Powerplant, Turtle Boulevard & more

Bruno Bof presents...
Bruno Bof's Bag o Walnuts!

with...
Powerplant (Full band)
Secret Welsh Band
Turtle Boulevard
Bruno & The Outrageous Methods of Presentation

The third edition of Bruno's Bag of Walnuts after a truly wild one in January with Evicshen!

Bruno sez:

Hi, Bruno Bof here, Teen Idol and the titular singing / guitaring star of Bruno and the Outrageous Methods of Presentation, beat combo supreme of ascendant unfamy… ⁠
⁠
I introduce to you my new semi-regular night, Bruno Bof’s Bagful of Walnuts, at which my band and I will always play (+ I will be compere) alongside other curated talent of my choice. Artists will range from reasonably hip and rockin and doing well and that to thee MOST NO COUNT OF NO COUNTDOM. But mediocrity is the common enemy.

POWERPLANT (Full Band)

Powerpant, the solitary project of Ukraine-born, London-based Theo Zhykharyev, is distinguished by its giddy bass, sizzling synth lines and melancholic vocal hooks. For tonight's show he assembles some of London's best for a full band show.

The Powerplant project is ever evolving, so far covering lo-fi synth-punk, instrumental dungeon-synth and 80’s rock explorations on last year's Crashing Cars 7” and indie-punk with the Michael Mann-inspired Heat EP. Powerplant's releases have ended up on ‘Best of...’ lists by Pitchfork and Bandcamp and had nods from Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins.

Powerplant’s newest album 'Bridge of Sacrifice' is a fun, black metal infused journey through all that is heavy and gothic, whilst keeping the foundation of adored pop-songwriting and melodic vocal hooks.

Zhykharyev assembled a live band of London’s best, featuring members of Island of Love, Hitmen and Arms Race. They tour far and wide, selling out shows in Japan, Australia, US, Scandinavia and everything in between. Powerplant’s ferocity was captured on KEXP live in-studio session, and appeared at festivals like End of The Road, Outbreak and Fluff Fest, as well as shared the stage with cult rockers OSees, Show Me The Body and Ovlov.

It’s never the same, but always 100% Powerplant.

“A filthy conglomerate of weirdo electronics and hardcore intensity.” The Wire
“It’s the bangers here that are undeniable.” Pitchfork
“Fabulously Odd Music” Guardian

Okay with all of that rote programmed PR outta the way, I now introduce the underlings of the bill as per the BBFOW philosophy

Turtle Boulevard.

Not a Quentin Crisp-penned euphemism for a man’s anal passage, but rather the brainchild of one Oliver Turtle (son of 70s peripheral freakrocker Henry Turtle of Electric Asylum comped classic “You Turned Your Back and Walked Away” un-fame), the jewel of Crawley, and a true genius, a bit like me with all his esoteric reference points, very English in that weirdo suburban sort of brilliant messthetics meets meek meets croony bullshit old pop and some herky jerky angularity meets my-own-weird-quixotic-eccentric-internal-universe singing weird concept songs about characters recurring themes pylons etc. he is one of the most unique and brilliant people I have met. Very funny and dry and weird, but incredibly sweet with little trace of any mean spirit in him (such a beautiful and unique thing), he doesn’t even swear(?!). Anyway yes his body of work reflects his character and has weird organs violins the full works and is guaranteed to transfix you and make go “hmmm” “what is this”.

Mystery Welsh Band

The Mystery Welsh Band are a band of Welsh students based in Bristol (one day the only people left here will be Welsh and Cornish students. At least they’re not from London etc) from Tenby. Their identity cannot be revealed due to some unforgivably stupid, annoying and scatty administrative incompetence on behalf of the singer, double booking / committing without telling their booking agent when they have a show the next week to promote the launch of their latest EP, and cannot threaten that by publicly performing a week before. Or whatever. All very judicious and corporate (I should talk, I have a manager now(!!?)). I told them to tell their booking agent to “suck it” as PLAN SHMAN, playing with Powerplant is exactly the kinda break you need as wannabe trendy punkers and it would be stupid to turn this down, but alas, this was the agreed compromise. Whatever happened to punk rock eh. Anyway, their music is not strictly my cup of tea, say on record, fitting into that trendy new-school brand of Idles BIMM student not-real-punk, BUT, live, hence why I have booked them to play, they are an absolute tour-de-force. A true POWER trio, mad shredding and bashing and dynamic bursting at the seams fury and playing and energy, and genuine sincerity and intensity and the guy goes mad and they’re all sort of scruffy and smart with ties and jackets and then they strip down to their pants and crowd surfing and play the guitar with their teeth. Amazing. Also the frontman has an absolutely KILLER spotty bespectacled Coxon/Holly/hank Marvin nerd rock look and vibe that is intoxicating and beautiful.

And then on the visual art front,

We have Khana Evans (originally from Weston-Super-Mare, now living in Highbridge/Burnham-on-Sea, the epicentre of the universe, famous for being where Jesus Christ arrived during his supposed visit to Glastonbury with Joseph of Arimathea, he loved pie and chips I hear), her whole thing is a cute paean to all things SKINHEAD, the greatest cult that ever was, but with a sort of crude sensitivity and grace. I dunno. Anyway she’s super cool.

We also have a girl called Daisy, a 16 year old from Worcestershire who’s obsessed with Joe Meek (the greatest man/genius/producer of all time, as we all know), showing her paintings which are all of Meek in a both photo-realistic and naive way as you would expect. Incredible. I spied her as she had a stall at the Meek convention which is held every year in Newent (his hometown). 

Anyway. Yes. KILL THE STRAIGHTS !

So either A. Come or B. stay at home and eat a cucumber sandwich in your underpants.