The Sprout

Zines, Zines, Cocktails And Corgis

Posted by Sprout Editor from Cardiff - Published on 10/08/2010 at 17:43
4 comments » - Tagged as Comedy, Festivals, Music, People, Topical

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Last Thursday theSprout headed down to Grassroots for a good old fashioned shin dig. It was the launch of SproutZine2 and one thing for sure was that there were lots and lots of Zines...oh and cocktails, mustn’t forget the cocktails and laughter and poetry and applaud and live music and fun and chatter and photos and people. Yeah, that just about covers it. All in all it was a pretty awesome night.

The idea of the night was to promote the Zine, so guests were asked to take a pile away with them, to help spread the Sprout word. Since then the 'infamous' Zines have been spotted in all sorts of places. Rumour has it that they turned up next to the South Wales Echo at a newspaper stall in a leading supermarket. Who knows where they'll turn up next? The myth of the Zine lives on.

The launch party was held in Grassroots’ newly refurbished caf/kitchen area where we made use of their facilities serving up nibbles (crisps, peanuts and some lovely cheese sticks) and fruit cocktails throughout the night. Later on a few people went upstairs to check out their computer suite and music studios. This is where theSprout in collaboration with Grassroots will be working on a monthly podcast. Keep checking theSprout for updates on this!

Anyway, back to the launch party:
The cocktails undoubtedly warrant a paragraph all to themselves. They really were one of the highlights of the night. It was pretty cool to have our own professional cocktail maker serving us Raspberry Mojitos and Strawberry Something or Others. If you’d worn sunscreen, filled the room with sand and put sea salt in the air conditioning unit you could have nearly been on a desert island somewhere- they really were that good.

Another highlight was the host Nathan from Ludus Ludius Youth. There were moments where it felt as if it could have gone one of two ways, like when Nathan took to the stage without any notes. I was feeling a little uneasy about this lack of preparation- if I'd know 'improv' was going to be like this I would have thought twice about it. Luckily, Nathan pulled it off and had everyone laughing. He presented with ease and confidence and got a great response from the audience.

We were also lucky enough to have live readings from some of Cardiff’s most up and coming new Authors Jaque Thay and Lynda Nash. They managed to capture the audiences undivided attention as they read extracts from their work. It was a real inspiration for aspiring young writers. They announced the winner of the Short Story Competition; the piece was Home by Opal_Eyes. Unfortunately the author of the winning entry couldn’t make it, but you can read their short story here.

The night finished with a cracking set by acoustic three-piece Inconsiderate Parking. These guys have been regular contributors at Sprout events and they always make the night. They are unusual, fun and quirky and play catchy tunes that will have you humming for days afterwards. If you missed them at the launch, you can catch them for free, along with a host of other very talented local artists at the Under Construction Festival this Saturday.

On reflection, it’s amazing that all this was fit into two hours. It was a great night and one that the Zine would most certainly be proud of. Mr SproutZine was asked to comment on the night but is currently on annual leave, enjoying a tournament of Corgi Polo at Buckingham Palace.

The photos of the night will be uploaded soon.

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4 Comments – Post a comment

LudusLudius

Commented 70 months ago - 10th August 2010 - 19:13pm

'Uneasy', really? definition, "to compose and perform or deliver without previous preparation". I had preparation. A lot of info to give and a structure of the evening. Did I improvise, therefore?

You've got a bad link there. Its better people use www.ludusludius.co.uk for us.

I enjoyed the evening. T'was fun - seeing if we can use the space for impro now.