Today we stop off in the South Wales town of Aberdare, which I found mentioned by name in two fine tunes from Welsh bands...
And one of those bands got legs like you
And one of them got the stare
And one of those bands got found I heard
In a hole in Aberdare
Now I've reached it, I'm finally there
Like Terminator being filmed in Aberdare
So alone, when people stop and stare
Like C3PO but with pubes and hair
Welsh rap - can't beat that... can we?
Just down the road from Aberdare is the former coal mining village of Cwmaman, birthplace of muso-irking indie band The Stereophonics. (Or the Stereophonies as Muso-Prime, Mark Radcliffe, likes to call them.)
I can see why some people have a problem with the Stereophonics. They starter out as lyrically intriguing Welsh indie storytellers, but rapidly went a bit L.A. when it became clear they could have bigger hits by making their stories more generic and widescreen.
That first album though... Word Gets Around... that's still a favourite of mine. Great little small town stories set to timeless indie guitars. And all those songs, although it never gets mentioned by name, were written about the band's experiences growing up... in Aberdare. They became much less interesting once they left their hometown behind.
Standing at the bus stop with my shopping
In my hands when I'm overhearing elderly
Ladies as the rumours start to fly you can
Hear them in the school yard, in the scrap yard
In the chip shop, in the phone box, in the pool hall at
The shoe stall every corner turned around...
It started with a school girl who was
Running running home to her mam and
Dad told them she was playing in the
Change room of her local football side they
Said tell us again so she told them again
They said tell us the truth, they found it hard
To believe, 'cause he taught our Steve, he
Even trained me, taught Uncle John who's a
Father of three
But it only takes one tree to make
A thousand matches
Only takes one match to burn
A thousand trees