Loud and Quiet Presents Midnight Chats.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Witching Hour once again. It is the eighth of February twenty eighteen, and it's time for another episode of the Loud and Quiet interview podcast Midnight Chats. It's been a long day today. I've only just got home. I've been out at the Theater in the West End of London, in theater Land, not something I do very often, but I've just been to see The Book of Mormon, which I've wanted to see since it came over to the UK. And what an incredible
show that is. I mean, I don't like musicals, it's not for me, but this is the best thing about this show is that it's a cynics basically who don't really like musicals. I was staring at the stage and grinning like a small child in wonder. This isn't a great theater review, is it. But trust me, go and see that musical if you haven't already. It's a bit sweary and if you like religion then it might not be for you either, but I enjoyed that a lot. In the day, In fact, in the day every day
this year. We're currently doing a big project at Loud and Quiet. We're redesigning our magazine which will be relaunching on the tenth of March. That's something that we do as well as this podcast, so if you are not aware of that or haven't checked that out, please do check out our website Loud and Quiet dot com, where you can also find all the information about our issues that we put out. Current one has King Gizzard and
the Lizard Wizard on the cover. For now, though, you're here to hear our podcast and my guest tonight is Gueno Saunders, a musician from Wales, and this is quite a beautiful piece of planning because today, as we tick over into a new day at midnight, it is today Welsh Language Music Day. That's an important thing because Gueno is not only a Welsh lady and musician, she's someone
who is very, very proud of her heritage. She made her debut album in twenty fifteen completely in Welsh, which is not really something that many people do, and that was a great record with a real sci fi undercurrent. It translated to the Last Day and as I say, the whole thing was in Welsh. It was kind of kroud, rocky and a bit psyched. Elick very much recommend that album. Her new album is called lakov and Gueno's gone one
further and she's recorded this one completely in Cornish. Now only two hundred people in the world fluently speak Cornish, and I know what you're already thinking. It's not for me, Stuart. I don't want to hear an album completely in Cornish. I don't speak Cornish, and I can see why you would come to that conclusion. But like Gueno's previous album, Lacov is such a beautiful electronic album that it really doesn't matter that you can't understand a word she's saying.
It's just a very gentle and kind of hypnotic listen. It comes out on March the second via Heavenly. Go back and listen to The Last Day as well, released two years ago, also on Heavenly, and I don't think you're going to be disappointed, even if you don't speak Welsh or Cornish. Gueno's led a really interesting life so far. At the age of seventeen, she left Cardiff, where she grew up and went to live in Las Vegas for two years, where she danced in Michael Flatley's Lord of
the dance. We speak a little bit about that at the beginning of this podcast, and it sounds like a very strange and kind of sad time. She then moved back to the UK and to Brighton, where she joined girl group The Pipets, who you may remember for wearing some pretty great poker dot dresses and doing synchronized dance moves whilst singing kind of some very kitchen retro fun songs. And now she's back in Cardiff where she lives with her two year old son and her husband Reese, who
makes the music with her. They collaborate on all of Gueno's music together. Thank you for downloading this podcast. Please do subscribe if you haven't already, We've got I think we're going to do a podcast next week and the following you instead of so that there's going to be three in a row over the next three weeks. Enjoy this one and we'll be back in seven days time. Greg will be your host then and until then, please do enjoy this conversation that I had with Gueno. Happy
Welsh Language music day. Of course that's today now.
It is actually, isn't it. We will be the first people to say to say these MUSICI happis.
How long has that been going on?
I don't think it's been going on a few years now. It's fantastic.
I only actually found out about it because we got like a promotional pack. Okay, we have an illustration of you have you seen this?
I know?
Really good?
So cool.
Yeah, so you're like a post the person for today.
Yeah. I mean there's a lot of really good Welsh music in general going on both languages, So yeah, fantastic.
Are you typically a nighttime person a.
Bit too much? Yeah? Because yeah, Well, because I've got a two year old son, and you think, right, as soon as he gets to sleep, as I can do something, But he doesn't sleep so quite late. Right, Okay, so he's a bit of a night owl, so I'm definitely at this time.
Does he get that from you? Have you always been something?
Well? No, he gets that from his dad's who was very much a night owl and makes most of his music in the middle of the night, So I think he, I think is. And so it's difficult because because like, well, no one else is going to sleep, so where should I? Yeah, what are you guys doing? Yeah, a bit of that going on.
I always felt like that I still feel like that and did as a kid. I've always felt like going to sleep is kind of like giving in.
A bit totally, like have you had have you made the most of your day?
Yeah?
Completely, I felt I feel that way about sleep, which is wrong. I definitely remember having to go to sleep when there was still sunlight coming through the curtains and being a bit annoyed about it.
In the summer.
Yeah, that's like, what are you doing? Son? It was always traveling around, so it probably would have been up quite late anyway. It's always been up late and then you, yeah, sort of transition to gigs and stuff, so you're always up late on you really.
I suppose as a musician it is just a nighttime. It's a nocturnal thing. It really is, generally. So you grew up in in Cardiff. Yeah, and you still live there now.
Yeah, back back there.
But you moved away because you went to I. So we met in Cardiff.
We did.
Yeah, Yeah, you gave us a tour round I did.
Yeah.
I've been back since. Actually, that was the first time I've.
Been when I met you.
Yeah, and I was back there last year and I was in your manager's office in the arcade and they were like old Gueno's back here, all right, okay, And then they took me kind of to a window and there was that huge mural of you on club I for that, I know to explain that to anyone who has not been there or seen it. It is the side of a whole building. Is of your face? Is that still there?
It was a project called Get It Right. I think that it was about celebrating local culture and I think going to gigs and things like that, and then it was just really weird chain of events and a guy called Mark James that designed it, and then there was a graffiti artist that painted it. Yeah, and I think it was just quite random that I was chosen to do it, and then it was Yeah, two weeks after
Nicole was born it was finished. And then I took Nichole to see it the other day and he's like, mam ma'am like this because it must be really weird because he probably thinks everyone's mum's on the wall. It's quite normal. But yeah, very yeah, really honored obviously, and it's sort of quite sci fi because of it was based around the theme of my last album. Yeah, and then I keep an eye on Alan and Kevin to stell office and make sure that they're working every day.
It's like some kind of like lenin esque or like stalin esque mural looking over people as they're working. Yeah, it's funny because I very long time ago as a professionalised dancer as a teenager, and I danced at the New York Casino in Las Vegas and I was actually on the side of the bus. So I've been on a bus on a wall. Wow, this theme happening. I don't know. It's just very random. Again, it was just like so they just check my face.
Okay, So the bus. Yeah, was it just the one bus?
No, it was quite a few, the buses that go up and down the strip.
Okay, this is Las Vegas. Yeah, this is when you're doing the So you moved Vegas when you were.
Like seventeen, Yeah.
Why would say? And you were dancing it was this when you were dancing in Lord, Lord of the Dance.
As you do, Yeah, as you do.
Which is in itself is a mad thing, completely, a completely insane thing.
Again, it's just very random, like paying fifty p to go to class and then all of a sudden, it's like you can in a living and you can like escape from your hometown because you're like, what am I going to do? And then someone goes, here's a ticket to Australia or whatever, and you're like, amazing.
Great, I'll take it. Yeah, and then you're on a bus.
And then you're on a bus.
So when you're on the so you'd see these buses driving past with your face on? Was it just you? Was there some other people in this picture? Is it just it's just your big face?
I've got a photo of one. I need to get it out.
Actually, were you in.
The life is like that? You know, it's just quite random.
Were you in like a costume?
You?
Oh?
Yeah, like you looking sort of as angelic as like I possibly could. And it's white.
What was Vegas like to live in? I think people it.
Was just horrendous? Really, it was awful, awful?
Did you how long were you there?
Two years?
Two years?
It's awful.
Don't people say that it's worth going to Vegas for like a weekend, but you don't need any longer than that.
That's exactly what they say.
And they're right, and you're there for two years?
Oh my god, It's just it's just you know it's yeah, you just because I dread. I tried to rough guide to Las Vegas, and rough guides are really good. And actually think it really oversold Last Vegas a little bit because it's sort of, you know, suggested a lot more history than what actually is left, because you know, even like the old bit and stuff, and you know, to
give you a bit of a backstory. And I was just so I remember landing and just being so disappointed as soon as I landed, going, oh my god, and then like living seven miles from the strip, but you can see it as if it's right there, because it's you're so flat?
Is it so flat?
And I was like, I'll just take a walk. That's three hours later, I was still walking. I still hadn't arrived. It's just I don't know, I don't know what to say about it.
So you were over it as soon as you got there.
It was yeah, it was did you was it that.
You had to stay for two years so we're on a contract.
That was kind of I was, yeah, it was like every six months we got to go home two weeks okay, And it was really odd.
It was.
Yeah, it kind of throws you a bit because I think when it was so different. I think to the sort of homely, kind of comity community feel of all of these interests that I'd sort of been a part of.
You know.
It's like going to your like local youth club and just doing a hobby and then all of a sudden it's like, whoa, it's the Las Vegas Strip and then there's like lots of glitter lights and it's just so fun. It's just like the americanization of something. And I always say, like, remember some meet people, Oh, you know, I've lived in Las Vegas. There's nothing like Americans. And it's really true because obviously all of North America is very different from
the rest of it because it's so varied. But I definitely felt that it was about something American, you know, like undeniably American. Like it was very It's like the vulgarity of it, which I really fully embraced and bought massive wigs and things. Oh god, I look like Simba, just like a big lion, just I don't know, like a lollipop basically, very lollipop awful.
What does a typical day in Las Vegas for two years like, because you're dancing at night?
Yeah, eventually I got into techno because there was a club on them. Yeah, because we were just board Shipless and there was a club on last Vegas ship called Utopia. There was like a dance club. It's like the only dance club, like where big DJs at the time, late nineties. Yeah, yeah, that kind of thing, Carl Coxniversity. Yeah, So it was that kind of circuit, and it was weird because I think that all of the sort of acid house that happened.
It's odd that relationship I think between Europe, the UK and North America with electronic music going back and forth all time. Because when I was there, it was like the height of like dance music and people really excited. And I remember when I came back and I'd go to places in Cardiff and like the club Nights because the Hippo Club was closed that and I never got to which was like the legendary acid house club in Cardiff. And then I remember coming back and going out to
nights in Cardiffin. It's really depressing because people had been doing it for about decade and they're a bit tired
at that point. Where it's in Las Vegas. At that point, everyone was really excited and it was already new, and like you know, we were all just like teenagers, managed to sort of sneak into a dance club and like just staying up all night and then that really helped, actually because it was a real, real escapism from the monotony of having to repeat yourself constantly and yeah, and just being so far away from home and all of that stuff. So it's yeah, it was it, I mean
it was it did that. I suppose I sort of got more into electronic music.
Did you ever get into the slots?
What DJ you?
No? Like?
No, like gambling? Did you ever go in?
No? I did gamble once, but again I was, you know, seventeen.
Oh yeah, so you can no, not really twenty one?
Are you just like going in off fake idea ideas everywhere?
There's not there's just not much to do, I guess, just boring.
It's making me feel weird talking about you thought about it for such a long time.
It's an amazing thing to have done.
Though, well, I think if someone says I think with it, like life in general's like someone says, I don't do this, you don't say no, I don't think. Maybe you do if you're wiser, but sometimes you need to do the bad thing to know that you shouldn't have done it. Yeah, and it's you know, and also I always think, you know, when you're really, really really old hopefully and you're sat down and like maybe you're lucky to have grandchildren, I say, what did you do when you say, like, just you've
always got a story to tell them? Yeah, like this one time. But you know you always like I think it's you need your little adventures so that you can tell you like little stories and they'll be like, whoa, but you're really old and wrinkly. How did you ever do that?
Yeah? How did you ever meet Michael Flatley? It was Michael Flatley in the show when you were in the show.
Well, I did dance with Michael Flatley at in Frankfurt in the sort of Amphithea to where Hitler gave all the speeches, which I always loved. I was like, yeah, this is like, this is culture squid, Yeah, this is mental. I really enjoyed that. Ok, yeah, because it was such a random thing. But yeah, and then yeah, it was just we sort of got sent off as a troop of dancers and then got left to our own devices mayhem. It was completely mayhem.
Yeah, Vegas is obviously I've never been, but it's obviously such a bizarre place and unique, strange party town, and I imagine that's weird for anyone to go to. But you were not only were you really young and seventeen, but you'd grown up. You've grown up in Wales, but you you weren't exposed to much pop music where you're popular culture as a as a kid.
He had a very skewed perception of pop culture, which is probably why I was like, Vegas fantastic, because maybe if I was more aware of it, as you know, a concept that may have gotten it's probably not a good idea. But yeah, I just, yeah, completely detached from it. And I suppose that was part of the reason why I wanted to do it. Wasn't It's like, let's go to the epicenter of capitalism?
Yeah, and everything that home isn't everything?
Yeah, like the extreme opposite. I still haven't suggested that experience to work out what the positives was. Yeah, I'm still trying to work that out because it was just really weird.
So with the wall, not the bus, but the wallah, obviously obviously your son reckoned, is it as you has anyone else like you've not been there's the lady of Yeah, and there's a lady, there's.
The wall lady. Yeah. Well, I mean there's sort of coincidentally, I go out less because I've had a bit of a child.
Yeah, and you and your hair is different.
Hair is different. So because obviously club people will be the place that you go because that's where all the good gigs are. So yeah, it has not. I haven't had to stand underneath it too often for people what you doing here? So thinks it's been fine. Yeah, it's been absolutely fine.
Growing up you in your home you spoke Welsh and Cornish. Yeah, and English is a third Yeah, English as well, but English, but not at home you would just speak So your dad is a is a he's a Cornish poet. Yeah, he's he's from.
Corn from okay yeah, and then yeah, and he learned, i think learn Cornish from a schoolmaster the local primary school and then but he's been quite good with languages.
Are you good with other languages?
I've not. I've not felt that I'm amazing. I'm definitely not someone that would just pick it up. So it's yeah, so it's odds to be sort of find yourself in quite a specialist subject within linguistics when you're actually not linguists. Yeah, I don't think so anyway, and I've never felt Yeah, I definitely don't have any expertise at all.
How many people speak Cornish fluently?
I think a few hundreds, and.
You're one of them. That's quite that's obviously quite a special quite intense. It is quite intense, isn't it. But I suppose that's why also people maybe presume if you know Cornish, if you're one of the two hundred people that speaks Cornish fluently, that you would probably also speak Spanish and French. And yeah, they'd probably just presume that, wouldn't I guess, yeah, because.
I think it is about I think it's about five hundred fluent.
Speaker, and then it's in the thousands that can converse to a certain level. And actually it's growing more, which kind of made me feel encouraged me to write in Cornish as well.
See your last Abu, your Deputy solo album from two years ago, it was all Welsh except for the last track, which was Cornish, and then this new album it's all Cornish. Yeah, Yeah, that's hardcore is I love?
Oh what can you do?
So you've got to always get to that place, because I think that what I learned from was like, try and get to the most un compromising position that you can, and then you might be in a better position to start, because.
I wanted to explore the language anyway, and I again felt that it would perhaps give me freedom creatively because I couldn't imagine it and they weren't a huge amount of influences, although I do have it cornish language music influences. That was a quite a good place to start and then explore and actually and actually take a bit of ownership because I think when you're raised with this really
quite it's not a specialist. Really, it's just a very small thing that it's not particulars, not common at all, and it makes you can you know, it's definitely at times made me feel like I don't fit in anywhere, and they think, well, that's probably the good thing that you need to use, because that's your tool to explore that means, because actually it's a common feeling and I don't think it's you know, none of us feel like we belong anywhere or feel you know, we'll feel a
bit weird. So I just thought that was a good starting point and to sort of just take just claim a bit of ownership over really, And I was like, right, if this is my language, I've got to use it in the way that I use language and just claim a bit of ownership over it. And I don't. And it's really scary as well, because I think you're even more you know, you feel the fragility of a language that five hundred people speak, and you think, oh, that's
not touch it because it might break. But actually you got to do the opposite, because you've got to use it and you've got to be brutal with it, and you've got to sort of be carefree and really aggressive and to try things out and work out patterns. And I mean it's like with music, really, you've got to sort bash it out and bash it about and then you sort of reach somewhere.
What you've done with look off the new record. I'm guessing and this is probably a safe thing to guess. I'm presuming this, but you're using it in a way that no one probably no one ever has because I imagine the other two hundred people speaking in fluenced Cornish like your Dad's a poet, and that's quite a traditional way to use the language, but you're using it with the type of music you're that you make. It's probably never been done before, is that Yeah?
I don't think so, yeah, but it's kind of it's again. It's I think the combination of working with Again on the records, because I think what she's creates, I think his worlds with his layers, and he creates a landscape with his production.
There's a song there called the Cheese Yah.
Yeah.
So it's a phrase I found in a book from I think the eighteenth century and is there cheese? Is there or isn't there? If there's cheese, bring cheese. If there's no cheese, bring what's easy? And I was just like, that's amazing. I love cheese. Apologies to all vegans, but I really do. And I just thought it was fantastic.
It was just such a sort of chanty thing. And like when I think of Cornish, I think of it as a very home, playful language because I don't attach it to anything apart from family and community, and so it's a lot of fun and silliness and that just fitted in brilliantly. And then the verses are all just like place names in Cornish and so it's like a call to arms about it's finding some cheese.
And the great thing is because it's sung in Cornish. If you were doing that, you couldn't get away with is there Cheese because people would be like, this is kind of a bit silly, but it sounds kind of romantic and beautiful.
Yeah, done just about cheese.
Yeah, but it's just a song called is there Cheese? Yeah, which is great. There are bits of when I first heard the record, even though I knew it was in Cornish, it kind of just sounds like it's got a French feel to the record.
Yeah.
No, we were thinking a lot about likes, but definitely strings and arrangements. Definitely we were, and particularly like the way it was amazing conceptualizing his records as well, and just sort of again, you know, with very little equipment because we made it all at home with you know,
we don't have sense and things like that. Really is source sort of quite low fi, but yeah, and I think really wanted to create a sort of seventies feel, yeah, quite progue and quite Celtic, which I'm really fully embracing of and actually a thing. Yes, let's do this because obviously I've done know the people's version of what Celtic kids, particularly with a lot of the dance, and I think that there are better ways.
I mean, that wasn't authentic Lord of the Dance.
It's quite exciting as a teenager because it was so like rejecting of like sort of the conservative element of Irish dance. So like as a teenager, you're like, wow, this is like a rock show, which it obviously wasn't, but that's how we saw it. Was like, wow, I.
Remember seeing it on Eurovision. Yeah, when they first showed it.
Yeah.
River Dances way more classic though. I was in that as well, and that was.
Way ah yeah, no, you're right. Lord of the Dance was like that.
Yeah, lots of like the really tacky one, was it?
Yeah?
It was then well it's like, oh god, there was a dancing called strip Jake.
Okay.
It was awful. It was just like you sort of jig around in a dress and then you like take a dress off and you're just like in a crop top and shorts. It's awful. It's awful.
It's like they didn't have that a Eurovision.
No, they definitely didn't. But it's just so much to do with religion and stuff as well, because I think there was a lot of that because like the history of Rriish dancing is like the reason why people have to put their hands by the side is because of the Catholic Church. But like you can't use your arms because it's too suggestive. That's why it all went into
the feet. And then like sort of river dance thing was this burst of like Catholic suppression going mental and everyone going yes, we can do a strip and we can just move our arms around and so, and particularly like because there was so many teenage girls in that Yeah, so I think there was a lot of that. It was just sort of went mental, right, So I think this is quite interesting sort of context to why that show was so tacky. Okay, I'm probably gonna get suit.
So the last record, yeah, it played a lot on technology. Yeah, and it was a protest record in lots of ways. How does this one fit well?
I think that because obviously, while she's a wide spoken language, I think there were more variations of expression in that language, and so I was quite interested in finding influences that perhaps hadn't been as celebrated or utilized particularly post punk sort of electronic things that were a lot colder in feeling rather than a sort of homely folk thing. I think probably there's more frustration in my last album.
What I was going to say when we met in when we met yeah, Cardiff and you were showing us around, it felt like that was a time when there was a lot of frustration about a lot of the things about Cardiff and things that we were talking about, the buildings they were knocking down and we went to Butte Town, yeah right, and just kind of pointing out the things like this could this shouldn't be like this, and this should like This record is less like that, is it.
It's less of a frustrating I think what it was as well was that particular. I mean, obviously with everything and even like creatively content and you know, in films, television and you know, it was a very dystopian album, which it was like a sort of wanting to make.
But I think with this one, I was also I think just wanting to be as positive as I possibly could as well, because I'm not sure how much it adds to the conversation at the moment to be negative, particularly creatively because I think, well, for me, it was just trying to find a utopia other than going, look, how shit everything is. Yeah, because we know everybody like
really know that. We absolutely know that now. I mean it's like two years ago, even like two years down the line, we know that way more than we did two years ago. So you almost feel that you're sort of looking And I felt that Cornish could give me that because of its utopian nature and wanting to exist, and that it's always drawn artists and the creativity of reviving a language and it flourishing like a flower.
I remember you saying to me about Welsh language music actually at the time that people make it for it to exist. There's no expectations. If you make a Welsh language album, you're not making it to become a millionaire or successful in any way. You're not trying to get on an advert for a car. You're just making it so it exists and it's an artifact. And I guess that's even more the case in Cornish. It's kind of even or it's at least exactly the same, I guess definitely.
And I think that that's such a really powerful sentiment to attach yourself to as an artist as well, and to remember because I think it's a really great motivational point as a starting point, that you're making something because it doesn't exist, which I think, you know again, you know, obviously minority cultures can do that. There's this every child, Yeah,
you're creating. You feel more that you're creating the narrative than perhaps you would do in a humongous narrative, and I think it's just a very I think it's a really really wise thing to remember as well when you're making I think.
A lot of young bands that I speak to are who aren't who are even making something kind of a bit more commercial and it's in English and it's kind of maybe it's just quite standard in its structure and its sound. I just think more and more people feel that as well. Like the idea of being David Bowie in the modern age when the music industry doesn't have that kind of structure and that's kind of support and money anymore. I think it's quite I remember when I used to try and be in bands when I was
in school and stuff. The idea was always like, oh, we're going to try and get a record deal and become famous and now when I speak to two young bands that's not even on the right to know that it's not the case. An, Yeah, I.
Think so much more. Diy. You're absolutely right, so that spirit's there everywhere. But I think that's what makes it interesting as well, isn't it, because it actually puts everyone an equal footing, Yeah, which is really exciting.
And it makes it fun again. If you completely reject the idea that you're going to become it's going to become your job even then you can just enjoy it for what it is in the same way that people enjoy yoga or you.
And I find that I don't know obviously my only experience really is with bands in Wales, but I find younger musicians so incredibly hard working as well, Like I think that that, and I think it's because they've grown
up in a harsher climate as well. I just find them really a lot more do it yourself, like you say, but I think that yeah, they yeah, like you said, they would never expect anyone, I mean, they wouldn't even expect to at any point have a tool manager for example, like it just for anybody now, like anybody making music, which is really positive creatively is positive, isn't it?
Yeah? I think so.
Yeah.
There's also a track on the album called computer Yeah, which is obviously about technology. Yeah, am I right? Thinking it's about that kind of love hate relationship we had with technology. We can't kind of live with hate our phones, but we kind of can't. Yeah, that kind of thing. How are you with technology generally?
I just have definitely overused my phone, do you? Oh god?
Yeah?
Awful. But I think I just wanted because again, like because Cornish again, I sort of wanted to discuss something modern. I think that was the idea really, and also the fact that there's I'm not a linguist, so I don't know how this works, but there are computers that can read manuscripts and they sort of detect it and they can help with forming. I don't know what I'm talking about.
It is like an AI thing.
Yeah, well no, it's not as like older than that, because this happened in the eighties with Cornish. So I just wanted to talk about this technological influence on the language and it sort of predicts phrase like turn afraid, like sentences and things like that. Okay, I don't know what I'm talking about, so I apologize to any linguist's
listening to me, going what the hell is that? But I just wanted to talk about that, just just bring a sort of modern context, because I was aware that I was mentally somewhere between the fifth and the seventeenth century when I was making this album. So I just really fast, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Right, you know, this is all a little bit Middle Ages and Age of
the Saints. So I think, you know, we really need to bring this back after speed and the fact that you know, technology had been part of the language and everything. So I just wanted to and yeah and just that feeling, because I think there may have been some heated discussions about using that sort of technology with with the language, and I thought, well, you know, you can't live with it, you can't live without it, and you're infuriated by it,
but you're also glad that it's happened. Type of thing. This sort of unrequited love relationship is very complicated, and I think that's how we emotionally feel about technology. And I thought it would just yeah, and I sort of I definitely wanted the Cornish language to be having a conversation with a computer as well. Not to be left out because everyone else is having a conversation with it.
There is that idea, isn't there That that Cornwall and Wales as well, that kind of recurring gag that everything is still fifty years behind, and that kind of idea. When you think of Cornwall, you think of it being a little cottages and seaside towns and or very quaint and fishing boats and things, and of course they do have computers there.
Well. I think that most of the UK's Internet goes from underneath Cornwall. Yeah, so I think actually is quite.
A it's on a bed of technology.
I think so. Yeah, as well as having I think like ninety nine percent of the world's what would you call them in English? I know it's mona Welsh. What do you call it? You know, like elements in rock, like sediment? No, but you know, like it's got ten it's got oh yeah, minerals, minerals sorry, okay, minerals and yeah, and again you know the sort of the industrial heritage of Cornwall as well, which obviously leads onto computers and things as well.
Yeah, your son is only two, right, so this is obviously not something you need to worry about yet. But have you thought about when they'd be allowed a phone and things like that. I've got some nephews and nieces and they're all getting to the age where they want phones. One of them. Two of them have got phones, and one of them is on Instagram.
Oh I know.
She's only but she's it's quite she's quite sweet on it. But I think if it was my child, that fill me with pure dread.
And it's weird because I think it's really interesting when you see my little brother's fifteen and he is a different person. It's amazing, Like he's a different character on.
The online online presence.
Yeah, it's just not the same person that talks to me. It's like wow, because that's really fascinating. I think for people that have been born into having personas.
Yeah, weird.
I don't know how you avoid it, really. I mean, I'm sure there's a good reason not to be on it or encourage your children to be on it, definitely, And I don't know what the answer is. And I'm actually not going to be on any kind of high horse about it at all.
It's tough, isn't it. And also because you also don't want them to like you can't really like say, no, you're not doing that because it's part of the world now.
And also like they give kids tablets in primary school and stuff, So how do you differentiate between having a tablet and not be able to look on YouTube? I'm so glad he's two.
Yeah, by the time he's ten, maybe there won't be any internet anymore. Imagine that. Imagine if it was all just a fad and it.
Well, yeah, I'm sort of I still feel like it might be. Yeah, it's really odd.
It's still quite early, isn't it, Because you.
Might that you invest more and more of yourself into it or you're like, oh your time at least, not more of yourself. Really, that's the weird things. I think you sort of after using the incidents, particularly social media for a few years, you sort of start getting to that point of like, you know, you're not revealing your meals and you know as much as perhaps you did initially go oh, you know, I can tell my friends and you know far away what I've had for breakfast
or whatever. It's like it's changed a lot, hasn't it. People have become more savvy to.
It, but.
Do use social media a lot.
I'm awful I'm terrible. I really well. I think Mike excuse really is because especially with Twitter for me, because I think when you have more sort of lesser, less popular interest, maybe it's a really useful tool for finding people that have the community. And I do still find that because I kind of generally don't see well people do retweet awful things and you're like, oh god, I can almost blank that sort of stuff out because it's just so.
So, what ones are you on Facebook?
I'm not on Facebook?
No, I'm not on Facebook. I ever did you ever join? But you canceled? You canceled it? Did you? My wife tried to do that recently because I never I never joined that one. I've never I've never tasted all of it's got to offer, so I've never had.
To quit it. It really doesn't offer very much.
But my wife tried to quit and she said that when you try and cancel your your membership, that's not the right word.
Count.
It starts to go through all the people that you're friends with. Say if you're like Amy's going to miss you, and it shows you a picture of Amy and it says John's going to miss you. To try and.
Kind of make you then like, you're not sure if you've deleted it, and of ages, I thought I deleted it. But you can't delete this, like you've got to get down to a little bit further down and then you delete it because you can, like you can just de activate it. Yeah, deactivate and then reactivate.
They don't want you to leave.
Did she manage to leave in the end?
No, she's still on it. She's still does.
She really hate it? Just like what am I doing on here?
I think I think when you get to a certain age as well, it's kind of it's useful, isn't it. If you've if you've been traveling, or you've met people from out you can keep in touch with people. So I think she kind of likes it for that. But having not been on it myself, everyone I know, they always say I've got one friend in particular and here say oh so and so got that or whatever. I say, oh, yeah, how did you like? Oh did you speak to them? And they'll always say no, No, I am on Facebook.
I'm not on there much and I never go on there. He says it all the time, and I never go on there. But no one's got a good word to say about.
Face at all. I think it makes everyone really depressed, isn't.
It Everyone's down? I know I've never met someone who says I'm on Facebook and I love it.
No, I don't think so. Yeah, hopefully. I don't think the world would be terrible if there wasn't any social media. No, I actually think it might be better.
But it's mainly Twitter for you, is it. It's that the a key one.
Yeah, just again, yeah, it's just for special and also because we don't have proper we don't have independent broadcasters in Wales. And actually it's a really good way of getting news and there's a few, like there's a really great podcast called Desolation Radio that's really good and like informing you about what the Welsh government does, for example, and what it doesn't. And I think that yeah, when you live someone like Whales and actually you don't get
any information about anything. And I think the like the Whales online is run by the Mirror Group, so there's no sort of local scrutiny of anything, right, it's quite vital. So you know you can follow people from universities whatever, or you know independent people doing blogs or whatever, and you actually get a bit more information about what people are up to than you would from anywhere, like you wouldn't see it on Telly.
There are definitely good things about it. Yeah, I mean I think it's I'm guilty of it myself. I'm very easy to get on your high horse about whatso of course at it, but there are at these great things to it as well.
There's probably you know, I quite like the escapism of Instagram. I think it can be and it is pure escapism. It's almost I find that it's like replaced sort of women's magazines really on anything. It's like, oh, there's a nice picture of someone in nice clothes from the high Street. It's like it's kind of it release, you know, it's kind of like high Street as rational catalog.
So what's You've made a whole album in Welsh? Now you've made a whole one in a Cornish What would be your next one?
I don't know yet because I didn't realize I was going to make a Cornish album. But I think it's trying to get to sort of I think he's trying to get to a point of freedom, and I don't know what that would mean next.
Do you think you could make one in English?
I know you know, I have. I've thought about that, like is it not though, yeah, I'll definitely do that.
But it's crossed my mind that I have three languages and you know, I use the three of them, and what is the context with It's quite interesting because you have these sort of three perspectives and what are are they in relationship to the other, which I'm quite interested in, and particularly because I think as well, you know, you've got at the end of the day, you are you sort of You've just got to pursue your own muse and I have no idea. I've just I just don't
know or no or no language at all. I have no idea. I was because I think I was quite interested in not using language at all, because of that's the point I was trying to get to in a way, Yes, that it was, and actually again it's it's to do with the sort of trying to find what your like, what your musical voice is, which is actually quite different.
And I think that's why I've definitely used Welsh and Corners, because I figured that they would be a tool for me to find it, because they're the thing that, like, if I'm using my voice, that would be the most instinctive thing to do, and I've absolutely for myself felt so much more me than I've been able to be before.
Midnight Chats is a Loud and Quiet podcast. Music courtesy of gold Panda. Search Midnight Chats on iTunes for more episodes. It's unto subscribe. For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com.
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