RNR Book Club Fierce Pandafest + Author Simon Williams + Pandamomium! Paperback Right Here + The Manatees + Enjoyable Listens + Sasha Assad + DJs

Rock N Roll Book Club welcomes back Simon Williams. Author Simon will be in conversation with Tony Bugbear this evening as part of a special Fierce Panda label night presentation… a rare Double Bubble Bookclub guest- and at 1993 prices! After all, it’s just now 30 years since Tony Bugbear first started making bookings at The Dublin Castle. And they said he was finished in 1994..5..6..7….anyway! Three top bands, Two bookclubs, two old gets talking – too much fun! Renowned NME journalist, live music mover shaker, spectacularly redoubtable record label agitator and ‘the most indie man in the world’ Simon published his own painfully frank but ferociously funny memoir ‘Pandamonium. How (Not) To Run A Record Label‘ in 2022, which was a previous assignment for RNR Book Club and a smashing read too. We shall also revisit that oft times stridently smacking of gob story toneet… ‘The story of the reckless birth of fierce panda records and the near-death of its furry founder, indie stalwart Simon Williams… From the fanzine funtimes in 1980s E17 through a decade at the NME, a DJing detour at Xfm and at least three lifetimes spent promoting live shows beneath the underground…Pandamonium! is a sometimes painful, occasionally hilarious and frequently philosophical burrow into the heart and soul of trying to run a record company in the midst of a music industry which just wouldn’t listen. It mentions Coldplay, Oas*s and The Royal Free acute care department, sometimes in the same chapter. One frankly eye-popping year on from the hardback edition, Pandamonium! is being published in paperback form with a snazzy new cover on August 18th, well whadda ya know, hence this happening… Interview, Q and A, buy a book, buy two, get em signed, you know the score. We also have superb live music entertainment tonight… THE MANATEES  “…combine hip-hop samples, funk inspired bass lines, thrashing guitars and candid lyrics to carve out their own soundscape within modern rock. Taking influence from Jungle, Wolf Alice and The Strokes, the three school friends recently warranted a Jack Saunders ‘Next Wave’ interview on BBC Radio One, as well as support from BBC Radio 6 Music and Radio X.  New Panda single ‘Better Way to Think of It’ delves into the complexities experienced in a relationship strained by distance,” with MGMT-inspired bass synths and glitchy vocoder, neato… SASHA ASSAD– As the legend says …’the best thing that’s happened to Egypt since the pyramids’…Sasha and band are about to emerge as Fierce Panda recording artistes too, having already impressed greatly over the last 3 or 4 years with some nifty live outings and some cool squelchy lofi rock, rocking ‘grumpy’ stutter cum howl singing and sassy young fogie tood, as evinced on the ‘Screw Me Up Like Frankenstein’ E.P ENJOYABLE LISTENS.. play effortlessly epic pop…‘ Enjoyable Listens is a man, a machine, a manly enigma wrapped up in a ball of mysterious dark wool. Luke Duffett – for ’tis he – has built an indierocksolid foundation using only melody, mayhem and an admirable ability to croon pop smashes whilst teetering upon a pair of bar stools. Sometimes bassist Jimbo is on hand with a look of withering weariness. Sometimes bassist Jimbo is barely there at all. New single ‘Summer Hit’ finds out stool-balancing actor very much warming to the task and hotting up for live shows at Glastonbury and alongside Electric Six….’ Those will be past tense now of course, but we understand they were suitably triumphant… Bugbear will play rancid punk and pandemoniac indie throughout the night, before the wonderful DJ Sue takes over at 11pm for some right royal dancefloor action.