squidpants

so one of my pals, Edmund, is moving to Wales pretty soon. I was bored at work and decided to put together a little compendium of my favorite Welsh bands and albums. There's a suprisingly big indie rock scene there. Well, maybe not surprisingly, since it's a big place, but whatever. Here it is.

Super Furry Animals - Rings Around the World
Kooky, melodic, over the top electronicish rock. They're great in concert, have a cool video show, and sometimes they wear Yeti costumes

Super Furry Animals - Phantom Power
Came out after Rings Around the World. more muscular and with some good anti-US songs

Super Furry Animals - Mwng
It's all in Welsh, so I dunno what it's about. Good music though, and the words sound neat.

Catatonia - International Velvet
Catchy Brit-pop (or Welsh-pop?) with a sultry-type girl singer. I love "Road Rage." "Mulder and Scully" was a big hit apparently, but I don't remember it.

McLusky - My Pain & Sadness Is More Sad & Painful Than Yours
Probably the best album name ever, these guys are sort of loud rock goofballs. Funny and sometimes angry. Their other cds are supposed to be good too.

I read somewhere that they formed after two of the guys went independently to a concert at a Welsh theater dressed as miners, they both got kicked out and then became friends. The third guy pissed on their tent at the Reading Festival, and he became their friend too.

Also, they have a video at rathergood.com which is really funny

Manic Street Preachers - Forever Delayed: The Greatest Hits
I guess these guys are the UK version of Rage Against the Machine, leftist rock stuff, but not as loud or annoying as Rage. I like the song "If You Tolerate This, Then Your Children Will Be Next". I don't always know who the people are they're talking about, but whatever.

Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
(mynci pronounced monkey)
Don't know these guys too well, but what i've heard is fun, kooky Brit-poppish stuff. From the early to mid 90s.

Stereophonics
I don't really know them too well, but I hear they're good

And in other news, the most people to ever visit my site in one day came on friday. Pretty cool! I guess they like stories about iPods, Sufjan Stevens, and dildos in metal detectors.