Cardiff Meltdown Archive Project 1986 - 2011 and beyond

Cardiff Meltdown Archive Project 1986 - 2011 and beyond The Meltdown archive project (est 2021) is gathering and collating music, memories, and memorabilia

Meltdown was a Cardiff based non-profit making community based music and performance cooperative which ran from 1986 to 2011 using a open stage format to encourage new acts to learn their craft, established acts to experiment, and audiences to experience a melting down of barriers between all sorts of music and performance. We were responsible for over 1000 gigs (including roadshows to London and

Scotland), a compilation album (3 stars in ‘Q’), and provided a space for hundreds of performers to innovate, experiment and entertain. The club was organised by unpaid enthusiasts and run almost wholly on self-generated money.
“the capital’s most consistent and influential music club over the last two decades” South Wales Echo 2009
If at any time between February 1986 and January 2011 you found yourself playing at or in the audience of a Meltdown, and have memories, posters, photos, or recordings that you’d like to share, this is the place to do so. Many of us who helped keep the show on the road for a month short of 25 years (not counting the occasional Meltdowns that have happened sporadically since in Cardiff and Bristol) will be sharing our memories and memorabilia too. Meltdown was started by Adrian Roper, Paul Clarke, Steve Todd and Annie Dent. Key Venues as a base: Chapter Arts Centre 1986 - 1989, Four Bars Inn 1988-89, Clwb Ifor Bach 1990 - 1990, St David’s Hall Level 3 (3D Music, Unsung etc), Journeys, Milgis Cafe Bar Yurt on City Rd. Other Meltdown venues included: New Theatre, Sherman Theatre, the Globe, the Point, Dempseys, Coal Exchange, Cardiff Students Union, Sams Bar,
Meltdown Roadshows included: Mean Fiddler Acoustic Room (twice), Buzz Comedy Club (Chorlton Manchester), Melrose Festival Scotland, West End Arts Centre Aldershot, St Donat’s Arts Centre, God’s Little Joke London,
Festivals we helped programme included: Cardiff Bay Fiesta, Cardiff Europe Week, Cardiff Big Weekend, Hayes Alive, Llantrisant Festival, Pontardawe Festival Club Tent, Charles St Carnival,

RIP Danny Thompson. I first witnessed his mesmerising double bass playing when he played the Cory Hall in Cardiff with R...
25/09/2025

RIP Danny Thompson. I first witnessed his mesmerising double bass playing when he played the Cory Hall in Cardiff with Ralph McTell in the early 1970s. Recently, in an interview, Pino Palladino talked of that gig as a revelation that spurred him on to explore further, then dedicate his career, to playing bass.

Then in the first year of Cardiff Meltdown - 1986 - we booked MARA - a superb Australian genre busting folk/jazz/roots band fronted by the haunting vocals of Mara Kiek - for one of our first Chapter Arts Centre Theatre showcases, and to our delight discovered they'd be joined for their UK tour by Danny Thompson.

Not only did he and they play a storming gig that night, our local support acts played a blinder too, including a solo set from Welsh jazz guitar maestro Dylan Fowler. He and Mara's multi-instrumentalist (sax, flute, percussion) Jim Denley each were so dazzled by each others masterful and adventurous improvisation that we invited them back a few months later for an extraordinary one off collaboration - headlining another of our Chapter Theatre Meltdowns. By then Jim had joined Danny Thompson's own jazz outfit, the critically acclaimed 'Whatever', and shortly after Danny invited Dylan Fowler to join Whatever too. One of those many mycelial moments Meltdown carried on being a catalyst for in its subsequent 25 years.

With his insatiable musical curiousity and love of collaboration Danny Thompson continued to weave a web of interconnectivity across music and cultures through his long career, straddling jazz, folk, and a host of african, asian and other musical forms at a time when 'world music' became a playground of creative inter-cultural possibilities. And my abiding memory of that Meltdown night was of his friendly unassuming presence, curious about Meltdown and the support acts and the Cardiff scene, and then when he played, his melding seamlessly into the Mara sound - adding his sinuous basslines to enhance and anchor an already spectacular collaboration.

Oct 5th 1986 CHAPTER THEATRE: MARA (Aus) + America Morena (Chile) + Howling Howard & Den on spoons + Trashman Thomas & Steve + Paul Clarke & Ken Richman + Joe of 'Mouth to Mouth' comedy duo + The Song (aka Mally nd Wiggy) + Dylan Fowler

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Celebrating 25 years of melting down barriers between all sorts of music and performance

If at any time between February 1986 and January 2011 you found yourself playing at or in the audience of a Meltdown, and have memories, posters, photos, or recordings that you’d like to share, this is the place to do so. Many of us who helped keep the show on the road for a month short of 25 years (not counting the occasional Meltdowns that have happened sporadically since in Cardiff and Bristol) will be sharing our memories and memorabilia too.

Meltdown was a Cardiff based non-profit making community based music and performance cooperative which started in 1986 using a open stage format to encourage new acts to learn their craft, established acts to experiment, and audiences to experience a melting down of barriers between all sorts of music and performance.

We were responsible for over 1000 gigs (including roadshows to London and Scotland), a compilation album (3 stars in ‘Q’), and provided a space for hundreds of performers to innovate, experiment and entertain. The club was organised by unpaid enthusiasts and run almost wholly on self-generated money.

“the capital’s most consistent and influential music club over the last two decades” South Wales Echo 2009