This rant first appeared as a guest Blog on link2wales http://link2wales.co.uk/2013/crudblog/blog-rhys-mwyn-is-welsh-culture-fucked/#more-15343
It's what I call 'Press Repeat' but every now and again that button get's pressed ...........
I’m going to
leave it to the great, late Tony Wislon to start off the proceedings, ever the
Situationist and brilliant Regionalist, Wilson also knew how to give a good
quote :
“Punk enabled you to say
‘fuck you’, but somehow it couldn’t go any further. It was just a single,
venomous one syllable, two-syllable phrase of anger. Sooner or later someone
was going to want to say more than ”fuck you”. Someone was going to want to say
‘I’m fucked’. And it was Joy Division who were the first band to do that, to
use the energy and simplicity of punk to express more complex emotions.”
So indirectly
it’s Wilson that has inspired this piece of rambling thoughts, a
psycho-geographic wander through the overgrown hedgerows and muddy back country
lanes to this signpost point today, the Welsh cultural landscape (although they
claim it can only be done in the Urban Landscape, Mike Parker has proved
otherwise in ‘Real Powys’)
Wilson and
Joy Division do have a cultural link, this is not all abstract thoughts /
ranting of a wandering scholar, for it was New Order who headlined the inaugaral
No 6 Festival in Portmeirion was it not – from Manchester to Gwynedd in about
34 years.
The Post-Punk
Revolution (1979-83) of D.I. Y culture,
fanzines and Record Labels of which Factory of course and neighbouring Zoo
Records in Liverpool absolutely blazed the trail and not only entertained us in
North Wales but informed us that we
could indeed seize control, not so much of our own lives, but of our own
culture.
Welsh Culture
that complex mix of ‘Cymraeg’ which refers to the Language, and ‘Cymreig’ which
refers to the place had, by my late teens, turned me off. Forgetting the
clichés, which incidentally are pretty damned true, a generation of Welsh
speakers had been left with what Gruff Rhys so accurately describes as the “Denim
dinosaurs”. Punk had passed Wales by (mostly) and as we turned to the pages of
The Face to read about Culture all we could do was wish for this in Welsh (yn
Gymraeg).
This brings
us back to Wilson, or Bill Drummond or even Geoff Travis at Rough Trade, it
became possible by copying and learning from English Regionalism / Punk /
Post-Punk Culture to re-invent Welsh Culture. This surely should be a subject
for University debate and analysis – but they do not do this kind of thing in
Welsh Universities do they ?
The fanzine
became the antidote to Pobl y Cwm. Simplistic maybe, hugely ineffective for
sure, but slowly but surely the underground gained momentum. D.I.Y gigs became
more common than Welsh Gigs organised by the established promoters of the day.
No radio play really, only on John Peel, no media coverage to speak of – it did geniuinely grow from the ground up
from the late 70’s to flourish in the mid – late 80s.
The Welsh
Denim Dinosaurs had by this point given up on strumming guitars and had decided
to jump on the S4C train (with good dollop of gravy added). None of these
people had done more than go to Welsh Universities and played in poor Welsh
bands but they now became Film Directors anyway or so they thought. I still to
this day find this totally unbelievable, laughable and it is something that has
never ceased to fill me with contempt –
and they wonder why viewing / listening figures are going down ? That has to be
another psycho-geographic detour just to start dealing with all that stuff ……
The new Welsh
bands of the late 80’s and 90’s morphed into the ‘Cool Cymru’ bands by the
later 90’s and shook the World, everywhere really - excpept the Welsh Language
World. True they by-passed the Denim Dinosaurs but end result was bi-lingualism
which let’s face it meant the odd token song or album in Welsh. Welsh bands now
sung in English and ever since Welsh Bands have been bi-lingual and largely
non-political. Welsh people confuse Cymraeg and Cymreig.
Nothing
changed, Can i Gymru continued and continues. The Denim Dinosaurs now claimed
to have always liked “Ffa Coffi Pawb” but they still run the damned show, them
or their offspring, but it’s the same cultural death sentence of average,
narrow vision, amateur, un-inspired shite (mostly).
I was out
with artist Iwan Gwyn Parry the other evening and we discussed the brilliant
BBC 4 film ‘The Mountain that had to be
Painted’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01173rm about Augustus John and James Dickson
Innes who came up to paint Arenig in 1911. As far as I know this story has
never been dealt with in Welsh. This is really my point, we are presented with
too narrow a vision – what ever happened to ‘Popeth yn Gymraeg’ that was truly
an inspirational concept…….. but it has been lost in translation ……
Whenever S4C
are threatened with cuts, out come Cymdeithas yr Iaith to save ‘Achub S4C” but
we never seem to ask the question, what exactly we are trying to save ? Surely,
surely we now need to talk about a Welsh Content Provider – a multi-platform
provider of Welsh Language content– the Age of the TV Channel is over – just
like the age of Gwynfor Evans – it’s gone, redundant and as far as the youth
are concerned – it’s another language. This argument also applies to BBC Radio
Cymru, and most Welsh Language Media really …..
If we don’t
expand the cultural horizons and increase choice in Welsh content then we will
be fucked. It’s already apparent from Welsh Medium Schools that they
successfully teach Welsh to the pupils but that they are increasingly
disconnected form the Language as an everyday cultural medium.
Still the
Denim Dinosaurs know best. Does this always have to be a Media argument. Well,
the Media is highly influential. It’s Public Money. It’s their fucking job !
Blogging and You Tube are fine but it’s like the fanzines of the late 70’s why
should there not be a radical democratization of Welsh Media ? The key is
content, maybe viewer / audience
generated content.
It has to be
a radical change – not about presenters and commissioning editors and facelifts
– it needs a revolution which is in tune with my children who are 9 and 10
years old – they NEVER EVER watch S4C no matter how hard we try. It’s a full
circle, my mother once tried to persuade me to watch a documentary on Edward H
(before S4C) but I had already seen Debbie Harry on Top of the Pops, my life
had already changed.
Recommended Reading
:
Parker, M,
2011 ‘Real Powys’
Hauser, K,
2008 ‘Bloody Old Britain, O.G.S Crawford
and the Archaeology of Modern Life’
Chamberlain,
B,1987 ‘Tide-race’
Williams,
J.L, 2008, ‘Michael X’
McIntosh, A,
2001 ‘Soil and Soul’
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