Tynal Tywyll formed in 1984 in the very confusing landscape of mid 80's Welsh music. Heavy metal to the left of them. Reggae to the right of them. What could they do? Taking their cue from The Byrds and REM they played a chime-y, rickenbacker infused form of "pop" music and released 3 singles, 3 EPs and 2 albums. On their first TV appearance on HTV Wales they dared to wear turtle neck jumpers, paisley shirts and necklaces, which was enough to elicit, if not death threats, threats of a good kicking from some quarters. They once recorded a TV session on the same day as Heavy Metal legends Wenfflam, who wore skin tight tiger print pants in a sort of NWOBHM Saxon style, and who have gone down in history as the Welsh language Anvil. All Hail Wenfflam. (Indeed all hail Anvil too. But we draw the line at Manowar.) TT were vehemently Metal-phobic at this time, and were naively worried that being in the same studio as a metal band would infect them with the airborne virus know as "Spirit of metal" and make them buy Donington Rock tickets. It did not. As time has gone by the TT members have grown up a bit and actually consider sharing a stage with Wenfflam a privilege. Anyhoo, continuing, the band played many concerts in some very strange places such as Dolgellau village hall, which was actually rafter swinging, riotously good fun. They did get their van headbutted without provocation by a cloven hoofed man beast in Bala but that is another story. At one Eisteddfod, in a starlit field, after midnight, they were accosted by a weeping man mountain know only as "Maharan". He could have killed the whole band with one thumb thrust but the band quickly offered the tearful behemoth words of solace like Androcles to the lion, and he was grateful and spared them. At one concert a drunken ape of a young farmer manhandled one of their guitars and surveyed it as if it had beamed down from mars, uttering quizzical grunts as he turned it every which way. They did not correct him for they were fey musicians, not ringmasters of feral turnip gatherers. Many and absurd were their adventures. They were "active" (in the musical sense) from 1984 to 1995. A compilation CD of all their records is possible within the next few months. There are no plans to dust off the turtle neck jumpers for a live reunion, as they would rather be remembered as young and relatively pretty, but their spirit lives on in the recordings. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.