Let’s Get Ready to Rumble! Again.

Following the success of our first poetry, prose and people playing music party last November we have kept our word and decided to put on another one. To keep things simple, we are still calling it Balloon.


However, we wouldn’t like to be accused of resting on our laurels. Not only have we moved arena to Cardiff Arts Institute, but we are also taking things international.

Yes grapple fans, last time we might have put you in a cultural Full-Nelson with a host of homegrown talent but this time we have managed to bag to one of America’s brightest literary lights to tag team with our very own Prince of Wales in a battle to the death with a gang of alt.country gun-slingers from the badlands of South Wales and a lone wolf from England’s North West.

All the way from Portland, Oregan, Willy Vlautin is coming to town to read from his brilliant new novel ‘Lean On Pete’. Much vaunted for his previous two books ‘The Motel Life’ and ‘Northline’, Vlautin has been described as “the Dylan of the dislocated” in the Indpendent and has been dubbed “courageous, powerful and wonderfully compassionate” by the great John Burnside. He also sings in a band called Richmond Fontaine that you might have heard of.

Reading with him will be John Williams – a genuine local living legend. Whether you know John’s work through the fictional world of his Cardiff Trilogy; the brilliant real-life studies of the likes of Michael X; or have been lucky enough to get drunker than you have ever been in your life at his magnificent literary weekender in Laugharne, come and see the man behind all those things and more. He even saved The Vulcan you know?

On the music front we have Lone Pine, veterans of the Cardiff americana scene with new members and newer songs. Before them, all the way from the Republic of Mancunia, we have Karl Hall of The Easy Dream – an urban troubadour delivering country-tinged tales of the city with a beautiful brutality all of his own.

All this and the Amazing Saddles DJs taking us into the early hours. All for two measly quid.

Start Time: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 8:00pm
End Time: Thursday, February 11, 2010 at 1:00am
Location: Cardiff Arts Institute

See you there.

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