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

Celebrity Shopping

While browsing in the Shit You Don’t Need section at the local supermarket (in Bangor, North Wales), it’s not uncommon to catch sight of a local celebrity or two going about their shopping business.

Take Lolfa Binc’s lunatic frontman Rhys Trimble; recently spotted down the Avant Garden aisle in Lidl, or The Cult’s Billy Duffy doing a spot of retail therapy further down the coast at Sainsburys in Rhyl.
I also bumped into Hopewell Ink and The Cane Toads’ Dave Hopewell. He was clutching a bottle of brandy and a new set of underpants - later to be seen drunkenly staggering through the streets of Bangor in said underpants muttering nonsensicals about Sylvia Plath.

Last night, while fighting with the locals at the Reduced Items section, I saw Paul and Andrea of Melys shaking their heads in my direction, obviously disappointed with me for wrestling a granny to the floor over a sandwich with today’s sell-by date on it. 

Melys have just completed a slew of gigs stretching from Bethesda across as far as Reading and as far south as Carmarthen. They were in need of nourishment from all the travelling, and to also build up strength for the release of their next single, Sgleinio. The uplifting indie anthem arrives on Friday March 28th ahead of their new album ‘Second Wine’ on April 12th.

Pre-Save / Hear it here - https://orcd.co/sgleinio

Once they’ve nibbled themselves back to full strength, you’ll find Melys back on the road.
09.05 – Focus Wales, Wrecsam / Wrexham

15.05 – Liquid Rooms, Caeredin / Edinburgh

17.05 – 02, Rhydychen / Oxford

23.05 – 02, Birmingham

24.05 – Gŵyl In It Together Festival

25.05 – MK11, Milton Keynes

Kier Starmer the gig promoter

 Woke up confused, my dream did it; Kier Starmer was disappointed with me because I hadn't followed up on the lead he gave me for my band Spam Javelin to play in Hoffenheim. I feigned that I had called the number, but I could tell he knew this wasn't the case.

With the rain mainly falling on the plain, Sunday turned out to be a pyjama day - I like these days - I couldn't do them everyday as the great outdoor forever lures me outward. The kid is online murdering aliens with his mates and I'm sifting through this week's contributions as I prepare my Louder Than War radio show.
An hour's show could easily be chucked together on the hoof, but I enjoy gathering music, listening to new stuff, researching bands - it's what makes me tick. When there was an actual studio to broadcast from there was usually a live band, eager to nervously play on air to the masses - some would travel from afar to appear on a Monday night in North Wales! I think Blanchard travelled the furthest, hailing from Lancaster (the crazy fools! - great session though!). These post-Covid days, the show is done from the comfort of my living room (usually in those said PJs!), and I'll sometimes feature a new album, depends how the mood takes me - There's no rules.

With the playlist in place, I set aside about ten minutes of free space as bands will often send me stuff during the course of Monday once they see the show advertised, and sometimes the track is too good to leave til next week. I then design a flyer for that particular show, yes, I could use the same one, but where's the fun in that? Once done I'll share it on the socials.
All this takes a couple of hours, and normally it'll be all done by around 8am on a Sunday morning!

With the Rain Gods unrelenting I took the opportunity to read the latest issue of Cubesville fanzine #27 with some cool interviews and humour driven views - I took it upon myself to go with Ritual Error's desert island disc choices (basically Cubesville asked them what three albums each of them would take), so I revved up the Spotify (yeah get over it) and skipped over Minutemen and Saccharine Trust to go for the excellent Hoover album 'The Lurid Traversal Of Route' followed by Fugazi's 'In On The Kill Taker' and Unwound's 'New Plastic Ideas.'

I then tore up my new water bill from Dwr Cymru who've increased the theft by £20 a month, and also realised I'm getting pickpocketed an extra £11 by the council. Bastards the lot of them...

Cyclepathic Cash Only Cyclist's Funeral

The weekend was slightly marred by the fact I had to work (yes even rockstars have to work for a living), so the kiddo had to string along. To keep him occupied for four hours while I made money for The Man, I coerced him into cleaning my car with the promise of money and the added bonus of commandeering a hose pipe. I've had the car for almost a year and it's NEVER been washed. Fair play, Charlie took it in his stride and did a sterling job, even vaccing the interior. Talking of sterling, I did try and fob him off with ten Euros left in my wallet after Lisbon, but he wasn't buying into that. We later agreed on a £12 kite from Smyths toys instead - alas not enough huff in the air to fly it, but I'm sure Storm Elon will be along soon.

By noon, it was time to close shop and let the leisure begin - I finally fixed the bike rack to the (now pristine) car and mounted our bikes and headed East to Llanfairfechan promenade. We hit the route on our bikes, traversing probably the toughest section of the North Wales Cycle Path around Penmaen Head and into Penmaenmawr. An ice cream on the beach was called for but the sign read 'CASH ONLY' and I sighed at the Euros in my otherwise empty wallet. I had read earlier that the Scandanavian countries were the pioneers in promoting a cashless society, but are now encouraging their populations to start using the green stuff again, and ensure some is also kept at home in case of a cyber attack. Cash should be king, with every card transaction you do, you're tracked and traced by the corporate cookie monster, just waiting to spam you with shit you don't need. Plus, if you're self employed then, money makes the world go round and the taxman, who fucks you senseless already, can't clobber you so easily.

The wonderful Bruise Control sing:

I'd rather see the grave before I see tears for the taxman

I'm gonna knock the jaw off the next toff that tells me to relax man

I'm sick to my fucking gut of you telling me what to do

The best thing i ever did was stop listening to you

Death to the jobsworths, death to the snitches

Death for the taxman, death to his riches

Death for the dead, death for the living

The decision was made to return to the car, completing a six mile cycle, and head to Llandudno pier for an ice cream, which we duly did! 

'Hey Neil!' - it was Adam of Scotch Funeral with two cohorts, also on the pier to soak in the magnificent view. The said cohorts were (I guess), Steve the drummer and cameraman Alex - they were taking a break from filming a video for the forthcoming Scotch Funeral album, called 'Ever & Ever'. This is exciting! On vinyl no less!! Fair do's... I'm really looking forward to hearing that gnarly garage punk offering (and I'm sure you are too).

(Charlie plays harmonica while I ponder over a crisp butty on the cyclepath)

#punk #cycling #northwales #cyclepath #bruisecontrol