rehearse. We had to get back to England, to Leeds. They weren’t so sure but we told them that’s how it had to be and one by one they took up their belongings and stepped out into the desert. It wasn’t easy, getting back. Colin threatened the border guards who tried to take his knives away. Ziapour had to bust him out of a holding cell and they travelled with the luggage. Wilson took care of the bribes. Agne saw the aeroplane from the terminal, shrieked a banshee wail and vanished. She turned up in Leeds alright. No one knows how. Once there we holed up in a house built on burial grounds and rehearsed. There was bloodshed. Colin used his knives as often as he pleased. Motieciute fought back with ancient incantations and black fire. Wilson just drummed, his eyes never leaving us. Many bass lines, guitar riffs, even violin solos were made and then dismantled, made and dismantled. Finally, a sound began to emerge that scared the blood from our veins and the wind from the trees. Ziapour thought this was just about right. Wilson told us we would be called Black Diamond Bay. He didn’t say why. He just wanted to see Europe. Maybe even the world.

Through coercion and on occasion, violence we got our tracks played on Kiss FM, Xfm, BBC6 and BBC Radio Leeds as well as various internet radio stations, including Adam and Joe Coke Music Podcast. The DJs seemed to like the sound. John Kennedy used the word ‘Beautiful’. Colin said he didn’t much know what beauty was. No one argued. No one ever did with Colin. We made the cover of Sandman magazine. They said we were as good as any in our field. That involved Massive Attack and Portishead. Metro said we were ‘spine-tingling’. Who’s Jack called us ‘a modern Classic’. Traffic said we were ‘Poised and delicate’. They booked us to play at Kendal Calling. Ziapour wore shoes in the mud for days and days. He’s that kind of man. We played the main stage the following year as well as making our debuts at Soundwave in Croatia, Be2gether in Lithuania and Moorfest in Yorkshire. Music Guru described our performances as a ‘seething, strutting motorik funk charge’. MTV said we were ‘epic’. Motieciute was pleased with that. She didn’t show it though.

Then one day in Tokyo, a guy named Bob heard a track of ours at a music industry fair. The track he heard was Philharmonic Bubbles. One of those songs we took into the desert all those days ago. He liked it a lot so he called us up when he got back to England offered us a two album deal with his label, Exceptional Records. Wilson told us we would be signing. He didn’t say why. So we did. One by one. Now, a whole bunch of days later, we’re about to release our debut single, ‘Worship the Sun’ with Spanish death anthem ‘Cold’ as the B Side. After that, who knows? You can bet on one thing though, somewhere out there, Apple James is smiling.

It is our great pleasure to announce that our debut single, Worship the Sun, is released on Exceptional Records RED Label on Monday April 5th. The song was placed on the latest Mixmag Podcast who described it as ‘slick electro’. iDJ gave it a resounding 8/10 and it was also aired on BBC radio’s Raw Talent.  The single will be available for download on iTunes and includes an extended Album version of the track (more chords for your money) as well as tragic Spanish death anthem ‘Cold‘. It is accompanied by a video devised and produced by animation impresario, Matt Harney.

Image from Worship the Sun video

We’ll be appearing on Phoenix FM (www.phoenixfm.co.uk) on Friday April 2nd, playing a couple of acoustic numbers as well as talking endlessly about artistic motivations and ill thought through, semi-plausible conspiracy theories dreamt up in drug induced comas. There may also be a fight. Colin’s volatile like that. The single will be followed later in the year by a whole album with a working title we can’t tell you about or the Feds will shut us down and deport us back to the seedy, grubby little hole we all came from.

Please show your support for the band and buy the single. It’ll make us feel loved. Nothing wrong with that is there? If it’s not merely love but infatuation, then why not come show us some of that at The Brudenell Social in Leeds on April 8th?

Yours unswervingly

Black Diamond Bay

Worship The Sun by blackdiamondbay

We are a Leeds based band called Black Diamond Bay. There are seven of us. We play electro-folk. We regard ourselves as the first band to do this properly. Some of us are from Lithuania. Most of us are not. We came together when Tom, the producer and Jesse, the song writer (original members of attic based house production duo, Tarentum) decided to hand-pick musicians from the Leeds College of Music to form a band to play their tunes.

Agne Motieciute was the first singer auditioned. Her beautiful voice and subtle air of threat won us over immediately. Holly Thomas was second up. She wasn’t as scary but, if you’ll forgive the term, she had a right pair of pipes on her. We cancelled all other auditions. Colin Sutton was known to be the fastest bass player in Yorkshire and Ben Ziapour, the heaviest guitarist of Anglo-Iranian origin in LS6. These were significant factors in the selection process, along with their dance moves and capacity for abstract thought. Ben Wilson, a protégé of Colin’s, became the drummer not only for his unerring ability to keep time under pressure but also because of his status as resident Dark Horse. His musical genius spans instruments, genres and personas too numerous to detail here.

We had the players. We then had to perform an often painful metabolism, to translate songs penned in a studio, into a workable live sound. It took a year. There was bloodshed. Many bass lines, guitar riffs, even the odd violin solo fell by the wayside, collateral damage in an unjust war. Finally, a sound began to emerge that, while retaining the essence of the original music, had something dark, dirty and powerful strapped to its underbelly. We called it Electro-folk. Finally we settled on a name, Black Diamond Bay, after a song by Bob Dylan about empathy. We’re all about empathy. It’s the thing that informs everything else.

So we had a band, a name, a sound and the makings of an album. It was time to take it to the streets. We had tracks played on Kiss FM, Xfm, BBC6 and BBC Radio Leeds as well as various internet radio stations, including Adam and Joe Coke Music Podcast. The DJs all seemed to like them. John Kennedy used the word ‘Beautiful’. He’s heavy into electro-folk now. We made the cover of Sandman magazine. They said we were as good as any in our field. That involved Massive Attack and Portishead but they don’t play electro-folk. They wouldn’t dare. They also used the word ‘astonishing’. Metro said we were ’spine-tingling’. We’re ‘a modern Classic’ according to Who’s Jack and ‘Amazing’ according to No Title. Traffic said we were ‘Poised and delicate’. They booked us to play at Kendal Calling. We went down so well we played the main stage the following year as well as making our debuts at Soundwave in Croatia, Be2gether in Lithuania and Moorfest in Yorkshire. Music Guru described our performances as a ‘seething, strutting motorik funk charge’ (how cool is that?). MTV said we were ‘epic’.

Then one day in Tokyo, a record company guy who we shall call Bob, because that’s his real name, heard a track of ours at a music industry fair. We’ve never even been to Tokyo! The track he heard was Philharmonic Bubbles. He liked it so much he called us up when he got back to England to have an actual conversation. Several conversations and a show in London later, we signed a two album deal with his label, Exceptional Records. We are now on the verge of releasing our first single, ‘Worship the Sun’ with Iberian tinged heartbreak anthem ‘Cold’ as the B Side. After that, who knows?

Press Quotes

‘Atmospheric, epic and yet still delicately intimate’ – MTV

‘Beautiful’ – XFM

‘A Cracking Band’ – Kiss FM‘Different’ – BBC Radio Leeds

‘A Modern Classic’ – Who’s Jack Magazine

‘Astonishing’ – Sandman Magazine

‘Spine tingling’ – Metro

‘Majestic’ – No Title

‘A seething, strutting motorik funk charge’ – Music Guru

‘Poised and delicate’ – Traffic Magazine

“Poised and delicate” TRAFFIC MAGAZINE “Amazing” WHO’S JACK MAGAZINE “Beautiful” JOHN KENNEDY XFM “Epic” MTV “Amazing” NO TITLE “Spine tingling” METRO

Black Diamond Bay are a Leeds based six piece who play imaginative electro/indie/folk, but as with all things in life it is not quite that simple. The twists and turns of their music make it difficult to reduce it down to a simple set of musical rules. There is something ethereal and elemental about Black Diamond Bay that just won’t slot into a simple off the cuff definition. Black Diamond Bay were born out of attic based production duo Tarentum (Tom Sidebottom/Jesse O’Mahoney) who brought in some hand picked musicians to join them and play their songs. Lithuanian ingénue Agnes Motieciute was the first to audition. Her beautiful voice and subtly threatening early Bardot persona made her the first recruit to the cause. The line up expanded further to include Colin Sutton on bass (aka fastest bass player in Yorkshire) and Anglo-Iranian guitarist Ben Ziapour. These were significant factors in the selection process, along with their dance moves and capacity for abstract thought Ben Wilson a protégé of Colin’s became the drummer, not only for his unerring ability to keep time under pressure but also due to his status as resident dark horse. His musical genius spans several genres and a multitude of instruments too numerous for inclusion in this dispatch (a list will be provided on request). The debut release ‘Worship The Sun” is a call to arms and about wresting spirituality from the arms of religion. – a fitting debut statement for a band that takes their name from Bob Dylan’s eponymous song about empathy. The song ponders the relationship between science and religion, had we understood photosynthesis in ancient times worshipping the sun would have made a lot more sense. Worship the Sun blends the organic with the artificial, Tom experimenting with Bluegrass rhythms instead of the drum and bass feel commonly used on fast electronica. “Cold” came about through Tom struggling with an archaic music programme which had no bars and beats to aid production, with Rob McVey playing Spanish guitar when they were both at Salford University. When Jesse first heard the track the lyrics and melody quickly fell into place for a classic macabre end of relationship as death song.

Black Diamond Bay have a history that includes random elements like: a childhood Eurovision experience, broadcast script writing, being the number one act on My Space Lithuania for 2009, playing the main stage to great acclaim at Kendal Calling, with further support from BBC Radio Leeds, Kiss, 6 Music and XFM prior to formally releasing any music. However beyond what you might seem immediately obvious about the band there is that other intangible element that all great bands have in common, a sense of poetry and mystery. Black Diamond Bay are there to unfold, it begins with “Worship The Sun” and the debut album “XYZ” that follows later in 2010. www.blackdiamondbay.co.uk

For more information on this release and invitations to either of the launches, please contact Eugenie Arrowsmith on 07967 102259 or by email on eugeniearrowsmith@yahoo.co.uk