LITMIR.BIZ

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in reach. There was clearly a gap for a label that could sit between the goalposts; and that label was Ankst.

      Ankst Records was set up as an independent operation by Alun Llwyd, Gruffudd Jones and Emyr Glyn Williams while they were students at Aberystwyth University. The three of them were music fans rather than musicians themselves – indeed, they had no desire to become musicians – and therefore they were free to stay in the background and concentrate on nurturing artists.

      ‘Ankst were absolutely crucial,’ says Gorwel Owen today. ‘They created a space for the creative process to happen, which is one of the most important things that a label can do.’

      The founders of Ankst quickly established it as a launch pad for the new generation of Welsh pop, folk and hip hop – and, being massive fans of Ffa Coffi Pawb – soon approached them with a record deal for two EPs.

      ‘Gruff is one of those natural musicians – he’s never going to stop writing pop songs,’ says the label’s co-founder Emyr Glyn Williams. ‘Even back then the songs were catchy, clever, psychedelic and musically ambitious. He wanted to make great albums, as he still does now. So for us it was a safe bet to help them, and work with them. They were one of the best bands around at the time, and we were big fans.’

      Although Ankst had initially run a Welsh-language-only policy, the emergence of bilingual bands such as Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci had prompted them to reconsider. ‘I think it was the bands that changed Ankst,’ says Emyr. ‘We responded to the circumstances, particularly with Gorky’s because they were bilingual from the beginning, and quite naturally so.’

      Ankst were super-enthusiastic about Gorky’s, a band of teenagers from Carmarthen, South Wales, with massive potential. Getting them played on Radio Cymru was another matter, however: it was left to rebellious, late-night DJs like Nia Melville to play them. ‘She had great taste,’ says Gruff. ‘It wasn’t anything to do with language, it was just whether she liked the music or not. Radio Cymru scrapped the show after a year because they thought it was too weird – they couldn’t see how pioneering it was.’

      Oblivious to the arguments happening around them, Gorky’s mixture of folk, psychedelic Dadaism and Fall-inspired rock immediately clicked with a young audience both in Wales and England, and suddenly the NME and John Peel counted themselves among the band’s supporters. This was something new.

      ‘The NME had looked to Wales on and off before this,’ says Emyr. ‘It would usually be an overview with a few bands, but then those bands would never really have careers – they’d never be able to make the albums and keep going. And the interest would be “We’ve done our article on Welsh bands now” – and that would be it.

      ‘With Gorky’s [the music press] saw what we saw: they were a young, extraordinary band – and I think some of the journalists fell for them, like they became their favourite band. The Welsh thing never got in the way for them, because Gorky’s weren’t stridently political like other Welsh bands, they were quite different.’

      While Gorky’s were attracting the attention of the London music papers, Ffa Coffi Pawb had arrived at the end of the road. Over the course of two albums with Ankst their sound had evolved into blissful, reverb-drenched bubblegum pop, owing as much to The Jesus and Mary Chain as to Big Star. However, where this melodic direction had once felt fresh against the backdrop of avant-garde and punk bands, the band eventually came to suspect that they’d become too conventional – and were letting audience expectations lead the way.

      Rhodri attempted to head off this suspicion by rebelling against melody: under the influence of dark industrial bands like Nitzer Ebb, he began playing sets full of gnashing distortion and droning single notes.

      This was a new lease of life for the guitarist, but it wouldn’t be long before a more literal lease of life – the arrival of his first baby – would distract him from the band. Increasingly, Gruff and Daf were beginning to find themselves alone in the studio to cover what instruments they could. The band’s convictions took a further knock every time they heard the weird electronic music coming off Gorwel Owen’s stereo: surreal, progressive music with samples and twisted beats. By these standards, the band that Gruff and Rhodri had started five years previously sounded suspiciously traditional.

      Ffa Coffi Pawb played their final gig at the Builth Wells Eisteddfod in 1993, with Gorky’s supporting and just over a thousand people in attendance.

      In the sleeve notes to their final album, Hei Vidal!, they addressed the conundrum they faced directly – but also hinted at the future: ‘I mean for f’sakes it’s 1992, and what are we? Mods, rockers, post-mod rockers? Why aren’t we making techno records?!’

      

      Later that summer, Gruff was sitting on the roof of a train – speeding briskly through the luminous green forests of Mid Wales. Sitting up alongside him was a teacher he’d met at the party below – a party which they both agreed was crap.

      The plan had been simple: Gruff would assist a band of hedonists in transporting a crate of booze between Llanuwchllyn and Bala, after which he could either crash at the party or split with his share of the crate. Something had gone wrong, however: the hedonists had drunk the booze on the train, and subsequently gone out of their minds. Gruff and the teacher – who was equally embroiled and equally confused – had no option but to sneak politely out of the window.

      Still, the roof of the train was a serene place to be, and while the teacher explained that he, too, played in a band, Gruff experimented with lifting a beer up to his face, using the force of the wind to surf it towards his mouth.

      Suddenly, however, the train began to puff to a crawl. Gruff raised an eyebrow at the teacher.

      ‘Let’s get down!’

      They sky-dived back through the window, kicked the cans under the seats and neatened their shaggy hair. Seconds later, the guard came in and slammed the door behind him.

      ‘Right, lads,’ he said with vaguely sadistic enthusiasm. ‘Who’s been sitting on my train then?’

      After a few seconds’ pause for thought, a hand lifted up from behind a seat, and pointed at Gruff. Then another hand appeared, pointing at the teacher. The two accused could not quite believe what was happening: this was not Spartacus. This was the opposite of Spartacus.

      ‘Right! You two, out!’

      Gruff and the teacher stood in the middle of the tracks as the train pulled away, slowly coming to terms with their new environment. The situation didn’t look promising: the horizon stretched for miles with field and forest, the sun was fading, and to make matters worse a crow was hopping about in front of them.

      ‘We’re fucked,’ concluded the teacher. ‘That crow is definitely a sign that we’re fucked.’ The two of them estimated that it was an hour’s walk to Bala, although they could probably hitch their way in half that time. The road was deserted and the sun was setting. They began to walk.

      ‘And that’s how I really got to know Gruff,’ says Bunf today. ‘It was interesting that it was him and me, for almost no apparent reason, meeting like that. You couldn’t have made it up.’

       FURRY FILE: BUNF

      BORN – Cardiff, 1967

      CHILDHOOD SUPERPOWER – ‘My Puma football boots’

      CHILDHOOD SUPERWEAKNESS – Sweetcorn

      CHILDHOOD DISASTER – Burning down parents’ living room

      CHILDHOOD VICTORY – Winning a womble in a raffle (‘I believe it was Great Uncle Bulgaria’)

      BAD BEHAVIOUR – Perennial daydreaming

      TEEN

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