We went to vandalise a station on the Gaerwen to Amlwch Railway

A5 - Anglesey

The A5 was/is the road that leads from Holyhead to London, it was much vaunted by long distance truck drivers, who would bore you of their trials and tribulations of life on the road (I endured a lot of this while hitch hiking the country and beyond). I guess when all you see is hundreds of miles of tarmac hour after hour there's little else to talk about. So when the brand, spanking all singing all dancing A55 opened across Anglesey in 2001, the once eminent A5 in that part of the world was relegated to local traffic and learner drivers. No longer did you have to go through dreary villages and over cattle grids, opening and shutting gates and swearing at nonchalant farmers in order to get to Holyhead, now you could ton-up across Ynys Mon with the cops in tow.

A5 was an Anglesey based project, featuring DJ and producer Johnny R, of the label R-Bennig. A5 were a Welsh language hip-hop and dance loose collective/catch-all project which were created/produced from 1988 to 1992. Musical collages featuring a snapshot of youth culture recorded for the main in little studios around North Wales and beyond and in Johnny “R”s own back-room “Heath Robinson” set up Gwalchmai. It was tape decks, analogue keyboards, samplers from Argos and record decks mastered on 4 track cassette decks.

R-Bennig and A5’s first release (and arguably their best), first featured on Musique Plastique & Henry Jones’ groundbreaking ‘Mapio’r Dyfodol’ mix spanning the idiosyncratic sounds of Cymru. Aptly named, the track speaks of the ‘Hiraeth’ that only Welsh people can truly understand, a word not best suited for translation.

Johnny R pronounced himself dead a few years ago. You never know, as he's the ultimate wind-up merchant. If it's true, well that's a shame. If it's not, well, some would say that too is a shame.

Crutches in Berlin

 It was too good an opportunity to miss... A free weekend and our erstwhile D-beat crust punk friends, Crutches from Sweden are playing in Berlin. Steve Sync and myself have travelled far and wide for many years, sometimes as bandmates, always as buddies. Far from being jetsetters, we find the cheapest option available and press Go! This time, a direct flight from the North West of Britain to Berlin was way too expensive for our punk rock pockets so we found a route from Liverpool to the Polish city of Szczecin (no, I hadn't heard of it either). This involved rising at stupid o'clock on Friday morning - (my Thursday evening involved rehearsing at Orange Studios with Spam Javelin ahead of our own batch of gigs later this month). I dropped a gear and smashed the accelerator into the floor and sped to Steve's hometown of Rhyl, picking up a succulent Chinese meal along the way, and after a couple of hours' snoozing in the spare room, we headed to Liverpool airport for the 5.45am flight to Szczecin.

It was a clockwork kind of weekend - everything went to plan - everything fell into place. The car parking spot at the airport (always more expensive than the flight), through security, onto the plane, photographed and fingerprinted by border control in Szczecin, straight onto a train to the city (45min ride), and onto a £14 Flixbus for a two hour journey to Alexanderplatz in Berlin. We picked up the 300 bus to Eastside Gallery right next to the heavily graffiti'd Berlin Wall, found our hotel and then headed out to the venue, Reset (via some punk rock pubs). It was early, but we snuck our heads round the door in the venue and found Andreas, Daniel, Oskar and Tom of Crutches milling about with the other bands. I had last seen Crutches on their Greek mini-tour late last year, so it was good to catch-up with them again and share a pint (or twelve!) of Berliner with them. We were soon joined by more old friends in the form of Nic and Nina and the venue filled up with people and a party atmosphere - ready for some grinding noise!

Despite a heavy hungover head, I woke up next morning laughing. What a great night! We were eventually asked to leave the venue as those running it wanted to go home! All three bands played short but blisteringly sharp sets. CRE-DES started things off with their rumbling brutalist shouty noise from Hanover. Their Demo (here on Bandcamp) is actually better than the live set, but then again my attention was spread thin from talking to many people at the same time.

Horrific Visions were up next, and they upped the ante - like a reversal of CRE-DES, their live set was better than their Bandcamp EP, which is also very good. Visually striking, the Berlin band are fronted by Kody (who I believe moved here from Indonesia), and they've played with Crutches on previous visits to the German capitol. It's almost hypnotic D-beat (if there's such a thing) and great entertainment.

On day seven of an eight date tour, Sweden's Crutches were on fire (as were their livers). They volleyed a very short, yet uncompromising set at the German (and Welsh) crowd. They mangeled as we begged for freedom... 

You too can get mangeled here - bandcamp

🎧 Clem Burke, Firelight, and Funeral Fatigue

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Clem Burke: The Beat That Never Faded

Ah fuck — Clem Burke has died.

What a fucking incredible drummer. Yes, teenage me was always drooling over Debbie Harry (and who wasn't?), but Clem’s drumming was the thing that hit hardest. His technique had bite, swagger, timing — all the good stuff, and hit toms and cymbals were all horizontal

Blondie was that band for me. Listening to Union City Blues tonight, and there it is again — that ache. Not just grief — but loss. Loss of time, of youth, of the version of me that used to believe music could save everything. I'm still that version...

Takes me back to growing up in Denbigh — the not-so-innocent days. The ones I didn’t want to end. The safety of my mates, the schoolyard chaos, the escape through music.

“Dreaming is Free.” — Blondie

Check out Joe Belock's Three Chord Monte show on WFMU - he did a great tribute to Clem, including a 2003 session with one of Clem's other projects, The Romantics.
Listen here

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Funeral Fatigue

Steve Pendle’s funeral is Monday. Guess he fast-tracked through the paperwork. I won’t be in the country for it unfortunately. I’ve done enough funerals to last a bloody lifetime [sic] — I'll miss another slow march with Chris Yates sobbing beside me as we laugh and cry. Steve's the gift that has gone. A guitar genius and definitely one of the goodest of the good guys.

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🔥 Sweating, Broadcasting, and Jam Shed

Tonight’s radio show went out live as usual. Lit the fire, which worked a little too well — turned my living room. err... I mean studio into a sauna by 10:30 p.m.

Opened a bottle of Jam Shed just to see if I could emulate some ketamine-fuelled broadcasting genius. Spoiler alert: I just got a sweaty arse and mild regret.

The show itself went alright. Quiet on the Facebook feed, but I’m hoping more folks will tune in later on Mixcloud. Not sure how many regulars I’ve got these days — probably about 100 underground heads, maybe more.

🎧 Listen back here:
👉 Click to listen on Mixcloud

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💤 Last Night’s Dream?

One for the weird files. I was climbing dusty, unused stairs at the Bengal Dynasty restaurant (???) trying to get to some plumbing conference. Ended up lying on a carpet in the middle of it like I belonged there.

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Final Thought

The older I get, the more everything turns into a blend of nostalgia, music, flickering firelight and weird dreams (that are free).

And honestly? I’m alright with that.

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📻 Stay tuned. Stay weird. Stay underground.

Follow the leek:
👉 link2wales