Meeting Nicky Wire


Around ten years ago, as documented in the poem “New Truths About Nicky Wire”, bizarrely, I bumped into Nicky Wire 3 times in as many months on the same street in Cardiff. Since then, not even a fleeting glance of the man on Caroline Street, or a case of mistaken identity on City Road. Until yesterday, and here he was, striding towards me again, and once again, on Queen Street. How has he changed? He still has a sort of punk look about him, with an army


jacket, and bright orange hair (as it happened, I was wearing my trademark bright orange jumper). He no longer claims to live in a terraced house, but does still enjoy doing the hoovering. He now gets his boxing magazine sent by subscription (at a previous meet, he’d been on his way to buy one). He claims not to own a computer. I was slightly suspicious about this, but happy that he correctly chose to buy 2 copies of Square off me – one for me, and one for his brother, Patrick. I felt like I’d pressured him a little, but I let him know through my eyes that I’d spent enough on his stuff over the years (in fact, I’ve only own bought a couple of Manics records, one of which I sold cos I didn’t think it was much cop, but I have been to see them a few times). I wished him well, anticipating that I’d be seeing him again over the next couple of months. They’re a funny band, The Manics. Displaying the Welsh flag at a Brit Awards


ceremony almost certainly triggered off the rise of Cool Cymru, and all the flag-waving that went with it. In the beginning, they made a lot of bold statements, which nobody believed – stuff like, “we’ll get bigger than Guns’n‛Roses, then split up after our first album” (yeah, right!). Still, it gave them a kind of cool. Although they were basically a punk band in their early days, they used to hate people spitting at them, or throwing things on stage. I threw a couple of empty cans of Four X at them at a Radio 1 roadshow once, but got away with it. They have a political cognizance lacking in so many bands which gives what they say more validity – I once voted for Nicky Wire in an election for leader of the Senedd. But to be honest, I’ve hardly paid any attention to their music for a good 7 or 8 years. I quite liked “Your Love Alone Is Not Enough”, even if it does borrow their own lyrics from an earlier song. Can’t remember much else of theirs recently. But of course, what the Manics are most known for is the disappearance of their guitarist, Richey Edwards. People forget that at the time of his disappearance, the Manics really weren’t a very big band – the success of “This Is My Truth” made them a household name for musical reasons, but this was years later. It was for this reason that while in a Psychiatric Ward in Bridgend, where strangely another woman on the ward predicted he would show up, I saw someone walk past who looked uncannily like


14


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32