An evening of punk, poetry and pints with Attila the Stockbroker in Mid Wales.
We don’t normally do a one-hundred-and-twenty mile journey to listen to poetry, but The Lost Arc is one of our favourite venues and Attila is not your average poet.
As Attila’s t shirt says
Most people ignore
most poetry because
most poetry ignores
most peopleAdrian Mitchel
Attila’s poetry most definitely does not ignore people.
There are several reasons for liking The Lost Arc: it’s a great creative space, with a cool programme of artists, it’s run by a really friendly bunch of people, it does what public art centres are supposed to do. But its actually a family business. And it’s in Rhayader.
Sat almost exactly in the geographic centre of Wales, Rhayader has the breathtaking Elan Valley on its doorstep, has a kite feeding centre just down the road and just a bit further down the road is the site of the amazing Landed Festival which springs up once a year.
Bucking the trend of many towns, Rhayader has five busy pubs all within staggering distance of each other. Three of them are literally next door to each other.
So yeah, Rhayader is cool. And the drive there is pretty nifty. The A470 is a bit crap at being a trunk road, but along its meander from Cardiff to Llandudno, linking the north and south coast of Wales, some pretty spectacular views scroll past the windows of the car.
Unfortunately, today, we are deprived of one of the highlights, the bit where you climb north from the Heads of the Valleys, and get first sight of the Bannau Brycheiniog. There’s a thick blanket of fog, meaning visibility is down to around ten metres. All we are able to see is cars when they are almost on top of us, bends just before you need to turn the steering wheel and the snow-dusted verges. Our soundtrack for the journey is an audiobook about the history of Kazakhstan, which seems appropriate. It’s the sort of place that Attila might have been to and might have written a poem about. If he hasn’t, he should.
We arrive in Rhayader far too early to check in to our accommodation, so go to the pub. The Castle. Six Nations rugby is on the telly. Wales are continuing their record-breaking losing streak, being outclassed by Italy. Nobody seems to care, there’s an air of resignation in the pub. Wales seems to have accepted that they are no longer egg-chasing giants. The highlight seems to be the free half time chilli and chips laid on by the pub.
Attila the Stockbroker is not a rugby fan. He’s a devoted football fan. He regularly arranges tours to coincide with Brighton and Hove Albion away games. This weekend, however, is FA Cup weekend and apparently Attila has given up on the FA Cup (which today means he misses out on Albion knocking Chelsea out of the cup).
This weekend, he is doing a mini tour of Wales, taking in Swansea, Carmarthen, Denbigh, Rhayader and Cardigan. The Dim Google Translate Tour.
He is no stranger to playing a wide variety of venue types. I’ve seen him at a trade union conference fringe in Liverpool, in Barry town square outside the office of the Tory Secetary of State for Wales, in a Bus Drivers’ Social Club in Cardiff, upstairs in Merthyr Tydfil Labour Club, in a former church in Splott, in the middle of a corn field in the Forest of Dean and even at the launch of a radical Christmas Card exhibition in Newport Museum. I organised a gig for him in a more traditional venue, Chapter Arts in Cardiff, to celebrate the birthday of the NHS. Ironically, he rocked up with a broken leg and had to sit through his performance.
On Facebook, we notice his weekend is not entirely sans-footie. He goes to watch TNS v Panybont. He’s not impressed with the concept of TNS, a team set up with corporate backing. He’s written a poem about it.
I’m in Oswestry, England, for my first Cymru Premier fixture featuring the perennial league winners. 300 attendance tops.
3 TNS Ultras and a halfhearted drum. 19 Penybont fans (that’s Bridgend, South Wales, long way) singing ‘football in à library’ which is an insult to libraries everywhere, even ones which closed years ago. Freezing, plastic pitch. Pasties excellent, PA much better than ours was at Withdean, £6 in. TNS currently 1-0 up. Here’s the poem I wrote about them.
Edit: Best soup I have ever had at football, even better than the legendary Aggborough soup! TNS: Totally Nice Soup. Final score 4-0. Absolute walkover.
TNS
Total Network Solutions FC
or TNS for short
is a ridiculous name for a football team
and what is even more ridiculous
is that they play in the League of Wales
despite being based in England.They tried to make it a little less ridiculous
by saying that TNS
now stands for ‘The New Saints’
but that’s like saying BAE
stands for Ban Aerosol Emissions
or SWP for Surrealist Wombles Party
although having been a member once
it is a bit like that actually.As Dynamo Berlin did in the GDR
TNS win more or less everything
every season.In Dynamo’s case it was because their chairman was head of the Stasi
in TNS’s case it is because they have the most money
and there’s the Overton window
in a nutshell.They then normally play in the Champions League first qualifying round
beat a team from Lichtenstein
and then lose to one from Luxembourg
followed by a defeat to one from Latvia
in the Europa League
But this year they qualified
for the new group stage
becoming the first League of Wales team
to do so even though they play in England.They beat Astana 2-0.
First win in the league stage.
À fine achievement.
Nevertheless, when I go to their top of the table clash
against Penybont on Saturday
I shall side with the Penybont Ultras
if any
and hope they do the double
for the first time ever
because in terms of predictability
the League of Wales
is even more boring
than the Scottish Premiership
and that is saying something.I’d like to support Cardigan
in honour of Dave Datblygu
but they’re shit
which isn’t surprising
because all cardigans are shit.Come on Penybont.
Once the free chips had gone down, we walked over the road to The Crown for a hearty meal. After all, drinking on an empty stomach never ends well. The food is above par for pub grub, so if in the hood, we recommend.
Eventually, despite arriving in Rhayader five hours before the doors open, we stagger into the Lost Arc, having missed the support act, Tractorbator, and all the seats are taken.
As I queue for the bar, Paul, the owner of the venue comes over to tell me he has had a look around and found two seats for us on the balcony. Did I mention this venue is run by a mega-friendly bunch?
I think this is the first time I’ve been to a seated gig here. The venue is set out cabaret style with tables and chairs filing the dancefloor.
Even though we had several conversations in the pub that included the phrase, “Attila the Who?” the venue is sold out. Fans of poetry, punk and progressive politics have come down out of the surrounding hills to listen to tales of Tito, Thatcher and tiny cameras up the willy.
You never know what you’re going to get with an Attila show. You know you are going to get poetry and singing, but you never know how much of which. Tonight we get mostly poetry. Much of it is brand new verseage, so new it is read off his phone. Older material is recited from memory and each poem comes with an introduction giving context. There’s overtly political material, alongside humorous stuff and deeply personal family stuff. With no embarrassment gene in his make up we get several stories about health scares and cancer which, in his own inimitable way, normalise the idea of checking yourself and encouraging people to look after themselves.
He has a go at poems in the Welsh language, a brave move for someone who doesn’t actually speak Welsh. His poems are a combination of words he has spotted on road signs and phrases from albums by the likes of Datblygu and Anhrefen.
Towards the end he finally picks up his mandolin and the poems turn into songs.
A recent addition to his repertoire is Dub Poetry, something he took up to mark forty years of rhyming. He has an album worth of material, a mix of old poems with the addition of Dub, and new material put together for the album. Tonight he performs ‘Tena Man’, a song about having a flexible cystoscopy, toasted over a dub track played on his phone. That sounds a bit weird written down, I suppose you had to be there to appreciate it.
Alternatively you could buy the album, as indeed I did at the end of the night.
After his set, the audience politely filed out and we head back to The Castle to catch the tail end of a covers band, The Universal Translators. They have the local youth throwing shapes to the likes of Kings of Leon, The Killers and Queen. The band and the audience all blissfully unaware of the medical perils of getting old.
Eventually we head back to our AirBnB for a cup of cocoa, check our blood pressure and to take our tablets.