Super Furry Animals

Follow this link to UK’s The Guardian to check out this teaser from Gruff Rhys’ documentary “Separado!,” an account of his quest through South America to locate his ‘long-lost, poncho-wearing, guitar-playing Patagonian uncle.’  It premieres at the LA Film Festival June 24/26.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/jun/02/super-furry-animals-film

While we can’t quite picture Jay-Z in a pair of wellies, it seems he’ll be one of the headliners at the 2008 Glastonbury Festival. The past 4 years of perilous mud has filled some music fans with so much dread that when tickets went on sale it didn’t automatically sell out in 3.2 minutes. The way these things work, it’ll probably be blissful sunshine this year. Don’t say we didn’t warn you….! And with 14 years of experience on this subject, we can safely say Glastonbury is still the king of festivals, rain or shine. Other headliners confirmed are The Verve and Kings Of Leon.

Perhaps it’s coincidental that many of our favorite people and things are Welsh…? The Green Man Festival is another Welsh thing we’ve come to admire greatly, a summer camping music festival started by the band It’s Jo And Danny. In the past few years it’s become one of the most popular festivals in Britain, especially for the folk-inclined. That would include us, then.

This year’s spectacular line-up goes like this:

Super Furry Animals / Richard Thompson / Iron and Wine / The National / Black Mountain / Drive By Truckers / Howlin’ Rain / King Creosote / Caribou / Damien Jurado / The Cave Singers / Magik Markers / Alela Diane / School Of Language / Nina Nastasia / Wild Beasts / Make Model / Simone White / The Accidental / Devon Sproule / Jennifer Gentlle / Cath and Phil Tyler / One More Grain / Moon Music Orchestra / Mugstar / Cymbient / Beth Jeans Houghton / The Yellow Moon Band / The Drift Collective / Rod Thomas / Duke Garwood / Brigyn / Wolf People / Threatmantics / Cats In Paris / Radio Luxemburg / City Reverb / Pamela Wyn Shannon / 9 Bach plus loads more and Very Special Guests for the Sunday Headline slot to be announced on 1st May.

We should also make special mention of our old mate Richard Norris who will be “hosting an evening of psychedelic madness”. And who doesn’t need that?

Here’s a special moment from Glastonbury we enjoyed along with the crowd back in 1994. Gosh, it seems so long ago now…

Addendum: It’s Manic Street Preachers performing “Faster” from The Holy Bible, which - if you’re not familiar - is one of the most brilliant punk rock albums of all time.

When it’s drizzling rain outside on a Monday there’s not much that can put us in a fantastic mood. We could watch the meercats on YouTube, or - even more heartwarming - catch up on some recent Super Furry Animals TV performances. They toured here in January/February in support of their latest album Hey Venus!, and popped up on TV sets across the nation, The Late Show With David Letterman, Late Night With Conan O’Brien and Fuel’s The Daily Habit, who have just started posting their music performances on their website. The Daily Habit performance is a particularly beautiful Gruff + Bunf acoustic performance of “When The Wolves Howl At The Moon.” They also performed “Run Away” in the same way, with some additional help from a drum machine and some one-handed xylophone playing from the multi-talented Mr Bunford.

If this doesn’t make today’s grey skies a little brighter we don’t know what will….

Posted by CW.