ECTOGRAM release I Can’t Believe It’s Not Reggae

(The actual release date is a bit sketchy - I have it as today, other sources state 1st July - but I'm always right, so the rest of you can all fuck off)

It had to happen. Having wowed us so spectacularly with Super Furry Animals, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci and their overhauling of glam and prog, it was never going to be long before top Welsh imprint Ankst uncovered yet more native talent, and accordingly, selected another unsuspecting age-old genre they could unleash it on.

This week: Krautrock. Sort of. Your hosts are the crazed dudes of Ectogram; who don’t so much carefully subvert Germanic noodlings as break into their local school’s music department and run riot with them for ages. And then a bit longer.

This is a colossal tinkle-fest of a debut, which starts out with the rumble of a vacuum cleaner and erupts into a series of open-ended improv jams – including prog-rock monastery chants (“This Is How It Is”), a befuddling bilingual tribute to Syd Barrett (“Syd – who’s a bit of a spiritual forefather here) and numerous other instinctively fused organic grooves.

Things – though they’re not exactly great – are at least unfamiliar. Wrer you to suggest they were a bit like Mercury Rev as folk-obsessives with a mystic Celtic grandma on vocals, you’d be fairly close. But what Ectogram are up to is continuing a tradition of resourceful and somewhat odd Welsh music; the “in” sound from way, way out… through a valley, up several large hills and into a strange spiritual spot only normally inhabited by a goat, three druids and Julian Cope.

Definately not reggae. (6)
(N.M.E., 20.07.96)

ANKST 069

Valstumps release Cadwyn EP at Neath Eisteddfod

Valstumps were Huw Roberts – Rhodri Llywelyn – Gareth Roberts – Llywelyn Roberts – Gareth Williams. 

The summer of 1992 was a turning point in the musical experience of 6 boys from Bangor. Even though playing in a group was not a new experience for them, but the use of the unusual name of Valstumps started a new phase for the group. 

The musical backgrounds of the individual members of the band helped them form their unique musical style. They made their first public appearances playing in Bangor’s small clubs & pubs with unusual English-language groups; singing in Welsh added to Valstumps’s originality in the city’s English rock scene. 

Finding a way into the Welsh Rock Scene was the group’s ambition, this was achieved when the group won the main prize in the new groups competition at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelwedd 1993. 

This helped the band’s development – after this, the band started to appear more on stage with the “big groups”, they recorded one of their songs for the Welsh Language Society’s compilation tape called – Oi! Gwrandewch Arna I! (Oi! Listen To Me!). 

They also received a grant to record their own tape in Les Morrison’s studio, the result was this tape, called Cadwyn (Chain), on Madryn Tapes and released in the Neath Eisteddfod of 1994.
After this they disbanded and went off to college.

Smash Apathy 1994

Smash Apathy – was a campaign in the mid-90s led by Rhyl band GMX Stuns & Llanrwst band Meringue to awaken North Wales to the fact that the scene was dying through apathy. Widespread media coverage and countless gigs ensued, and even a 7" single!

The clip above was filmed at the Swallow Falls Hotel in Betws-y-Coed in July 1994 and aired on Inside Out - a TV show that was a 30-50 minute deep dive into specific local stories, replacing the national focus with a purely regional one.

Smash Apathy's goal was to push bands and concert-goers "off their arses" and promote a DIY (Do It Yourself) ethos. The aim was to foster a more vibrant, supportive, and collaborative music community in North Wales. And the core of the campaign was organising an actual Smash Apathy Tour with local bands playing together in regional venues.

Several bands from the area were key to the campaign and the tour, including: 

GMX Stuns

Meringue (an indie band from Betws-y-Coed)

Sigmoidoscopy (from Rhyl)

The Immediate (from Mold)

The Innocents

Mr Grimsdale

Numb

Sons Of Selina - debut at Cil-y-Bryn Festival, Llanefydd

 

Cil-y-Bryn isn’t Glastonbury, but to us that night it might as well have been. Tucked away in a fold of the hills between Llanefydd and Betws-yn-Rhos, Chris Godfrey’s farm had become an unlikely stronghold of rural rebellion. Chris lived off the land and ran the farm like a commune outpost: cows in one field, sheep in another, and a couple of Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs wandering about like they owned the place. Once a year, despite the grumbles and protests of neighbouring farmers, Chris turned his barns and paddocks into a miniature festival site, where friends of friends of friends gathered to swap smoke, drink home-brew, and forget that Wales was supposed to be quiet.

On 16th July 1994, a bit of history slipped into that picturesque valley. At 10:15pm, in the main barn — its rafters strung with fairy lights and the air thick with spliffs and the smell of livestock — the Sons of Selina played live for the very first time. It was also the first time Neil, Cumi and Robin had shared a stage together since the messy demise of 4Q almost four years earlier. Whatever happened from then on, this was a crossing point: the birth of one band on the ashes of another.

The line-up that night was patched together with instinct and necessity. Steve Sync was away at the Phoenix Festival, so the set was heavy on guitars. Neil took vocals, Robin shouldered one guitar, Martin another, Bonehead a third, and Ken Maynardis anchored it on bass. Cumi, behind the kit, drove the whole thing from the back with his off-kilter precision.

Neil later admitted he was “extremely pissed” — the free-flowing vats of farm-brewed beer saw to that — and the set lurched with cock-ups galore. But somehow, the mess and the energy only fed into the spirit of the night. The Sons weren’t about polish; they were about atmosphere, about making noise that seemed to warp and bend the barn walls. At one point, Neil grabbed a beam and sang half a song hanging upside down from the rafters, belting out On A Promise as if gravity itself had become part of the performance.

The crowd — a shifting blend of hippies, punks, locals and out-of-town heads — cheered it all along. Nobody cared if the notes were right. It was about being there, about seeing something that hadn’t existed yesterday suddenly take form in front of them.

The festival had started earlier with Babakin, a Colwyn Bay outfit who churned out a punky-indie set. Their frontman had sparks of talent on guitar and voice, though the rhythm section left something to be desired. After the Sons, Clan Morrigan took the stage, still trying to carry the torch left behind when You Slosh disbanded. By then, Neil and the rest of the Selinas had drifted off towards The Bistro in Rhyl, chasing beer and conversation rather than smoke and drum circles.

But it didn’t matter what came after. The night belonged to that first Sons of Selina performance: drunk, frantic, teetering on collapse, but alive. As the sheep grazed outside, oblivious to the din, the barn in Cil-y-Bryn became the unlikely birthplace of a band that would carry the torch of space punk noise and mischief into the next chapter.

Skinflick burn down The Dome

 

Skinflick, Grot and Vaffan Coulo somehow got a gig at The Dome in Caernarfon.

The venue originally opened as The Majestic Cinema, a grand "super cinema" in Caernarfon that seated over a thousand people. It closed in 1984 and was later converted into a nightclub. It was renamed The Dome in its final years as a nightclub. 

Skinflick lay claim to playing there a couple of weeks before it burnt down, but I'm pretty sure the fire happened in 1994, correct me if I'm wrong.

DID YOU PLAY OR GO TO THIS GIG? LET US KNOW

Vaffan Coulo, Skinflick, Grot at The Normandie, Bangor

 

Did anyone go to this gig? Can you share your memories?

Both Vaffan Coulo and Skinflick were/are Bangor bands, with Grot hailing from Ynys Mon

Justin Skinflick wrote this on his blog:

I no longer have the poster, but I'm pretty sure the lineup was the iconic three: Vaffan Coulo, Skinflick and a new band called Grot, an absolutely superb three-piece metal band. This gig went smoothly, a good turnout, and no threats of violence or shutting us down. We wanted to do more.

The Students' Union weren't keen on us doing more regularly, so we needed a home—a place we could do a show a couple of times a month. Word got back to us that a pub in lower Bangor called 'The Normandie' had a back room we could rent for £40 a night. It was a strange room, quite narrow. It had a telephone box, a cage with a giant toy monkey in it, and a second floor with seating that overlooked the tiny drum riser stage. It was perfect. We begged, borrowed and stole whatever equipment we could to create a makeshift vocal PA and started putting on gigs. Bands were coming out of the woodwork, new people were turning up, and gigs were being run weekly. We barely had time to actually write music as we were organizing shows all the time. We started pulling in some bands from farther away to keep it interesting. One night we had seven bands playing, the place was pushed way beyond its maximum capacity, people everywhere. It was so hot in there that sweat was running down the walls. There was a tiny moshpit, and someone dived off the top of the telephone box. Everyone came together as one big family; it was bliss.

Vaffan Coulo in The Bangor Mail

 

Vaffan Coulo – Formed 1991. Feat; Trifle (voc,gtr), Nick ‘Bicko’ Redfern (gtr), Mikey (drms), Kerz (bass). Debut at Ffridd Bar in Bangor. Thrown off for playing song called Shit Student Wankers, police called etc. Tours of Spain & Holland ’96,‘97 almost killed the band. 3 videos for TV: ‘92 Rhedeg I Dwygylfylch” for S4C; 1995 Rich Woman Will You Marry Me for Electric Chair on HTV; 1997 “Hwyl a Helynt” for S4C. Three radio Cymru sessions, 92; 95; 96. Rel 1994 “Vaffan Coulo Yn Goch”(Madryn 015) – 4 song EP. / 1995: “Rich Woman“(Madryn 016) – 3 track 7”. / 1995: “Cowboys Cymru” (Dav120) – cassette album for Mid Wales record label / 1996: “Fast Multiplying In The Skin” (Extune/Tontrager) – split 12″ with German band Ultra Orange on German label / 1996: “Vaffan Coulo” – import LP on Crime Recs (Slovenia) which reached no.4 in the Slovenian Alt Chart / 1995: Jobs 4 The Bois – free flexi soundclash with dance producer Johnny R, released as a ltd edition of 1200 on the front of Sothach! magazine, some of which were given free with Rich Woman. Band split in around mid 98 & had songs remixed by Skinflick. (see also Slater). Kerzy (Jo Shooman) went on to work for Spank Recs and form Katzenmusik. The band are featured in Ian Glasper’s book ‘Armed in Anger’ (2012). (more) (live track from 1992)