Over a 12-year period from 1979, 228 properties – holiday homes, estate agents offices, boat yards and caravans – were damaged across rural Wales.
Dubbed the Meibion Glyndwr campaign, it is said to have been a protest against rural homes being sold to people from England as holiday cottages. Only one person was ever charged with the attacks.
Could the culprits be from elsewhere? Elsewhere as in…outerspace?
That’s an intriguing theory suggested by Rogue Jones – Bethan Mai and Ynyr Morgan Ifan – in new single ‘Triongl Dyfed’ (The Dyfed Triangle). They playfully imagine aliens from planets far far away doing the dirty work. This is not as random as it may intially sound; the song is named after ‘Triongl Dyfed’ (The Dyfed Triangle), an area of west Wales where there were multiple UFO sightings in between 40 and 50 years ago.
Mostly sung from the point of view of the extra-terrestrials – the song borrows from ‘Mae Gen i Het Tri Chornel’ an old welsh nursery rhyme – and quotes 70s rockers Edward H Dafis’ hit ‘Mae’n Braf Cael Byw Mewn Tŷ Haf’ (‘It’s nice to live in a holiday home’) and name-checks the legendary singer and actor Bryn Fôn, who was falsely arrested on suspicion of being a member of Meibion Glyndwr. Both Edward H and Bryn Fôn were very happy to allowing the band to reference them.
‘The music video is based around a podcast where this theory is proposed, we sample it at the start of the track, and the video stars Steff our synth player as the host of the podcast,’ says Ynyr.
‘We’ve also got Steff’s daughter and mine and Bethan’s daughter in starring roles as the local kids who wind-up the podcaster. We shot the video in Steff’s shed in the height of summer, it was very hot and eagle-eyed viewers may spot Harri from the band lounging in a paddling pool in the back of shot. Ignore him, he’s nothing to do with the video.
As well as the UFO and Bryn Fon paraphernalia put together by Steff you can see some of his paintings on the wall, they’re very good and don’t usually feature the UFOs – Instagram @steffebsworth
The podcast idea was also a convenient way of getting myself in the video as a video call guest – whilst still shooting it.
I shot and edited the video and the special effects were created by Industrial Light and Magic on the Lucasranch (not really) Pixy Jones also came in to grade my terribly over-exposed camera work.’
Behind the far out concept for the song and video, which features the said aliens and we are pleased to premiere today, there is a serious and sobering message.
“We believe that the second home crisis in Wales is completely out of hand we believe that government should intervene to prevent house prices from rising so dramatically and to allow young people who grew up in the area to buy an affordable home where they live,” the band stresses.
As with the whole album, the song was recorded in Tŷ Drwg Studios, Grangetown with Frank Naughton and features appearances from Llŷr Parri on drums and Harri Rees on clarinet with everything else performed by Bethan and Ynyr.
**In case the lyrics get misconstrued; Rogue Jones are categorically not suggesting that burning second homes is the right thing to do – this is a song about aliens coming down from outer space to burn holiday homes.**
The single follows the release of ‘Englynion Angylion’ from over the summer, Rogue Jones’ second album is released in March by Libertino.
