It’s going to be a BUSY one in Cardiff this coming weekend not only is SWN festival happening accross various venues in this fair city featuring over one hundred and eighty acts, plus the Fall, there’s also a new event taking place. Entitled Gŵyl SWIGEN Festival it’s an All day event, this coming Saturday 22nd of October at Capel Ebenezer, Cardiff!
Amongst the twenty strong line up are Derrero, a much over looked gem of Welsh music history, in their time they released three albums, were lauded by John Peel and played on a soundtrack alongside John Cale.
Derrero – Stoned Rider by gwylswigen
So as three members of Derrero get set to play their first Cardiff show in over ten years on Saturday at Gŵyl SWIGEN. I caught up with Ashley Cooke who now works under the moniker Pulco(and released a fine album of aural treasures ‘Small Thoughts earlier this year), for a brief catch up on how preparations for Derrero’s Cardiff reunion this weekend are going!?!?
Hi Ash how are you today?!
Frisky & full of lists. I am a man of lists !! In fact I’ve started writing a new book of poems by that exact title
You are playing your first Derrero show in Cardiff in ten years on Saturday are you nervous?!And how have phone rehearsals been going?!
Yeah I’m shitting my pants but I feel a bit sad already ‘cause I know that once the first note is struck then it will one step closer to being over ! Probably have to wait another 10 yeas till we do it again.
It’s true that distance & time restraints have hampered the rehearsal process but if I don’t know those songs by now then I never will.
Guess we’ll find out when we all get up on stage – sort of an experimental concept really
How did Derrero meet in the first place?!
Dave and I were driving down College road in Falmouth in Dave’s gold Capri some time in 1993 when Andy stopped us and asked if we wanted to join a pub band that had just lost half of it’s members.
We had a total blast for about 2 years gigging around Cornwall in an old camper van with a band leader called Rob who looked like Fagin
After college we started Derrero in Brighton ‘cause a lot of our friends had moved there ( Pete Fowler amongst the many)
After a while we moved to Wales as Andy’s girlfriend was starting College in Newport. Funny that we all moved too but we didn’t want to break up the band
By the end of 1996 we were signed to Big noise and the rest is history
If you could describe each Derrero long player in a sentence how would that sound?!
1 Derrero – Self titled – Described in the Newport Argos as’ Grey Jacket Racket’ Big guitars and harmonies
2 Fixation with Long Journeys – Classic era sound – evolving production and full of ideas ( doing vocals with your head down the
toilet ,dismantling guitars at 3 in the morning and screaming in a vocal booth with heavy feed back guitar) that sort of thing
3 Comb The Breaks – Recorded during a hot summer – pretty laid back and full of different sounds – little more drum machine and stylophone.
Radar intruder seems to be the track many people remember from its appearance on Peel’s festive 50.What’s your favourite?!
Radar was fun . Check out the video on Youtube if you have never seen it. I had a black eye from getting pissed and falling in the gutter on my way home through Canton!
I had to go into Boots the next day to buy makeup for it!
Listening back recently the whole of the Small Pocket Machine EP stills sound great. It was recorded just before Fixation and came out quite soon after we did it. The whole sound was a big step up from the first Album which was all recorded in a day.
Things were happening for the band and we felt on top of our game. That is a great feeling to have! Most bands never really have that fresh sense of achievement more than once.
You can catch Derrero and Pulco at Gŵyl SWIGEN Festival it’s an All day event, this coming Saturday 22nd of October at Capel Ebenezer, Cardiff!
http://www.swigen.co.uk
http://pulco.bandcamp.com/
www.myspace.com/radarintruder
