Reptile Ranch

One of the strange things to happen in the past decade has been the rediscovery of the records me and the people I knew made in the post-punk DIY years. First the Messthetics series brought them back blinking into the light and I began to have the faintest inkling of what it must have been like for those Mississippi bluesmen in the sixties when record collectors started seeking them out- that same sense of ‘what the hell do you want with that old shit?’ The difference being obv that many of the Mississippi bluesmen were utterly brilliant, while absolutely none of us were.

Some were better than others though and it’s nice to see a vinyl reissue of the collective works of fellow Cardiffians Reptile Ranch getting some attention. So I dug out my old fanzine. in which me and my mate Charles interviewed them. and here. for your delectation. is the most hilariously over-serious conversation between 1970s teenagers you could wish to read.

Al O’Donnell

It’s taken me a long while to catch up with Al O’Donnell. An Irish singer who made his name in England in the sixties, he went on to make two albums for Bill Leader, then seemed to vanish from the folk scene thereafter, his two albums lost in the Leader copyright debacle. So a great pleasure to find this on youtube – And don’t worry – the wee leprechaun at the beginning is only introducing the song.

In Chapters at the Green Man

The next In Chapters is at the Green Man Festival on Sunday August 21 at 1pm. The theme will be Ghosts and the guest artistes will include Joe Dunthorne, Laura J. Martin, Rachel Trezise, Katell Keineg, David Oprava, Charlotte Greig and Jemma Roper. Richard James will be back in his role as Musical Director after last month’s layoff