The Otter's Nose

Welcome to Wales. Remember this little backwater of the UK? We've got sheep and hills and things. We also play Rugby and go bog-snorkelling.
But hey! We're cool as well. Did you know that? We've got the Manic Street Preachers, Catatonia, The Stereophonics....and other stuff which is not successful beyond Offa's Dyke Path so isn't worth mentioning. That means that Wales is cool! Ooh, best get out the bunting then....

Two years ago, Ron Davies gave a speech where he triumphantly claimed that being Welsh is cool! This is where the problem lies. Wales is not cool. It is a Principality, not a nation, and is full of cultural stereotypes - the sheep, the choirs, the melodious accent, the formerly glorious but now crippled industrial heartland. Yes it is. Nothing you can do about it so stop complaining.
Of course, dear old Ron came a cropper just a few months after this speech. As you know, he was diagnosed with a psychological condition that forces him to seek out dangerous situations. Surely this speech was a bit of an obvious signal that he was heading into a disaster zone. Announcing that Wales is oh-so groovy after only a mere inkling of success is just asking for trouble.

So it’s cool to be Welsh then? Frankly I don’t see it that way. Wales has become a zoo, a whimsical museum, a region of the country to be patronized. If I find another bloody American coming here to trace their ancestry I shall point out to them the regard they have for an indigenous culture – say, remember the Native Americans you brainlessly massacred? Oh well done. I’m Welsh. I’m happy to be Welsh but not proud of the way Wales is heading. I do not wear any labels, particularly nationalistic ones and I’m part of no club.

Thus the Welsh Media leapt on this one and exploited it for all it was worth. Some dozy git came up with the tagline "Cool Cymru" and almost immediately it all got terribly embarrassing. In much the same way that "Cool Britannia" became a byword for a load of half-baked ideas and a damp squib, Cool Cymru has only spawned ridicule. But the Welsh Media, the Taffia – the Welsh establishment, notorious for it’s narrow-mindedness and almost facistic hatred of anyone who stands up to them - and all the politicians searching for a crusade in the Welsh Assembly have rammed it down the Welsh Public's throat without pausing to consider how stupid this really is. All we're left with is a bunch of misinformed Taffy cretins who know something big is supposedly happening in Wales yet does not know what it is.

Tell you what, to prove my point go up to the valleys and stop the first person you see and ask them about Cool Cymru. Without pause they will go on about The Stereophonics, The Manics, Catatonia but go beyond that - the success of the Welsh National Opera, Julien Macdonald, The Welsh arts scene - and they are flummoxed. Ask them what Cool Cymru means to them personally and they will look alarmed and then repeat, like a foul mantra, the assertion that The Stereophonics et al are really cool.

You see, the general public over the last few years has become less and less savvy and more reliant on the media to give them opinions. You see, the blessed public believe that these bands are good because the media have told them so. And the public are very grateful because it saves them the time-consuming job of having to form their own opinions.

As such, the Welsh public has become apathetic. So we have three big bands. Big deal. There are plenty of other bands out there but no one really cares. What about Super Furry Animals? Not exactly setting the world on fire are they? They're pretty good though, but they don't get the same press as the Manics so nobody beyond their fanbase gives a shit. Gorky's Zygotic Mynic are great but ooh, they're a bit weird aren't they? Therefore, not as much press, so the public think they're crap without actually having heard them. This apathy stretches beyond pop music. Does anyone care about the nature of the National Assembly? Of course not. To the average Geraint up the valleys, the Assembly only means a bunch of people in Cardiff waffling on about petrol prices. But it allows Wales an excuse to feel independent. So that's OK then.

The Welsh Media is really pathetic though. Pick up the Western Mail and the Echo and if there's a story about an international star they will link them in the most tenuous way possible. David Gray has recently become quite successful. Good for him. According to the Western Mail, he's Welsh because he lived here for a few years. J.K. Rowling, author of those splendid Harry Potter novels, is claimed by the Western Mail as one of our own because she spent part of her life in Chepstow. Well give her the freedom of a grateful nation then. Remember the furore over Anthony Hopkins taking US citizenship? Apparently he has turned his back on Wales. Wake up people, he did that years ago. His US citizenship is indicative that he can get far more work in Hollywood than in Port Talbot. Well, durrr.....

The biggest culprit of this feeble self-praise has to be the Wales on Sunday. Why oh why oh why do they continue to go on about bloody Catherine Zeta Jones? Did the editor feel that her impending marriage to Michael Douglas was a direct rejection of Wales? Why don't they rename it the Catherine Zeta Jones News? And who cares where she gets married? If she doesn't get married in some grotty chapel in Swansea is that an insult to the "nation"? Of course not. She can get married wherever she bloody wants to. It is her wedding after all....

The Welsh Media heap so much praise on Wales on the basis of a few minor successes that it comes across as the actions of an insecure and attention-seeking nation. It is undignified and demeaning. We haven’t even got a decent Rugby team anymore! Wales is an insignificant region of Europe. What makes it think that it has the right to be a World leader? Does Wales think it is superior to, say, Luxembourg? It has no right to be so arrogant. But we should have if we play to our advantages.

We have a great classical music scene. What's that? Bollocks am I talking about Charlotte Church! I'm talking about composers like Dilys Elwen Edwards (whose work, may I point out, has been study pieces for GCSE music students). And then there is the work of John Metcalfe who not only composes frantically but also travels round Welsh schools giving valuable composition masterclasses, but also organises the annual Vale of Glamorgan festival which promotes the work of young Welsh composers.
What about the Welsh National Opera? Bloody hell, it's one of the finest opera companies in the World! Is there much regard for it? No, because Opera is seen as elitist and expensive. Well if the arts funding bodies would be prepared to award a decent funding level, maybe ticket prices could come down. Is that too much to ask?

What about Jazz? We have a Jazz scene in Wales that is to be proud of. There are, I grant you, plenty of talentless and arrogant players out there. But what about young Jazz players like Osian Roberts, now making waves up in London and internationally? Why does Terris get more press than a brilliant young Tenor Sax player who has the potential to take on the World’s best? Billy Thompson? Heard of him? He's a fabulous Jazz violinist who has won awards for his playing. Do you care? No, not at all because the Welsh have to have information shoved into their faces before they will accept anything. What about the established Jazz players in Wales who have to struggle to get their music heard: Paula Gardiner, Dick Hamer, Julian Martin, Dylan Fowler and so on. Every year, Brecon plays host to the Jazz Festival there where the Welsh talent plays on the same bill as the world leaders of jazz. And bollocks is it not accessible to the public. A few years back I saw the Maceo Parker All Stars. Who, you may ask, is the Maceo Parker All Stars? It's James Brown's fucking backing band of the 60s! All those classic funk hits! How much more do you need to comprehend the need to read below the headlines?? Love or loathe Jazz, once you have a music scene - irrespective of whether you like the genre or not - it is important to be aware of what goes on. This goes for Rock, Pop, Folk, Jazz, Metal, Dance, Hip-hop, Classical and on until the bloody end. Forget the established Manics et al, once they signed a recording contract they sold out and turned their backs on the Welsh. The fact that every idiot in the valleys labours under the mistaken belief that the Manics (and the rest) passionately Welsh. Here's news for you people - THEY ALL MOVED TO LONDON YEARS AGO!!

And the damage has been done. What have we got? Three bands which have made waves beyond the Seven Bridge. Does that constitute a vibrant music scene? I think not....

Let's be frank here people, The Manic Street Preachers have become the cock-sucking stadium rock band they secretly always wanted to be (and in the process have lied and misled a bunch of emotionally fragile solipsistic teenagers). Catatonia's career is based on a few strong singles and some albums chocked to the brim with filler material. The Stereophonics are a pub-rock band - nothing wrong with that per se but why the disturbing nationalistic hysteria surrounding a band that is more Bryan Adams than Bruce Springsteen?

It's not as if Wales boasts a proud rock n’ roll heritage. In the 60s we had Amen Corner and Mary Hopkin. In the 70s we had Budgie, Man and Racing Cars. In the 80s we had Steve Strange and The Alarm. Oh puh-leeeeez! These are hardly bands on the same global level as U2 or R.E.M. You know, the best thing Wales has to offer in terms of rock legendry is that Led Zeppelin rented a cottage near Machynlleth (Bron-yr-Aur) and proceeded to record some rockin' tunes - and yes, Stairway To Heaven was written at Bron-yr-Aur.

Anything else? Well nothing springs to mind. And unless you're prepared to tell me of anything else, I think it's safe to assume that Wales does not deserve the praise it lavishes upon itself.

Of course! How could I forget? We've got Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey. Surely they can save the day? Tom Jones is hip now. Why, for God's sake? A 60 year-old bloke desperately trying to cash in on some vaguely ironic cool notion. Yes, Tom is the finest Cabaret singer in the world but that doesn't mean he's hip in any way. That "Reload" album with its karaoke versions of wicked tunes with other acts is an insult to Tom's best work and smacks of a desperate search to remain on top of things. I mean, his cruddy renditions of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come" (a song about feeling ostracized at showbiz parties - a point that has gone whoosh over the top of people's heads and splat, has hit the wall behind them), and Lust for Life (Of course, Tom's had it in his ear before) just force the jaw to drop at their audacity. Only a ball-shattering version of Portishead's All Mine saves the day and Tom's credibility (not to mention the fact that it showcases Tom's not-inconsiderable vocal talents). The fact that Tom still enjoys hugely successful seasons in Las Vegas shows that despite all the hype and patriotic bullshit, he turned his back on Wales over 30 years ago.

Shirley Bassey is another one. She's just brought out an album of lame collaborations with popular bands and the reek of an industry trying to draw water from the same (stagnant) well is all too obvious. Shirley is also a fabulous entertainer in the classic mould of British stage performers - not the repellent Robbie Williams mould (ooh, I've got my arse out at an awards ceremony. I'm cheeky therefore I must be a good entertainer. Oh Robbie, you are so WRONG!!). Sadly the days of her belting out Goldfinger and being such a good sport on Morcambe & Wise are well and truly over. And while her recent collaboration with The Propellorheads (History Repeating) was top-notch, she will never hope to compete against today's bands unless she performs with some excellent material, which will not come from inside Wales.

Wales could become the new Scotland. Remember when there was a bunch of successful Scottish bands in the 80s? What has that left us with? Laughter at their bland MOR, that's what. All of them - Simple Minds, Ultravox, Big Country - may well have done ripper tunes but apart from the big singles, what do we remember apart from the fact that they all earnestly wore vests??
So Wales has done the usual thing of blagging a lift on the bandwagon - we have a lot of earnestly Welsh bands who can't do anything other than wave a flag. Oh dear. Scotland's best offering of the last few years is Belle & Sebastian - the wimpiest band in existence - and we have our own version in The Afternoons who are very nice and pretty but ultimately a pale version of the Belle's.

How can we be taken seriously when Wales has such an attitude of semi-achievement? How can bands have their careers furthered when A&R officers can't be bothered to get off their Coke-addled arses and catch a train to Wales? Why should Welsh (or bands from anywhere else for that matter) have to travel up to London, play a gig where no one gives a toss and then have to pay a fortune for the privilege?

Surely the best way to get the industry salivating would be to create an interesting and vibrant scene that forces the industry to come and see the bands that do exist. I'm right, aren't I? Thank God for the rise in independent record labels in Wales. FF Vinyl and the like are spearheading a revival in the Welsh scene's seriously flagging fortunes but they are fighting an uphill struggle. Most gigs away from the population centres in the south of Wales are hard to get to, expensive to organise and with no guarantee of local support. No wonder there is a North/South divide. The North has nothing out side of the University towns. In the South, there are precious few venues for bands playing original material and no-one prepared to give them any organisational support - unless the bands sound like a cheap imitation of what's gone before. Even our most hip bands of the moment are cheap imitations of other bands that were cheap imitations in the first place. We end up with cheap imitations of cheap imitations of cheap imitations and on and on ad infinitum/nauseum.
So we end up with a lot of poor quality music that is targeted towards the inbred mutants from up the Valleys - all loud guitars, shouty vocals and worthless nationalistic posturing by bands who in reality can manage only a few words of pidgin Welsh.
Of course, people in the Music Industry remind us constantly that the reason why we have such lowest-common-denominator music in Wales is because "it is a business". Notice that anyone who ever wishes to exploit any form of creativity for their own monetary benefit (and screw the people who actually do all the work) refers to it as a "business". The rest of us like to treat it as a beautiful art - well, the rest of us who want to create great music that is.

And thus the bigwigs in London, following devolution, decided to patronise Wales by giving us the wonderful gift of our own slot on "wonderful" Radio 1. Every Thursday poor old Huw Stephens does his best while the vacuous It-Girl antics of his co-host, Bethan....God, I've forgotten her surname. Oh I could bite my tongue out with rage at myself.
Anyway, Huw does his best to promote the ailing Welsh music industry while all over the World new music is springing up thanks to he the media explosion afforded by cheap home-made telly and the internet and cottage-industry record labels. Week after week, he graciously describes crap bands as being "mesmerising" whilst whatsername prattles on about how pissed she gets at weekends.
The introduction of the Evening Session in Wales has done two things:
1) Given the Welsh bands a platform to promote their music in Wales. But it is only transmitted in Wales. Why not extend it to the rest of the UK? At the moment, the Evening Session in Wales is like a gigantic back-slapping exercise for Welsh music. Let's get it out into the rest of the UK to get a really honest response. What are we afraid of?
2) All of the bands featured are vetted by the suits up in London. It seems that the only bands chosen are done so by the Steve Lamacq school of Crap Indie. What does this leave us with? Well, sessions by Tomsk. Tomsk?? What the hell is that all about? You know, it is really offensive to hear sub-standard bands making a racket like they want us to believe that they cannot play their instruments. It's far more pompous and arrogant to hear a band play like they just don't care than to hear a band who can play their instruments well and effectively.

Why do these bands still use punk as a template? Punk died out 20 years ago and everything it stood for has turned into the stench of corruption and exploitation. Anyway, they all grow out of it eventually and become a boring band who appear on Top of the Pops – witness the degrading site of the Manics playing songs that appear on Radio 2. Oh wow. How subversive. All those bands which wail aimlessly into a microphone whilst desperately trying not to appear as if they could play their instruments is embarrassing to watch. But hey, they mean it maaaaaan!
Of course, the moment they get snapped up by a record company, they’ll bite the dollar and become a Bon Jovi-type band. There is far more dignity and brilliance in bands that can really play. It doesn’t take much to find them.

The Welsh music scene is underfunded and undervalued. This is probably because of the lack of truly great bands out there. Wales gets the message wrong so often. We hear constantly of "attitude" being the key to success. I find the results of this misunderstanding unintentionally hilarious. What Welsh bands do is confuse attitude with rudeness. As a result, we have the likes of Terris spouting off about everyone else when they fail to realise how dull and basically average their music is. Pot & Kettle boys, pot & kettle.

We do actually have some great bands buried amongst the dross. FF Vinyl have landed themselves a winner with Rocket Goldstar. Here is a band that does some great and individual music as well as being a top live act and capable of pulling off some pretty tricky publicity stunts. For example, what about the famous Silent Gig at Chapter? Or the 12-hour session? That day brought together a whole range of Welsh bands to record one big long track (what a day that was!). Not only have they done all that, they have also released a fabulous EP and will shortly be bringing out an album.
There's Chris Rees who, whilst being a typically introspective singer-songwriter, is capable of being an excellent performer. There's Tystion - Welsh hip-hop! Could there be such a thing? There is now! - who are musically very exciting. What has held them back is an obsession with Welshness which unfortunately will never allow them to sell any more than about 800 records. Their principal rapper, whose name escapes me at the moment, could never compete with the likes of Ice-T or MC Kool Keith - Fear of a Black Mountain anyone? Straight Outta Coryton? Fuck the Heddlu? Mind you, John Peel likes them and they have always stuck to their beliefs and in this day and age of selling out, all I can wish for them is massive success.
There's Smokehand who do bugger all gigs but they have produced some utterly magical stuff in recent months. Their demo is currently doing the rounds at FF Vinyl and is well worth a listen, all jazzy noir and smoky, gorgeous ballads - a diametric opposite the crud that Wales is currently producing. While they don't get out much, you would be well advised to check them out when you can.

But there is so much rubbish around. OK, here's my shitlist of bad bands and maybe you could avoid them:

Mohobishopi – Noisy Art twaddle
Big Leaves – Incomprehensible Blandopop
The Manics – They suck
Murray The Hump – Booooooring!
Tomsk - Talentless
Terris – All talk and no trousers
Feeder – destined to be found in the "where are they now?" file

...funnily enough, a lot of the bands you see promoted all around us. Isn't that strange?

So here's my interesting list of bands. Check them out at all costs:

Rocket Goldstar – Funky, innovative and eclectic
Smokehand – Beautiful, frankly
Tystion – Fabulous musically and dedicated to what they do
Chris Rees – Great performer. Winsome tunes.
Gorky's Zygotic Mynci - Quirky
Tommy & the Chauffeur – Could be great one day. Watch this space.
Super Furry Animals – Keeping the flame alive for idiosyncratic pop

Why so? Because these are bands that make great and interesting music. Why not take the plunge and dare to be different? Just because they aren't being written up in big letters at the moment doesn't mean they are incapable of producing top tunes.

Dear reader, I urge you to ignore what you read and act on instinct. Wales has NOT got a good music scene thanks to the apathy of its public, the ignorance of the London-based record labels and the corruption of the local breweries determined to make more money out of karaokes than out of live bands. We want a scene but can't have it because it might open the awful can of worms that come with it i.e. hard work with no guarantee of success.

Oh well. Why bother then? Well folks, it's up to you to change this sorry state of affairs.

See ya.

The Black Rider

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