Blog posts by year and monthDecember 2010
Posts (84)
Adam Walton playlist and show info: Sunday 26 December 2010
This week's show is my three hour mixtape of the best Welsh sounds it has been my pleasure to play in 2010. I played over 1200 different pieces of music in the last 12 months. Trimming those down to less than 60 was an enormously difficult challenge. I've left things on the cutting room floor that I love dearly: great songs or pieces of music from the likes of Paper Aeroplanes, Exit International, D.E.R. Collective, Ookami, Yr Ods, Drains, Straight Lines, Jakokoyak, Evariste Galoise, Jen Jeniro and many more. These are the names branded into my conscience, but the surfeit of excellent music that is missing is empirical evidence that it has been a Very Good Year Indeed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00wsqmg/Adam_Walton_26_12_2010 I hope it's an intriguing snapshot of the Welsh music the show has celebrated this year. It's moulded entirely by my subjective tastes, of course. These are my favourite Welsh sounds of the year not an attempt to present you with an all-encompassing Best Welsh Music of 2010. I'd be intrigued to hear what you would have included. There's plenty of space in the comments section below! And so the search for the most interesting and original Welsh talent continues into 2011. If you have any music you're particularly proud of, or you've heard something incredible at a friend's house or at a recent gig, please share your excitement. Demos should be sent as download links or .mp3's to: [email protected] and you can post CD's / vinyl to: Adam Walton BBC Radio Wales Library and Arts Centre Rhosddu Road Wrexham LL11 1AU I'm (still) particularly interested to hear from artists in Mid Wales. Looking at the geographical scope of the show, that is the major blindspot and I'd love to redress that next year. 2011 looks set to be an amazing year at BBC Radio Wales: Radio Wales Music Day 2 will be officially announced early in the new year; Bethan Elfyn's Saturday evening show is a great showcase for Welsh talent and the Evening Show, Frank Hennessy and the playlist in general provide even more opportunities for Welsh artists. I can't wait to hear the surprises - the hitherto unknown musical visionaries - who are around the many hidden corners of the next 12 months. Back to this week's mixtape. I do think that what is contained therein is fascinating, imaginative and inspirational. I hope you feel the same way. Happy New Year / Blwyddyn Newydd Dda! THE LOWLAND HUNDRED (Aberystwyth) Cambrian Sky UNDER ALIEN SKIES (Prestatyn) Fyodor THE GENTLE GOOD (Cardiff) Aubade BASTIONS (Anglesey) Island Living KORELESS (Bangor) Up And Down TRUCKERS OF HUSK (Cardiff) Awesome Tapes From Africa DRYMBAGO (Bangor) Long Finger KATELL KEINEG (Wales) St. Martin THE SCHOOL (Cardiff) Is He Really Coming Home? COLORAMA (Benllech) Box GRUFF RHYS (Bethesda) Shark Ridden Waters STAGGA (Cardiff) Tubby's Intervention CRASH DISCO GTFO THE KEYS (Cardiff) People Meet People MR HUW (Porthmadog) Creuaduriaid Byw Y NIWL (Gwynedd) Undegpump GINDRINKER (Cardiff) Y Chromosome ANNA GRAM & DULL PENNY (Bethesda) Love Handle RUFFSTYLZ (Cardiff) Case Closed CERI FROST (Cardiff) Dig Way Down MASTERS IN FRANCE (Caernarfon) Greyhound TRWBADOR (Camarthen) Off Beat GLIC (Llanfairfechan) 1983 DOGBONES (Holyhead) Mae Dy Ffrindiau (Gyd Am Dy Ladd Di]) JONNY (Pembrokeshire) Beach Party ALEX DINGLEY (Llansteffan) Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea RACE HORSES (Aberystwyth) No Mans Land BEDFORD FALLS (Cardiff) Wilmington TIM AND SAM'S TIM AND THE SAM BAND WITH TIM AND SAM (Ewloe) Finders Keepers ISLET (Cardiff) Ringerz DIDZ AND CHICO (Cardiff / Swansea) Something New CYRION (Llangefni) Hijack TARAN (Barry) Versek SPENCER MCGARRY SEASON (Cardiff) Great Enemies HAIL THE PLANES (Cardiff) Brother FAMILY OF THE YEAR (originally Wrexham) Hero KLAUS KINSKI (Llanfairfechan) Skellington Horse GARDENING (Llanfairfechan) Resting On A Planet BLAKTRIX (Cardiff) Business Is Good HARBOUR (Cardiff) Mercurial STRANGE NEWS FROM ANOTHER STAR (Cardiff) Letter From The Queen SATURDAY'S KIDS (Cardiff) Grey On White THE METHOD (Cardiff) Whip Around VANGUARD (Pembrokeshire) Loving Someone Else SLAYA P (Newport) Boomtingz GALLOPS (Wrexham) Miami Spider ALEX MOUNTAINEER (Penyffordd) Wash Where The Needle Has Gone THE IRASCIBLES (Cardiff) Standing On The Surface H. HAWKLINE (Cardiff) Carreg SWEET BABOO (Cardiff) Who Would Have Thought... RICHARD JAMES (Cardiff) When You See Me (In The Pouring Rain) THE LOVES (Cardiff) Bubblegum THE JOY FORMIDABLE (Mold) I Don't Want To See You Like This HOWL GRIFF (Aberystwyth) Jean's Therapy SENSEGUR (Penmachno) Cyfoeth Gwlyb DAVID WRENCH / BLACK SHEEP (Bangor) A Radical Song
Evan Morgan of Tredegar House
Of all the great characters in Welsh history - and there are many - none is more unusual, more fascinating and more downright bizarre than Evan Morgan, the last Viscount Tredegar. Evan succeeded to the title in 1934 but by then his reputation for outlandish behaviour had been well established. Born in 1893, by the beginning of the First World War Evan Morgan was abroad in society. Over the next 30 years he created the myth of wildness and extravagance that has lasted until today. A poor poet and painter, he was nevertheless adviser on art to the Royal Family. He dabbled on the artistic fringes of society and Queen Mary referred to him as her favourite bohemian. He was also something of a favourite with Lloyd George and was a great influence on Brendan Bracken, Churchill's right hand man. Those were the more acceptable sides to his character and behaviour. At his palatial Tredegar House, just on the edge of Newport, he kept a menagerie of wild animals, including a boxing kangaroo and whole flocks of birds that easily and effortlessly did his bidding. More often than not the animals lived inside the house rather than outside. His friends included writers like Aldous Huxley and GK Chesterton, artists such as Augustus John and, above all, the great 'black magician' Aleister Crowley. Known as 'the Black Monk', Evan was an expert in the occult and even built himself a 'magik room' - the spelling was deliberate - at Tredegar House. Crowley visited him many times, and declared the room the best equipped he had ever seen. Crowley, known throughout Europe as the 'Great Beast', took part in many weird and perhaps terrifying rituals at Tredegar Park and christened Evan 'adept of adepts'. Sometimes those rituals frightened even Crowley. During the Second World War Evan was a high ranking officer in MI8, his particular responsibility being the monitoring of carrier pigeons. When he foolishly and carelessly let slip the departmental secrets - to two girl guides, would you believe - Evan was court martialled and was lucky to get away without a term of imprisonment, or even the firing squad. In retaliation Evan Morgan called Aleister Crowley to Tredegar House to take part in a cursing ritual on his commanding officer. Whatever Evan said or did it frightened Crowley so much that he left before the process was complete. And, amazingly, Evan's CO soon contracted some mysterious illness and nearly died! Despite his openly acknowledged homosexuality Evan was twice married, to actress Lois Sturt and to the Russian Princess Olga Dolgorouky. Neither marriage was a success and Evan continued to flaunt and entertain his male lovers in hotel bedrooms across Europe. As if that was not enough, he was able to put his obsession with the occult on hold for a short period while he converted to Catholicism, becoming Chamberlain to Popes Benedict XV and Pius XI. He went to study at the English College in Rome - although the amount of studying he did was limited in the extreme - and was soon a well known figure around Rome, driving through the city in a Rolls Royce that had a portable altar in the back. The stories of Evan Morgan's behaviour are legend but perhaps the most mysterious and intriguing episode in his life came in 1932. That year he was invited to a small private dinner and meeting at a restaurant in Bad Wiesse, just outside Munich. Nothing unusual in that, you might say - except that you then look at the other guests. They included Rudolph Hess, the deputy of what was fast becoming the most significant political party in Germany, right wing British artist Sir Francis Rose, Ernst Rohm - head of Hitler's SA or Brownshirts - and his deputy Edmund Heines. What was discussed at the meeting will never be known but all of the diners were ferociously right wing in their politics. Many of them were gay and a large number were fascinated by the occult. This was the period just before Hitler came to power and it would not be stretching things too far to suggest that the emergent Nazi party was trying to find out how things were run in Britain, perhaps by courting one of the wealthiest aristocrats in the country. Evan Morgan continued to maintain distant links with the Nazis. Some years later Herman Göring was on the Isle of Capri for a meeting with Italian dictator Mussolini. In the room next door was Evan Morgan. Evan's parrot, a bird that used to sit obediently on his shoulder as he walked around, apparently bit Goring on the nose - much to the displeasure of the portly German. During the war, after he had parachuted into Britain in an attempt to end the conflict, Rudolph Hess was imprisoned at Abergavenny, not too many miles distant from Tredegar House. If Hess and Evan knew each other - however slightly - they would surely have met. Hess might even have come to Tredegar House as he was given a fair degree of freedom and latitude to journey around eastern Wales. Was Evan Morgan one of the people Hess was hoping to use as an intermediary in his bid to end hostilities? It is a fascinating speculation. Unfortunately, it will remain just speculation. Like so much that went on in his life, we will never know what was really going on in the mind of Evan Morgan. He remains one of Wales' greatest and most memorable eccentrics. Listen to the story of Evan Morgan and that meeting in Munich on The Past Master, the BBC Wales history programme, broadcast on Sunday 2 January 2011 at 5.30pm.
The Collapse of the Cleddau Bridge
Anyone who drives up the A477 from south Pembrokeshire to the northern part of the county will pass over the magnificent structure of the Cleddau Bridge. Cleddau River in the fog. Photograph by George Johns. They will wonder at the glorious views down Milford Haven towards the sea, but...
Kids In Glass Houses perform Christmas classic for Radio Wales
Alan Thompson had the first play of a Christmas cover recorded exclusively for BBC Radio Wales by Kids In Glass Houses on his Evening Show last night. Kayley Thomas from Good Morning Wales has been following the band all year. When she posed the question of recording a Christmas track, she th...
The first eisteddfod - Christmas 1176
These days we are used to our main or major eisteddfodau being held in the summer months - the Urdd in the week of the Whitsun holiday, the International at Llangollen in the first week of July and the National Eisteddfod in the first week of August. It hasn't always been like that and, even ...
Cardiff Singer on Facebook and Twitter, and accommodation for 2011
The BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition now has a presence on Facebook and Twitter, so you can sign up to follow us there for all the latest news. Be a fan on Facebook: www.facebook.com/cardiffsinger Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/cardiffsinger Accommodation in Cardiff If you're planning to come to the competition, there is a wide range of accommodation to suit all tastes and pockets in Cardiff. Please be aware, however, that there will be a particularly heavy demand for accommodation, as Take That are performing sellout concerts at the Millennium Stadium on Tuesday and Wednesday, 14 and 15 June. The Tourist Information Centre advises booking early - you can check out listings on their Visit Wales website or call +44 (0)29 2087 3573.
Derek's Xmas forecast
My grandad always looked forward to today - the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, because he knew that after today, the days would slowly get longer as the sun moved north again. There was also a lunar eclipse this morning - the first in three years and...
Wales Millennium Centre's artistic director stands down
Fiona Allan, the artistic director of the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff, is standing down from her post to take up a role in Leicester. Fiona Allan inside the Wales Millennium Centre Allan has been appointed chief executive of Leicester Theatre Trust, which manages the city's Cur...
Adam Walton playlist and show info: Sunday 19 December 2010
Don Van Vliet - better known as Captain Beefheart - died at the end of last week. This week's programme is dedicated to his memory and the influence his music has had upon some of Wales' most original, leftfield artists. Mostly this is a subjective and interpretive exercise: I've never heard ...
Your snow pics
Well, it looks as if we've seen the worst of the snow for the time being but we could be in for a little bit more on Wednesday. Aside from all the chaos the snow causes; it also dramatically alters the landscape - transforming the mundane into something very dramatic. I found myself getting repeatedly lost on Saturday morning trying to escape Cardiff and get onto the slippery M4. As I walked to my van, I felt like I was in a disaster movie - with abandoned cars and snow everywhere I looked, but no people! The normally busy roads were eerily quiet aside from the occasional jack-knifed delivery lorry or car skidding to escape the snow. Once I'd dug my van out and got going, the fun really began. I've never missed so many turns in all my life but all familiarity vanished. Everything looked completely different and with road signs covered in snow, it made navigating, let alone driving - very tricky indeed. *If you're on an icy hill, keep a steady speed all the way up - don't brake or stop on the steepest section* Sorry, but I had to get that off my chest! You've all been very busy, getting out and about and taking some amazing photos, so here are a few taken during the recent snow flurries: A dramatic snow scene taken by Nigel Lewis. Merthyr Mawr bathed in glorious sunshine at noon on Monday by Andrew Owen. A temperature reading of -17C in an car on Monday morning in Bala town centre by Keith Humph. Pontsticill Reservoir on Sunday, taken from the Brecon Mountain Railway Station by Tim Borman of Church Village. A swan finds out the hard way in Roath Park lake! Photo by Jo Bird in Cardiff That's it for now. Keep them coming - [email protected] or add your favourite snaps to our Flickr group. Thanks Gull
