Friends put city’s music on the map

THEY are some of the best-known venues in Cardiff – but not like you’ve seen them before.

Venues such as the Motorpoint Arena, Clwb Ifor Bach and St David’s Hall have been hosting gigs of all shapes and sizes as an integral part of the city’s burgeoning music scene.

Now Welsh broadcaster Daniel Minty and his friend artist Alex Waeland have joined forces to create a map of 24 Cardiff venues that they hope will eventually act as an indspensable guide for those wanting to discover the incredibly diverse music which is on offer in the city.

“The idea from the map came from the fact that I’ve been going to see live music in Cardiff now for many years,” said Daniel, who produces the podcast Minty’s Gig Guide to Cardiff as well as having his own slot on Bethan Elfyn’s Saturday night Radio Wales show.

“One of the things that I enjoy, aside from the music I’m seeing, is how each individual venue is a different shape, a different size – but they’re all here to represent the live music scene.

“The venues themselves have their own characters from the massive Gwenno Saunders mural on the side of Clwb Ifor Bach that has become a landmark now in the city to the many quirks and the wonderful compartmentalised beer garden approach in Gwdihw.

“I think also that as I do a gig guide for Cardiff, I feel a sense of responsibility to take these venues and show people what they are.

“When the Champions League was here a few weeks ago – we could have really done with a map to say – ‘this is the live music in Cardiff and these are all the venues.’”

For Alex, who was tasked with creating the images, he had a definite idea of what he wanted.

“When Minty approached me to do this job, it was fresh off the back of another job I was doing at the time for a university project based on public art around the city of Bristol and the styles of both were really quite similar.

“They started off as a line drawing and then being blocked in with one choice colour making sure that there was enough bold colours to separate them so they would be easier to locate on the map.

“Hand-drawn was definitely the way forward. It made it a bit more playful and down-to-earth having these line drawings, it felt a lot more appealing and we felt it was more attractive.

“Gwdihw was the prototype and it came out pretty well we thought. The style I was looking at actually came out of an illustrator’s contacts book.

“The drawings were a bit more rough and cartoony and were done in charcoal, so I sort of wanted to step away from that and use pen and ink giving it my own style. Some of the venues, the bigger ones, are more detailed, but the style is still there if you go in closer.”

The pair are now investigating securing funding to produce the maps.

“I would really like more than anything to get this printed as an A3 map that could be dished around to several places across the city – in shopping centres, libaries and tourism points as I believe that this map is as good as a walk around the castle or a trip to Cardiff Bay as it shows out a different side to the culture here in Cardiff.”

Find out more about the project and Minty’s Gig Guide at www.facebook.com/mintysgigguide