POET Simon Armitage brings his band The Scaremongers to the Trades Club on Saturday, June 27, for a rare live performance of his own brand of indie rock.
This event is the first night of the club's link up with the Arts Festival. Yorkshire-born Simon made his name publishing nine volumes of critically-acclaimed poetry as well as writing for TV, radio and film.
He also won an Ivor Novello Award for th
e powerful lyrics he wrote for Channel 4's Bafta award-winning 'Feltham Sings' exposing the tough life in a young offenders' institute.
Simon has always been a massive music fan so it seemed natural to form a band with life-long friend Craig Smith and The Scaremon-gers' new album 'Born In A Barn' is influenced by The Smiths, Comsat Angels and the Fall.
The final Sally Rocks the Valley event takes place tonight – Thursday – before Sally Weaver returns to college after a year's placement at the club.
The night kicks off with punk rockers Up All Night who are influenced by the likes of Blink 182 and All Time Low. Headliners are Anola Gray from Halifax who are energetic indie-rockers described by D:One Radio as having 'fantastically raw vocals that sound like nobody else, and drums and guitar that echo the likes of the Mars Volta and Oceansize'.
The Chapter Four boys return on Friday, June 26, bringing their own brand of Caribbean sunshine back into the valley featuring the usual heady mix of sweet reggae, funky rocksteady and stomping ska from Jamaica and beyond.
The weekend rounds off with another Arts Festival event featuring failed nun Triona Adams on Sunday, June 28, as she takes the audience on her journey from life as a top theatrical agent haunting Soho wine bars to the life-changing decision to enter a Benedictine convent!
This hilarious no-holds-barred confessional show is going to the Edinburgh Festival later this year.
