Ceri Shaw


 

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Click above or here to listen to the Beef Seeds winning cover

Today we are pleased and proud to present an interview with Newport and Wales' number one bluegrass band - The Beef Seeds

Not heard The Beef Seeds yet? Don't miss out! Click this link ...or this one

BREAKING NEWS: The Beef Seeds win Ryan Seacrest's Best Cover of Avicii's "Wake Me Up"!! To read the announcement go here

To hear their winning entry on YouTube click the pic above. On behalf of all at AmeriCymru I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate the 'Seeds' on a well deserved win.


Beef Seeds: The Interview

AmeriCymru: Shwmae y'all and many thanks for agreeing to talk to AmeriCymru. When was the band formed? Are you all local to the Newport area?
Beef Seeds: We formed the band early in 2013, although we'd been living together since 2012. our music really found a new direction and energy when Becky bought a double bass off eBay.
Miss Becky, Peet and Adam are all from the City of Newport, Scott "the showman" Bowman (banjo) is originally from Cefyn Forest in Blackwood, but he's been living in Newport for many years.
We met through college and local open-mic nights. Newport has a small but vibrant music scene, and we are part of a larger network of artists and friends. this gives us great freedom to express ourselves without needing a record label or major financial investor. YouTube is really changing the way people discover new music so when we had an opportunity to start broadcasting via the internet we really grabbed the bull by the horns.
AmeriCymru: How did you decide upon the name 'Beef Seeds'?
Beef Seeds: We all love food - Adam used to be a professional chef, Peet works in a restaurant and Miss Becky is great when it comes to baking at home ... Scott Bowman couldn't cook a noodle in a hot-tub, but he sure likes eating!!! so, Peet thought it would be cool if farmers could grow beef on trees, and in order to do that - you'd need to plant a seed ... a BEEF SEED!!!
We all loved the name straight away, so we jumped on it!
AmeriCymru: You perform bluegrass. Who would you say are your bluegrass influences? Any particular faves?
Beef Seeds: We've really been enjoying Larry and His Flask lately, and we found a guy called Ben Caplan on YouTube recently, he writes great music! Union Station, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley and the Osborne Brothers - Nina Simone, Alanis Morissette, Newton Faulkner, Toto, Jon Mayer and Bob Marley have all been on our playlists recently ... we jam all kinds of music when we're not making videos
AmeriCymru: You perform mostly cover versions on YouTube. Is there any particular reason why you concentrate on this?
Beef Seeds: We've learned from experience how hard it is to get original music noticed. obviously, you can post a recording of an original song online, but that doesn't mean you'll go viral overnight! we chose to do cover songs because more people pay attention to songs they already know. it's sad, but it's true! It's true on the live-circuit, and it's true on YouTube. nothing gets feet tapping like a song everybody knows, whather it's old or new
We're building a really solid foundation online, we're having loads of fun making the videos, and we're getting a great response from all over the world ... we couldn't be happier! we've got big plans for 2014 ... watch this space
AmeriCymru: I know you write your own songs too. Are there any plans for original recordings in the pipeline?
Beef Seeds: Certainly! we can't wait to get our own material out into the public domain! It's the ultimate goal for any band. we've just got to make sure the time is right, and the songs live up to the standards people expect from us.
AmeriCymru: What's next for the 'Beef Seeds'? Any plans to visit the US?
Beef Seeds: It will be a dream come true to come and play in the USA! We never thought we would come so far in such a short space of time, but the feedback we've received has been overwhelmingly positive!
We are a self-funded band, so the thought of getting it all sorted and financing the project ourselves is daunting ... but we have a lot of love for what we do, and we want our music to reach as many people as possible, so we are definitely going to come to the USA, just as soon as we can afford the paperwork.
AmeriCymru: Any final message for the readers and members of AmeriCymru?
Beef Seeds: One of the best things about releasing videos on YouTube is the channels of communication and opportunities for networking it opens up. We feel privileged to make links with organisations such as AmeriCymru. It really doesn't matter what side of the Atlantic you're on, or what part of the world you're in - music is a very powerful tool that brings us all together!
We'll continue to make music as long as people are enjoying our work ... so keep visiting our website @ www.thebeefseeds.com and check our YouTube channel every week to keep up to date with our latest videos!
Diolch am Wylio! cadwch yn Beefy!!!
(thanks for watching - keep it beefy)

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Welsh Pub Culture in Cambria Magazine


By Ceri Shaw, 2013-12-14

To learn more about the Welsh and Celtic culture, you should follow Simon Jones' excellent guides on the page linked above. Try and identify/guess the pub in which the action takes place if you can ...
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WCE Poetry Competition Extra!!


By Ceri Shaw, 2013-12-14

Peter Thabit Jones ( editor, Seventh Quarry Magazine and WCE Poetry Competition judge ) has announced that the 2014 Competition winner will be invited to submit 10 poems ( and a two page introduction ) for inclusion in a chapbook which will be distributed with the Winter/Spring issue of the magazine.

This will be a supplement to The Seventh Quarry and the winner will receive 20 complimentary copies of the chapbook. The rest will be distributed with the magazine.

This is a great opportunity to win international exposure. We must stress that the winner will be chosen from amongst the entrants to the WCE Online Poetry Competition and that contestants are NOT required to submit ten poems. The winner will be invited to submit ten poems for inclusion in the chapbook once the adjudication has taken place.


Further Details

  • You may submit up to five entries.
  • There is NO entry fee.
  • There is also a cash prize of $200 for the winner.

WEST COAST EISTEDDFOD ONLINE POETRY COMPETITION SUBMISSIONS PAGE


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Countdown to Christmas Sale


By Ceri Shaw, 2013-12-13

To our wonderful Customers & Friends.

This will be the final sale of the 2013 Christmas Season at Wise Choice British Foods! " Our deepest discounts of the Season."

Take advantage of this great offer - purchase any item from our 2013 Christmas Category and be rewarded with a 25% Discount. Purchase an amount greater than $150.00 and be rewarded with a surprise gift in your package from Santa Harry and his Elves Greg and Susan.

May we take this opportunity of thanking you for your business over the last 12 months, a very difficult period in the history of our business, but we have survived through your loyal support to serve you another year.

In the Welsh Tradition, Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Your friendly Wise Choice Staffers,
Harry, Greg, Susan and webmaster Chris James.

- VISIT OUR WEBSITE! -

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK!


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We would like to take this opportunity to thank Lloyd Jones for judging the Short Story Competition for the past five years. Diolch yn fawr Lloyd.


Today we are immensely proud and pleased to announce that in 2014, author Mike Jenkins will judge the entries in the West Coast Eisteddfod Online Short Story competition.

Poet, story writer and novelist. Mike is a former teacher at Comprehensive school level for nearly 30 years and is now a fulltime writer and is available for readings and workshops at any time. Mike has lived in Merthyr for over 30 years and was winner of an Eric Gregory Award in 1979 and the Welsh Arts Council Young Writers Prize in 1984. Mike also won the John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry and the 1998 Wales Book of the Year (English section) for Wanting To Belong (Seren, 2000), a book of interlinked stories for teenagers. He was a runner-up in Academi's 2009 Rhys Davies Short Story Competition.

He is a former editor of Poetry Wales and has coedited Red Poets magazine for many years. His latest novella The Fugitive Three centres on three young people in a South Wales Valleys estate whose stories intertwine and who, despite the odds, refuse to live lives of quiet desperation. It is fast-paced and written in a tight dialect in the third person narrative. Mike is a Fellow of Academi. Read his poem for Glyn Jones here .

Mike and painter Michael Gustavius Payne have recently been successful in an application to the Arts Council of Wales to tour a body of work across Wales in 2011 and 2012. The exhibition, currently being developed, will be titled 'Dim Gobaith Caneri', meaning no hope like a canary exploring ideas inspired by traditional Welsh idioms and phrases. Mike's latest book Barkin is a collection of poems and short stories published by Carreg Gwalch.'( Read our review of Barkin )


JOIN THE WCE ONLINE SHORT STORY

COMPETITION GROUP HERE


( You will need to be logged in to AmeriCymru to join the group. If you wish to enter externally please read the submission guidelines on the above linked page )

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Wales: Two Heroes and Treasures


By Ceri Shaw, 2013-12-09

Written and directed by Ifan Huw Dafydd. Following on from the success on YouTube of the excerpt from The Last Prince of Wales , Huw Davies would like to make it known that he still has several copies of the original full video available for sale. To purchase please contact Huw Davies via his AmeriCymru page here:- Huw Davies


An ideal aid for planning your itinerary when you next visit the land of your fore fathers.

We also hope that the DVD will be a valuable resource for Welsh learners the World over. Whilst impossible to make exact translations from any language to another, care has been taken to make both language commentaries as close as possible. Welsh learners will be able to hear the Welsh commentary spoken by a native Welsh speaker, whilst having an English translation on the other channel.


MADOG, our first hero. A visit to Dolwyddelan, the site of two Welsh castles and the birthplace of Prince Madog the discoverer of The Americas over 200 years before Columbus even set foot on a ship! We see the site of his birth and upbringing and follow his journey to Llandrillo-yn-Rhos, from where he departed for unknown lands in 1170.



LLANDDWYN ISLAND, an astoundingly beautiful location on the south western tip of Anglesey and the home of the patron saint of Welsh lovers Dwynwen. It overlooks the Menai Straits and the mountains of Snowdonia on the mainland. A place youll definitely want to put on the itinerary for your next visit to the Land of Your Fathers!



THE GOWER and the search for the RED LADY OF PAVILAND. Theres far more to the Red Lady than meets the eye - shes definitely no lady! But she does give us a chance to show you the gorgeous Welsh countryside of the GOWER peninsula, visiting Langland Bay, Three Cliffs Bay, Oxwich Bay, Port Eynon, Goats Hole, Worms Head, Rosili, and Penclawdd.



THOMAS TELFORDS FANTASTIC AQUEDUCT at FRONCYSYLLTE. Finished in 1805. An amazing feat of innovative engineering. In 2009 it was recognized as one of the wonders of the modern world when it joined the Great Wall of China as a World Heritage Site!. We also pay a quick visit to the home of the International Eisteddfod Llangollen.



Our last hero is fittingly LLYWELYN THE LAST PRINCE OF WALES. His death being the nadir of Wales history. We try to unravel the mystery that surrounds the last two days of his life. Was it treachery or chance? We visit Aberedw, and the ruins of another Welsh castle , the location of the enigmatic meeting that was to take place between Llywelyn and Edwards allies, the chase through the Welsh countryside to the fateful dingle at Cilmeri, and finally the grave where his headless body lies in the emotion filled ruins of Abaty Cwm Hir. Plus a bonus montage of photographs from around Wales set to Russell Sheppard playing the song thats close to every Welshmans heart and guaranteed to bring on a bout of inconsolable Hiraeth.



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Confessions Of A Romano-Celt?


By Ceri Shaw, 2010-08-15

With the recent revelations about new Roman finds at Caerleon I thought it might be a good time to revive an old post from the AmeriCymru blog. Certainly it seems that the Romans left their mark on that part of Wales in a big way.


As a Welshman and a student of Welsh history I am in the habit of raising a glass or two on significant dates in the Welsh calendar. In order to facilitate my predeliction I am in the process of developing an easy reference for celebrants of the Cymric heritage on these pages on our Welsh calendar blog. The concept of 'significant dates' is interpreted very liberally both in order to fill the available spaces and of course to maximise excuses for revelry.

I am endebted to the memory of Arthur Machen for one such recent opportunity. He was born on March 3rd 1863. Anyone not acquainted with the works of Arthur Machen should seek to remedy that deficiency immediately. There is plenty of info on his Wikipedia page here . He wrote several masterpieces of Gothic whimsy outstanding amongst which is "The Three Impostors" (1895). He is regarded as the 'missing link' between M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft by many afficianados of the genre. He is also the author of "The Hill Of Dreams" a semi-autobiographical novella which is by turns one of the most sublime, profound and hilarious products of late Victorian literature. Additionally his work offers fascinating insights into the social mores and customs of provincial life in late 19th century Gwent.

When I was an undergraduate, many decades ago, I had the pleasure and privilege to be tutored by the late great Gwyn A. Williams author of "When Was Wales", one of the definitive works on the subject of Welsh history and national identity. He was fond of referring to the present day inhabitants of Wales as "Romano-Celts", suggesting perhaps that the Welsh are in some way the beleaguered remnants of the once mighty Roman empire. Certainly pockets of something resembling Late Roman civilization may have lingered for a few centuries in places like Caerwent and Caerleon but for the most part I remained sceptical. It seems doubtful that the Roman influence penetrated the Welsh hinterland extensively and may only really have been significant in the immediate environs of the legionary forts and civitas capitals. Most of Wales' modern day inhabitants, in the South at least, are descendants of the English, Scots and Irish immigrants who came looking for work during the 'coal rush' from the 1850's onwards. It seemed fanciful to imagine that anything of Romano-Celtic vintage could have survived into the modern age.

Then I came across this fascinating passage in a volume by Machen:-

" When I was a boy, which is a good many years ago, there was a very queer celebration on New Year's Day in the little Monmouthshire town where I was born, Caerleon-on-Usk. The town childrenvillage children would be nearer the mark since the population of the place amounted to a thousand souls or thereaboutsgot the biggest and bravest and gayest apple they could find in the loft, deep in the dry bracken. They put bits of gold leaf upon it. They stuck raisins into it. They inserted into the apple little sprigs of box, and then they delicately slit the ends of hazel nuts, and so worked that the nuts appeared to grow from the ends of the box-leaves, to be the disproportionate fruit of these small trees. At last, three bits of stick were fixed into the base of the apple, tripod-wise; and so it was borne round from house to house; and the children got cakes and sweets, andthose were wild days, remembersmall cups of ale. And nobody knew what it was all about.

And here is the strangeness of it. Caerleon means the fort of the legions, and for about three hundred years the Second Augustan Legion was quartered there, and made a tiny Rome of the place, with amphitheatre, baths, temples, and everything necessary for the comfort of a Roman-Briton. And the Legion brought over the custom of the strena (French, trennes) the New Year's gift of good omen. The apple, with its gold leaf, raisins and nuts, meant: 'good crops and wealth in the New Year.' It is the Latin poet, Martial, I think, who alludes to the custom. He was an ungrateful fellow; somebody sent him a gold cup as a New Year's gift, and he said that the gold of the cup was so thin that it would have done very well to put on the festive apple of the day.

Well, I suppose the Second Augustan was recalled somewhere about a.d. 400. The Saxon came to Caerleon, and after him the Dane, and then the Norman, and then the modern spirit, the worst enemy of all, and still, up to fifty years ago, the Caerleon children kept New Year's Day, as if the Legionaries were yet in garrison. And I suppose that Caerleon was the only place south of the Tweed where people took any festal notice at all of the first day in the year. For it is not an old English festival at all. It is distinctly Latin in origin ."

So, it appears that in one small corner of Wales an ancient Roman tradition survived until the late 19th century...nearly 1600 years! A small thing, granted, but nevertheless perhaps I should raise a glass to Gwyn Williams on September 30th ( his birthdate) this year.

( The above quote is from "Why New Year?" anthologised in "Dog And Duck" by Arthur Machen. The complete text can be found on Project Gutenberg Here .)

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David Western's Portland Eisteddfod Lovespoon: THIS is a lovespoon!!! : "With the Left Coast Eisteddfod lovespoon somewhere in the air over the continental USA, I thought I would use the time before Laura gets ..." more here
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