SPONSORED BY RECORD COLLECTOR MAGAZINE!

A new venue for a one-day festival - the Thunderbolt in Bristol - and a great line-up of artists from the MegaDodo and Fruits de Mer labels:

Tir na nOg
The Crystal Jacqueline Band
Green Seagull
Jack Ellister
The Past Tense
with DJ Marrs Bonfire spinning vinyl

The Thunderbolt has a great reputation as a live music venue - it's 15 minutes walk from Temple Meads BR station, which has a direct line into Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, London, Manchester and Scotland. Loads of hotels in the middle of Bristol (and one haunted by a nun just down the road) - there's even a record fair in Bristol on the day of the festival

The Thunderbolt is a...er..quirky place - a bit rough round the edges but full of character, not to mention decent beer; more of a stage with a bar than a pub - and we'll be taking over the place for the whole day; seating inside is VERY limited, we're keeping ticket sales to just 110 even though capacity is actually 150, so there'll be plenty of space for FdM and MegaDodo to set up stalls and offer you a few gig-exclusives.

We're planning to launch new singles by Crystal Jacqueline and the Honey Pot plus The Past Tense at the gig, we'll have something else from The Crystal Jacqueline Band that'll have you thinking we've lost it - once again - and there'll be a free FdM single for everyone - a back-catalogue release signed by the artists responsible - only available at the gig

We're also working on two limited-run lathe-cuts that will be for sale exclusively at the gig, the first of which will be a Crystal Jacqueline Band 7", with a new version of The Wildweeds' 'I'm Dreaming' (first recorded in '68) together with an extended version of 'All Over The World' (originally from the film 'Still Crazy'), which I included on an FdM members club compilation CD a few years back but somehow hasn't made it onto vinyl until now (the song - and the film - are personal favourites - oh, the joy of running a record label)

There'll be a free FdM/Record Collector free raffle to win a bunch of LPs.

There'll be a rather special - and exclusive - free CD for everyone - a copy of Todd Dillingham's 'Astral Whelks' album, with a new sleeve design by his brother Mick Dillingham. Todd died last year - a true musical eccentric - and a great friend of Fruits de Mer. Todd's wife Pam kindly let us release a compilation CD we'd been working on with Todd just a few months before he died, which we gave to everyone at the 17th Dream festival, and now Mick has come up with a new look to Todd's 'Astral Whelks' album (yes, Todd was coming up with mad fishy puns while FdM was still cod roe).

We'll also be giving everyone a free, white-label CD of Kris Gietkowski's 'Symmetric Communication' LP, which we released a year or so ago; "white label CD?", I hear you ask (yes, I'm standing behind you) - that's right, it's the complete album on CD, but the CDs are all plain white; why? It's a long story, suffice to say it was a cock-up by me. Great album, though.

The Thunderbolt one-dayer costs just £20 for five live sets - that's £4 per band - and the usual fun and friendly atmosphere you get from an event involving two labels with more money than sense, and no money to speak of.

Record Collector magazine is kindly sponsoring the gig and there have been some full page ads promoting the event in the magazine - which is nice.

Tickets are now available - HERE