Abstract
Focussing on a creative network in rural Pembrokeshire (rather than a wider ‘scene’ juxtaposing creativity and ‘fandom’), this chapter examines music as emerging from—and representative of—the people, developed within bounded locales, and involving traditional practices and cultural reproductions, investments and self-reflections (Williams, 1961; Miles, 2019). The research examines an extant, fluid, and occasionally incongruous musical collective dissociated over time and genres, but not necessarily geographical spaces of locale and venues, highlighting a contrast between rural and urban creativity, the strategies of self-empowerment, collective ambition and personal satiation, and the distinctions between what are termed ‘embedded’, ‘parallel’ and ‘ephemeral’ strategies of music-making that highlight both the longevity of the scene and the omnipresent geographical, social and economic forces that continually threaten its existence.
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Notes
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- 2.
MSP went on to have substantial commercial success after 1992, arguably achieving an artistic pinnacle with the release of the album Everything Must Go (1996) following the much-publicized disappearance – and widely considered (though continually unconfirmed) suicide – of the band’s chief lyricist and rhythm guitarist Richey Edwards in 1995.
- 3.
Most notably, GZM’s 1997 album Barafundle is named after a beach in the county.
- 4.
The Fishguard Folk Festival was the spearhead of local folk music, initially served by the website http://www.pembrokeshire-folk-music.co.uk, but currently in hiatus.
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Miles, P. (2023). Music at the End of the Land: Reflections on the Pembrokeshire Music Network. In: Bennett, A., Cashman, D., Green, B., Lewandowski, N. (eds) Popular Music Scenes . Pop Music, Culture and Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08615-1_1
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