So. Wales.

There was frost… snow I think.

We were there for about 3 or 4 months… long enough to learn to play; to get a set together. To gel as a band, and as people.

We bought all the gear we needed (no idea how)(I mean really, how the fuck did we do that?) – set up with a vocal PA in the main room of a remote cottage. There was a kitchen where the sink would freeze over at night, and another room, filled will old sofas and with a wood-fire, that we would crash out in smoking utterly insaniac quantities of hash. Didn’t drink that much in those days… that would come later.

For me at least. For some reason, every night at about 8pm, the electricity would lose about 20% of its “quality”. All the lights would suddenly dim.

That was where we first met Rich – who would later become our manager.

Although that is (I suspect) technically a Swervedriver gig as evidenced by the presence of the Ghost of James Partridge, sitting blurrily to the left. Everyone was kindof blurry in those days.

Not sure why.

We were all into mystical shit. We were twenty-something-teenagers. Goes with the territory in some ways, and there’s really no better place to do it than under the Black Mountains in some remote winter mega-canabinated halcyon hallucination. Not much I can remember now (like most things)… wild horses coming out of the mist at the top of the Brecon Beacons… an abandoned church that we were all too spooked to go into (apart from Alan who went in and started digging up the floor, looking for artefacts etc). It was cold, but like warm at the same time.

There was this abandoned cottage up the road into the hills – dirt floor and made out of stone blocks – not lined inside – just bare stone. No idea how old it was. Old. No water or wires etc. It looked like the people who lived there had just got up from the table, and randomly left… there was still cutlery and stuff on it. I found 4 rusty old scythe-blades hanging from a tree outside – which I stole (you’ve got to steal something). Seemed appropriate. No idea where they are now. Probably back in the tree.

In a way (and from the inside), this was the best time for The Wild Poppies – still living in the dream-zone, before the grimy-reality of the British post-punk music scene hit us. No idea where we got the drugs from… but something I’ve noticed with drugs – if you want them, they find you.

So anyway – we got a new set together, and became reasonably tight musically. To get really tight, you’ve got to play live I think, but we were pretty good. There’s a fairly major difference between the stuff we did before Wales and after.

We were into this lot

No photos exist of this time – cameras weren’t invented yet. The pictures here kindof capture it though.

Wales is so beautiful. No wonder the magic mushrooms decided to live there – that’s where I’d live if I was a magic mushroom and who knows, maybe one day I will be. I like Wales – every time I go west over that massive bridge, I get this massive wave of relief. The further west I go, the better I feel.

…

Anyhoo – I’d lived in London for a year, and the music scene there was mean and judgemental – the arse-end of goth, recycled into some sort of pastey-faced pantomime. Everyone seemed to have weird noses. It was kindof intimidating. We figured we needed to be within striking distance of London… but somewhere a bit friendlier. Shortlist: Oxford, Bristol. We chose Oxford. No famous bands had ever come from Oxford, but there was quite a good scene there… so… one day we loaded up the van, and headed back down the M4.