New podcast about music and shouting with Robin Ince and Michael Legge and some others. Two old men talking about music and trying to convince you to start buying records again.

Cardboard Cowboy spluttered into life in 2002 in the form of Dave and Ant, formerly drums and bass respectively in future wave Leeds popsters Brazil.   “Bless My Soul”, still a crowd favourite, was recorded by these two mere mortals and showed enough scuzzed up raw swagger to get people all frothed up on both sides of the Atlantic.  Claire Sturgess on xfm proclaimed it “such a glorious racket – it works for me!”, indie mogul Alan McGee and LA label Medicated records heartily agreed, the latter faxing a record contract to the office of Dave’s crappy pen-pushing job and lining up Jim Reid from The Jesus & Mary Chain to produce their debut.

Sadly, this is one of those “it wasn’t to be” tales but after such an auspicious start, Dave and Ant figured it would be churlish to do anything other than plough straight ahead.  They were blessed by stumbling on piano pounding, guitar twanging Pat and the hardest hitting, disco bomb dropping drummer around, The Cardinal.

They played a lot of gigs around Leeds and London, honing their sound; a ragged, raging, glorious blend of old time country and the kind of indie rock and roll that’s the birth right of every northern girl and boy.

Another lucky accident was getting to know Jez, drummer from 90’s shoegaze legends Swervedriver, who ended up producing debut album “Unload Your Head”.  Uncut magazine reckoned we’d cracked the sound of “Primal Scream in a Texan roadhouse” and leedsmusicscene.co.uk lavished it with a glowing 5 star review calling it “addictive...a uniquely fine album of great songs”.

The band played the hearts out of these songs up and down the country over the next few months, all the while building up songs for the follow up “Shorthand For Love”.  Once again produced by Jez, it stretched the band’s horizons still further; their country leanings even more apparent with the high lonesome ache of “I’m Not Sleeping”, shades of Astral Weeks in “Lady Brown”, the Velvet Underground in “You Don’t Need To Cry” (with a guitar sound courtesy of Pete Doherty’s trench coat) and the Strokes-y urgency of “When I Set Sail”.

That summer, the band played the BBC unsigned stage at the Leeds festival and rounded things off with a US tour.  Their jet-lagged midnight show in Detroit is a shining moment the band will never forget.  Ending on this high, the band went their separate ways in 2007, raising families and playing with other musicians.  2014 saw Dave move back to Leeds after years in London and someone noticed it was 10 years since the first album was released – why not play a reunion gig and have a party?  This they did on a glorious summer’s afternoon, realising that, not only was it still massively exciting to play these songs together, but that they are now an even better band.  They’re hooked and so, if you can, we’d really recommend you catch them when they’re round your way. 

Followers of Vitriola