Rise of The Super Furry Animals. Ric Rawlins

      

      

       Copyright

      The Friday Project

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Published by The Friday Project 2015

      Copyright © Ric Rawlins

      Ric Rawlins asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008105235

      Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780008113377

      Version: 2015-01-16

       Dedication

      To Marianne and Acorn

      CONTENTS

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Author’s Note

      Dramatis Personae

      Prologue

      Chapter One: Mountain lessons / Hot Puke / The pirates of Bethesda / Citizens band

Chapter Two: Festival time / The wildest man in North Wales / Heavy metal hoax / Ffa Coffi Pawb

Chapter Three: Ankst Records / Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci / Why aren’t we making techno? / The long walk home

Chapter Four: The teacher / Rock and squat / Cardiff in the sun / The rave

       Chapter Five: SFA Soundsystem / The man don’t give a dub / Rhys says adios / Into space

       Chapter Six: Birth of a ringtone / London turns on / Moog Droog / The wisdom of Robert Plant / Outlaw aircraft carrier

       Chapter Seven: Tour of Cornwall / The number 23 / Fuzzy Birds / Outlaw hunting / Something out of Killing Joke

       Chapter Eight: Fired from a cannon / Hanging with Howard Marks / Meet the press / Baz

       Chapter Nine: Turning Japanese / F-16 Jetstreams / Cian-do attitude / Off the map

       Chapter Ten: Painting demons / Bouncy castle licence / S4C on the attack / Overtaken by a wheel

       Chapter Eleven: Rise of the Shinto gods / Air panic / Gringos in the mist / Unbridled freedom

       Chapter Twelve: Deep sleep earthquake / Big trouble in Bogotá / Death to the monarchy

       Chapter Thirteen: William Hague’s letter / Ice hockey hootenanny / Britpop turbulence / Electric harps

       Chapter Fourteen: Taekwondo music / Love letter to El Niño / Das Koolies

       Chapter Fifteen: Placid Casual, Acid Casuals / Bear in a vice / Gods and monsters

       Chapter Sixteen: Kamikaze at Glastonbury / Bouncy ghetto blaster / Mash it up / Creation goes down

       Chapter Seventeen: Recovered histories / The Roman road / Smoking goats / Pop strike / America

       Chapter Eighteen: East coast negotiations / Lost in time

       Chapter Nineteen: Intermission / Experiments with earthquakes / The Skull God / Furrymania / Yeti psychosis

       Chapter Twenty: Wasteland Gods / Travels in a space buggy / Pizza trippin’

       Epilogue

       Footnotes

       SFA Mixtape

       Song Title Translations

       Thankyous

       About the Publisher

       AUTHOR’S NOTE

      With the band’s consent – and hopefully not too much distress from anyone I’ve forgotten to ask – some of the sections in this book have been ‘cinematised’: that is to say, scripted up and CGI’d into narrative-friendly shape. That said, everything you’re about to read is based on the subjective truth of interviews taken during the research process. It’s also worth noting that, although this is a book in the English language, many of the conversations replicated here – particularly those spoken by the band – would have originally taken place in what Gruff describes as a ‘cracked youthful version’ of the Welsh language.

       DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      SUPER FURRY ANIMALS

      Cian Ciaran

      Dafydd Ieuan

      Gruff Rhys

      Guto Pryce

      Huw Bunford

      FFA COFFI PAWB

      Gruff Rhys

      Dafydd Ieuan

      Rhodri Puw

      Dewi Emlyn

      WALES MOVERS AND SHAKERS

      Gorwel Owen

      Record producer

      Rhys Mwyn

      Founder, Anhrefn and Recordiau Anhrefn

      Dafydd Rhys

      Brother of Gruff Rhys, founder of Pesda Roc festival

      Emyr Williams

      Co-founder, Ankst Records

      Rhys Ifans

      Actor, fanzine writer, Super Furry Animal

      LONDON MOVERS AND SHAKERS

      Brian Cannon

      Photographer, filmmaker and creator of imagery

      Alan McGee

      The boss, Creation Records

      John Andrews

      Marketing manager, Creation Records

      Dick