Notes on Welsh Culture "Scorcher"

Welsh Rock at the moment is almost exclusively aimed at middle class children rather than working class kids”  Scorcher 1982.

Scorcher was a South Wales prototype to Class War, more paper than fanzine but still an indie print. It shared the same editor in Ian Bone, one of the funniest people I have ever met in my life and according to the Right Wing Press at the height of Class War, one of the most dangerous men in the UK. If you really want to know the defenition of funny, you can by-pass the current crop of Welsh comic standups and go straight for Bone's autobiography "Bash The Rich".
This is both a brilliant read and a hilarious call to arms.

A few editions of Scorcher leaked out around 1982. Bone had co-written the lyrics to the first Anhrefn single as "No Peace" which we had then translated and adapted into the Welsh Language as Dim Heddwch, the rare (these days anyway) green vinyl 7" which we released on Recordiau Anhrefn

I had met Bone initially down in Ladbroke Grove during his Living Legends phase and we obviously shared some common ground - mainly in the shit-stirring department. Bone had attended and actually promoted a few of the early shambloic Anhrefn gigs and we'd always stayed in touch.

As a young Archaeology student in Cardiff. I once again came accross Bone, who had now relocated from Ladbroke Grove to downtown Cardiff. This is when Scorcher got off the ground and I was invited to contribute an article on the state of the Welsh Music Scene.

In effect this was the first major English Language platform that I had been given, and although our Welsh Language version of the Sex Pistols / Clash handbook / manifesto had had a few airings on the underground Welsh Language fanzine scene no-one beyond our very small circle of Underground converts had really had an opportunity to hear the new manifesto.

Bone obviously made it clear that this had to be hard hitting and shit-stirring or it would not get past the post. I willingly obliged and used part Jamie Reid, part Julie Burchill and quite a lot of Ian Bone to launch an all out attack on what we endearingly called the "hippies" in the Welsh Media.

As writing goes it was pretty poor, pretty crap, but the sentiments were good. It was a no holds bar assault on BBC Wales, HTV and the fledling S4C. All the producers and presenters at that time seemed to have been ex-members of Welsh Language bands that had never really appealed to any of us young upstarts. Ironically these same "old farts" as we called them are now the shining beacons of CD collections such as "Welsh Rare Beat" products of the revisionists, dare I suggest Manc Revisionists - who were not Welsh Youth in 1977-1982.

Fact. Y Diliau were never cool. Llygod Ffyrnig were cool. Trwynau Coch and Jarman were pretty cool but never ever was anything produced by Derek Brown cool - sorry folks.

Our battle was to regain that territory, in exactly the same way as the Sex Pistols and the Clash had to reject Pink Floyd or the Beatles and Stones in 1977. The revisionists would have us believe that Pink Floyd were more cool than Joy Division just because of some whimsy Welsh Folk revivalists .... again sorry folks that was not the case and without the Welsh Underground Scene there would never have been Cool Cymru.

They can all love Datblygu now. Then it was a different story. I can't ever remember Dave and myself having conversations about how brilliant Heregest were - it was Geraint Davies from Hergest, then a BBC producer who after all banned Datblygu, Cyrff and Fflaps while John Peel gave them Sessions. Stick that in the Rare Bits Pipe.

God it feels like I'm being spirited back to 1982. Maybe Ian Bone has possesed the keyboard.

Conclusion, not a very good piece of writing but quite funny. But, and this is the big BUT, the Welsh Scene went into collective panic / hysteria - you see they knew no one read the Welsh Language fanzines but they were obviously aware that someone, maybe even a lot of peole might read Scorcher.

All the sudden our manifesto was a little bit "overground".

Quite funny really and actually a good lesson for anyone wishing to raise issues about Welsh Culture today - write in English - they take notice then !