Promoters & labels

BLOOD RED SOUNDS
Email: parlourmusic@yahoo.com, web: www.bloodredsounds.co.uk • Bristol independent, touting passionate, inventive, uncompromising and largely guitar-based fare. Released the debut Hunting Lodge album 'Energy Czar', also the home of Big Joan, Male and others.

BLUEBLOOD RECORDS
21 Lower Keyford, Frome, Somerset, BA11 4AP tel: 01373 455093, web: www.bluebloodrecords.com • Widely distributed independent blues and roots imprint that's been around for over 10 years now. They cover local as well as international acts, plus a range of world music too.

CHALK AND CHALK PROMOTIONS
Email: chalkandchalk@yahoo.co.uk, web: www.myspace.com/chalkandchalk • Rock and metal specialists. Help new bands get gigs, mainly at The Croft. They’re currently putting together an e-book which aims to help bands get taken seriously by industry people and promote themselves more generally - see their Myspace for more details.

CHOKE
Web: www.ttyc.co.uk, www.myspace.com/chokemagazine • Choke the magazine and Choke the musicians’ collective are sadly no longer, but their forum at www.ttyc.co.uk is still looking pretty lively. It’s probably the most significant interactive meeting point for Bristol and Bath's musical types: go there if you want to find a new drummer for your band, find out about the best in new music or just check out who is playing where round town.

DB RECORDS
PO Box 19318, Bath BA1 6ZS, tel: 01225 782322, email: info@dbrecords.co.uk, web: www.dbrecords.co.uk • Eclectic Bath label established in 1998. Has released the likes of The Electric Soft Parade, Psychid and Tom McRae. If you’ve got demos you want them to listen to, check out their website for further info.

DENIM & LEATHER
Tel: 07732 475159, web: www.denim-leather.com • Heavyweight providers of alternative and outsider stuff including the finest live doom metal, drone and psych for the blackened souls of Bristol. Recent gigs include Trans Am, Asif, Sunn O)), Earth, Pelican, Brain Donor and Red Sparowes. Voted Top Promoters by this very organ for 2005.

DEATHSUCKER
Email: info@deathsucker.org, web: http://dswat.streamlinetrial.co.uk/deathsucker/ • Purveyors of crazy-assed experimental dancefloor sounds. Associated artists include Parasite, Bong-Ra and DJ Floorclearer.

EARWAX
30B Downleaze, Bristol BS9 1LY, tel: 0117 968 2865, email: info@multiverse-music.com, web: www.multiversemusic.com • Another part of the multiverse empire, Earwax specialises in dubstep and grime.

FACT FANS
Email: factfans@yahoo.co.uk, web: www.factfans.co.uk, www.myspace.co.uk/factfans • Experienced non-profit promoters. Unconstrained by purse strings and reinvigorated by a stint in radio, they select music that interests them, putting on regular gigs at venues across Bristol. They describe themselves as “genre-defying and taste-defining”.

GIMME SHELTER!
Web: www.myspace.com/gimmeshelterclubbristol • Eclectic live/club night crossover always looking for acts to play its sessions at The Hatchet.

GLAIVE CONCERTS
Email: admin@glaiveconcerts.net, web: www.glaiveconcerts.net • Independent promoter committed to creative alternative music. Previous shows include Mark Eitzel, British Sea Power, Two Gallants and Klaxons.

GO APE!
Email: garethgoape@yahoo.co.uk, web: www.myspace.com/goape • Bath promoters who ran shindigs at Moles on alternate Thursdays, putting on exciting sugar-fuelled electro-indie-punk-pop bands and the finest electro/indie DJs. More recently shifted attention to Bristol with events at The Hatchet.

HIGHTOWER
Email: superfirecords@gmail.com, web: www.superfirecords.co.uk/bristolgigs • Mainly does DIY punk and hardcore stuff, but branching out into indie and electronica too.

INVADA/ROCKET RECORDS
Tel: 07732 475159, email: fatpaul@blueyonder.co.uk, web: www.invada.co.uk • Bristol label with bands such as Crippled Black Phoenix, The Heads, Lucky Luke, Gonga, Fuzz Against Junk, Jock Scott & Gareth Sager, Amusement Parks On Fire, Residual Echoes, Atavist, Blood Island Raiders, Mammatus, Brain Donor, Team Brick and Withered Man.

JELLI RECORDS
Web: www.myspace.com/jellirecords • Bristol-based independent record label formed by Steve Parkhouse, long-time booker at The Folk House, promoting upcoming folk and acoustic artists. He also DJs the All-Bristol Music Show on BCfm. Roster includes Jhassi Elliott and guests like Rosie Garrard and Emily Teague.

1 MAN ARMY
Email: info@1manarmyrecords.co.uk, web: www.1manarmyrecords.co.uk • Bristol- and Bath-based label pushing new forms of electronic and underground dance music. Acts include Spagetti Machete, Headphobe, Defazed, Loz Koleszko and Michael J Rocks. They also run ‘laptop battles’ at The Croft.

LITTLETHINK
Email: info@littlethink.co.uk, web: www.myspace.com/littlethink • LittleThink put on quality line-ups of local and national talent. All sorts of music tastes catered for, with a slight erring towards jangly indie pop.

LOCAL KID
PO Box 2543, Bristol BS3 9AS, email: localkidgang@yahoo.com, web: www.localkid.co.uk • Fiercely DIY/leftwing promotional collective organising shows as well as putting out records. They’ve previously put on the likes of Le Tigre, Electralane and Kimya Dawson in the fair city of Bristol.

LOFI HIFI
Email: tre_bailey@hotmail.com, web: www.myspace.com/lofihifi • Independent live music promotion in the South-West since 2003. Promoted shows by the following in the last 18 months: Reverend & The Makers, Air Traffic, Melt Banana, The Aliens and Sons & Daughters.

METROPOLIS
Email: conal@metropolismusic.com • National concert promoters and artist management dealing with artists from the ones you might see down your local pub right up to stadium performers. Their portfolio of current artists includes Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Amy Winehouse. They’ve also developed artists from the beginning of their careers, such as The White Stripes, Razorlight and Bloc Party. They're responsible for over 600 gigs a year across the UK (more than any other promoter), including many of the gigs at the Louisiana in Bristol.

MICROPUNTO SCHALLPLATTEN
Brunswick St, Bristol, tel: 07906 575203, email: angel@micropunto.net, luca@micropunto.net, web: www.micropunto.net • Independent label specialising in minimal techno to electro, but they’re interested in all kinds of electronic music. They’ve brought European artists to Bristol in the past. Recently released first EP by label bosses Ikkaku & D-Gelo. Next release by local artist Jobody, coming soon.

MULTIVERSE MEDIA
30B Downleaze, Bristol BS9 1LY, tel: 0117 968 2865, email: info@multiverse-music.com, web: www.multiversemusic.com • Encompassing various record labels and music publishing. Get in touch for further details.

MUSE MUSIC
Unit 13, The Coach House, 2 Upper York St, Bristol, tel: 07989 323465, web: www.musemusic.co.uk • Muse Music is an exclusive agency focused on talent development and event production and promotion. They are an international crew of promoters, producers, agents and managers who have been involved in the music industry for ages. Muse Music also take bookings for all events at Trinity.

PLUG 58
Email: info@58records.co.uk, web: www.58records.co.uk • Record label and regular event run by local musicians Rasha Shaheen (Male) and Joe Volk, aiming to promote all forms of art with as wide a variety as possible.

PURR
Email: info@purr.org.uk, web: www.purr.org.uk • Bath-based guitar label. Purr's stable includes The A-Lines, The Fog Band, Intentions Of An Asteroid and Ivory Springer. Often threatening to resume shows at Moles.

QU JUNKTIONS
Web: www.qujunktions.com • Providers of musical alchemy to the good folk of Bristol and beyond, this is the DIY promotional and tour booking outfit that brought you the storm of Lightning Bolt, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Four Tet, Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom among many, many others.

SHEER MUSIC
Web: www.sheermusic.co.uk • Promotions company based in Devizes, Wiltshire. Trying to liven up nights out in the South West with fresh underground indie-rock bands without focusing on one single genre. Put on fortnightly shows at the Bell by the Green in Devizes, but have also promoted in Bath (Moles and O'Neills) and fortnightly at the Vic in Swindon.

SINK & STOVE
Email: info@sinkandstove.co.uk, web: www.sinkandstove.co.uk • Long-established influential Bristol imprint responsible for the early output of Chikinki, the initial release of Gravenhurst's 'Flashlight Seasons', the 'Hospital Radio Request List' compilations (volume 2 of which was Venue's Album Of The Year 2004) and currently home to You & The Atom Bomb, Controller.Controller, The Vibration, You Say Party We Say Die and Leave Land For Water.

STITCH STITCH
Email: hello@stitchstitchrecords.co.uk, web: www.stitchstitchrecords.co.uk • Bristol DIY label releasing records, animation DVDs and small zines by the likes of Frànçois and the Atlas Mountains, Ray Rumours, The Lonely Ponies and I Know I Have No Collar, with the emphasis firmly placed on offering beautifully packaged delights.

SUBTEXT
30B Downleaze, Bristol BS9 1LY, tel: 0117 968 2865, info@multiverse-music.com, web: www.multiversemusic.com • Subtext Recordings is a platform for next-generation sounds that have yet to take on genre-bound form. Wrenched from a paranoid industrial background, the sound is cold, hard and brutal, relentless and unforgiving but highly calculated and precise.

SUGAR SHACK Email: mike@ sugarshackrecords.co.uk, web: www.sugarshackrecords.co.uk • Another veteran of the local scene, Sugar Shack focuses on guitar music from Bristol and beyond, and their roster includes acts like Mea Culpa, Pitchblend and Left Side Brain.

SUPERFI
Email: superfi_records@hotmail.com, web: www.superfirecords.co.uk • Prolific label dealing with the rockier, noisier side of things. Recent and upcoming releases include material by Geisha, Hunting Lodge, Line, Army of Flying Robots and Art Of Burning Water.

TECTONIC
30B Downleaze, Bristol BS9 1LY, tel: 0117 968 2865, info@multiverse-music.com, web: www.multiversemusic.com • Tectonic Recordings represent dubstep and the finest in bass-weight rhythmical innovation. Their sound fuses organic, tribal roots with forward-thinking technologies to provide the listener with introspective soundscapes charged with earthquake basslines. Home of Pinch’s superb ‘Underwater Dancehall’.

VENN
7 Gratitude Rd, Easton Bristol BS5 6EH, email: info@vennfestival.com, web: www.vennfestival.com, www.myspace.com/vennfestival • A true jewel in Bristol's multifarious musical crown, Venn is an international music and arts festival that has moved to a more central locations in recent years, having started life as a Stokes Croft-based affair. Based on the concept of musical overlap, Venn features a massive range of acts, both global and local, across a number of venues. 2007, for example, saw acts as diverse as Faust, Scritti Politti and A Hawk & A Hacksaw. This year's festival will run from 5-8 June, and features Matmos, Why?, Rachel Unthank & The Winterset and The Heliocentrics among tons more. See website for latest updates.

VERTICAL SOUND
30B Downleaze, Bristol BS9 1LY, tel: 0117 968 2865, email: info@verticalsound.co.uk, web: www.verticalsound.co.uk • Vertical Sound was set up in 2003 to put out the kind of tunes its founders want to hear on the dancefloor - big and bashy roughneck riders with more punch than Lennox Lewis or thereabouts... It's all about the special blend: mix up a little bit of funk, UK garage, dubstep, tech-steppin' drum & bass and quality house with your breakbeat and you'll have a taste of what Vertical Sound is all about.

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