My Red Cell – Competition

• 16th Nov 2003

On the eve of their self-titled EP and the start of the much-hyped NEW WORLD DISORDER tour, Glasswerk have teamed up with V2 Records to offer 3 lucky Glasswerkers tickets to their choice of date on the tour, complete with EP's signed by the band.

All you have to do is tell Glasswerk the name of their bass player. Keep reading… it's down there somewhere. e-mail mail – you havn't got much time… competition closes midnight on Wednesday 19th November.

My Red Cell are one of the four unique and exciting young bands from four different nations, who join forces to go out on The New World Disorder Tour. At the breakneck pace of 14 shows in 15 days, the tour features some of the most lively, vibrant and revolutionary new music on the planet.

The four bands perform in a different order each night, there's no musical hierarchy, just onstage anarchy. Doors at 7pm, first band on at 8pm. The first 30 people through the door at each venue will get a ltd edition free sampler CD featuring all four bands. Most of the venues are open to over 16s, some open to over 14s, please check with the venue for details.

Dates are:
Mon 17-Nov-03 Birmingham Academy
Tue 18-Nov-03 London New Cross Paradise Bar 'Pop Of The Tops'
Wed 19-Nov-03 London Islington Academy 2
Thu 20-Nov-03 Stratford upon Avon Cox's Yard
Fri 21-Nov-03Manchester University Academy 3
Sat 22-Nov-03 Sheffield Fez Club
Sun 23-Nov-03 Leeds Metropolitan University
Mon 24-Nov-03 Cardiff Barfly
Tue 25-Nov-03 Liverpool Barfly
Wed 26-Nov-03 Glasgow Barfly
Thu 27-Nov-03 Aberdeen Lava
Fri 28-Nov-03 Sunderland Bar
Sat 29-Nov-03 Middlesborough Empire
Sun 30-Nov-03 Nottingham Rescue Rooms
Mon 01-Dec-03 York Fibbers

…

My Red Cell are named after the room that each of us creates to live within, stacking our experiences brick by brick, creating what we are today and what we will be tomorrow. And today, in no particular order, the building blocks of My Red Cell are a voice that’s been chewing razor blades, onstage thrills, spills and pills, Welsh girls, Russian booze, black dog drums, wrong lust, young love, younger hate, abuse that cuts both ways, pneumatic volume, blind escape, blinder ambition, spidermen, penknives, backward dives and cash in the pocket. Oh, and guitars. So their cell’s already walled in on one side, with streams of light coming in through the bars….

…and through the bars they’ve been, tightening and enlightening. Three years of gigs later and the band are like some runaway black and decker powertool, Phil and Ginger heads down, hammering away, Adam’s hands directing the sonic boom airplane landing and Russell twitching and shrieking like some demented urchin. Their debut EP boots the competition out of the way fast. They toss off the new rock regurgitation riffola for the cheap and beautiful trick that it is, then get stuck into the good stuff with echoes of all the best moments rock ever offered us, but with a younger, angrier voice. Recorded at Toerag Studios and produced by Liam Watson of White Stripes fame this is Smashing Led Motor City Rockers and then some and then some and then some more.

Rock music is at its best when it takes smalltown boys into its bone machine and grinds out primetime men….the last gang in town polarising hope in the great and good, for the greater glory. The Celts excel at knocking out bands that make like the last gang in town. Or in My Red Cell’s case, the only gang in town, hailing as they do from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan. The boys (aged between 19-20) met when they were all together at the not-very-salubrious Barry Comprehensive. Barry’s a unique place, mixing the faded glamour of the seaside with the faded glory of the docks. Candyfloss and P45s, donkey rides and donkey jackets. The roller coaster shares the skyline with granite blocks and chimneystacks, bleak in the winter and bleaker in the summer when you’ve passed Barry Island every day but can only remember the fairground disasters. What could be a better training ground for a band that sound like they’ve got ‘fuck you very much’ written all the way through them like a stick of rock?

Russell Toomey – gtr / vocs, Phil Myles – drums, Adam Cook – gtr, Ginger – bass.