This month, to celebrate our 20th anniversary and leading up to our event at the of the month at the Gate in Cardiff on the 30th of September, we are running a series of articles celebrating the history of GIITTV and the last 20 years.
From 20 at 20 playlists featuring our writers’ 20 favourite songs of the last 20 years, features on our 20 best Welsh songs released since 2003. Features on 20 Scottish venues and 20 of the best punk and funk tracks. We are also working on a special birthday podcast featuring multiple guests and artists who are fans of the site. Plus retrospectives compiling our 20 albums of the year since we started to retrospectives on GIITTV releases including our successful recent cover compilations in aid of charity. Plus all of the events GITTTV has been involved in over the last 20 years, and more, running throughout September.
An independent publication, GIITTV, started life in 2003. This was an era even before blogs, YouTube, and Twitter. Inspired by webzines like Drowned in Sound and the punk zine spirit of Repeat fanzine, editor Bill Cummings started posting early reviews from the Cardiff University newspaper, Gair Rhydd on a basic Yahoo Geocities page.
Over the years he was then joined by writers from around the world. Since then GIITTV has evolved through many incarnations and evolutions as a website and publication and now boasts a passionate and hardworking editorial team, over 200 writers, and the contributions of artists and web designers, without whom this website would not have grown and thrived for so many years. With a solid following, we hope we have grown into one of the most long-lasting online portals for music and culture that is around today. We have always championed the artists that excite us from throughout the country and beyond, no matter their level or label, providing a platform for emerging artists and groups. The site has also had a special focus on Welsh music over the last decade, championing the new Welsh wave of artists. We have developed this by spotlighting as many genres as we can in the principality, sponsoring a stage at the Focus Wales festival and featuring the likes of The Anchoress, Adwaith, Carwyn Ellis, Aderyn and many more artists besides on our podcast Show Me Magic.
As well as delivering a stream of quality writing, our achievements over the years include raising £5000 for Help Musicians from a R.E.M. Covers compilation that was endorsed by the band, a Kylie covers compilation raising over £1000 in aid of Macmillan cancer charity and most recently our Cure covers compilation which has so far raised over £4000 for the Mind Charity with the bands support on social media. We have also helped to promote several charity shows including G Spot in London, plus Swigen and Mind Fest in Cardiff. We have also staged shows by the likes of Frightened Rabbit, My Sad Captains, Orphans and Vandals, Rose Kemp, Love Inks, Eric Chenaux, Slow Down Molasses, HMS Morris, Vessels and many more. We have appeared as blogging tipsters on Tom Robinson’s BBC 6 music show and our deputy editor, Simon Godley, received an award for Best Festival Journalist at the Festival Congress in 2015.
With an independent voice free of corporate constraints, we have always believed in giving new artists and writers a platform to gain experience, hone their craft, and explore their passions. We are powered by the goodwill, knowledge, and enthusiasm of our writers, the support of labels and artists, and the readers. We hope this event – set in the heart of Cardiff at one of the city’s most impressive venues – a converted church with Grade II status – marks this special occasion in style with an event that celebrates some of Wales’s finest artists and which will act as a huge thank you to everyone involved.
Tickets for our anniversary event in Cardiff on the 30th of September at the Gate, featuring Adwaith, Chroma, Carwyn Ellis, The Honest Poet, papaya noon, Half Happy, and Kaptin (DJ) here https://www.gigantic.com/giittv-20th-anniversary-tickets/cardiff-the-gate-arts-centre/2023-09-30-15-00
