Blogs
The North American Festival of Wales may not be meeting in person this year, but virtual events are still in the works, and the #NAFOW #Eisteddfod carries on!
Psych pop band KEYS unveil new single | 'This Side Of Luv' Out via Libertino 17.07.20
By Ceri Shaw, 2020-07-14
 |
 |
“The hiss is another instrument” and it’s an instrument integral to the new recordings, sounds and songs by KEYS. Over the next few weeks we will be unveiling the latest collection of songs by the band, as Matthew Evans vocals / guitar / songwriter explains: “We recorded these tracks on Cassette four track machines during lockdown. Let’s not pretend we had access to an expensive studio, we didn’t. It was a time to connect with bedroom songwriting again. These are not band arrangements worked out in a rehearsal room – these were written and recorded simultaneously. Not demos but songs that took shape during the "recording process.”
The hiss of the cassette turning is the sound of the endless possibilities and magic of the pop song spilling out in vivid colours at the exact moment inspiration took hold. No second guessing or over thinking, only the joy of creating.
A perfect example of this is the first single ‘This Side of Luv’. “This was our attempt at joyous early 70’s Midlands pop. 3-day weeks, winters of discontent, a Tory government…yet out of that bleakness came some heroic, ecstatic British pop music.
Music has the power to lift the spirit, if we can do that for 3 and a half minutes then we’ll feel our efforts were not in vain.” Matthew summarises this collection of songs, also written in trying times, as: “something to help us get through this lockdown. Hopefully you can use it too.”
Online KEYS
https://twitter.com/thekeysmusic
https://www.facebook.com/KEYSband1
Bydd Sera Zyborska (o Gaernarfon) a Lowri Evans (o Drefdraeth Sir Benfro) yn gyfarwydd i gynulleidfaoedd miwsig Cymru fel artistiaid dwyieithog sydd wedi bod yn ysgrifennu, perfformio a recordio yn unigol ers amser. Rhyngddynt maent wedi cael eu hyrwyddo ar BBC 6 Music, Radio 2, wedi perfformio ym mhobman o ŵyl y Dyn Gwyrdd i Gŵyl Rhif 6, o King Tut’s yn Glasgow i’r Union Chapel; O Gymru i America i Ffrainc, sydd fel mae'n digwydd, lle bu’r ddwy yn cyfarfod am y tro cyntaf y llynedd, wrth berfformio ym mhafiliwn Cymru yng ngŵyl Lorient yn Awst 2019.
Sbardunodd y cyfarfod cyntaf hwn syniad i ffurfio band gyda merched ar y blaen, a chreu eu brand eu hunain o ‘Americana’; band â all berfformio ar lwyfannau mawr a chynrychioli lleisiau menywod. Wedi’i ysbrydoli gan The Highwomen, ‘supergroup’ o’r Unol Daleithiau sy’n cynnwys Brandi Carlile ac Amanda Shires, a ffurfiodd fel ymateb i ddiffyg cynrychiolaeth artistiaid benywaidd ar radio a gwyliau canu gwlad.
Mae ei caneuon yn cymryd eu lliwiau cerddorol o balet eang sy'n cynnwys Americana, ‘Roots’, Gwerin a Gwlad.
Mae nhw wedi cael dechrau anodd a dweud y lleiaf. Roedd Tapestri am lansio mewn sioe yn Y Galeri Caernarfon yn ôl ym mis Chwefror, ond cafodd ei ganslo oherwydd difrod i'r theatr gan Storm Ciara. Yna fe gafodd ei phlaniau i recordio a rhyddhau EP a mynd ar daith haf, fel gyda llawer o artistiaid a bandiau eraill, ei effeithio gan amodau Covid-19. Ond er eu bod yn byw 4 awr ar wahân, mae Lowri a Sera wedi llwyddo i barhau i weithio ar eu recordiadau. ‘Y Fflam’ yw fersiwn Gymraeg o’i trac ‘Open Flame’ a fydd ar eu EP yn y dyfodol.
‘Y Fflam’ is the first single from newly formed ‘Tapestri;’ the Americana band fronted by Lowri Evans and Sera Zyborska
Sera (from Caernarfon) and Lowri (from Newport Pembs) will be especially familiar to Welsh music audiences as two bilingual singer-songwriters that have been writing, performing and recording as solo artists for some time. Between them they have been championed on BBC 6 Music, Radio 2, performed everywhere from Greenman, Festival Number 6, from King Tut’s to the Union Chapel; From Wales to America to France, which is as it happens, where the two met for the first time last year, performing at the Welsh Pavilion at the Lorient Celtic festival in August 2019.
This first meeting sparked an idea to form a female fronted band and to create their own brand of Americana; an act that could headline and represent women’s voices. Inspired by The Highwomen , a US ‘supergroup’ featuring Brandi Carlile and Amanda Shires, who formed as a response to the lack of representation of women artists on country music radio and festivals.
Their songs take their musical colours from a broad palette that includes Americana, Roots, Folk and Country, all beautifully knitted together through their innate musicality and heartfelt delivery.
They’ve had a bumpy start to say the least. Tapestri was due to launch at a show in Y Galeri Caernarfon back in February, which was cancelled due to theatre damage from Storm Ciara. Their EP release and subsequent summer tour then, as with many other artists and bands, suffered from the effects of the Covid-19 lockdown. But despite being a 4 hour drive apart, Lowri and Sera have managed to continue to work on their recordings. ‘Y Fflam’ is the Welsh language version of their ‘Open Flame’ track from their forthcoming EP.
Cyfryngau Cymdeithasol/Social Media
www.facebook.com/tapestrimusic
Twitter @tapestrimusic
Instagram @tapestrimusic
Cysylltu/Contact
Bookings: tapestrimusic@gmail.com
Label: Shimi Records
Cyfryngau/Media: kev@pyst.cymru / Nannon@pyst.cymru
John Mouse announces new album 'The Goat' & Shares urgent new single 'Le Pigeon'
By Ceri Shaw, 2020-07-14
John MOuse releases his new album ‘The Goat’ via digital platforms on the 31st of July followed by a physical vinyl release on the 28th of August through Keep Me In Your Heart Records. It is preceded by the lead single ‘Le Pigeon’ at the end of this month.
When lockdown commenced John MOuse seized the opportunity to create a new album. The concept behind The Goat, was to write, record and release a song on a weekly basis. Each song, accompanied by its own artwork was then uploaded to Bandcamp.
Social distancing meant that the music for the album was created Lincolnshire by long term collaborator Phil Pearce and then sent to John in Cardiff who worked on the lyrics and vocal melody for each track. The result is a typically idiosyncratic and heart on its sleeve, electronic pop album, heavy on spoken word content and catchy chorus hooks, these songs possess musical hints of everyone from Adian Moffat, Momus to early Pulp .
The lyrical subject matter is varied ranging from fleeing from a pigeon on urgent first single ‘Le Pigeon’ (loosely based on Suskins novella The Pigeon) with its vivid stream of consciousness and chirruping synths. To fragments of bittersweet memories, witty imagery, despair not salved by defunct technology and Anne Summers parties.
Ten tracks were completed and are now set for official digital and physical release on Keep Me In your heart records.
“The Goat” is John’s fifth full-length album and his first since last year’s limited digital release of The Fen Sessions and 2018’s warmly received ‘Replica Figures’ which was described as "In turns touching, hilarious and heart-breaking" by Buzz Magazine and as "powerful stuff. Rentokil wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with any of this." Louder Than War. While 2014’s ‘The Death of John MOuse’ was praised by The Line of Best Fit and its brilliant lead single ‘I was a Goalkeeper’ featured Gareth from Los Campesinos, prompted Steve Lamacq to pronounce it ‘my new favourite football song’.
John MOuse, real name John Davies has been described as ‘A Welsh Beck,’ under his previous incarnation JT Mouse he worked with Sweet Baboo (aka Steven Black) while in 2010 he scored a cult hit with a song about a gay romance with another duet, this time with TV presenter Steve Jones lifted from the acclaimed album ‘Humber Dogger Forties’. John MOuse has received airplay support from Huw Stephens on BBC Radio 1, Mary Anne Hobbes, Steve Lamacq, Stuart Maconie, Gideon Coe and Tom Robinson on BBC 6 Music and Adam Walton & Bethan Elfyn on BBC Radio Wales.
“The blend of unpredictability, wit and sharp reminiscence contained within is the real joy of this latest offering by this highly original artist a Welsh indie pop hero…reminiscent of a South Wales David Gedge” Louder Than War
“An extraordinary piece of poetry” Mary Anne Hobbs on ‘Robbie Savage’.
“There is only one John MOuse, a Welsh Superstar and an impassioned performer.” Tom Robinson
Munching a Crunchie bar
he splutters as the daily death figures
don't come down quickly enough for him
when the total reaches 44,000*
he starts to feel a bit like
it's Medieval days again
only this time with apps
that don't always deliver
and the act of dying more private
splutter splutter
mutter mutter
stutter stutter
he gets restless as the deaths
are now at least twice the amount
the scientists said would be
an acceptable outcome not so long ago
who can you believe?
who can you trust?
thank God for TV remotes
pity they can't switch off his mind too
and those of the others
though at times he thinks
even this is debatable
the weather suddenly
turns cold windy and damp
unsettling and depressing
a summer bypassed
he feels a shiver in his t shirt
remaining resolutely sun-worshipping
despite the evidence
*insert your own country's figures or update the UK figure if so inclined
Animal Rights activist A.L.F. Egan lay completely still in the long grass, high above the Welsh Valley of Cwm Twp.
He motioned to his 15- year old accomplice, ‘Popeye’ Doyle, to lie still until the factory searchlight had passed overhead.
Once it had done so, the pair all dressed in black and camouflage gear used the wire cutters to snip the perimeter fence.
In the distance was a grey metallic building called Abbot’s Trois, owned according to Companies House by a French Company based in the Tax Haven of Jersey, called Vaches Mort R-US.
A.L.F. & Popeye didn’t call it Abbot’s Trois.
To them it was Cowschwitz.
A place where animals were taken to be slaughtered.
Both A.L.F. and ‘Popeye’ were committed vegetarians – A.L.F. more so than because he had been caught and imprisoned for his strong belief that ‘Meat was Murder’.
As a 3- year old child, he had continually shouted this phrase from his perch in the front of supermarket trolley, innocently mistaking Morrisons for the Smith’s Morrissey.
He was banned for life.
That was nearly 40 years ago now, and poor A.L.F. hadn’t had the more auspicious starts to life, as his Mother had given birth to him on the Greenham Common, whilst protesting at the US Airforce Base in Berkshire in the 1980’s.
His Mother only noticed when others around her pointed out that she had a baby swinging from between her legs by an umbilical cord, such was the cacophony of noise at the protests when the jets armed with nuclear missiles took off.
Having a fanny the size of Cheddar Gorge didn’t help his Mother Gaia either, but it certainly helped A.L.F. come into the World, as didn’t have a difficult birth in that F W Woolworth impromptu water birthing pool surrounded by New Age whale music.
Little A.L.F. never knew his Father, his Mother had always told him that just like Mary in the Bible it had been an immaculate conception.
He was named A.L.F. after the letters on the side of a truck that delivered food to the camp.
The young A.L.F. was raised on a diet of legumes, peas, beans and lentils- so when he was found to be listless and lethargic and taken to the Doctor by a concerned Social Worker visiting Tepee Valley in Carmarthenshire – he was diagnosed as having a high pulse rate.
His Mother was told to feed him red meat to raise the number of red blood cells in the youngster’s body.
The Doctor was told in no uncertain terms where he could put his cold stethoscope by the indoctrinated child.
A.L.F himself never considered the decision not to eat meat during his lifetime to be a missed steak.
He chose to ignore science when it was claimed that plants screamed when being ripped from the ground.
Nature provided a bounty of seasonal treats for the wayfarers of the Carmarthen Tent Village.
He always enjoyed a ‘Hippy Birthday’ with presents including blackberries freshly picked from the hedgerows of the West Walian Countryside.
Gathering nuts in May was always a favoured childhood memory, as was hunting in competition for truffles with his fellow Earth dwellers- the pigs in the dirt.
A.L.F loved the Spring, Summer and Autumn months but hated the cold Wintertime.
Most of the fellow travellers at the commune used to commit minor offences at that time to spend a little time in jail to obtain a warm cell and free hot food from the ‘Man’.
A.L.F. had always been told that the Capitalist system was like a vampire sucking the blood out of its victim- the working man.
That excuse for not working for over two decades, was now framed and on display for all to see in the Carmarthen Job Centre.
A.L.F. was very proud of it – even if he couldn’t read what it said.
He just liked to see the letters A.L.F. up on the wall, meaning that he had left his mark on the Universe, whilst signing the same three letters for his giro cheques.
Popeye on the other hand was much younger than A.L.F.
He should have still been in school if his Local Education Appeal Panel hadn’t barred him- due to his intense love of fire.
It was not like pyromania was a crime now was it?
Born and raised around a campfire, it always transfixed him.
Just like a modern- day Prometheus, Popeye believed that fire was there to be stolen from the Gods and used against ‘The Man’ himself.
It cleansed.
If there was one thing ‘Popeye’ loved it was burning a holiday home in West Wales.
He had always assumed he was called ‘Popeye’ because of his love of spinach, but in reality, it was because he had bulging eyes like US actor Steve Buscemi, due to an overactive thyroid gland.
He had never broken into a meat processing plant before so it would be a real ‘eye-opener’ for him.
‘Popeye’ was so excited- as the Adult World opening up to him was completely new and unexplored.
He trusted A.L.F. like the Father he too had never known.
Once through the wire, A.L.F. had timed it so that the pair had two minutes to cross the rear compound courtyard.
There were obviously no guard dogs on patrol- despite the sign stating otherwise.
What guard dog could work all day next to the tantalising smell of meat without attempting to run off with a string of intestinal cow sausages?
There was also a warning sign for CCT cameras, but A.L.F. was an expert in dealing with those.
After all, he had spray painted more ‘Honky’ speed cameras black than the Black Lives Matters protestors.
Honky -not because of the racist term for white people- but honky after the actions of fellow drivers that sounded their horn and flashed their pale headlights to warn other road users of their location.
The silent pair of animal rights ninjas reached the side of the illuminated building.
A.L.F. looked at his wristwatch-his only concession to the 21 st Century- and waited patiently for the big hand to meet the little hand- he knew this to be 12 O’Clock.
Very soon, both he and his pyromaniac friend would be ‘burning the midnight oil’ together.
He had carried out reconnaissance over two nights and had noted that at precisely that time the lone security guard left the near side fire exit and walked around the left- hand side of the building to have a sly cigarette.
Obviously, working in a meat factory he could not contaminate the carcasses with tobacco smoke, otherwise he would be for the ‘chop’ too.
The pair would have to be quick but they would ‘nip in’, set the fire and leave the way they had entered.
With balaclava masks over their faces- no-one would be any wiser on their identities- besides given the coronavirus pandemic there were too many masked people around to pin-point them.
In -out, no trace left behind- just like their biological Father’s had done all those years ago.
The Vegan apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Seen but not ‘herd’ if you like.
Security Guard Peta Plump had eaten his remaining tuna, egg and pickle sandwiches and it was now time for his first fag break of the evening.
He would save his remaining bacon sandwiches for 3.00am when he got more peckish.
He had been warned not to smoke or fart inside the factory because it was both a fire risk and a health hazard to the workforce.
Imagine being told that the smell of your arse was more pungent than dead cattle?
He ambled around the side of the building taking long pulls on his cigarette as if in a state of nicotine ecstasy.
But it was not just the putrid stink of cigarettes that was present.
That other smell of death hung around the place and could not be removed from clothing.
It permeated everything.
His uniform, his vest and his hat too.
It was so bad that he was banned from visiting his elderly Mother at the local Nursing Home, the Gran-Yr-Afon- in case he started a riot.
God his job was boring.
Staring at screens all night and doing word-searches in the low lighting for 8 hours.
Surrounded by fridges containing animal carcasses.
He was awful worried having watched the film Poltergeist a few days ago, if such a thing as an animal ghost existed.
He had heard of the Scottish horse water-spirit called the Kelpie but hoped there was no cow equivalent.
As he looked up into the clear black valley sky above Cwm Twp, he wondered how many thousands of cattle had died at the Plant and figured that with the law of averages that it was only a matter of time before an ‘Ermintrude spectre called’ and put the shits up him.
He wasn’t normally the nervous type but he had his suspicions that something odd was going on in the last eight months he had worked the security.
He couldn’t figure what it was but things had changed just before the New Tory Government had come to power.
Inside the factory, A.L.F. and Popeye looked around them in the half-light.
They had the petrol cans with them a series of long shoe laces as a fuse and a lighter each.
Popeye became even more of a Popeye, as he stared at the topless former Page 3 Model ‘Bappy’ aged 21 on the Calendar in the Security Guard Office.
She was scantily dressed standing next to some livestock with a cattle prod looking suggestively.
“Cor… look at her she is ‘stunning’!” said Popeye.
“Obviously-all I can see is a Murderess!” replied A.L.F.
“I wonder if there is any more below?” said the young teenager hormones raging.
Popeye tried to leaf through the calendar but couldn’t unstick the pages for some strange reason.
It was a long night for Peta.
A.L.F. now entered the office area but was not distracted by the soft porn but more interested in the number of invoices sticking out of an order book on the desk of the Managing Director.
They all bore the heading Max Bygraves- ‘I want to sell you a Tory’.
A.L.F.’s interest was piqued.
He couldn’t read the words but something far out in the Universe was telling him this was important.
He had heard of journalists winning Pulitzer Prizes- although unsung hero Security Guard Peta probably deserved a different kind of one- and slipped the book into his camouflaged trouser pocket.
The sound of the security guard farting outside, shook the pair back to their original purpose.
The bastard must have been done to his last cigarette instead of the usual two, smoked alternately through both hands like an Argentinian Soccer Manager.
As Peta closed the Fire Exit Door loudly, the pair of trespassing burglars needed to find somewhere to hide and quickly too.
A.L.F. grabbed the security guard’ torch as an impromptu weapon.
Popeye, just grabbed a sandwich from the open lunch box and raced to the door.
Look around for somewhere to hide the pair had no option but to dive into the freezer section.
As he ushered Popeye inside, A.L.F. quickly placed the torch on the floor to hold the door slightly ajar.
He knew from experience. if they were to be locked inside such a sub-zero facility then it could be fatal.
Peta ambled back to his office with nicotine level partly restored.
He looked down at his desk and was surprised to notice that one of his sandwiches was missing.
Strange, he thought I don’t remember eating that.
There was no-one in the building at night, so it was a little bit of a mystery.
He looked under the desk for signs of crumbs in case a Herculean Mouse had managed to lift it from the lunch box, across the desk and onto the floor.
Peta was known locally for not being the sharpest tool in the box but now he was also a sandwich short of a picnic.
Perhaps he was losing on himself.
He looked around the rest of the desk to see if anything else was missing.
His torch had gone too.
Peta began to get nervous.
What if it was an animal Poltergeist?
His mind started to play tricks on him in the dark.
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
He felt like a draught of cold air was coming from somewhere.
He looked across at his only companion for the night, the Page 3 model Calendar hanging on the wall- even Bappy looked more pert than normal.
On that evidence, there was definitely a nip in the air.
His mind told him to follow the cold air to its source.
Perhaps he had not closed the Fire Exit door properly behind him?
He walked to the door to check, keys jangling as he went.
Inside the freezer compartment, both A.L.F. and Popeye were starting to get cold.
The area had white walls and in the centre were four racks of carcasses hanging upside down on sharp metal meat hooks from the ceiling.
It was the ideal hiding place for a trespasser or two.
Popeye had never been in a walk-in fridge before.
He assumed Susan Boyle had one this size.
A.L.F. whispered to Popeye to stay down low.
It was so cold he could almost read those words on his mentor’s breath that was left behind.
Popeye had never really had the opportunity to learn to read books.
His late Brother ‘Bulger’ had been his Mother’s favourite- he always got the lion’s share of the Alphabetti Spaghetti, but not enough sadly to stop him falling through thin ice one day three Winter’s back.
The cold always reminded him of his brother.
As did the almost blue carcasses hanging in front of him.
He wondered what sort of animals they were at the cattle plant as he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, whilst eating the very tasty sandwich he had managed to rob.
“Psst… A.L.F. have a look at this will you?” asked Popeye.
A.L.F. moved a dead cow out of the way and joined his fellow burglar further back into the freezer compartment.
“Look at this one!” said Popeye.
“It looks human to me!” the scared youth continued.
“They all do!” said A.L.F.
“But this one has a mop of blonde hair!” stuttered Popeye.
On closer examination, A.L.F. discovered that his friend was correct.
It DID have blonde hair and more than a passing resemblance to Boris Johnson the previous Prime Minister of the former United Kingdom.
“Bloody Hell Popeye…..it does look like him….and he had a reputation for hiding in a fridge when things got tough!” said A.L.F. somewhat astonished at their discovery.
“Look there are more, here at the back too!” said Popeye moving along the line of fat lardy carcasses.
“I thought he was supposed to be as fit as a butcher’s dog what doing those press-ups when no-one told him that his inflatable woman had been stolen from under him!” said A.L.F.
As Popeye walked through the rows of cadavers, he was shocked to see hundreds of bodies which like ‘Boris’ were almost human.
A.L.F. noticed that none of the carcasses had any internal organs and definitely no heart.
“They look like Tory MP’s!” he said to himself.
Which is somewhat fitting as they have turned the Country into a ‘Right Shambles’.
He examined the cadaver next to ‘Boris’ and wondered what the Hell had gone on.
Had the Russian Mafia who had contributed to Tory Party funds caught up with the Right-Wing Junta, after finally being forced to release the Russian Report into the Autumn General Election?
Who had ordered this massacre and on such a ‘Grand’ scale not seen since the Brighton Conference in 1984.
Was it Dominic Cullings?
He looked at the tag and noted that different cadavers had different coloured tags and extra meat additions.
He checked the Order Book for the colour coding.
The blood coloured ones had ‘Red Wedge’ marked on them and seemed to be all marked for delivery to the North.
They had ‘best before election 2024’ dates marked on them.
The ones with green tags had ‘Washington, the Former Colonies, USA’ stamped on them.
Particularly the ones with four more ears.
A.L.F. saw the flags and pretty colours and figured they were part of a Trans-Atlantic Trade deal in exchange for chlorinated chicken.
Post-Brexit, it would appear that the British Establishment was back to its’ previous jingoistic 19 th Century Foreign policy of ‘Transporting’, so called ‘inferior’ humans to the New World- but this for time for Trump Rallies.
This was clear because the cadavers with the stars and stripes had a battery cavity in their ‘ass’ in the shape of a Democrat Donkey.
A.L.F looked at the opposite page and noted that an order had been placed by one Welsh Tory MP, Neil Hamilton for thirty ‘CHADS’ to be supplied to BBC studios in Greater Manchester for an audience.
It was marked under ‘Cash for Question Time’
A.L.F. had a revelation – he could now see the wood from the trees.
“That explains how the Conservative Party won the last election!” he said.
“ Manipulation of the Main Stream Media, Russian interference, Bots on Social Media, links with the Klan in the US of A and dead voters in the Northern Labour Heartlands….we are the only ones that know where the bodies are buried!” A.L.F. continued to the utter bemusement of his companion.
“This Client book is worth a fortune, almost as much as Epstein’s- it makes it clear that the proceeds of the whole dodgy deal are being funnelled offshore to the Tax Havens in the Channel Islands ……it is the French Connection all over again Popeye…..what legitimate Company has a Frog- faced Director on its headed paper called Sir Loin?” continued A.L.F enraged by the corruption that existed at the top of Central Government.
“Imagine using the Coronavirus Pandemic as a distraction to carry out their undercovid operation?”
“It all makes sense now- WHO would go near any meat processing plants with their reported high infection rates other than the ineffectual World Health Organisation?….they weren’t ramping up the testing but ramping up the exports of cadavers….that explains why the Nightingale Hospital in London and the Millennium Stadium was empty!” continued A.L.F. the ultimate conspiracy theorist.
Popeye was lost.
“But where did the brain cells for the zombies come from?” asked the youngster.
“You are too young to remember this politician but according to the book- they were donated to the Tory paper by one David ‘Two Brains’ Willetts-!” replied A.L.F looking at the photo on the inside cover of Patrons.
“So there never was a real Covid 19 Pandemic then?” asked Popeye.
“An invisible germ that came in from China- that killed only the elderly and the already ill only?” said A.L.F.
“What do you think?”
“I try not to….it hurts too much!” said the easily influenced teen.
Unfortunately, their whispering had been overheard from the Security Office.
Peta Plump wasn’t easily scared but that film Poltergeist had spooked him.
Reading up that child actress Heather O’Rourke had died at age of 12 in mysterious circumstances had frightened him even more.
He didn’t want to mess with the Spirit World.
He was concerned that he could hear mutterings coming from the Freezer Area.
This was one of the ‘Forbidden Zones’ in the factory.
He was warned not to go in there by the Management in case he got locked in and froze to death.
Peta Plump had the Paper Lace Song ‘Billy don’t be a hero’ playing inside his head.
But he was paid £7.50 an hour so he had to pretend he was one.
He listened again and thought he could hear strange whisperings coming from the area.
He peered out of his Office and could see a chink of light coming from the door and lo and behold there was his missing flashlight.
Summoning up all his courage, he walked towards the door, wheeling his office chair as back-up.
The sound had stopped.
He would place the chair in the freezer door and poke his nose in.
Nothing more then he would slam the door shut.
The hackles on the back of his neck were raised and he had goose-bumps but he wasn’t sure if it was caused by fear or just cold.
He was half-expecting something out of a Stephen King book to leap at him from the dark, as he treaded in baby steps towards his torch and the freezer door.
After what seemed like an eternity, he finally reached the door.
How stupid did he feel as a grown man afraid of his own shadow?
He lifted the torch from the gap with the intention of replacing it with the with the chair, whilst he had a quick look around from the safety of the door.
Curiosity had got the cat.
As he started to open the door wider and increase ‘the Shining’- he was stunned to see a frozen Blonde- Haired cadaver suddenly come sliding at him at speed.
Peta heard the words “Here’s Boris!” as he was bowled over onto the floor.
Ironic really, as just before he passed out the last thing he saw was the words hurtling at him from inside the locker room was :
‘Stay Alert’, “Control the Virus”, Protect the NHS!”
A.L.F. & Popeye then rushed passed the stricken guard in a state of semi-consciousness have being body checked by a frozen PM in ‘Tip Top’ Condition.
The Animal Rights Activists no longer wanted to burn down the factory as they had bigger fish to fry.
Popeye and A.L.F. owed it to the dead animals and composite humans to bring the French Connection to justice.
There was also the small matter of an investigative journalist ‘Paul Foot n Mouth’ Award to collect for their efforts and of course lots of people in high places to blackmail.
He dreams of capital cities
the pyramids of money
the cut-price labour that raised them
now laid off
in quarantine
blacked out
streets
avenues
squares
lanes
the underground
and overground railway tracks
emptied
no children at play
no vehicles in motion
parked forever
a sky reprieved
and exonerated
is reflected in lakes
fountains and tributaries
where fish nervously return
and dolphins are anticipated
sea eagles ravens and sparrows
rule the high buildings
their glass blue
in the reconditioned atmosphere
quaking in expectation
learning to breathe again
sleeping cities
are secret cities
how conurbations are effaced
stifled by their inattention
buried under their obese ambition
as sleep comes to his dream
and the dreamt citizens
of the pestilent civilization
the last supermoon of the year
a flower moon
blossoms over a trembling stillness
and the lights are still on
AmeriCymru: Hi Paul and many thanks for agreeing to this interview. Many of your recent poems have been focused on the current Covid pandemic. Do you think that the British government has handled this crisis well?
Paul: My opinion is that the UK Government has made many mistakes in dealing with this crisis which ultimately have added to the casualty list. We were slow to enter lockdown, there have been major issues in the supply of Personal Protective Equipment to health and care workers, we were lethargic in setting up testing and the Government did not immediately protect elderly residents and staff in care homes. In short, virtually everything that could have gone wrong has. There has been a lack of honesty and transparency from the Cabinet. About the only positive response was the Job Retention Scheme where the Government effectively became the employer of millions of workers. In my view their general incompetence and laziness has allowed many thousands to die. A selection of people from the hamlet in which I live could have done better....
AmeriCymru: Has Wales fared any better (or differently) to the rest of the British Isles?
Paul: Wales seems to be adopting a more cautious attitude towards the relaxation of lockdown rules leading to a feeling that its Government is being more protective of its citizens than its English counterpart which appears to be more economy-led.
AmeriCymru: In your work, The Platitude Attitude we find the following line: 'Ground Control to Captain Tom' repeated twice at the end of the poem. Care to explain the Captain Tom reference for an American audience?
Paul: Captain Tom is Captain Tom Moore. 100 years old, a World War Two veteran of Burma and India who raised over £32 million for the National Health Service by doing a 100 lap walk of his garden. He is an inspirational figure at a time when our leaders were lacking in this quality. His selfless act illustrated how revered our NHS is but also the widely held realisation that it has been underfunded by the Government for a decade and therefore not necessarily at the best starting point for a pandemic.
AmeriCymru: Is The Platitude Attitude a poem of hope or despair (or both)?
Paul: Both. We have to move from despair to a better place. We have to remove a Government that thinks that 54,000 dead is a success. The crisis has illustrated how venal, corrupt and uncaring it is. But it has also shown that ordinary people have rediscovered a sense of community and worked together to mitigate some of the issues thrown up by the pandemic. I think that the break up of the United Kingdom is more likely as a result of the crisis and the way in which it has been mismanaged. The improvement in the environment is a source of hope and one we ought to continue.
AmeriCymru: You seem, in common with a number of his colleagues, to have a low opinion of the current British Prime Minister. What in particular inspired Amen , your equally humorous and vicious adaptation of 'The Lord's Prayer'?
Paul: I don't think the Prime Minister is up to the job. I believe the current Cabinet is the most untalented since 1938, chosen to push through a no deal exit from the European Union and little else. Our leader is a stranger to the truth and guilty of protecting the job of his chief adviser when he clearly broke lockdown rules that he helped draw up. I thought the Lord's Prayer was an appropriate vehicle for that poem as it is well known and Boris Johnson has such an inflated opinion of himself that such a satire was irresistible.
AmeriCymru: What particular event inspired your harrowing poem Remember the Young ?
Paul: This was a fairly early event as the figures were mounting up and panic had set in. It struck me because it was such a tragedy that a young child had died of a disease that we were told mainly affected older people. As the crisis worsened, the humanity of the tragedy shone through in individuals' tales. The loneliness of a Covid-19 death must be overwhelming and to lose a child in this manner must have been doubly heartbreaking.
AmeriCymru: What are you working on at the moment? Any new publications imminent?
Paul: I am working on new Coronavirus poems but am undecided what to do with them when complete. I am still working on the Gwaelod project with the artist Chris Rawson-Tetley and we are currently considering putting out a publication of the work. I am also still writing for the George Orwell-inspired project Room 103.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Paul: Keep safe and believe in a better world. Thanks for reading my work.
South Wales’ coal industry is world famous, and north Wales’ slate industry is recognised thanks to the Slate Museum in Llanberis as well as numerous publications celebrating its history. But what about the lost ore industry in mid Wales? Ioan Lord, author of a new bilingual book on the subject, Worn by Tools and Time: Ore from Mid Wales (Y Lolfa), hopes to bring attention to the history and the importance of the industry and its workers through his descriptive text and brand-new photographs of the underground world created centuries ago.
“The fact that such a small number of people – both local and nationally – are aware of the ore industry in mid Wales is one of the main reasons behind the book,” said Ioan Lord. “I hope that this will lead to more sites being safeguarded and protected. So many have been destroyed and landscaped over the years, it is important to try and save the remains that still exist. After all, they are monuments to hundreds of men, women and children who laboured in these places up to 4,000 years ago and continuing to destroy the remains is an affront to their memory and lives.”
Worn by Tools and Time: Ore from Mid Wales chronicles briefly the history of the ore industry in mid Wales and its role in Britain’s metal industry. The history of the industry, the people, the society and work conditions are told through photographs as well as archival and modern diagrams. The book contains stunning underground scenes which have not been seen before, with artefacts, tools and original material also recorded.
“Whilst researching I had the most incredible experience. I read the memoir of one of mid Wales’ last miners, which was recorded on tape in the 1970s. Following this, my friends and I went to try and find his old work site, as he had mentioned the details on the tape. We managed to dig through a large collapse at the entrance to gain access, the first time that anyone had been there for over a century. All the tools were still there; hats, shoes, tobacco pipes, a lunch box, and even their footprints in the mud on the floor. Linking these things with the old miner was thrilling”, said Ioan about his work.
Ioan believes that the reason that the history has been largely forgotten is due to a combination of it coming to an end more than a century ago (1870s –1910s) and the fact that the population who worked in the industry was relatively small.
“When the ore sites closed, the majority moved to work in the coal mines in south Wales. But when the coal mines closed, as well as being more recent and as a result the population was a lot larger, there wasn’t any work for the workers to move to. The result was that the ore industry in mid Wales was forgotten. Before the Industrial Revolution the mid Wales ore industry was well-known over Britain. This was one of the first industries to close because of cheap imports from abroad, but because it was surrounded by bigger industries which were still succeeding (coal, slate) it slipped quietly away.”
This is the first book to include such a wide variety of new underground photographs, which record all the ‘newly discovered’ sites that have not been seen for over a century. Many of the underground photographs in this book were taken after weeks of careful digging and searching, in order to gain access to these time capsules, where tools were left where they were by the people in the previous age, and not a soul has seen the items since they were left.
Ioan Lord was brought up in Cwm Rheidol, near Aberystwyth, which is located in the middle of an old ore site in mid Wales. His interest developed from a young age, as he explored the area and saw the old ruins of the ore industry. Ioan Lord is now studying for a Doctorate at Cardiff University in the Welsh History and Archaeology Department. He is Director of the Welsh Mines Preservation Trust and the Cambria Mines Trust. He lives in Cwm Rheidol.
Worn by Tools and Time: Ore from Mid Wales by Ioan Lord (£14.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.
Out Now! Rising Artist 'Dead Method' Releases New Alternative Pop Track - 'Babylon' 26/06
By AmeriCymru, 2020-06-27
 |
 |
https://soundcloud.com/deadmethod/babylon
Dead Method returns with their hotly anticipated new track Babylon, an assertive alternative pop anthem for outcasts and outsiders searching for their tribe. Taking influence from PC Music without falling back on cliche, the track was produced by Minas who has worked with Dan Betteridge, Tierny & Local to name a few.
The track is taken from Dead Method’s upcoming debut album Queer Genesis, which will release in September, 2020. The album is a celebration of LGBTQ+ culture and middle finger to oppression.
They say: “Babylon depicts a great exodus of queer people who have fled their home to find solace and family elsewhere. Drawing from my experience with a previous lover who was flown back to his home country when his family found out he was bisexual only to return as a “heterosexual” with an arranged marriage.
It was also influenced by the experiences of several of my friends who were unable to return to their home countries as they would not be safe. It’s about finding your true family and how members of the LGBTQ+ community get to pick their family despite our troubled circumstances.
Babylon is self-acceptance and finding a home outside of what society told you the concept of home is.” Babylon will be released on all digital stores on 26/06/2020
For more information on Dead Method:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeadMethodUk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeadMethod/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadmethod/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3B3cVlhfVXbKGC5YXlmUCn
