Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci pictured at the Coal Exchange 1 March 1997 - Images may be subject to copyright
On this day, St David’s Day, 1 March 1997, psychedelic folk and alternative rock band Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci played Cardiff’s Coal Exchange on their Barafundle tour. Also on the bill were the Stereophonics.
The band were about to release their fourth album Barafundle. The album's title comes from the name of a beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
Songs are often sung in both Welsh and English, and the album's influences range from twee-pop to traditional folk music. Lynn Childs, father of singer Euros and violinist Megan, plays shawm and other traditional instruments on the album's occasional medieval interludes (for example, on "Starmoonsun").
Two singles were released from the album. The first single, "Patio Song", was released in late 1996 and became the band's highest-charting single in the UK, peaking at #41 in early 1997. The song also ranked #8 on John Peel's 1996 Festive Fifty countdown.
The second single, "Diamond Dew", reached #42 on the UK Singles Chart in mid-1997. A contemporaneous non-album single, "Young Girls & Happy Endings", was also released in 1997 and appeared as a bonus track on some American copies of the album.
While in the band, Childs said that one of the most frequent questions he was asked was about the origin of the band's name. After struggling to come up with one, they decided "we might as well stick with the most ridiculous crap name we could think of."
Gorky's came from the word "gawky"; Lawrence says that "gork" was school slang for a dimwit.
Zygotic was "hijacked from GCSE biology"; it refers to the state of being like a zygote – a fertilized egg cell.
Mynci is a spelling of the word "monkey" using Welsh spelling rules, rather than a direct Welsh translation (the actual Welsh word is "mwnci") and is pronounced like "monkey".
