of Bethesda: the illegal DJs who are transmitting on the exact same frequency used by the local police force … and causing mayhem.’
‘Awesome!’ Dafydd laughed. ‘We’ve been broadcasting on the police frequency!’
He switched off the lights and crawled over to the window. Down in the night below, two police cars were projecting their headlights up the steep curves of the opposite mountain. ‘They know the transmitter’s up there,’ whispered Dafydd.
The pirates’ days were numbered, but Bethesda’s underground radio scene was just getting started. Citizens band radio, or CB as it was commonly known, was a form of short-wave communication made famous by Hollywood movies during the 1970s. American truckers used CB to communicate in Smokey and the Bandit, while the cops in The Dukes of Hazzard used it to bark at each other while speeding through Kentucky. Now, for reasons that nobody could quite explain, the teenagers of Bethesda were using it to communicate between the valleys.
It was 1982.
‘Your basic CB system is quite crude,’ said the moustached man at the car boot sale, holding up two pieces of scrap metal to an audience of bewitched children. ‘You just slot this bit into here … then plug this wire in here … then talk through this bit over here!’ He burped. ‘Excuse me, children. Now does anyone have any questions?’
‘My father says it is illegal!’ announced one kid.
‘Well,’ said the moustached man, leaning in with a glint in his teeth. ‘I guess your father just ain’t cool then, is he?’
Within weeks, CB was more popular than ET. As soon as night descended on the valleys, entire networks of teenagers began transmitting messages to one another, using codenames to protect their identities from the police. The police, meanwhile, would be stationed on the other end of town, listening in from their vans. As far as they could fathom, an underground criminal network had come to town; it would be some weeks before they realised it was just a bunch of kids.
Meanwhile, the codenames grew ever more mysterious: Gruff became known as ‘Goblin’, while the weediest kid in school renamed himself ‘The Black Stallion’. It was communication chaos – a kind of primitive social network – and the more it continued, the more an interesting side effect emerged: since all the coded language had been inspired by truckers in American movies, a weird hybrid language began to develop that was part Hollywood bandit-speak, part Welsh tongue.
With the young people of Bethesda engaged in their social network experiment, it wasn’t long before groups started linking together, joining the dots and forming new realities on the ground. One such manifestation was the emergence of a live music boom, organised almost entirely by left-wing political groups.
Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society) was the most prolific: their young activists put on gigs to raise cash and awareness for the miners who were being stung by the Thatcher government, while campaigning for equal status for the Welsh language. Their guerrilla activities included artfully manipulating English-language signs, in a cheeky style that would later become popular with organisations such as Adbusters. Their ideology was simple: ‘non-violent, direct action’.
‘Welsh-language culture back then was kind of an outsider thing – you were out there,’ says Emyr Glyn Williams, co-founder of Ankst Records. ‘Now obviously you can get a government grant for all sorts of things, but in that time the “living Welsh culture” was kind of free and independent, and it was based around things like the rock scene.’
The local CND group got involved in live music too, as did a collective of student promoters from the nearby university town of Bangor. The result was a sudden cultural explosion which spawned a new generation of hedonistic, radical Welsh-language pop groups.
Gruff and his brother were smack bang in the middle of this melting pot. By 1984 the former had graduated from biscuit tins to full-sized drums and was playing in a band called Machlud. Meanwhile Dafydd was the manager of a local pop sensation: Maffia Mr Huws. Known as the fab five of North Wales, they inspired countless imitators with their commercial songs and healthy teeth.
As Gruff explains today: ‘They were formed around two brothers whose parents had moved out: they were left to raise themselves at a very early age! And the house turned into a 24-hour jam session. They became incredible musicians and a magnet to loads of other kids.’
Dafydd’s management of the local pop sensation wasn’t the only thing he had going for him: one day he had the idea of staging an outdoor music event in the heart of town. The Pesda Roc festival would take place on the site – now a rugby pitch – where, in the thirteenth century, Prince Dafydd had trained his troops to prepare for battle against the Normans. It was a mischievous, genius idea – and battle was indeed about to commence.
Traditionally there weren’t many rock ’n’ roll freaks in Bethesda; the working-class quarry town had been mostly insulated from the punk craze while developing its own modest subcultures. However, when Pesda Roc kicked off it brought the whole zoo to town, with the high street suddenly crawling with greasy aliens, biker gangs and proto-ravers.
On the first night of the festival, Maffia Mr Huws were headlining the main stage while Gruff and his best mate Rhodri decided to hang back with a few beers. Suddenly from the shadows, a gang of outsiders approached – led by a teenager with a peroxide mohawk.
‘Good evening!’ came the charming burr. ‘I’m Rhys Ifans and these are my cronies. We were just handing out free copies of my fanzine Poen Mefwlfn1 – and were wondering if you’d care for a copy?’
‘Thankyou!’ said Rhodri, taking one.
The Mohawk took a suspicious look around the park, chewing on his cocktail stick. ‘Not a bad festival you have here,’ he mused. ‘Although I must say the locals haven’t exactly held us to their bosoms. One person even attempted to beat the shit out of me …’
‘Ah, sorry to hear that,’ said Gruff.
‘Not a problem. To be honest, it was probably my own fault. I shook him by the balls, you see.’
Gruff and Rhodri nodded slowly.
‘Right, we’d best be off. If you see a man with a spade coming this way, please pass on my sincerest regrets.’
He let out a howling laugh, and scuttled away with the gang.
‘What a charismatic man,’ said Rhodri. ‘Who the fuck is he?’
‘I don’t really know,’ said Gruff, ‘but my sister calls him “the wildest man in North Wales”. People talk about him as if he’s some sort of folk legend.’
‘The wildest man in North Wales? Christ, he must be mental.’ Rhodri collapsed against a tree. ‘So what was it you were talking about a minute ago – about the songs you wrote?’
‘Ah, yeah,’ said Gruff. ‘Basically the walk to school is ridiculously boring, so I’ve started coming up with a few melodies in my head, and working them out on my brother’s guitar.’
‘Hang on, though,’
