´óÏó´«Ã½

As you will all know, Thursday 1 March is St David's Day, and we shall be celebrating with the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Orchestra of Wales' annual St David's Day Concert at St David's Hall. There were a lot of saints in that sentence.

Both my bachelors and masters papers were on the work of the composer and violist Rebecca Clarke, and so I was pleased to see that our programme for this concert has a decidedly feminine edge. Indeed, it is quite a celebration of Welsh women with music by composers Grace Williams and Morfydd Owen, and performances by the lovely Catrin Finch (who, may I add, always has fabulous handbags and concert clothes) and Cardiff born soprano, Rosemary Joshua.

I always find it inspiring to read about women who made their way in the musical world in the days when its 'old boys club' nature was not questioned and it would appear that Wales produced more than its fair share of these trailblazing for the sisterhood ladies!

Morfydd Owen was not a name I was familiar with, so I went for a little nosy online to see what I could find out (and no, I didn't use Wikipedia). Morfydd was something of a pianistic wunderkind, before turning her attentions to composition. She was a student at Cardiff University before continuing her studies at the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she later became a member of staff.

Unfortunately, she died tragically young (not even 30) and so perhaps she never got to fulfill her potential entirely. She was also exceptionally beautiful! I'm looking forward to discovering her work Threnody On The Passing Of Branwen; you never know what an unknown work will bring and this work is laden with medieval story overtones - I love a good story.

I rather like the work by Williams that we will play - her Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes. We've played it quite a number of times before and it's light and fun. I would very much like to hear some of her song settings with orchestra someday though.

I've played the Concierto de Aranjuez many times (or the Orange Juice Concerto - go on say Aranjuez in your best accent, it definitely sounds a bit like orange juice), but never with harp solo. I really liked Catrin's recording of the Goldberg Variations though, another work definitely not for harp, so I'm convinced this will work too!

My native Ireland may be the land of saints and scholars, but Wales is most definitely the land of song, and rounding off the concert will be a rousing rendition of favourite Welsh songs and hymns. Led by the voices of a mass primary schools choir it should be a fitting celebration for this saint's day. Additionally, with the Triple Crown sitting all shiny in the trophy cabinet, you all have extra reasons for singing doubly loud this St David's Day...not that I'm bitter about the rugby at all!

For further information about the Orchestra's St David's Day gala concert, or to book tickets, call the St David's Hall Box Office on 029 2087 8444.

Escape Into The Park, Wales' biggest dance festival and one of the biggest in the UK, won't take place in 2012, it has been announced.

DJ playing Escape Into The Park

Organisers of Escape, which is held annually in Swansea's Singleton Park, have said that their reasoning has been dictated by other major events in 2012.

A statement released today said:

The organisers of Wales' largest dance music festival, Escape Into The Park, have announced that this year will see a rest year for the festival.

Like many other successful UK festivals, Escape Into The Park is taking a year off in 2012. This year is looking to be very busy for the public with a combination of a summer of Olympic sporting activity and the Queen's Jubilee celebrations in June. Therefore, we believe this is the perfect timing for us to take a year off to sit back and reassess the format of the festival with a view to coming back stronger than ever next year.

Swansea Council have always been a great support to Escape Into The Park and we look forward to working with them in bringing a bigger and better festival to Swansea in 2013. We would like to wish all our loyal festival goers a great summer, keep partying in 2012 and we'll see you in 2013!

While the rest makes sense in the context of the glut of major events happening this year, coinciding with a continuing slow economy, it's a shame for Swansea and the wider Welsh music industry.

Wales isn't spectacularly over-supplied with dance-orientated events, despite the genre's heritage in the major cities. And to have the largest dance event in the western UK is something we should be grateful for.

Building its reputation over the years, Escape has been able to attract audiences of over 20,000 and some of the highest-profile international DJs and artists.

Here's hoping that, as promised, 2013 will see Escape return to the calendar with its usual impressive roll call of talent.

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Last week I talked to Feeder about the songs that made their career.

Prior to the release of their latest album, Generation Freakshow (out 26 March), the band were in the Radio Wales studios to record special acoustic tracks and an interview with Georgia Ruth Williams' show, to be broadcast this Saturday (3 March) at 7pm.

Listen to the interview here as Grant and Dean cover (literal) Highs and (non-literal) lows, the loss of drummer Jon Lee, rocking festivals, crossing over and their Welsh background.

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Perhaps my title is slightly misleading - it was a blink and you'll miss it moment - but I had several bars to play on my own during the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Orchestra of Wales' live broadcast for Radio 3.

Had I taken leave of my senses, ran to the front of the orchestra, booted the soloist out of the way and launched into a little flight of fancy? Of course not (though I have often pondered what would happen if someone did do something like that). The reason for my moment in the limelight was our performance of Strauss' utterly sublime Metamorphosen.

To say that I had a solo is actually a gross exaggeration; scored for 23 solo strings, 23 of us had solos. Composed in the closing months of the World War Two, the concept behind, and indeed the inspiration for Metamorphosen has been rather fiercely debated by scholars over the years, with some very controversial opinions and assumptions coming to light.

Strauss himself never revealed what the work was about nor what the significance of the 'in memorium' inscription is. However, it is widely accepted that the work was partially a response to the devastation Strauss saw wrecked upon his homeland during the war, in particular, Munich, to which he had such a close attachment. In addition to this, few would miss the not so subtle homage to Beethoven in the close moments of the work.

All I can truly tell you is that, as a player, this is a beautiful work to play. There is such richness in the complexity of Strauss' counterpoint. Lines join other lines, only to take their departure and intertwine with another. It is immensely satisfying to play. There is such intricacy in the texture the music could easily sound like a one giant brush stroke of sound, but conductor Thomas Dausgaard was fabulous at taking the music apart and bringing out the important lines.

Metamorphosen was followed by Mahler's Rückert Lieder with ´óÏó´«Ã½ New Generation Artist Ben Johnson as soloist. The second half was Sibelius' Fourth Symphony which I have decided I like very much, even if it is a bit odd.

I think it worth a mention that Metamorphosen was part of the Cardiff Sacher Series, our collaboration with Cardiff University. The series will run the whole way through until June, and is a celebration and exploration of works dedicated to, commissioned by and premiered by Swiss conductor, patron, impresario and all round artistic behemoth Paul Sacher. I had never heard of him prior to the beginning of this season, but he is quite a fascinating character.

Our series on him will include performances of works such as Stravinsky's Concerto in D (Basle Concerto), Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste and the symphonic work derived from Hindemith's opera, Die Harmonie der Welt. Without Sacher's commitment to the arts during some of Europe's darkest days of the 20th century it is possible that many of our most loved works from the period would not have come into being.

As we reported last month Jack White, once of the White Stripes, has recorded a single with Wales' evergreen Tom Jones, but if you want to get your hands on a special vinyl version, only one record shop in the world will be able to help you.

Evil (Is Going On) cover

Evil (Is Going On) is coming out next weekend on White's . Only 100 copies of the 'tri-coloured' seven inch will be available to purchase, all through Cardiff's Spillers Records.

Spillers, reputed to be the oldest record shop in the world, will only have one day to sell the record, but I'm sure that'll be more than enough for all the copies to shift.

Speaking to The Western Mail's , Spillers owner Ashli Todd said: "The first we heard of the release was one of our Twitter followers suggested to Third Man Records on Twitter that Spillers should get the honour of selling the exclusive version of Tom's new single.

"A few weeks passed and Forte, who are the distributor for Third Man's releases here in the UK, sent me an email to say that they had proposed Spillers for the exclusive. We were sworn to secrecy as the logistics of us stocking the release were batted back and forth."

It was worth the wait for Ashli, though. "In terms of interest, it's been quite overwhelming. We've had people from all over the country ringing up about the release and even an email from a man who is coming over from Italy to get a copy."

Evil (Is Going On) goes on sale on Saturday 3 March, priced £15. Spillers opens at 9.30am, and is located at 31 Morgan Arcade in Cardiff. The standard black vinyl is available from all independent record shops from Monday 5 March.

A further 50 copies of the tri-coloured single will be randomly inserted into orders from the .

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I didn't sleep a wink the night before. At 4.30am, sat with eyes like pickled onions in front of my computer with a camomile tea that was neither 'soothing' nor 'relaxing' me, I decided that putting gigs on wasn't for me. The thing that had kept me up was, strangely, a good-mannered kindness:

"Sorry I won't be able to make it, I'm a bit skint. I'm sure you'll have a great time and a lovely crowd."

The problem was, I had received that message - or variations of it - from about 20 people; 20 of the people who'd been good enough to invest their hard-earned money in my previous gigs.

No-one will turn up. You'll have dragged Laura J Martin, Gorky's legend Richard James and Trwbador up to play in front of a barfly and a red-faced promoter having a nervous breakdown...

It was the "I'm sure you'll have a lovely crowd" bit that was circling my mind like a wide-beaked vulture eyeing my reputation - such as it is - with dead, hungry eyes.

You wouldn't be so sure if you'd received as many messages like yours as I have.

Twitter woke up and started to scroll through the sleepless fug. I saw a message from John Rostron - King of ³§Åµ²Ô - and wondered how the hell he managed to make a living doing this, promoting, without bursting into one big ulcer. The thought became a tweet, without me having much memory of typing it, and then John replied. It was such a short, succinct message - even for a tweet - but one atypically sharp with wisdom:

"I think I just remind myself I could be doing something I didn't love. That, plus I sit on my backside playing a LOT of Xbox..."

That was the cold glass of water in the face I needed. He was so, so right. I put bands on because I love them. I want people to hear the music that I most love, that's what the haemoglobin in my blood carries. Putting gigs on in these austere times is like altitude training for that love, because the things of true beauty and wonder become that much more valuable when most other things in the world have been shown up to be transparent with lies and fakes and worry.

The bill tonight couldn't have been more beautiful or wondrous if it had been animated by . Our first performer, , is a songwriter of rare flair and talent.

Flair is the right word, trust me. Over the years, I've heard millions of dullards zombie deathwalk their way through ploddy chord sequences a slug could predict. I've heard every conceivable variation of the 'fire', 'desire', 'higher' lyrical gruel. I can smell a stale fart songwriter from a million paces. Some of us just weren't born to fly. Sophie, however, modestly soars.

I hate adverbs. Passionately. But Sophie is both modest and soaring so you'll have to forgive me. She doesn't look like she'd say 'excuse me' to a duckling barring a fire exit, but her songs and her guitar playing are giddy with playfulness and invention. I could make a hundred hackneyed comparisons to other female songwriters, on the basis of Sophie's chromosomes, but instead I implore you to check her songs out. They make the world a lot of a little better.

's Sîon Glyn is DJing for us tonight, and playing amazing records I have never heard before. He's another musical giver; a man whose DNA spirals like a Coltrane solo.

are a gemstone of a band. I spent much of my youth traipsing through quarries, or over beaches, eyes desperate for the glitter of a piece of amethyst, citrine, cornelian, agate, garnet or smoky quartz. I didn't find any of those, ever. I found a lot of broken glass and used condoms; dead jellyfish and faded detergent bottles. A salutary lesson for life.

But in Trwbador - and here's a World Record of a mixed metaphor - all of those gemstones have come home to roost. Angharad's voice is flawless, diffracting the gamut of human emotion into a rainbow of perfect colours. There's no faux emoting, no artless vibrato, none of the X Factor, stage school mannerisms that smear so many other voices in effluent. There is just Angharad and notes that are glad to have been faceted so perfectly.

You could be forgiven for thinking that Trwbador are petrified with nerves. They're so still. Angharad stands at an angle that makes it almost impossible to see her face. If I had a face four fathoms below Angharad's on the beauty scale, I'd show it at every opportunity. I'd insist that these ´óÏó´«Ã½ blogs flowed over a background image of my grinning mush.

But I don't think Trwbador are nervous. I think it takes great confidence in what you're doing to strip your songs to the barest bones - voice, acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and lonely bass drum - and play them in front of strangers.

None of us are strangers for long. The whole room hugs these songs to their hearts. Trwbador are so perfect I'm having a little weep just thinking about it.

I have a little rant about Kasabian and Elbow and orchestras and big sounds signifying nothing from the stage. I use a bad swear word in front of my mum. Sorry mum.

And then, even after all the glittering wonders and beauty that has preceded her, appears like a whole other dimension of amazing. Sometimes, cooped up in the box bedroom I laughably call an office, staring endlessly at a computer screen that will never give me enough love, I feel like one of those sightless, albino fish that lives in a cave in Mexico, or Mozambique. Sometimes, not all the time. I'm not sure anyone - not even Elton John in his coked up, peacocked to the gills prime - ever feels that life is one long, glittering party, with themselves as the epicentre.

Suffice to say, quite a few of my days - like yours - are humdrum. Hearing - seeing - Laura J Martin is like having a Mardi Gras of aceness explode in my head. She seems to have been blessed with a whole philharmonic orchestra's worth of musical talent: piano, mandolin, flute, ring-a-roses rhythms.

That she can pirouette all of these sounds out with such grace and transcendence is a rare gift indeed. All of us who saw her had never seen anything like this before. Even those of us who had seen her before. She's that unique in her talents, I'm convinced as I write this the following morning, that I must have dreamt part of her up.

And like all the best fairy tales, there's something sinister lurking behind these songs, something Laura herself doesn't seem to be in control of. That she skips in front of the monsters chasing her, flute in hand, defying them with little hand dances like spells, just makes the whole thing that much more enchanting. She's the kid in Spirited Away grown up. Little Red Riding Hood with a brandy in her hand.

She has pedals at her feet that make sounds appear that put smiles on our faces. She sings about Japanese arsonists as if they had scales and smoke coming from their snouts. Her flute sounds like a flock of macaws flying through an emerald canopy. She's like early Angela Carter in aural incarnation.

Yep, I'm smitten, and I'm not the only one, thank the dear Lord who I'm almost starting to believe in.

You should have been there, not simply to soothe my anxieties; you should have been there to chase away your own.

Addendum: In a different life, I put Coldplay on in this venue (Telford's Warehouse). While a select handful of humanity are swept up in Laura J Martin's musical vision, Pantymwyn's Jonny Buckland is collecting Coldplay's award for Best British Band at the Brits. That's a notable achievement for a man who went to the Alun School in Mold. Congratulations Jonny. We're proud of you.

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The lead singers of two of the biggest of Wales' new wave of rock bands are to release a split acoustic album, it has been announced.

Gavin Butler and Neil Starr

Ghosts & Echoes, an acoustic 10 track record by Gavin Butler of The Blackout and Neil Starr of Attack! Attack!, will be released on 1 April.

I caught up with the duo prior to the recording, to find out more about this self-released album.

"I'd had songs written for The Blackout's album Hope that didn't really sit with the vibe of the album," says Gavin. "So I took them on the road with with Neil's other, first, band Dopamine in December. I had a great time playing them, it was so a new and challenging for me. I thought it's pointless having these songs and shelving them. Then Neil asked if I wanted to to a split and I thought, why not, I've literally got nothing to lose."

Neil: "For me the idea came about after Dopamine had Gavin come on tour with us in December. I've written songs in the past which i deemed 'not right' for Dopamine or Attack! Attack! and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity for us both to get a release out, not having enough songs on our own to release albums on our own yet.

"Gav and I have been mates for years and years. I got to hear his stuff for four nights in a row on the Dopamine December tour and loved it. I dropped him a text in the new year and said would he be up for it and he was. It was lucky we could work it out with the busy schedules of our bands!"

Gavin Butler

How would the men describe their own sides? Gavin is influenced by Britpop royalty: "I'm not the most technical of guitarists, so I rely a lot on simple but interesting chords. One of my favourite song writers is Noel Gallagher and I think he's been a big influence on me.

"Wonderwall is one of the most uncomplicated songs ever written yet one of the biggest and best. There's a beauty in simplicity. That is until I learn how to shred then it's all about tapping and acoustic pinched harmonics."

"My side are songs which were written on acoustic guitar and therefore have a much more laid-back feel," says Neil. "There is a lot more emphasis on the melody and lyrics rather than the music behind it . A lot of my stuff is a finger picked style."

And how would they describe the other side? "Neil has one the best voices in the 'biz'," says Gavin. "He took an old The Blackout song which was pretty metal-ish and totally reworked it into an amazing acoustic song."

Neil Starr

"Gavin's songs are more focused on the strumming then the picking but again are all acoustic based tracks," says Neil. "I think the two sides will blend together nicely. We are recording them with [Dopamine and Straight Lines member] Todd Campbell at the same studio so that'll help with the overall feel too.

What are the mechanics of the release of Ghosts & Echoes?

"It's the epitome of DIY," reckons Gavin. "Self-funded, self-released; I even did the artwork. We're kind of lucky that the Internet can provide a ridiculous platform for us. If it was 10 years ago we'd need distribution and labels to get CDs into shops. Now we can sell and ship a CD to anyone in the world on our own."

Neil agrees, and embraces the self-reliance necessary in a release like this. "We are funding it on our own, we are recording it on our own and we will be the ones sat around my dining room table packing and posting them off after we have signed them.

"We are only pressing 1,000 CDs so it'll be limited edition from that point of view. With the power of social networking sites we can easily reach out worldwide: we have already received orders from all over the world. It's great!"

The duo have an eight date tour in support of the release in April, so what should people expect to see when they appear live? Any duets?

"We might do a sneaky collaboration, who knows?" says Neil. "The tour is still in its early stages of preparation but i know I will be doing some Dopamine and Attack! Attack! songs in my set too."

Gavin: "On the last Dopamine tour Neil and I did the cover of The Blackout song You And Me Vs The Revolution that I mentioned earlier. So there's always a chance we'll work on something, maybe a TenMinutePreview/Dopamine/Attack! Attack!/The Blackout medley."

Lastly, in an ideal world, who would they love to release a split album with?

"What you mean apart from Gav?" laughs Neil. "For me it would be Daniel Johns from Silverchair. He's a musical genius in my eyes and that would be a dream come true."

"That's a tough one," says Gavin. "[Faith No More frontman] Mike Patton is notorious for his side projects, one of them being one of my favourite bands of all time. He's always so left field and I think he'd just produce something that people wouldn't expect."

For more information, check out , Attack! Attack!'s official site, and .

A nationwide poll by of 3,000 people has placed a performance of Mama Told Me Not To Come by Stereophonics and Tom Jones top of the pile of duets.

You can on YouTube.

Stereophonics and Tom Jones

The annual music industry celebration has become well-known for its duets, but for me the best was from 1994.

Unfortunately that didn't prove popular with the respondents, but luckily neither did , also in 1994.

In this week's news are Queen, who announced a performance at Sonisphere. In 2000 .

Rapping boybands with elder statesmen of rock? Whatever next?

In the Mastercard/ICM poll also did very well, being narrowly pipped by the Welsh combo of Jones and Stereophonics. Lest we forget, that song gave the world Newport State Of Mind.

Three performances shared the accolade for Overall Favourite Brits Performance of All Time: (2007), Take That's Back For Good (1995) and performance of 1995, when he was singularly upstaged by Jarvis Cocker's posterior.

Among the male respondents, embarrassingly, it was Phil Collins' Another Day In Paradise from 1990.

Music journalist Paul Lester said: "It makes sense that Stereophonics' and Tom Jones' performance at the 2000 Brits was voted the most memorable Brits duet of all time, because it followed Re-Load, the hugely successful duets album Jones released in 1999.

"What makes this duet so priceless is seeing performers from the same nation - Wales - but quite different generations trying to out-do each other for sheer energy and exuberance. No wonder it has gone down as one of the most popular duets in the history of the Brit awards."

Military Wives Choir are up, at tonight's Brits ceremony, for Best British Single for Wherever You Are, written by Wales' Paul Mealor.

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This week, the members of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Orchestra of Wales are fortunate to have some time off. Although some of the orchestra were in the studio at the beginning of the week to record music for Radio 3's Spirit of Schubert season (a celebration of the composer's 215th birthday), I have been enjoying a little time off in addition to our scheduled breaks.

So, what does a musician do with their free time? Truth be told, a lot of boring stuff. I have bought a new iron, dropped my dry cleaning off and found a new concert dress that I cannot afford. I also managed to give myself a mild concussion during an incident with a kitchen cupboard.

This week's show is brought to you by the letters 'A', 'C' and 'E', the number 36 - and a damn fine packet of Liquorice Allsorts containing a pleasantly surprising, high quotient of pink Spoggs.

I mean blue Spoggs.

Ahem.

Musically-speaking, I've co-opted some brilliant new studio recordings from Y Niwl into a pseudo session. The pseudo bit means that we don't pay for the privilege. But I couldn't choose between the six new recordings that are likely to constitute a vinyl EP release in the not too distant future, so I played three of them, at random. They're music making straight out of the toppest drawer, tunes that are more memorable than the alphabet, borne aloft by sounds that have endured the history of rock 'n' roll, for good reason.

I love them. More, even, than pink - I mean blue - Spoggs.

I also love Georgia Ruth's music. Her début EP's release today - all 10 inches of it on beautiful vinyl - is a major event for me. I'm having a harp-themed street party. By myself, but still - there will be cupcake.

You can listen to all of the EP's tracks via the page.

The fact that only 17 people (at the time of writing) have done this has me shaking my head and muttering the kind of sentiments about society you'd normally read on the Daily Mail's letters page. It's ochre and russet and it could mend the most broken of hearts. Go. Get. It.

Elsewhere Alan Holmes reminds us of the New Order-ish excellence of Eirin Peryglus. Lara Catrin translates something that makes my brain's heart's knees quiver from Cate Le Bon. Ben Hayes takes us through a listening glass, to whimsical and excellent effect.

There are début plays for Perfume Genius, Ddarque, Quicksails and Shifty Chicken Shed... I'd like there to be more début plays, please.

Send good stuff (because chaff will get thrown to the wind) to: themysterytour@gmail.com as a high quality mp3 or download link.

Album of the Week: Perfume Genius - Put Your Back N T It
Single of the Week: Georgia Ruth - In Luna

Gig(s) of the Week: Tuesday 21 Feb - Laura J Martin / Trwbador / Sophie Ballamy @ Telfords Warehouse, Chester
Thursday 23 Feb - Saturday's Kids EP launch @ Barnabas House, Newport

Sweet of the Week: the pink - I mean BLUE - Spogg.

More sounds and gender stereotyping fun at the same time next week...Many thanks/diolch o galon, Adam Walton.

- 'Awol Marine'
Seattle / Welsh Management

- 'Normal Song'
Seattle / Welsh Management

- 'The Suns Of Alms'
Bethesda

- 'Dauddegpedwar'
Gwynedd

- 'Parker ( Album Version )'
Dwygfylchi / Llanfairfechan / Conwy

- 'Sunday'
Wrexham

- 'Com . Man . Do ( Radio Edit )'
Cardiff

- 'Grey On White ( E P Version )'
Cardiff

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor

EIRIN PERYGLUS - 'Merthyr'
Bangor

- 'Bones ( Mastered Ep Version )'
Aberystwyth / Cardiff

- 'Embossed'
Cardiff

- 'Violaceae ( Afternaut Remix )'
London

- 'Gone'
Unknown.

- 'We Won't Be Broke Forever ( Featuring Gruff Rhys )'
Anglesey

- 'The Hangman Tree'
Liverpool

ASTRUD GILBERTO & ANTONIO CARLOS JOBIM - 'Agua De Beber'
Brazil

- 'Gwlana'
Camarthen / Cardiff

SHIRLEY BATES - 'Crimpton Krompton Canary Bridge'
?

- 'The Story Of Charlie And The Two Fat Ladies'
Llangollen

TONY CLARKE - 'Landslide'
New York / Detroit

- 'Schrodinger's Cat'
Cardiff

- 'Dauddegtri'
Gwynedd

- 'Johnny Bach Pentips'
Merthyr Tydfil

SUE DENIM - 'The Plan'
Bangor

LARA CATRIN - 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor / Cardiff

- 'Hwylio Mewn Cyfog'
Penboyr

- 'Flump'
Rhyl

- 'Morning Chorus ( Featuring Karen Sawyer )'
Pembrokeshire

- 'Our Powers Are Matched ( Zwolf Remix )'
Cardiff

- 'Ups And Downs'
Cardiff

- 'Beaux Esprits'
Cardiff

- 'Silver Balloons In Clusters [side A]'
Chicago, Welsh Label

- 'Summer Sun'
Cardiff

- 'Dauddegpump'
Gwynedd

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

PETER HOWELL AND JOHN FERDINANDO - 'A - Sitting On A Gate'
England

- 'Pommegranate Beliefs'
Welsh Marches

- 'Sister Song'
Seattle / Welsh Management

This week's show is now available via the ´óÏó´«Ã½ iPlayer. Please visit the link any time between now and the start of the next programme.

So, the boiler blew up; it was half-term and the local supermarket had warned me about me leaving my daughter in their cafe all day again. I had to spend a (wonderful) day in a museum at Bangor University, plans for Radio Wales Music Day 2012 were being made, as were plans for a working trip to America at the end of March, and the dog ate my homework.

These are all my excuses for the appalling lateness of this missive.

And it's such a bloody good show too. Not blowing my own trumpet. I don't have a trumpet. I've got a rubbish brass stab-soft synth sound on GarageBand but that is not the same. The goodness emanates from the excellent musical minds celebrated within our three hours of sonic exploration.

For example, Wrexham's Camera treat us to an emotive and melodic rush of a live session featuring excellent versions of tunes you can find on their second album For When You Wake.

Huw Williams comes in with a hunk of new wave ace from 1979.

Lara Catrin translates an entire Welsh opera for us.

Ben Hayes proves that Toni Basil has good claim to the title: 'Coolest Human Being Ever'.

So, again, sorry for the lateness - but if you have the time, do find the inclination to visit the link. Fascinating music lies within. Guaranteed*

*Guarantee is invalidated if you own any music by Maroon 5, Blue, JLS or One Direction. Many thanks/diolch o galon, Adam Walton.

CIAN CIARAN - '1st Time'
Bangor

- 'Take On The World Feat. Om'mas Keith'
Cardiff / Barry

- 'Best Friends And Users'
Cardiff

- 'Missing'
Blaenau Gwent

- 'How Long Is Always? ( Featuring Chloe Leavers )'
Manchester

- 'Delilah ( Session )'
Wrexham

HUW WILLIAMS - 'Spoken Contribution'
Swansea

THE ALLIES - 'Plush Living'
?

- 'Blueprints'
Ewloe

- 'Lady Caller'
Cardiff

SUE DENIM - 'For J T & Emli'
Bangor

- 'Mirrorshades'
U. S. A. / Welsh Label

- 'Hollow'
Newport

- 'Now Or Never'
Tenby / Cardiff

- 'Two Way Action ( Session Version )'
Chicago

- 'Silk'
Swansea

- 'Who's Song'
Swansea

- 'Katibim'
Swansea

CIAN CIARAN - '3rd Time Lucky'
Bangor

- 'Discovery ( Rough Mastered )'
Cardiff

- 'So Close'
Cardiff Label

- 'Let The Wind Blow ( Session )'
Wrexham

- 'Play What You Want'
Cardiff

- 'Breast Fed'
Llanfairfechan

- 'Joey'
Dwygfylchi / Llanfairfechan / Conwy

- 'Force Feed'
Pontlliw

- 'Essex Song'
Pembrokeshire

- 'Half Gone'
Pontypridd / Pyle

- 'Fall Down'
Caernarfon

LARA CATRIN - 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor / Cardiff

VARIOUS - 'Nia Ben Aur'
Caernarfon

- 'Lines ( Clean Version )'
Aberystwyth / Cardiff

- 'The Weed'
Mold

- 'Cultural Service'
Swansea

- 'Schrodinger's Cat'
Cardiff

- 'Six Eight ( Session )'
Wrexham

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

- 'Breakaway'
Philadelphia

- 'Farewell My Dear'
Cardiff

Super Furry Animals, Bryn Terfel and Only Men Aloud have been confirmed as the acts performing at Gary Speed's memorial match.

Super Furry Animals

The artists will play prior to kick off at Cardiff City Stadium on 29 February as Wales play Costa Rica in remembrance of the Wales manager.

Ten per cent of proceeds from the match will go to charities chosen by Speed's family.

The Football Association of Wales said: "This will be an opportunity to celebrate the life and achievements of a great servant to Welsh football both as a player and as a manager."

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Next Tuesday's , the annual celebration of the UK's music industry, will have more than a passing interest for a Welsh singer and songwriter by the name of Amy Wadge. She has written with and mentored triple Brits nominee Ed Sheeran since he was 17.

We invited Amy to write a piece for us about her time with Ed:

Amy Wadge and Ed Sheeran

For the first time in my career as a singer/songwriter, which I am slightly astonished to admit now spans some 20 years, I will be watching The Brits knowing in some tiny way I am part of things. It's been a long time coming but thanks to a 21-year-old ginger-haired guy from Suffolk called Ed Sheeran my life has completely changed in the last year.

Four years ago, as I was about to have my first child, I realised that the endless touring that I had done for my own career was about to come, in some part, to an end. Although I still intended, and have continued, to work as a singer/songwriter in my own right, gone are the days of chasing a deal and hoping for mega stardom.

I had co-written a fair amount and always felt that as a lyricist and top line writer I had something to offer. Luckily Sarah Liversedge at thought the same and signed me.

Working with Sarah changed everything as suddenly I was being hooked up with new unsigned artists from all over the UK.

The very first person I was sent was Ed.

I distinctly remember picking up this young lad at Trefforest station with a 'back packer' guitar thinking 'What the hell is going to happen here?' But then we drove back to my house, sat in my kitchen and he sang to me.

I can't imagine there will be many times in my life that I will meet someone so incredibly gifted and to be honest I spent much of the next few days running in from my studio in the garden to tell my husband how sure I was that he was "going to make me a millionaire".

In a normal writing session I would hope to get one or two songs, but with Ed we wrote nine in two days. It was just one of those crazy things that is very rare - we clicked and what happened was amazing.

Another few sessions followed and then Ed asked me to do backing vocals on an EP he was doing at the time. I was heavily pregnant with my second child so couldn't travel. Ed carried on without me and the EP was released, and to my surprise he'd called it Songs I Wrote With Amy.

Last February, as Ed was about to be signed to Atlantic, he called and asked to come down to write again. This time when I picked him up from the station people were recognising him and it suddenly became clear that things were about to change. And boy, they changed.

The various EPs he'd done, including Songs I Wrote With Amy, started selling by the bucket load and charting. I then got the call to say that one of the songs we'd written on his last trip down had made the Deluxe Edition of +, his new album.

The day it went to number one I went up to London and we all had + tattoos to mark the occasion. Since then it's been incredible to watch things get bigger and bigger. I played Cardiff with Ed and for the first time in my life heard 3,000 people singing a song I had written back at me. The album has just crossed the million sales mark and he's about to head Stateside.

A track from Songs I Wrote With Amy was recently featured on an episode of and is the b-side to the American release of , so I will now be watching the American Billboard chart to see what happens.

All of a sudden all the doors that were so tightly shut before have flown open and I am writing with some incredible new artists. It's the most exciting time in my career and I can do it all from the comfort of my own home.

And Ed? He hasn't changed one little bit; he's still the most laid-back person you will ever meet. But I did go to see him play in Wolverhampton a few weeks ago and for the first time realised that this guy who I think of as my little brother is now a huge star. Live, Ed is a force to be reckoned with but there is still so much more to come.

He was 17 when we wrote a song called She and he came up with these words:

Strange as it seems
She is endless to me
She's just like paperwork
But harder to read

I knew right then he was incredibly special.

Join Amy Wadge with Roy Noble on ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Wales this Wednesday (22 February) at 4pm.

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Marina And The Diamonds, aka Marina Diamandis, has announced details of her second album.

Marina And The Diamonds

Electra Heart, the follow-up to the successful Family Jewels album, is due for release on 30 April through 679/Atlantic.

It will be preceded by a single, Primadonna, on 16 April.

"It's an ode to dysfunctional love," said Diamandis. "I based the project around character types commonly found in love stories, film and theatre, usually ones associated with power and control in love, as opposed to weakness or defeat.

"I guess it was a way of dealing with the embarrassment that, for the first time in my life, I got 'played'. Rejection is a universally embarrassing topic and Electra Heart is my response to that. It is a frank album."

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Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of the first album by Manic Street Preachers, Generation Terrorists. Radio Wales have joined the festivities.

Listen to Simon Price and me talk to Jamie and Louise on the station this morning:

And listen to Oli and Bethan of Good Morning Wales talk to Manics producers Steve Brown and Greg Haver, plus guitarist Daniel Barnett, who was influenced to take up the instrument after listening to the album.

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I know I've said it a few times, but it is so cold! I can't decide what to wear to work at all - I'm freezing outside and I'm too warm in the studio. I feel like I'm wearing all of my clothes at once. In addition to this, I'm finding it really difficult to warm up in the mornings.

As a child, I suffered from very severe chilblains on both my hands and feet due to bad circulation (and dodgy 1980s Northern Irish lack of decent central heating, no doubt) and, although things have improved, I still feel like I have to spend longer than normal warming up when the weather is like this.

This Friday and Saturday, the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Orchestra of Wales will be playing in St David's Hall, Cardiff and the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea respectively. With principal guest conductor, Jac van Steen, violinist, Akiko Suwanai, mezzo soprano, Jane Irwin and the ´óÏó´«Ã½ National Chorus of Wales (just returned from their performance at the Southbank Centre with our Wales Millennium Centre neighbours, the National Dance Company Wales) we will be bringing a Sibelius double bill topped off with some Elgar that will hopefully take everyone's mind off the cold!

Sibelius' final symphonic poem, Tapiola (not to be confused with the frog spawn-like, gluten-free dessert, Tapioca), takes its name from the god of the forest in Finnish mythology. To me, the music is not as accessible as the earlier tone poems such as En Saga, Finlandia, or my favourite one, Pohjola's Daughter (lovely solo cello opening), but the music is unmistakably Sibelius.

This will be followed by Sibelius' ultimate ode to fire and ice, his Violin Concerto. Instrument buffs amongst you may be interested to know that soloist, Akiko Suwanai, plays the Dolphin Stradivarius, once owned by Jascha Heifetz. Akiko Suwanai was the youngest winner of the Tchaikovsky Concerto, triumphing in 1990 (the same year in which one of my favourite pianists, Boris Berezovsky, won the piano title of the same competition).

Interestingly, the version of the concerto that we know today is not the original version. When the work received its première, the soloist was not quite capable of getting around the concerto's considerable technical demands (neither was the orchestra) and the première was a bit of a disaster. So, poor Sibelius made some serious revisions and the work received a second première in Berlin with the great Richard Strauss conducting and violinist Karel Halíř proving a much more adequate soloist.

Rounding off the concert will be Elgar's The Music Makers (1912). The text of this work (by Arthur O'Shaughnessy) is notable for its romantic depiction of artistes - 'we are the music makers and the dreamers of dreams'. I'd love to say there will be a prize awarded at the end of the concert for whoever can spot and identify correctly the most number of quotes from other Elgar works, but there is a recession on and all that, so I don't think our management will go for that idea (sadly).

The Orchestra and Chorus play works by Sibelius and Elgar at St David's Hall, Cardiff, on Friday 10 February, and Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, on Saturday 11 February.

I was 20 and living a dissolute student life in Liverpool when Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists came out 20 years ago.

My housemate - a bath-phobic fellow North Walean - and I queued outside HMV in Liverpool that morning, eager for it to open. No one else was queuing. Despite the band coming from a whole other cultural universe from my hometown of Mold, I remember being excited that a Welsh band had managed to create such a kerfuffle. As someone in a Welsh band, it felt like a battlement (of ignorance and petty prejudice) had been breached. Maybe there would be fewer 'Cwm Dancing' jokes from now on.

(There weren't, really.)

So we got the number 80 bus back to our freezing house on Ullet Rd, poring over the quotes on the gatefold sleeve all the way home: Plath, Rimbaud, Camus, Nietzsche... they were appealingly intellectual to a literature student with his head up a hundred different backsides.

We moved enough roach-encrusted plates and empty Thunderbird bottles to find the record player and stuck side one on; put a hooky 50p in the meter and sat back for a fag and a listen.

I remember being excited. Despite my flared trousers and floppy fringe, there was something titillating and rather thrilling about the Manics. They were different. They had an androgynous glamour that reminded me of Bowie. They said more interesting things in interviews than all of their peers sub-edited together.

But I didn't have that Valleys rock background or indoctrination. If you sounded - and looked a bit like - Mötley Crüe or Guns N' Roses, you were already a bit rubbish, to my heinously prejudiced ears.

I wanted more Public Enemy, less Tigertailz.

So, ultimately, it was a disappointment. I played Motorcycle Emptiness a few dozen times and that was it. It's the only track on the vinyl that exhibits any wear. But despite being nonplussed musically, there's no doubt that it changed expectations within Welsh bands. The Manics galvanised everyone. They were the punkest band Wales ever produced, because even - maybe, especially - the bands who couldn't stand them were inspired to give it a go.

So the message rang true. A phenomenally important Welsh album. Just not a very good one.

Do you agree with Adam? Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other ´óÏó´«Ã½ blog, you will need to sign in to your ´óÏó´«Ã½ iD account. If you don't have a ´óÏó´«Ã½ iD account, you can - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of ´óÏó´«Ã½ sites and services using a single login.

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This week's show is now available via the iPlayer. Please visit the link any time between now and the start of the next programme.

This 'message' was dutifully typed out at 2:37am on Sunday morning - but it has taken me five days to realise that it got led astray somewhere along the labyrinthine passages of the internet, and didn't get sent or delivered.

"What are you up to now?"

"I'm just off to spam I mean, inform, a few hundred folk about Adam Walton's new music show."

"Fancy a pint instead?"

"Aye, why not. Just let me find a grid I can tip all of these down..."

This is irritating news because, presenter notwithstanding, this is quite a show. We have all of the new tracks from Y Niwl's live set at Crackling Vinyl last week. And it's very good indeed. Actually, It's better than that but I'm trying to hold back on the hyperbole: a Lent for my lexicon, if you like.

We have new Future Of The Left. A first play of one of the tracks from their forthcoming album The Plot Against Common Sense (released on 28 May - mark it in your digital filofaxes, now).

The song is called City Of Exploded Children and iTunes is helpfully telling me that it's my most listened to track of 2012. A rare demonstration of good taste.

At some point on Saturday morning I stumbled across a tweet from , head honcho of the excellent music blog. His Tweet pointed me in the direction of a brand new, summer-infused, bass-enhanced mixtape from Cardiff's Mr Healan. It's called Hot Wheels & Sun Shades Vol 1. It's 47 minutes long. When I was shivering through a light hangover in my box bedroom (that I laughably call an office) on Saturday morning, it sounded like manna from heaven. Some brilliant fat synths rivetted together by skippy beats that'd make Snowdon cut the rug.

We have the whole thing for you.

Elsewhere Alan Holmes highlights the hitherto under celebrated links between North Wales and the Sisters Of Mercy by playing some James Ray & The Performance.

Ben Hayes treats us to something whimsical and almost scholarly from Jake Thackary.

And there is music. Oodles of it, including debut plays for the brilliant Serein record label and Christiaan Webb.

Please send new releases/demos/gig info/correspondence to themysterytour@gmail.com.

Download links and/or mp3s preferred, please.

Many thanks / diolch o galon, Adam Walton.

- 'So Far'
Cardiff Label

- 'Kids In Love'
Cardiff Label

- 'Pleased To Have You'
Cardiff

- 'Un Deg Saith'
Gwynedd

- 'Parker'
Dwygfylchi / Llanfairfechan / Conwy

- 'Bdm'
Llansteffan / Japan

- 'Our Powers Are Matched'
Cardiff

- 'L. O. V. 3. R. S. ( Efj Cough Radio Edit )'
Cardiff

- 'City Of Exploded Children'
Cardiff

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Bangor

JAMES RAY & THE PERFORMANCE - 'Edie Sedgwick'
?

- 'Light Conditions'
Cardiff Label

- 'Nine Lives'
Cardiff Label

- 'Flux'
Hebron, Pembrokeshire

- 'Do Anything For Money'
Pwllheli

- 'Y Fwynlan O Serch'
Brighton

- 'Dauddegtri ( Live )'
Gwynedd

- 'Undegnaw ( Live )'
Gwynedd

- 'Dauddegdau ( Live )'
Gwynedd

- 'Dauddegun ( Live )'
Gwynedd

- 'Chwech ( Live )'
Gwynedd

- 'Sad Eyed Lady ( The Clean Cover )'
Dwygfylchi / Llanfairfechan / Conwy

- 'The Story Of Charlie And The Two Fat Ladies'
Llangollen

- 'Make Up Girl'
Cardiff

- 'Venice Beach'
Cardiff Label

- 'Olympia'
Cardiff Label

- 'Broken Date'
Cardiff Label

- 'Zaxxon'
Cardiff Label

- 'Obsession'
Cardiff Label

- 'Trouble Man'
Cardiff Label

- 'Bootsfansworth'
Cardiff

- 'Playin With Her'
Cardiff

- 'Do It'
Cardiff Label

- 'I Don't Run With No Cliques'
Cardiff Label

- 'Grand Tourer'
Cardiff

- 'Sallot Ski'
Cardiff Label

- 'Loungin''
Cardiff

STYLE - 'Play Boy En Detresse'
Cardiff Label

- 'Hoobangin '96 ( Blue Wrangler Sport )'
Cardiff Label

- 'High Score'
Cardiff

- 'Halo Alkanes'
Bath / Llandeilo

SUE DENIM - 'For J T & Emli'
Bangor

- 'Spoken Contribution'
Ruthin

- 'The Hole'
Leeds

- 'Moving On'
Newport / Cardiff

There had been much discussion over the week as to whether we would actually make it to Marlborough. While we were in the studio work-shopping with composers, the weather outside was getting colder and grimmer. The weather forecast had been predicting blizzards on an apocalyptic scale, but as it happened we only ended up with an inch or two of rather patchy whiteness and fairly clear main roads.

For me Sunday was one of those days when the simplest of tasks seemed incredibly difficult. To start with, I did not want to get up at all. When I did get up, it was only to realise I'd had a hot water fail and was only able to have a tepid shower. Next, and in what was a particularly special moment, I put cold instead of hot water in my cafetière. And all this before 8am.

However, I arrived on time for the coach and subsequently, for rehearsal. There was a little bit of jostling on the stage to try to get everyone accommodated comfortably, there was a little bit of a lights issue and a gurgling drain, but there was also, hot coffee and it was decidedly warmer on stage than it was outside, so all in all, I think things could have been a lot worse!

The first piece on the programme was a new work to me. Adapted from 's score for the film Lady Caroline Lamb (an aristocrat who was a bit naughty with Lord Byron, despite being married to a prime minister), the work is for solo viola (Philip Dukes - also artistic director of music at Marlborough College) and orchestra. I liked it very much - not just because I am a violist, but also because it was quite luscious and melodic.

After this came Schumann's Cello Concerto (soloist, Natalie Clein), a work notable for its inclusion of the Knight Rider theme tune in the final movement.

The second half was Dvořák's Eighth Symphony. Dvořák symphonies are always a good play. A particular favourite passage of mine in this symphony is in the last movement when the horns play something that resembles elephants harrumphing. Listen to it, you'll hear what I mean.

For such a cold, inclement Sunday afternoon, there was a really fabulous turn out. As the hall was steeply tiered, it gave the concert quite an intimate feel and the audience was very appreciative.

Of course, one of the most important aspects of the day was the Ireland - Wales Six Nations clash. Our concert began, rather inconveniently, at the same time as the match. At our half time, Ireland were ahead, by the end of the concert they had lost. It was upsetting. Sometimes it is very difficult to be an Irishwoman in a Welsh band.

John Robb, singer of Goldblade and music journalist of renown, yesterday , celebrating the career of Manic Street Preachers. It was in memory of Richey Edwards, who went missing 17 years ago.

Here we publish, with kind permission, an excerpt from the piece as we mark the 20th anniversary of the release of the Manics' first album, Generation Terrorists.

The Manics are pop's conscience, except that they are not sniping from the sidelines. They are right in there in the middle of the fray. They have the ability to be hilariously rude and disarmingly polite. They loved The Clash but were smart enough to use Guns N' Roses as the chassis of their sound, adding the Clash's swagger and soul and subtracting the Guns N' Roses crass dumb rhetoric. It's difficult to believe now that they are constantly fêted and groaning under the weight of music-biz awards, that when The Manics burst onto the scene in 1990 they were treated with contempt and a thinly veiled near racism that sneered at their Welsh background.

In the middle of the baggy era they were out of time, they believed in skin-tight punk-rock songs, a vicious attack of socialist slogans and an outright contempt for their contemporaries. They were a long way from the stoned play-dumb of most bands at the time and a long, long way from the 1990 zeitgeist but for a few of us that believed in their dream they were a welcome godsend.

I'd already reviewed them, mentioned them in dispatches, but it was getting them on to the cover of Sounds with their third single the Heavenly released Motown Junk that still gives me the biggest buzz from my journo days.

Interviewing The Manics for their first-ever front cover that was published on 26 January 1991 was a different affair than now. Cooped up with the penniless band in the back of a transit van grabbing quotes, we were round the corner from Jeff Barrett's Heavenly record label who were frantically attempting to sell the band to a sceptical music business...

Instead of having qualms about 'selling out' or cowering under the Indie Law, The Manics were already thinking big. They were also distancing themselves from the crippling indie thinking that was crushing most post-punk guitar hustlers of the time.

'You've got to reach out on a massive level,' claimed guitarist Richey James Edwards in the ice-cold van. A typical tour bus piled with cheap amps and expensive rhetoric, adding 'Once we've done that we will fade away. We want to make ourselves obsolete as fast as possible. It's no good just inspiring groups. People go on about The Stones inspiring the Paris riots in '68 which was fine but they just carried on. That's so obscene.'...

The band itself was a classic mix between two almost earnestly talented musicians, James and Sean, and the two maverick souls of Richey and Nicky- the onstage wingers who wrote the words. Words that James would shoe-horn (occasionally there were just too many words resulting in a few slurred lines!) into his music and bring to life with his powerful rock 'n' roll voice...

The band released two singles on Jeff Barrett's Heavenly label to whom they signed in August 1990. There was the 1991 released fast shots of Motown Junk and the anthemic You Love Us, a response to the music media who felt that the band was cartoon punk. The Manics were meeting the massive wall of indifference head on...

Their first release on Sony was the July 1991 single Stay Beautiful (No. 40 in the UK charts), followed by October 1991′s Love's Sweet Exile (No. 26); the major label backing saw them inching towards the mainstream. The re-release of You Love Us (No. 16) early in 1992 finally saw the band in the top 20. The Manics were on a slow upward curve. That March the crunching, stunning Slash And Burn headbutted its way to No. 20. Their Molotov missive stuffed début album, Generation Terrorists, released in 1992, had scraped the teens of the album charts. This was fine but hardly the multi-million-selling missive that they had boasted they would release and then split up afterwards when their work was done!

The band were hit by the truth, rock 'n' roll was a long, slow grind and their ecstatic fantasy of selling 10 million records and then splitting was starting to look like a pipe dream. Real life is always tougher than the romantic vision. So they started to grind it out, if this was going to be a war of attrition the so be it. Throughout 1992 they were hammering home the mini hits. Their fan base was growing. For all their polemic and at odds defiance of the musical trends they could play great pop music. Track after track was being pulled from the Generation Terrorists album and hitting the Top 20... the powerful Slash And Burn (No. 20), the anthemic Motorcycle Emptiness (No. 17) and then that September they finally scored the big breakthrough with the cover of 'Theme From M.A.S.H.' (number seven) putting them into the Top 10.

At last they had been accepted. Especially by their core fanbase... a coterie of leopard-skin-clad desperadoes who looked like the coolest pop kids on the circuit. The Manics' gigs were a flurry of flamboyance and feather boas. Their fans oozed sex and situationism. The Manics were attracting the same cabal of intense letter writing fanatics as The Smiths had in the eighties but somehow flasher in their intensity.

I interviewed them just before they hit the stage at Birmingham Aston University in the summer of 1993 and the band were as combative as ever. In the tiny motel room before the gig they were still gunning for the same targets as they piled on the pre-show make-up. Already there were signs of the sort of wear and tear that being on the road can etch onto the psyche. Richey was by now drinking and Nicky was relating tales of his partner's post-gig back to the hotel love life... not hard to miss when you're sharing a tiny room.

While Richey threw on his fake leopard print coat, Nicky related that his love of beat literature came from his elder brother Patrick Jones. They piled into the car outside the hotel in a blur of fake furs, make-up and teased hair. They had the star swagger - living out their rock 'n' roll dream as we got lost in the winding roads, crammed in their car, towards the gig.

on Louder Than War.

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Welsh folk popper and Super Furry Animal Gruff Rhys is to be one of the stars of a multi-venue bash to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the launch of digital radio station ´óÏó´«Ã½ 6 Music.

Gruff Rhys

On Friday 16 March Rhys will join Anna Calvi and Beth Jeans Houghton And The Hooves Of Destiny in Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. Another gig on the same night features Laura Marling and Lianne La Havas, in the Purcell Room.

Bob Shennan, controller of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 2 and Radio 6 Music, said: "This has been an incredible first decade for Radio 6 Music. In addition to its recent record listening figures, it has proved itself as a unique and much loved service and a real showcase for the music that encapsulates the alternative spirit. I am proud that it has played such a key role in encouraging the take-up of digital radio across the nation."

Feel free to comment! If you want to have your say, on this or any other ´óÏó´«Ã½ blog, you will need to sign in to your ´óÏó´«Ã½ iD account. If you don't have a ´óÏó´«Ã½ iD account, you can - it'll allow you to contribute to a range of ´óÏó´«Ã½ sites and services using a single login.

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This Friday (10 February) is the 20th anniversary of the release of the first album by Manic Street Preachers, Generation Terrorists.

Manic Street Preachers. Photo: Martyn Goodacre

That simple fact is enough to make a lot of people exclaim something along the lines of, 'cor that makes me feel old'. Including me.

It wasn't their best-selling album, even though prior to its release they expressed a desire for it to sell millions before their imminent split.

Neither was it their most acclaimed album, that honour probably going to the caustic classic of psychological and political malaise, The Holy Bible.

So why celebrate this anniversary? Well, it provided six top 40 singles. It introduced four alien-looking, glammed-up Welsh punks to the world. The album's promotion put these eyeliner- and slogan-smeared young men, barely out of their teens, onto magazine front covers in an era in which '' and '' were genres of serious critical consideration. They talked antagonistically and passionately through a lens of well-read education.

Of course it was Richey's infamous '4Real' self-harm incident that brought them to wider public attention; luckily they had the musical and intellectual chops for this not to became their defining career point. It was a journo-baiting stunt of horrifying, cold, calculating clarity that was designed by Richey to prove a point.

That point was that they weren't a joke. Looking as they did, sounding like they did, it would have been easy to write them off as such. But no joke bands ever delivered a double album, 18 tracks long, that included Motorcycle Emptiness, Little Baby Nothing, You Love Us, Slash 'N' Burn and Condemned To Rock 'N' Roll.

As some of our interviewees admit, it's over-long and sometimes overblown, but it holds up as a Welsh classic. That's why, two decades down the line, we're devoting this week to Generation Terrorists.

• Manics biographer and music critic Simon Price on the album and its legacy
• Radio Wales celebrates Generation Terrorists
• Interview with Traci Lords, guest vocalist
• Interview with Steve Brown, producer of the album
• Interview with Dave Eringa, session music and Manics engineer
• Interview with Matthew Olivier, studio in-house engineer on the album
• Video and audio clips
• Interview with Sally Margaret Joy, Melody Maker journalist and musician
• Thoughts of Jarrad Owens, Welsh journalist and Manics super-fan
• John Robb on Generation Terrorists
• Adam Walton: Generation Terrorists And Me
• What the papers said

Thanks to Katherine Hinds-Payne, , Hall Or Nothing, Ben Marshall, Black Barn Studios and Jarrad Owens in assisting with these features.

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If there's one man who knows his Manic Street Preachers, it's former Melody Maker journalist, current Independent music critic and author Simon Price. Simon has written occasionally for us over the years about the band, and now, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the release of Generation Terrorists, he gives his thoughts on their début.

Manic Street Preachers. Photo: Steve Gullick

"A damaged diamond. That's how, in a review for Melody Maker, I described Generation Terrorists in February 1992, and it's a description which the band themselves readily accepted. 'Everybody knows,' Richey Edwards later admitted, 'the first album would have been better if we'd left out all the crap'.

"Manic Street Preachers had arrived amid an especially moribund era for British youth culture, still dominated by the feckless fag-end of Madchester, the middle class self-indulgence of Shoegaze and the slumming-it slovenliness of Crusty. Their shock-tactic soundbites and their compulsion to distance themselves from other bands ('I'll always hate Slowdive more than I hate Hitler', 'You could go to any Levellers concert, shout "Jeremy" and 75% of the audience would turn around') were thrilling, and made these leopard-clad, eyeliner and spraypaint-covered, eminently quotable Welsh glam-punks feel like a cause to rally behind, rather than a mere rock 'n' roll band.

"Their deliberate desire to be as non-indie as possible was a key factor in shaping Generation Terrorists. Newly-signed to Sony and fond of issuing preposterous boasts to anyone who'd listen that they intended to 'make a double album, sell a million, headline Wembley Stadium then split up after a year', the Manics were on a kamikaze mission to burn brightly and disappear. It's that excess of ambition which drove the best - and the worst - aspects of Generation Terrorists.

Nicky Wire with Simon Price, Havana, 2001

"In retrospect, it's easy to see what the Manics should have done: recorded a short, sharp punk rock album, preferably with up-and-coming producer and unofficial fifth Manic Dave Eringa at the controls and probably released on Heavenly, comprising all the early singles and the more adrenaline-filled moments of their live set, presenting the curious with an opportunity to hear these mouthy upstarts they'd been reading about in the papers, and setting the scene for a slicker, more accomplished follow-up.

"Instead, they locked themselves away for 23 weeks in a studio in Guildford with experienced producer Steve Brown, whose varied CV included Wham! and The Cult, and delivered a début which confused everyone and satisfied no-one: a record which, sonically, could be filed alongside airbrushed metal muppets like Little Angels or Thunder, at the exact moment when rock fans were tiring of that stodgy stuff and turning to the raw sounds coming out of Seattle.

"Even if the hair metal brigade had bought into MSP, the lyrics - with opening lines like 'Economic forecasts soothe our dereliction' - were too unsexy and un-rock 'n' roll to fit the medium. Arguably, that was the point. The initial intention may have been entry-ism, the Trojan Horse approach of smuggling difficult ideas past listeners' defences by hiding them inside a commercial sound. But the 80s were over, and that FM-friendly sound wasn't commercial any more.

"Part of the problem with Generation Terrorists was its sheer length. Eighteen tracks on an album is par for the course in the 21st century, but in 1992 it felt like an eternity. Padded out with two versions of the same song (Repeat, remixed by Public Enemy producers The Bomb Squad) and a cover version from one of their favourite cult movies (Damn Dog, from Times Square), it was a case of too few ideas spread too thinly. One has to admire their sheer nerve in stretching GT to four sides of vinyl, its very existence an audacious anti-indie statement, but the quality suffers, averaging out at 7/10.

"There is, unquestionably, a lot of filler. Opening track Slash 'N' Burn may have been a showcase for James Dean Bradfield's impressively fast fingertips, but the clunky lyrics ('worms in the garden more real than a McDonalds') needed more thought, not to mention the knots into which James had to tie himself in order to make them scan ('Third world to the furry-urst', 'Too much comfort to get decaduh-ee-yunt'), and the production feels strangely deadened.

"There are, to be honest, songs that I've always skipped when I listen to Generation Terrorists. NatWest Barclays Midlands Lloyds, Another Invented Disease, Tennessee, So Dead, Condemned To Rock 'N' Roll... Worst of all, they dropped the ball with a horribly sterile, Gn'R-ified re-recording of early single You Love Us which sums up exactly what the Manics got right (with Heavenly) and wrong (on GT).

"Then again, some moments on the album are absolutely immortal. A surprising aspect of Generation Terrorists is that its dominant emotional key is existential ennui rather than firebrand rage, often sounding like a musical representation of the glossy nihilism of Bret Easton Ellis' Less Than Zero (an inscribed copy of which Wire gave me at the time), and the single Stay Beautiful somehow managed to sound both rocket-fuelled and defeated, echoing the spirit of Richey's interview quote 'Our romance is having total power in that we've just got nothing to lose 'cos we're secure in the knowledge we already lost a long time ago'. In a similar vein, live favourite Methadone Pretty, with its defiant opening line 'I am nothing and should be everything', would have made a great single (although the Generation Terrorists recording was peculiarly sluggish).

"And Little Baby Nothing, a Meat Loaf-esque duet with former porn star Traci Lords (who turned out to have an excellent bubblegum pop-rock voice in a Belinda Carlisle vein) about the objectification of women, was almost ridiculously anthemic. This was one of the two instances where the shiny production actually worked. The other was a six minute epic which would become a Manics signature for the rest of their career.

"When Motorcycle Emptiness appears, near the end of side one, it's like the sun coming out from behind the clouds and shimmering off rain-washed streets. An elegant elegy to the soul of a man under capitalism, with a heartbreakingly emotional guitar motif, it encapsulated the inescapable sadness of serfdom ('Drive away, and it's the same' being the killer line), and was in a different class to anything they'd written to date. Motorcycle Emptiness was the song that had even the Manics' detractors saying 'I never used to like them, but...'

"Generation Terrorists was compromised and imperfect in ways which go beyond the music. The band's original ideas for the sleeve included Andres Serrano's controversial Piss Christ and Bert Stern's legendary photos of Marilyn Monroe (defaced by the actress herself), but for various reasons - record company veto, financial prohibitiveness - they all had to be abandoned. Instead, they went with a shot of Richey's bare chest, torso, crucifix and tattooed arm, which came out in a horrible shade of salmon-pink rather than the mustard hue they had hoped.

"However, the array of literary quotations on the inner sleeve, from the likes of Larkin, Orwell, Camus, Rimbaud and Plath, plus the stolen dialogue from A Streetcar Named Desire and the poetry recital from Patrick Jones (Nicky Wire's elder brother and a huge influence on the band's formative years), amounted to an invaluable cultural treasure map, pointing their fans towards the wider world beyond rock 'n' roll in much the same way that, a decade earlier, The Smiths had done with their referencing of James Dean, Oscar Wilde and kitchen sink cinema.

"In so many senses, Generation Terrorists is the album the Manics made to prove that they could. But, for all its faults, it stands up surprisingly well two decades later. The once-daunting duration now seems to fly by, and there's something adorable about hearing what the young Manics were trying, and only partially managing, to do.

Perhaps the most glorious thing about Generation Terrorists is its failure. The fact that it didn't sell by the million meant the Manics were off the hook: their kamikaze mission was aborted, and they were free - they were forced - to carry on, to become the band they always told us they were going to to be. Two albums later, they would relocate their anger and their edge. But Generation Terrorists - the Manics' damaged diamond - still sparkles.

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Twenty years since the release of Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists, we caught up with Traci Lords, the guest vocalist on Little Baby Nothing, one of the best-known tracks on the album.

Traci Lords. Photo: Meeno

"I think it was a record exec by the name of Benjie Gordon whose idea it was to put me together with the Manic Street Preachers. I was 20-something, living in Hollywood and racing from audition to audition trying to launch an acting career and get a music career happening.

"I remember meeting this cool but bizarre man, , and singing for him. Somehow the word got out that I was interested in music. I met Benjie and then ended up in London with the Manics.

"I remember Richey in particular. He was a very soft spoken sweet boy. It was very weird, later when I heard he had disappeared... makes me sad.

"I still listen to Little Baby Nothing. I love that song and I absolutely love the tone of my voice on that track. I would love to sing it live with the boys one day!"

Traci Lords is currently signed to Sea To Sun Records and has a single, , which has been at the top of the Billboard Dance charts for several weeks. She also stars with Annalynne McCord and John Waters in the film Excision which just premièred at the Sundance Film Festival.

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As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists, here are some audio and video clips of the band:

Watch a short clip of the band performing Motorcycle Emptiness on Top Of The Pops in 1992.

Watch the band perform You Love Us live in Blackwood in 2011.

Watch Radio 2's Jo Whiley talk to James and Nicky prior to their homecoming Blackwood show (advisory: low volume):

Listen to James and Nicky talk to Radio Wales' Jamie and Louise in 2011 about their career:

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In 1992 Sally Margaret Joy interviewed Manic Street Preachers for Melody Maker. We talked to her about how the group of young, politicised Welsh nascent rock stars seemed to her as they released their début album, Generation Terrorists.

Sally Margaret Joy, aka Sally Still, in Furniture

When did you first come across the Manics?

"When I first encountered the band I wasn't a journalist but was in a band called Furniture, on the road, promoting our single Brilliant Mind. Riffling through the press I came across their photos: black spiky hair, smudged eyeliner and attitudinous sneers. Fearfully, I noted they were prettier than our band, and two of us were girls!"

Did any of their qualities or personality traits strike you in particular?

They were un-intimidated by the media. They sported with it it like toreadors. They were irreverent, witty, and traded Nietzsche - the Welsh accents helped endear them, put them within reach. Yes, they shone a little brighter than others. In that sense, they were intimidating.

"But then when I interviewed them in 1992, I realised they had that quality so many apparently rebellious, revolution spouting artists have, which was they could get you to do whatever they wanted by just smiling at you in an amused, conspiratorial way. They had an incongruity about them.

"They were recording their first album in this grand castle - or was it a manor house? - and living like rock stars, yet insisted we do the interview in a bedroom where, plumped down on these little single beds adorned with children's duvet covers (pale blue with little red aeroplanes?), and me sat uncomfortably on a chair, we talked. Burrowing into their duvets, they seemed to me like vulnerable young men, unsure where it was all heading. Or maybe they were just knackered. Who knows?"

How did they differ from other bands of the time? Was there any sense that this band and album were going to be important?

"You know on X Factor when contestants go, 'I really want this!'? Well, the Manics were nothing like X Factor contestants but it was clear that unlike most of the shoegaze-y, depresso type bands of the time, the Manics actually wanted success. We were still in a post-punk, 'kill your idols', morose, grey knitted cardie-infested era of authenticity.

"It felt like they had studied success, its geography, its pitfalls, and were ready to get out there. Perhaps one of their built-in story lines was that success might not turn out to be what it seemed, that under the eyeliner and cool stares, they were a little naïve? That's not a bad thing. If you aren't naïve, you won't try anything."

They were always criticising other bands who were Melody Maker cover stars, like The Levellers, Slowdive, Ned's Atomic Dustbin and so on; was this manna from heaven for music journalists at the time?

"They were very funny criticising other bands for being boring! I think the Manics escaped having a sell by date because they remained peripheral to any scene. They emphasised their differences by slagging other bands off. But they were never mean."

How much was their Welshness a topic for remark?

"As a half Filipino woman in the music press at the time, I was very aware that the music press had its share of racists, sexists and bores. Yes, some of them felt compelled to go into a cod Welsh accent when talking about the Manics. But I don't remember people remarking on the Manics' Welshness very much, because, being primarily a musician, I didn't hang around with music journalists."

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As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Manic Street Preachers' début album Generation Terrorists, Manics-superfan Jarrad Owens of the website gives his thoughts on the album.

Manics at The Marquee in London, 1991. Photo: Martyn Goodacre

"Generation Terrorists (working title Culture, Alienation, Boredom And Despair - the refrain from Little Baby Nothing) was, and still is, a truly incredible album: a double feature, 18 tracks in length and clocking at over 70 minutes. The incredibly ambitious début was released as the antidote to the drugged up and dumbed down 'Madchester' scene; the laddish, lairy early 90s indie movement that was a world away from what was happening in the Welsh valleys.

"1992 saw the Manics cross-pollinate their main influences at the time featuring Sex Pistols sloganeering, Guns N' Roses guitar licks and Public Enemy politics resulting in some sort of Never Mind The Bollocks/Appetite For Destruction hybrid. Aside from the music, perhaps the band's biggest grandiose statement was that they planned to split up upon its release and the album would sell 16 million copies worldwide.

"The subject matter of the album, like any truly great musical work, is still relevant today, questioning work, the economy, education, the media, religion and the human condition. Guitar and bass on the album was recorded in whole by lead singer James Dean Bradfield [something producer Steve Brown denies], with digital drums programmed by Sean Moore and piano accompaniment by Nicky Wire on Little Baby Nothing; this fact is testament to the sheer musicality of Bradfield, a guitar hero in the making.

"The only problems the album presented arose when it came to performing the songs live, probably due to James being the only member who performed on the album. The most extreme case being Motorcycle Emptiness, which was performed for the first time a whole four months after the album was released at the Town and Country Club in London.

"Stand-out tracks include the soaring epic Motorcycle Emptiness, the ironically titled You Love Us (a sarcastic love note to the tabloid newspapers that despised them), rip-roaring first single Slash N Burn, and hidden gem Condemned To Rock n Roll."

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As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists, we ask sound engineer Matthew Olivier about his work on the album at Black Barn Studios in Surrey.

Manic Street Preachers. Photo: Tom Sheehan

"At the time I was the in-house engineer for Black Barn where the album was recorded. I think the studio must have persuaded [producer] Steve Brown that I was good enough.

"I read the NME at that time and so knew of them and their reputation. I guess I was a bit apprehensive, not knowing quite what to expect and it being just after the photos of Richey were in the magazine. I liked what they were about and the way they were going about it. I had bought Motown Junk so knew their music already.

"I suppose the album is a bit long! But I guess that was part of what they were about, releasing a double album as a début. I remember them wanting it to be a triple album but I think that was a bit too much for Columbia. Oh and there are some great guitar sounds on it.

"I think my favourite track always was Little Baby Nothing but I really like the Bomb Squad remix of Repeat. Being a fan of Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad productions it was great to hear what they would do with one of their tracks.

"It's very difficult for me to comment on whether it's a classic. Having been closely involved in it I think that I listen to it in a different way. I seem to remember that we spent many, many weeks in Black Barn working seven days a week so it's impossible to distance yourself and not hear it without all the stuff that went along with the making of it.

"I am proud of my work on the record. I think I worked hard on it. When you work on something like that you do get very involved and thinking back to it now I certainly have some really good memories of those sessions and that time.

"Being in a residential studio for that amount of time is bound to create certain incidents. One thing I remember very clearly was managing to break the headstock off of James [Dean Bradfield]'s Les Paul Gold Top by knocking it off its stand. A little bit awkward!. He was very good about it but I still remember feeling really bad. It was fixed though and I imagine he still has it.

"Maybe a better memory was driving the band to London to buy Guns N' Roses' Use Your Illusion I and II. They were released during the sessions and Tower records on Piccadilly Circus opened at midnight to allow people to get it as soon as it was out.

"It probably seems a bit silly now as I'm sure the CDs could have been sent down to the studio for the morning but that wasn't really the point. So we drove up to town in whatever old car I had at the time, queued up and bought the CDs. As a thank you they bought me a CD. I think I chose Metallica's 'black album' just to be different. We drove back and immediately listened through to both Illusion albums all the way through. I can't quite remember the reaction. Mixed I think!

"Is it important in UK music history? I guess it is! Personally, as I said, I don't or can't listen to it with any real degree of objectivity. It was certainly important for the band and they have obviously gone on to bigger things with a 20 year career behind them.

"But when I look back at these sessions I just remember it as being a really good time. I was young and working as an engineer in a recording studio with some really nice people. It is difficult to see it or listen to it in any other way. I mean you do hope that everything you work on will be well received and there was obviously a lot of talk and anticipation about the album. Some obviously think it is important and hence this 20 year anniversary thing, but for me I'm just really glad to have been a part of it."

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As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists, we ask session musician Dave Eringa about his role on the album and his friendship with the band.

Dave Eringa with James Dean Bradfield, backstage at Reading Festival, 1992

"I was the assistant engineer on the first couple of Heavenly singles and played a bit of Hammond organ. The band were kind enough to ask me to play on the album too, so I was just an extra musician back then - I didn't start engineering for them until I produced and engineered [second album] Gold Against The Soul.

"It's hard to remember exactly what got used! I know I'm on You Love Us and Spectators Of Suicide and I definitely tried Motorcycle and Little Baby Nothing but wasn't good enough for the piano parts. It's all a bit of a blur because when I went on tour with them in 93-94 I would play organ on a lot of Generation Terrorists songs that didn't have it on the album so it's all a bit hazy.

"The band had this romantic idea that, like the famous Rolling Stones session musicians, I'd be their Ian Stewart and that someone else would be their Nick Hopkins. The truth which they discovered was that when I said I was a bit crap on the keyboards I wasn't being self deprecating, I was being truthful! Luckily they tried me out producing and engineering and the rest was history.

I was the tea boy on Motown Junk and You Love Us and we really hit it off over a shared love of Guns N' Roses. They were so kind to me, sending me postcards from tour and things like that, so I was already a massive fan and a friend by the time they got their deal with Sony. I had never met a band like them - so intelligent but so visceral too - they were a brilliant antidote to a lot of the sessions I was doing at the time and I was hooked.

"The band are always in control of their direction - the manifesto sonically, politically and lyrically has always come from them. The producer Steve Brown obviously had a very big impact too though with his radio sensibilities.

"I'm not normally a fan of double albums but I can't imagine any other way for this band to announce their arrival - what an amazingly over-ambitious statement it is.

"Sonically I guess some of the drum sounds haven't aged so well, but it's a great record anyway and given the choice would I really change any of it? Probably not! Bands these days don't get a chance to develop in the way the Manics did. I like the fact it's imperfect in some ways; it's more romantic that way.

Is it true that only James and Sean actually recorded material that was used on the record? Not at all - Nicky played all the bass. Richey was much more of a lyricist than a guitar player and James is such an astounding musician I guess there seemed no point in Richey playing.

"Two years later I insisted that Richey play one part on Gold Against The Soul, so he did the power chords behind the chorus of La Tristesse Durera and as far as I know I was the only guy to ever get to record him. I'm proud of that.

"It's definitely a classic in that it announced the arrival of a truly important band. Lyrically it's a classic, but I think it wasn't until The Holy Bible and Everything Must Go that you could call them classic albums in all the usual ways.

"I remember Steve Brown writing 'Jon Lord Woz 'Ere' on a bit of masking tape stuck to the Hammond that I did You love Us on. James had tipped him off that John was my favourite keyboard player - I thought it was such a nice thing to do to put me at my ease and make me feel like they wanted me there.

"I always remembered the way he made me feel when I came down to the sessions and have always tried to make musicians that come and play on my sessions feel the same way. Steve Brown is a dude!

"When I heard Motorcycle Emptiness I knew they had a stone cold classic that would prove to people that there was classic song-writing and amazing musicianship behind all the punk proclamations. It wasn't until people heard that song that they got taken seriously as musicians - there was even a ridiculous rumour that went round at the time that Jeff Beck played all the guitar on the album because people couldn't believe that these make up smeared Welsh punks could play so good!

"I didn't know how long they'd last as a band though - they were promising to break up after one album after all.

"My work with the band has continued ever since. What's not to love? They are the most fiercely intelligent band of the last 30 years, they are outrageously inventive musicians and amazing songwriters who have a very specific vision for their music. They are a gift to any producer and it has been an amazing privilege to work with them for so long."

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As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists, we ask producer Steve Brown about his recollections of the album and its recording.

Steve Brown

"I got the job with the Manics because they liked the work I did on the Love album by The Cult. I was working at the time in the States, so I'd not heard anything by them, although I had seen the press. On the record, I wanted to achieve what they wanted to achieve - and they wanted to be the biggest band in the world.

"They had full control of their creative direction, but I steered them on the singles front. Creatively, they were - and I think still are - very unique.

"It's not true that only James [Dean Bradfield] and Sean [Moore] recorded material used on the record. The whole band had a major input into the writing and playing of the album.

"I don't think the double album format detracted from the record; I love everything on Generation Terrorists, and so do a whole lot of other people!

"My favourite track on the record is Condemned To Rock And Roll, I think. There's nothing on the record I'd change and I'm very proud of my work on it. Lots of people have told me it's a classic.

"I'm glad it's regarded as being important in UK music history; we all worked very hard on it. I love the fact that I did it, and I least like the fact I'll never be able to do it again for them."

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As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Manic Street Preachers' Generation Terrorists, we take a look back at what the papers said, some contemporaneous and others written with the benefit of hindsight.

Manic Street Preachers - Generation Terrorists

New Musical Express
"What's more important is that the Manic Street Preachers have transcended their sleepy provincial roots and produced something for the Global Everybody. Their enemies expected London Calling:The Remix and they've come up with the Use Your Illusions I and II the Gunners only ever had illusions about."

The Guardian
"Generation Terrorists is stuffed with speedy guitar riffs, spring-loaded hooks, and - in Motorcycle Emptiness and Little Baby Nothing - two potential US hit singles. These boys have a plan. It might work."

The Independent
"Rock'n'roll is our epiphany/Culture, alienation, boredom and despair,'' sing the Manic Street Preachers on their début album, a protracted bout of sullen huffing and puffing desperately trying to fan the flames of a punk revival. Except... there's no punk revival happening, as far as I can tell, and I suspect it will take rather more than this tired collection of glam-punk tat and hand- me-down hard rock stylings to create one."

The Daily Telegraph
"Some of the lyrics are clumsy and banal, and many of their targets are predictable: the monarchy, financial institutions, the male psyche (on the LP's finest tune, Little Baby Nothing, featuring porn star Traci Lords on little-girl-victim vocals) and religion. It's their less frantic sentiments that strike the most persuasive tone. 'It's not that I can't find worth in anything,' they sing at one point, 'It's just that I can't find worth in enough' - and suddenly their despair seems rather reasonable."

The Washington Post
"Caught between their 'new Clash' beginnings and an unexpectedly American hard-rock sound, these Welsh neopunks are exceptionally stirring when they're not being too silly or too metal."

Billboard
"English [sic] quartet stakes out territory as the new Clash with a sometimes caustic brand of guitar-driven rock and politically conscious lyrics. Material here isn't as harshly punk-oriented as early punk material, though, with both producer Brown's commercially oriented work and the slick vocals of James Dean Bradfield lending the music a radio-aware sheen. Numbers like Slash N' Burn may heat some modern rock channels."

"While the album is loaded with a little bit too much unrealized material in retrospect, its best moments - the fiery Slash N' Burn, Little Baby Nothing, the incendiary Stay Beautiful, the sardonic You Love Us, and the haunting Motorcycle Emptiness - capture the Manics in all their raging glory."

And here's a selection of reviews of the album's singles from the NME, which more often than not gave coveted 'single of the week' status to the band:

You Love Us
"The masterstroke that becomes the title is enough on its own to endear it to anyone with their wits about them. Imagine the worst possible reaction an audience could give the Manics... Then chuckle when you realise they've got this song to shove LOUD right in the opposition's faces."

Motorcycle Emptiness
"At last. At long long last! Columbia/The Manics/whoever have finally got round to releasing the one indisputably great moment this band have so far forged. Suddenly, glaringly, all our championing of them, and our indulgence of their... excesses, is explained and repaid. In triplicate. In solid gold."

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Crackling Vinyl began as an excuse to play some old records to some new people, somewhere with a bar and good beer. I wanted a musical refuge from all the weekend boozehounds demanding 'The Roses'. Then someone mentioned it might be an idea to get a couple of bands playing, artists sympatico with whatever mood I wanted to create. And that's how I became a 'promoter'.

It's what explains the hundreds of crows that must have visited the corners of my eyes over the last couple of months, inexplicably leaving their splayed feet behind; it's why I have hollow, yellow eyes, and it's why almost every conversation I've had since October has ended with an unsubtle variation of the following: "please come to my next night! Otherwise I'm paying for the bands out of my own pocket and Ava will have to go clean chimneys..."

Little focuses the mind more than the knowledge that your saggy backside, and saggier bank account, are on the line if people don't turn up.

I have become something of a wizard at half-baked poster designs in Photoshop. I've spent hours chopping A4 coloured card up - illicit photocopies from the work Canon - in an effort to circumnavigate the £50 a German company reasonably charges for 1,000 flyers. In fact, I don't think of £50 as £50 any more. £50 is 10 people. And a guestlist is a friendship haemorrhage.

So it was I arrived at my local venue last week, filled with nerves like hopping shrapnel. Unlike many promoters, I hadn't had to negotiate the considerable obstacles of finding a PA (sound system) or engineer (Olympic standard bum crack displayer with chip addiction). Neither did I have to find a decent venue: Telfords Warehouse is where I DJ every Friday night. If I played my records loudly enough, they'd drown out all the weekend echoes of frustrated demands for "Bombay Bicycle Club... or... hey, how about some Rihanna? Eh?"

It's ironic that I started DJing in Telford's because I stuck a couple of bands in there back in the day (Grand Drive in... erm... 1998). Coldplay and Mclusky soon after that. But not on the same bill, more's the pity.

The first feeling when I arrive is one of guilty relief. Despite my being 15 minutes late, the bands haven't arrived. Perhaps this means they've decided to give it a miss! I can go home and hide under a duvet with cake! I can fabricate a lie about the lines of disgruntled people who turned up to see them, when - in reality - my spam and Blue Peter flyers only lure in seven confused stragglers.

This thought could have some considerable time to tease my brain. Whichever clock it is bands work by, it isn't the one that you or I use. It's generally one to four hours later than our clock, and appears to run on ulcers. Mine.

Bands also have a rare ability to blow tyres; find traffic jams; mishear Chester as Cirencester; and lose a relatively important piece of equipment along the way, like the drummer.

A band's satnav (if they have one ) is programmed to call in at every service station it passes for Amber Leaf, Ginsters pasties and a toilet trip that has to take no shorter than 43 minutes, after one of the rhythm section falls into a marijuana snooze on the toilet.

I may be being somewhat liberal with the 'facts' here. These are all the thoughts that pass through my traumatised mind as I wait less than four minutes for Y Niwl to arrive. They load in with minimal fuss. Y Niwl are, after all, consummate professionals and used to the drill. I remember one very new band arriving at this same venue, then sitting around smoking fags and drinking their rider, waiting for someone to come and unpack their equipment for them. I mean, how dare we? I mean, they?

I have messages that artist number two, Sam Airey, is on his way. He's "somewhere outside Manchester". I try to ignore the fact that that could mean anywhere from Caracas to Cleethorpes and try to figure out - for the 23rd time since I woke up - how to get my 'smart' phone to bulk text message everyone in my contact list. Twice.

Come tonight. I beg you. Or our marriage/friendship/professional relationship is OVER. (It'll still cost you £6).

Then I get the good news about the advance ticket sales. I need 80 people to cover the artists and DJs - but the figures are presented in currency.

"You've done about £180 online..."

This doesn't seem like a lot. I wonder if they'll give me the £180 in cash and how valid my passport is.

"Now all we have to do is deduct the VAT..."

"The what?"

"Value Added Tax - 17.5%..."

"Value added for whom, exactly?"

A fingerful of money is handed over. It may as well be in Drachma. My stomach attempts a world speed dive record but then smashes its stomach-y face into the cold, stony reality at my feet: I am up Fecal Gorge sans pedalo.

In Telfords, it transpires, even people in the restaurant upstairs can hear you scream.

Comedy bouncers and even more hilarious environmental scientists make pithy observations about my constant pacing, gnawing of nails, general look of the condemned, whilst all around me people begin to turn up. But it would have been nice if it hadn't been the entire guestlist en masse first.

My mum and dad arrive. I charge them. Yes, I know. I KNOW...

The next three hours evaporate in a haze of relief. But the stress levels have yanked me up so high, I don't really get a chance to enjoy any of what I've 'worked' so 'hard' to put on for people.

Atlas Twins (a very late addition to the bill) are a little Trwbador, in that there is a boy playing a Spanish guitar rather wonderfully; and a girl singing with a voice that'd melt a glacier, then re-freeze it into some awe-inducing palace of crystals. They're ace. But the details are all up there in the ether, I'm sorry to say.

The Crackling Vinyl DJs are playing great records. You could threaten me with a week of solitary confinement in a sound capsule of eternal JLS and still I wouldn't remember a single record that they played.

I fare a little better with Sam Airey. Firstly, he looks so relaxed it somewhat dissipates my adrenaline. However I do remember, with the clarity I normally reserve for childbirths and winning goals in European Cup finals, the captivating sadness and wonder of Sam's last song - and forthcoming single - The Unlocking. Some voices can reach round your heart with effortless grace. Sam pickpockets your heart, and leaves you feeling content with the crime.

Comedy bouncer man (or Paul, as he's more commonly known) has to come drag me away because I've forgotten to put a couple of competition winners' names on the guestlist (ulcer #4 of the evening). Some fat prat is introducing Y Niwl up on stage. I've gone all out of body by this stage. Why is he/am I wearing a flat cap?

Y Niwl are as perfect as primary colours. We don't chase red around the room bemoaning that it should get with the times, maybe add a dubstep tic for modernity's sake. We don't sit green in a chair and explain that it's carriage clock time because it hasn't made the effort to keep abreast of developments. Yellow doesn't receive a letter through the post threatening it with fines if it doesn't get its hair cut just-so, to complement the ironic 80s specs.

Mind you, yellow is still traumatised after what Coldplay did to it. It'd get special dispensation regardless.

I don't know anything about blue. As a Liverpool fan, it doesn't exist. You may as well try and force a dog to write poetry.

Y Niwl are perfect. And getting better. What they do with the primary colours, almost self-limited as they are, is focus on melody, rhythm, energy... and I shall treat them with a similarly minimal respect.

Just ace.

I've spent the ensuing week humming nothing but their tunes. If they could stick them in tiny clothes, make them bump and grind in front of an inappropriate audience, and jam on some future bass, these tracks would be MASSIVE. Thank god they haven't and they won't.

Y Niwl finish and I play some records for people. Four, I think, and two of them were rubbish.

A lad approaches the DJ booth:

"Hey mate..." he says.

"Yes?"

"Have you got any Roses?"

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I have never felt any real inclination to compose. I enjoy being a part of bringing other people's creations to life, but alas, bright Cecilia did not gift me with compositional ability (unless the highly original version of the set study I performed in my Grade six Piano examination counts).

I admire those who have the ability to take disparate ideas in their minds and craft them into a complex whole however and so, it was interesting for me to have a chat with three composers taking part in the orchestra's Composers' Workshops this week (Sarah Lianne Lewis, Joseph Davies and Gareth Olubunmi Hughes).

As an instrumentalist, starting out in the profession is tough. However, we have the opportunity to hone our skills through numerous youth orchestras, young artist schemes and placements. But what of our composers?

The general consensus amongst the trio I spoke to was that while there are similar opportunities available for composers, there are certainly fewer, and the chance to workshop with a full symphony orchestra in the manner this project allows is a rare one. Scores are submitted several months in advance, with half a dozen subsequently chosen for rehearsal with the orchestra.

The six selected composers receive a recording of their work, and a panel (including our Composer-in-Association, Simon Holt; Resident Composer, Mark Bowden; and our Principal Guest Conductor, Jac van Steen) select some of the scores for public performance at the end of the project. This year, there are two additional workshops - composing for wind quintet and composing for harp.

Whatever your thoughts on 'new music', it is brave for someone to place their creation, something they have poured a part of themselves into, in front of an orchestra. Musicians are not always kind people. Each of the composers I shared a coffee with were genuinely eager to have their work examined under the microscope, to learn what worked and what didn't. I guess it's like a lot of things - you can know the theory, but until you get to try it out, how can you ever know if it works?

It was interesting to hear the different influences each had (all really quite discernible in their works), and to discuss the impetus driving each of their voices. For Joseph and Sarah, the emphasis is upon creating a sounds and colours, often related to very specific instrumental voices, whereas for Gareth, the emphasis is more upon harmonic progression. Sadly, lunch wasn't long enough for us to properly address the 'where have all the big, tunes gone?' question.

I know that at times I can be impatient with new music - sometimes I just don't get it, sometimes the thought of playing 13 notes in the space of seven makes my brain hurt - but music should always be an adventure. Music is a living, breathing, ever changing thing, and we must embrace that. Our young (and not so young) composers deserve our support in continuing to develop their craft as wholeheartedly as we instrumentalists are supported.

The Welsh Composers Showcase concludes this evening (Thursday 2 February) with a public concert at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff Bay. Free tickets are available by calling 0800 052 1812.