It's been a strange year for music with very few outstanding albums, yet the emergence of exciting talent from Merthyr Tudful has been astounding.
   As well as Pretty Vicious, there's a plethora of talent : The Dole Age, Chapel Row, Local Enemy, Moon Birds and Plasterscene to name but a few.
   A compilation album which includes our excellent singer-songwriters is essential and could be the focus of next year's Merthyr Rising Festival.
   In terms of the year's best albums I'm not going to commit myself yet, especially as Dan Auerbach's band The Arcs latest cd is winging its way here as I speak.
   It only recently occurred to me that the last three albums I've got have all been world music ones.
   Like Cool Cymru, it often seems like world music has happened and then gone away.
   Nothing could be further from the truth however.
   Fair play to Jools Holland, when he does feature world sounds they are invariably interesting.
   Song of the year was, without doubt,  'Mama Says' from the French/Cuban twins called 'Ibeyi', who sing in English and Yoruba. Spare and moody, it was a rare moment of sheer emotion amongst all the averagosity.
   Thanks to Jools also for featuring the Congolese band Mbwongana Star whose album 'From Kinshasa' is a joy to listen and dance to ( if only with frantically tapping fingers and strange looks on public transport!).
   They sound better live than on record, where the production can be a bit cluttered or overdone at times.
   They're an ambitious band, who combine African instruments, chants, 'township' rhythms, hard rock and electronic effects in the main successfully.
   The opening track 'From Kinshasa to the moon' sums them up : packed with fast-running beat and adventure.
   Like Malian bands they can turn their hands to the blues, as on 'Coco Blues', but their distinctive style is one which combines African music with electronica.
   Are the Super Furries big in Kinshasa? If they are, then that figures!
   
   I first heard Ghazalaw on  a programme about the WOMEX13 music festival in Cardiff Bay and, like Mbwongana Star, they are unique.
   Think curried lentil cawl and you have the foodie equivalent!
   Their eponymous album marries Welsh folk songs from Gwyneth Glyn and the Indian ghazal music of Tauseef Akhtar.
   What could so easily be a stodgy attempt to create a spicy soup turns out instead to be a very tasty concoction.
   The two traditions of love poetry and traditional folk song combine perfectly in conversation or harmony, or an exchange of musical gifts.
   Familiar songs like 'Lusa Lan' and 'Moliannwn' are given a new dimension. The violin is the bridge between the two traditions, while Akhtar's fluid vocal complements Glyn's gentle voice.
   The tabla  is a pulsing river whose current runs throughout ; harp the light on its surface, ever-changing with tone.
  This is music which explores fresh territory, every note a landmark, every song a different panorama.
   
  'Mundo' is the latest album from one of Portugal's finest ever fado singers, Mariza.
   To see her live is quite an experience.
   With her short , white hair and flowing dress she has a remarkable presence.
    Astonishingly, she even sang in St.David's Hall without a mic on several songs, her voice carrying high and low.
   'Mundo' means 'world' and though there are  many fado songs on the album, she show her versatility by singing ballads like 'Melhor de Mim' and even a relatively jaunty pop song 'Saudade Solta' ( someone is going to tell me it's about death!).
   But it's the fado, like Blues itself, which transports you : a ridge between the valleys of sadness and thrill.
   I'm still waiting for the Crown Inn in Merthyr to have a fado night, but till then I'll listen to magical Mariza.



                            FADO  IN  SETUBAL

Under tree's shade
in striking afternoon sun
propped against a wall -
in church square
with cup at feet
and bucket hat -
the blues of Setubal,
voice of the fado singer
catching us in its net -
we do not flounder
but sit so still
and listen as to a solitary
blackbird in the morning -
down crocheted overhangs
of shopping alleyways
the sound swims
searching for sea -
we follow willingly.

             

​We aven ad no weather this summer,
it’s bin rain, rain an more rain.
 
 
Where’s the bus? I complained
t the Council , they sayd  it woz on’y me.
 
 
Bin t Marks yet? Food All’s brilliant,
but the whool town’s run down.
 
 
What appened in Paris wuz  beyond!
It’s all them refugees, see….
 
 
it’s bound t be, they come over yer
but arf o them are gee-addies.
 
 
An tha woman welcomin  them in Germany,
yew think they’d  won the war!
 
 
Personally, I carn stand the Germans.
No sign of-a bus. There’s snow on-a way.

     Friends, No-Wings and Pijins, cease your coo-ings and listen!
   I have given you the Coo-coo-operative Party and now I give you pijinism/ pijiniaeth.
   Yes, let us be bi-lingual, after all we have shat upon the 'siaradwyr Cymraeg' with equal relish over the years.
   Now it is my duty to warn you!
   There are serious threats to my status as a demi-god.
   This realisation came about when I tried landing on a bin down town and found it had been spiked.
   Yes, would you believe it, the authorities do not embrace our beloved 'pijiniaeth' and are even putting these deadly devices on common bins.
   I knew immediately that this was all related to a new and insidious personality cult which is creeping across the country from England.
   I first came across this whilst reading a stray chip paper ( yes, we still use them sometimes in Merthyr).
   On it was an article by my favourite political coo-mentator Frankie Boyle, Scotsman and lover of pigeons.
   As I read it I became very concerned.
   He described a No-Wings called Jeremy Caw-bin ( think that's how you say it ) who was addressing his first party conference as leader.
   Boyle specifically said that this Caw-bin was a 'pigeon in a suit' and I knew, straight away, he was a traitor.
   He can't deceive me, good followers.
   Whether he is an over-sized crow or conniving pigeon, I'm certain the lethal bin is all part of his plot to destroy pijinism.
   Traitors are now everywhere and we will have to deal with them in the traditional manner of 'mass pecking', 'guano burying' and 'knockout dive-bombing'.
   Even my former ally and once trusted disciple Bazza Woodpijin has turned against us and abandoned the faith.
   I have decreed a 'chipwa' ( our equivalent of a 'fatwa') against him.
   He has mocked our faith with his frivolous and blasphemous chanting of ' Om Mangy Pijin Hum'.
   My informants tell me he has begun to set up his own sub-cult in the Black Wood (the name signifies everything about it).
   If any of you catch sight of him near Lucy Thomas shrine or the hallowed Food Cloisters in town, then you know what to do.
  I have heard that his few followers waste their time drinking all manner of noxious brews made from tincture of sausage roll and even cannibalistic pigeon pie.   
   Trusted Pijinites, now's the time to show your allegiance to the one true guru, who happens to be myself (but could easily be you).
   Remember, I'm not here to preach, but to show you a way that will change your lives forever.
   There will be no more stress from being chased by dogs or mini No-Wings.
There will be so much more than the Great Pasty of Beyond.
   Pijic flying is a state of no-mind.
   Caw-bin is a charlatan who preaches a better world , yet can deliver nothing.
   Bazza of the Black Wood can only give you a bad head when you wake up in roof guttering in the morning.
   No, seize the moment and direct the fury of your beaks and droppings towards enemies as dangerous as seagulls.
   We must protect this precious gift........ which I have now written up as a self-help manual '49 Steps To Flying Without Wings' (Pijin Press), available at all good bookshops ready for Christmas.


                                       THE  CAW-BIN

This is not a hedgehog
or a porcupine
on the run down town.

More like a Medieval
torture device
to skewer us pigeons.

Soon they'll be everywhere,
spiky benches
spiky railings.

It's the fault
of false doctrine,
bird disguised as No-Wing.

They want us on kebabs,
they want us pinned -
I blame that Caw-bin!
  

   This time of year my family are in Irish mode.
   Or, more specifically, a northern Irish republican one.
   Hallowe'en has always been the main celebration and Guy Fawkes shunned.
   Apart from the fact he was a Catholic, there's the history of the 'wee six' itself, where the Loyalists have traditionally built huge bonfires on which they've burnt effigies of prominent republicans and numerous Irish flags.
  It's not just the Battle of the Boyne which is a cause for triumphalism. 
  My response to Remembrance Day as a committed Welsh socialist republican is akin to that of my wife and her Belfast background.
  How can you possibly glorify a military who have oppressed and murdered your own people?
   On the streets of  Merthyr, Llanelli and Newport just as on Bloody Sunday in Derry, the British armed forces have been used as an instrument of colonial brutality against working-class struggles.
   Like Irish republicans I can never wear a red poppy, which only mourns the military dead , not the civilians or freedom-fighters.
  At this contentious time, I've been involved in workshops and a reading culminating in an event at Redhouse, Merthyr , where the Irish Ambassador Daniel Mulhall spoke about W.B.Yeats on the commemoration of 150 years since his birth.
   My workshops with a creative writing group in Treharris focused on Yeats' famous poem 'Easter 1916' and I'm carried by its power and emotion even though I don't agree with its sentiments.
   The group went on to write individual poems about personal 'risings' and several group poems. They voted on the best one, which one of them read out on the night and which was also exhibited at Redhouse -

                                 HOPE  RISING
We rise up, rare fountain of hope
from the depths of our inner misery
reaching to the stars and beyond
the eternal barrier of fate.
But there is always a fall
after a rising call,
the people want to be heard
above the shouts and battle cries.

   The Ambassador spoke in some detail about 'Easter 1916' and its affect on Irish consciousness.
   Yeats' disgust at the revolutionary violence is evident and he obviously believed that Home Rule could've been achieved without resorting to rebellion.
  What Yeats didn't fully address were the wider implications of the Rising : the first real challenge by any of its colonies to the British Empire.
   Daniel Mulhall didn't deal with that either.
   Yeats barely implied the callous , totalitarian measures taken by the British Gov. , namely the execution of 15 of the leaders, among whom were his friends. 
   His horror was aimed at revolution and not state terror, and this tells you a lot about his politics.
   Ambassador Mulhall raised the question of how Ireland should celebrate the centenary of the Rising next year. His conclusion was, as an act of remembrance.
   Yet, looking at contemporary Ireland there are three crucial areas which remain unresolved and which the Rising can throw light upon.
   Firstly, there's the Gaelic language, whose main champion Padraig Pearse was one of those executed.
   Ironically, the main impetus towards it has come in recent history from Provisional IRA prisoners in the Maze and Sinn Fein remains the only party really committed to a bi-lingual Ireland.
   Secondly, serious inequalities exist within Irish society in terms of wealth and expectation.
   Partition and the victory of the Free Staters in the ensuing Civil War brought two parties, both capitalist, emerging out of that conflict. The Irish working-class has been oppressed by its own countrymen in businesses and companies.
   Like Britain, it has been vulnerable to the changes of boom and bust, but the latter never saw a redistribution of wealth.
   James Connolly was the principal voice of socialist republicanism in the Rising and his execution in 1916 meant that Ireland lost its most significant figure.
  Connolly was also an avowed internationalist and member of the IWW, and realised that worker control should not be confined to his country
alone.
   The third unresolved matter is the fact that Ireland is not independent, simply because Britain still controls n. Ireland.
   Connolly and others like him would surely never have given in to Lloyd George's threats of war in the way Michael Collins did.
   I'm pretty sure he would not have accepted the partition of Ireland against the democratic wishes of the majority : in 1918 Sinn Fein won an outright majority.
   Yeats mourned his friends 'As a mother names her child', but not the ideals they cherished.
   He was a staunch Anglophone, who didn't sympathize with Pearse's vision of  a Gaelic-speaking nation and he definitely had little time for Connolly's revolutionary socialism.
   What Ireland should be confronting next year are these fundamental issues, all connected to the Rising.
   It's fitting that Ireland embraces its citizens from all traditions : poets Longley, Yeats and Mahon and great singer-songwriters like Van Morrison.
   The narrow Catholic state has gradually changed and is still changing.
   Loyalists in the north should also look to their own culture and see how it has engaged with where it lives and not just the battles it has won.
   The Easter Rising began something which has still  not ended, despite the relative peace and calm.
   Connolly's socialism and Pearse's beloved Gaelic should belong to everyone, no matter their beliefs.

   ( I wrote this poem about a recent visit to Galway City) :-

                          RAINBOW FLAG SAILING

Sailing above the Spanish Arch
is the rainbow flag,
so soon after the loud,proud
'Yes!' of more than enough.


He strides towards Quay Street,
lipstick shining , face-studs
and multi-coloured clothing
as if fashioned from that banner.


His ship's just landed
and hardly a head turns
as he joins the babble of tongues
lapping at stalls and shops.


He's not come from another country,
but one long hidden :
to his tales of rocks and wrecks
the landlocked finally listen.         

     

   Just when I think I've cracked it, that's when I'm thrown!
   I'm walking home from the shop and here comes a rotund fella in dirty trackies and frayed trainers leading a pony down the hill.
  He rules the road and cars give him a wide berth.
  I nod over to him  and he announces - ' Yewwhezullezzz!'
  I've lived in Merthyr for 36 years, don't speak in the accent yet write in it. I couldn't fathom what he was on about.
   When me and my wife first moved here we actually thought most people were speaking Welsh.  Ironically, on the John's Travel buses up to Heolgerrig  (which are still going) most people were at that time.
   It was going to Newport last Sunday got me thinking about Merthyr : had it improved or deteriorated over those years?
   Apart from a long  Muslim peace demo - with men and women  strictly segregated - Newport was as dead as Merthyr centre on a Sunday....except for a  few skateboarders and stray alkies .
  The main  centre of activity was the large building site , trying to  get the shopping complex ready for opening this week.
  As my friend and fellow  poet Jonathan  Edwards said   -  '  To turn Newport into  the same place as everywhere.'
   Certainly it  reminded me of many towns in the Valleys : rundown, closed down and full of Pound and Charity Shops and moneylenders.
   It's  odd  how the demise of the Valleys after coal, iron and  manufacturing went away, is  blamed  primarily  on location  and  lack of investment in infrastructure.
    Yet Newport's dilapidation confounds this.  Proximity to  the M4 corridor hasn't brought wealth.
   Manufacturing has been largely replaced by the retail sector, just as Merthyr's retail parks drain the town centre of business.
    It is the whole of Wales (with the possible exception of the capital) which is still suffering from economic depression.
   Capitalism has failed us, as has the British state.
   Massive hand-outs to multi-nationals followed the decline of  heavy industries and our manufacturing base.
  These, in turn, moved elsewhere in the world in search of cheaper labour.
  Successive Labour governments in Cardiff Bay have failed to  provide any alternatives. constantly seeking  outside investment rather than deploying local skills.
  Tower Colliery was a model for what could've been achieved everywhere, but workers' co-operatives have had very little encouragement.
   Speaking from experience, we tried to set up a publishing co-op a few years back, but simply could not raise enough finance to match a grant. Advice was plentiful , but financial support virtually impossible.
​   Co-operatives need to be given maximum backing to  flourish and build eco-friendly housing  and renovate run-down properties, recycle furniture ,  provide allotment-grown food to needy communities and the many other things that would be sustainable and invaluable.
   When we first came here, we often went to  factory shops : a toy factory, two clothes factories and OP chocolates all within easy reach. 
   Only the latter is left.
   The next factory to open here will be making armoured vehicles on the site of the Linde fork-lift truck plant.
  As with the meat factory and opencast mine  we have accepted jobs whatever the costs  to animal and human life and to the environment.
   It's nothing new : think  of the dangers of ironworks and mines.
   36   years ago Merthyr certainly had bands and writers.
  In fact , Merthyr Writers' Circle managed to  get my first book in dialect 'Graffiti Narratives' banned from Smith's because of its 'language'!
   Now the town is a cultural hub, with highly talented rock groups, singer-songwriters and artists a-plenty.
   Yet all this is constantly under threat from austerity measures and only  recently our Open Mic poetry nights  have had all finance withdrawn, so it  feels like over a decade of meetings and visits by well-known writers from Gillian Clarke to Owen Sheers will come to an end.
   However, we are determined  to carry on and raise enough money to pay writers' expenses.
   It's not ideal. Writers should be paid a proper fee and the need for a Welsh Writers' Union once again is paramount.
  Despite the rise of UKIP and their bigoted culture of blame, Merthyr still retains the spirit of 1831. We demand 'caws' as well as 'bara', more than just the flung crumbs.


                                       SABOTAGE

I ewsed t work with  video machines
up  Irwin,  till ey closed
tha  factree down.

An then, on-a lines
makin desks an filin cabinets
some robots coulda done.

I lost ev'rythin arfta :
wife, job an  ome ;
darkness like no other.

At las I'm comin up agen,
startin t breathe pewer air  :
there's a new factree openin.

I don'  wanna do it.
makin armoured cars
f fewture bloody wars.

I marched the streets b'fore
'gainst  Iraq,  Afghanistan an Gaza.
I don' take it, my  benefit disappears.

Orready I'm plannin  t scheme :
a wire yer, a loose connection.
Sabotage,  s  nobuddy knows.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                               

At the screen again,
a one finger slide
and the globe is mine

messaging and sharing ,
like, poke, comment -
I make the lines

from site to site
they stretch out -
forceful, unseen

                                            in morning's foggy dew
                                            with sun simmering low,
                                            everywhere seen anew

                                            on garage door, washing line,
                                            garden bushes, fences, walls -
                                            the finery of webs

                                            danger & wonder in single threads -
                                            master spider, fly caught
                                            like buzzard-barbs on rabbit

                       always one touch away -
                       both spinner and prey.