GEORGIA RUTH

Photo

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 05:32:56 -0400

Sunday October 28. Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog and I will be heading...

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 04:34:36 -0400

Sunday October 28. Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog and I will be heading to Sheffield to the lovely Bungalows & Bears to play with Alessi’s Ark and others.

More tour dates to be listed very imminently (inculding Leeds, London and Wales-wide)

GRx

theforestlights: | Georgia Ruth |

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 05:48:06 -0400

theforestlights:

| Georgia Ruth |

Love this photo. They look so great!

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 08:04:03 -0400

Love this photo. They look so great!

Here’s Anais Mitchell, Sam Airey and me singing a...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 08:59:07 -0400

Here’s Anais Mitchell, Sam Airey and me singing a last-minute version of ‘The Lakes of Pontchartrain’ at The Brudenell, Leeds on Sunday evening. This makes my heart a little bit glad!

Oh, Connie. Connie, Connie, Connie.

Mon, 21 May 2012 05:29:28 -0400

Oh, Connie. Connie, Connie, Connie.

I adore the BBC vinyl shelf ! Here’s a Cambrian...

Wed, 16 May 2012 14:37:13 -0400

I adore the BBC vinyl shelf ! Here’s a Cambrian classic. Iris Williams’ wonderfully jaunty ‘Pererin Wyf’ which just so happens to feature a translation of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” as its b-side (welsh words by Hywel Gwynfryn).

You can listen to In Luna in its digital entirety via...

Sun, 06 May 2012 02:27:41 -0400

You can listen to In Luna in its digital entirety via Spotify.

Or you can still get hold of the limited 10” vinyl from www.sadwrn.com

Dyma Gwawr. Wedi recordio o berferddion y nos fel rhan o sesiwn...

Sat, 05 May 2012 04:35:00 -0400

Dyma Gwawr. Wedi recordio o berferddion y nos fel rhan o sesiwn Unnos ar BBC Radio Cymru. Nesi fwynhau’n arw yng nghwmni Carwyn Ellis a Luca Guernieri (Colorama), Euron Jos, Eryl Jones a Sion Richards (Jen Jeniro) ac Ifan Dafydd.

Here’s Gwawr. Recorded during an all-nighter for the BBC Radio Cymru Unnos sessions with the lovely, lovely musicians mentioned above.

Supporting Anaïs Mitchell in Leeds, June 3rd!

Wed, 02 May 2012 16:30:00 -0400

Am beyond delighted to confirm that I’ll be supporting the amazing Anaïs Mitchell when she returns to Leeds, at the BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB on June 3rd!

Details to follow shortly. Suffice to say, I cannot wait..

In the meantime, here she is onstage with Bon Iver in Paris, singing Sarah Siskind’s Loving’s For Fools:

http://bit.ly/lRwCQ

Aqualungs: My Father's Meeting with Jacques Cousteau

Tue, 01 May 2012 13:57:00 -0400

Anecdotes are strange things. Our little brushes with fame. Brushings of celebrated lint. For reference, see: http://yhoo.it/IE1Uja

Here’s another: I once sat opposite Jeremy Paxman on the Bakerloo line. True. And I’ve bored so many people to tears with that one that it doesn’t bear thinking about. I liked to say that, fuelled by subterranean confidence, I gave his socks a pointed stare before leaving the carriage. I don’t think I did. Though I would have liked to. These kinds of stories are painful to hear because you can see the dust gathering between the words: well-rehearsed to the point of exhaustion, refined and filed-down to suit the social gathering, picked clean of their meat. This next one, I think (and yes, I’m completely biased) is a little different. Firstly, it’s never been shared. I asked my dad if I could share it. He said okay. It begins with Bill Murray.

Five years ago, maybe more, I spent an evening watching The Life Aquatic in my parents’ house in Aberystwyth. It shouldn’t need to be said, you can all guess, but I adore Wes Anderson. And after we’ve all realised who Steve Zissou was supposed to represent, looking up from the screen, my dad turns to us and says, “I met Jacques Cousteau.” Bizarrely, I never once pressed him for details. Until today, after someone mentioned sharks. And rather than paraphrase what he sent me, I’m just going to present the story, as he wrote it, this afternoon. [I should note that my father was in the Merchant Navy]

Subject: my meeting with jacques cousteau

I met him in 1962 or 1963 in the French colony of Djibouti, in East Africa, just outside the entrance to the Red Sea in the Gulf of Aden. It is still a French colony, close to Somalia and Ethiopia. In those days we would take European and British goods there on the way out to India, to be transhipped up to Addis Ababa, far inland in the Ethiopian highlands. The area was very remote in those days - a typical French colony, really - with some modern buildings, but mostly in an Arabic style, with most of locals living quite poor lives and dwelling in shanty towns on the margins of the bush desert and shorelines. A lot of French was spoken. An extremely hot place, bone dry with minimal vegetation, is my recollection. And hot dry winds blowing at times in the day. I remember the oil tanks near the docks, lots of arab dows and fishing boats, and endless blue skies and seas. The town was on a north facing peninsular, jutting out into a big bay. No discharge of cargo took place at night then, and we were one of the few ships in port. Ahead of us on the quay was the Calypso -Cousteau’s research ship. At this time, he was involved in shark research work in the red sea and the gulf of aden, and Djibouti was his base. Around the area at the time in question, I remember herds of camels and a lot of dusty dogs. I did visit the town several times later on as well, but never came across the Calypso again. We went aboard that night to visit, out of interest, with the second and third mates who knew exactly who this famous man was. I was only 18 or so, a young apprentice tagging along, really. The ship itself was quite extraordinary - an old British minesweeper which i think he had found in the Mediterranean somewhere, and which he had converted for his research ship. It had a diving saucer on the deck at the stern and with this he and his teams could dive very deep to observe sharks and other fish up close; they also had a glass observation dome right down in the bows of the boat which was used for observation when the ship was underway from a to b. The waters are very clear there of course. I can see the diving saucer with its little crane on the stern of the boat now, and they also had lots of little boats (kind of ribs) as well. I’m remembering that we were shown his film studio as well at one point. This man, even then, was one of the most famous people in the world remember. I remember him as tallish and very thin. He wore a tee shirt, white, with dark glasses and a red bobble cap. He had a very prominent nose [I distinctly remember thinking mine was not so bad after all then] and had long swept back greying hair. He had quite a presence and was suprisingly happy to talk about his work observing the sharks, which of course are everywhere in those waters. I know we had some beer with our chat. And I never forgot meeting him as later I realised just how special that meeting had been.

The next day we finished discharging the cargo and left the port for our next port which, I’m pretty certain, would have been Aden across the gulf. At the time that was itself a huge British naval and RAF base, much bigger in fact than Djibouti. As we left the port and passed ahead of the calypso I was in the bows of our ship on stations with the Chief Officer and remember waving to the crew of Calypso who shouted in true French style bon voyage. I don’t think Cousteau himself was on deck at the time and I never of course saw him again, although I never forgot the experience of meeting him. I hope this is of some interest, George. Thinking about it has brought a lot back to me, not least how the world has completely changed since I set out to have a good look at it all those years ago. DAD.

Huw Stephens Presents: The Social, London

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:27:46 -0400

So, Londoners…

A week tomorrow, on Tuesday 8 May, the boys and I will be heading Londonwards to play Huw Stephens’ night at The Social, Great Portland Street. Australian monolith Chet Faker is headlining. And Coves are also playing. It’s FREE.

I can promise you a couple of new songs. And I may regale you with tales from my days spent working underground, a mere matter of metres away (Leicester Square tube station); then again, I may not. It’s a roulette. But it’d be lovely to see you there!

http://www.thesocial.com/events/event/huw-stephens-presents-7/

Me, aged three. In Cosmeston Park. With a swan.

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:17:07 -0400

Me, aged three. In Cosmeston Park. With a swan.

"Y mae hen ddihareb Rwsiaidd sy’n dweud, ‘nid croesi cae yw byw.’ Cywir: croesi..."

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:08:23 -0400

“Y mae hen ddihareb Rwsiaidd sy’n dweud,
‘nid croesi cae yw byw.’
Cywir: croesi traeth ydyw”

- Croesi Traeth - Gwyn Thomas

This looks a lot more promising. Country collection thrown...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:45:39 -0400

This looks a lot more promising. Country collection thrown together (undoubtedly in a heady swell of cigarette smoke and nonchalance) from French perspective. Someone has written “Jean Paul” on the back in immaculate handwriting. And there’s a version of Wildwood Flower by The Shady Oak Boys. And, Happy Cow-Boy by the incredibly named Oklahoma Wranglers. Le Far-Ouest, c’est chouette…

45 Found in Paris last week. Undoubtedly going to be terrible....

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 14:40:43 -0400

45 Found in Paris last week. Undoubtedly going to be terrible. But sold itself on the merits of its cover image alone!

Photo

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:26:29 -0400

Last day of Cob Records, Bangor / Diwrnod ola Cob

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:43:48 -0400

Last day of Cob Records, Bangor / Diwrnod ola Cob

Official video for Bones. Shot and directed by Keri Collins,...

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 17:58:00 -0400

Official video for Bones. Shot and directed by Keri Collins, March 2012.

Overheard at Joan Baez concert

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:28:47 -0400

Her: “she certainly wasn’t a servant, she was a fully qualified nurse”
Him: “well, it’s so hard to find the right person these days: a resilient saint”
Her: “yes, you know how it is - there’s nothing to do these days, but watch”