Jo Bartlett shares new video feat. Gideon Coe
While still a teenager and along with being part of the C86, early indie movement as a musician, Jo started to put bands on at her Aldershot based, Buzz Club. From November 1985 to December 1993, she ended up promoting gigs by, The Stones Roses, Primal Scream, The Happy Mondays, Blur, The Manic Street Preachers, The Charlatans, Suede and many more. (Jo and her partner, Danny Hagan – It’s Jo & Danny – later founded the Green Man Festival in Wales).
“I put the word out via Facebook in 2007 that I was looking for any flyers, photos or memories people had about The Buzz Club. Over the years I have been sent not only plenty of flyers and pictures but also a couple of incredible live video recordings, lots of live audio recordings and so many people getting in touch with memories.”
Jo has been writing about these gigs, including any artefacts she has, on her Indie Through The Looking Glass blog.
“I decided to add another dimension to my writing, so started cutting up cassettes of old band rehearsals, radio interviews and live Buzz Club recordings and putting them into Logic. I added drum machines, synths, guitars and vocals and had an enormous amount of fun along the way.”
An early version of album track ‘Camden’ was played on BBC 6 and byAndrew Weatherall on his NTS show in 2019, and ‘The Cut Up’ will be released to coincide with Jo’s final Buzz Club post – Dodgy and Shed 7, who played there on December 1993.
As recently as June 2022 Jo was sent an incredible, previously unseen artefact. A live video recording of Elastica who played The Buzz Club in October 1993. This is thought to be the earliest footage of them and will also be made public to coincide with the album’s release on 30th September.