Anhrefn – 1st John Peel Session

Sion Sebon – Guitar/Vocals, Rhys Mwyn – Bass, Dewi Gwyn – Guitar, Hefin Huws – Drums/Backing Vocals

At the time Anhrefn received very little support or coverage through a very conservative Welsh media. This was the Bangor band’s first of three John Peel Sessions broadcast on BBC Radio One, and paved the way for other Welsh language Peel Sessions / airplay. This particular session was aired three times on the show during the latter half of 1986.

During a visit to London to promote the band and their label (of the same name), Anhrefn’s bassist (and acting manager) Rhys Mwyn introduced himself to John Peel;

“I was told that John was in a wine bar around the corner; as I entered the bar and caught Peel’s eye he greeted me with; ‘You’re not a mugger I hope,’ which kind of says a lot about him. I explained about the compilation of new ‘underground’ Welsh-language acts and a couple of days later he played Rhywle Yn Moscow by Anhrefn, which at the time felt like we’d actually made it!”

John Peel, who had Welsh connections himself through being in boarding school in North Wales and his father lived in Rhosneigr, was about to discover the Welsh scene. Rhys Mwyn sent him some demo tapes of his bands, and Peel began to realise that Wales had a music scene all of its own which was very much alive and well.

“Rhys had put together and sent me two worthwhile compilations on his own Anhrefn Records,” he remembers. “They were quite primitively produced in their way, because of the financial constraints the bands faced. However, when I eventually met Rhys, he was such a persuasive and dedicated person – the sort who just couldn’t be ignored – that he started me off on Welsh music. Before that I had zero interest.”

Sion (pic above) introduced each song in Welsh then translated them into English, explaining what they were about for the Radio One listeners

Tracks aired – 1. Action Man / 2. Dawns y Duwiau /3. Defaid /4. Nefoedd Un (also called, Teimladau)
Recorded: 1986-07-22.
Broadcast: 04 August 1986.
Repeated: 20 August 1986 and again, 22 December 1986.

Anhrefn are featured in the NME

 

FUTURAMA 4 at Deeside Leisure Centre

(posted by paul evangelista on facebook)

The Futurama Festivals ran from 1979 – 1983, with an extra one in 1989, and were basically a who’s who of post punk and it’s many sub genres, as well as throwing a few curveballs at its audience by including the likes of Hawkwind, Bay City Rollers and, erm… Gary Glitter.

I was lucky enough to go to all six of them and they provided me with some of the best weekends in my life.

By the time the 4th festival came around it relocated to Deeside Leisure Centre, which converted to a gig venue by the simple expedience of rolling a carpet across the ice rink that covered the main hall, meaning that just a few centimetres underfoot was a layer of frozen water, resulting in cold feet for all attendees.

With it being so close to Liverpool, Futurama 4 featured many bands from there, including Dead Or Alive, China Crisis, Cook the Books and The Cherry Boys. One of the festival’s oddest sights was Dalek I Love You who, despite being a chance to play the main stage in front of thousands of people, opted instead to play in the foyer, behind a layer of camouflage netting.

For some reason, first day headliners New Order decided to go on before Blancmange and played a brilliant set. I thought this would mean that Blancmange would play to an emptying hall but instead kept a huge crowd entertained in an early glimpse of how likely their breakthrough was.

Day two gave space to the emerging goth scene, giving important exposure to Southern Death Cult, Sex Gang Children, Danse Society and March Violets. I remember the SDC crew puffing on a large peace pipe full of weed and emitting huge plumes of smoke thereafter, that, despite my asking nicely, they refused to let me sample.

Sitting on carpeted ice all day was a bit of a challenge and Saturday was spent in the sports hall, rolling out our sleeping bags onto the shiny wooden floor. One interesting sight on the Sunday morning was a very ‘alternative’ looking couple standing up completely naked and fashioning clothes for the day by folding a large piece of fabric around themselves to make harem trousers and a top. Well it beats breakfast TV by some distance I suppose.

On the Sunday night we were refused this accommodation and had to find somewhere outdoors to sleep. After wandering across fields for a while, we settled underneath a convenient bridge. Upon making our way to the train station the next morning, we noticed that we’d missed falling into a huge hole by a matter of feet.

Musically the weekend looks very much a game of two halves, but lineups featuring seemingly disparate bands were quite common back then, and all bands got a good reception and a large crowd to play to.

Our very own Marc Jones tried to bring the Futurama Festivals back a few years ago, but was scuppered by Covid and its after effects, which is a huge shame because they were wonderful weekends full of friends, music, drink and other mind altering substances and I miss events of this kind.

Seventeen gig cancelled

 According to The Alarm Archive, the band Seventeen—formed in Rhyl in 1978 and later the precursor to The Alarm (featuring Mike Peters)—had a gig scheduled at the Coach House Club in Huddersfield on 27 July 1980, supporting The Scene. However, that performance was cancelled, reportedly due to an ongoing DHSS dole violation investigation affecting the band.

The band members were all officially unemployed at the time, and the Department of Health and Social Security had hauled them in, stating that by playing gigs, they were actually working.