The South Wales band Blind Ambition recently found themselves in the position to respond to a curious piece of fan mail. It came to them via email requesting not autographs or locks of their hair, but for them to remove graffiti from a local Caerphilly bus stop or face, what seems to be, a civil law suit. What is Caerphilly you may ask? Well it is a borough in South Wales that is home to one of the largest castles in Wales and also has an eponymous cheese that originated in the region. Mmmm.. As the story goes, the band has a very devout following in the Wales region and requested for the fans to assist them in promoting the band’s upcoming shows. The band was able to muster up the helpful energies of everyone short of a girl scout troupe to hand out flyers, and, literally, go door to door to inform the locals of upcoming shows. One, or several, of the band’s disciples got a little too zealous and set out with a can of spray paint to tag local bus stops. I really had to look closely at the picture of the tag simply due to the fact that it does not look anything like graffiti, rather, it resembles an ordinary advertisement. But, lest we forget, this is Caerphilly.
Caerphilly Council told the band what had happened and requested their cooperation to remove the graffiti or they would charge them the cost of removing the graffiti. Perhaps it is just the American law in me, but it seems as though attacking the band for the actions of others is a bit unjustified. How is it a case of moral turpitude when a band requests its fans to help promote their act? These guys do not know who actually did it, yet it is their responsibility to make it right? This is unsurprising coming from country where blasphemy was not taken off of the law books until 2008, where one could be charged with a crime against God for libel or slander against the good book. This only applied to one book dealing with the subject of course. <Salman Rushdie, ah hem!?
Another interesting fact about Caerphilly is that on December 14, 1976 a protest and a group prayer meeting took place at that big castle I was talking about the night the Sex Pistols came into town for a show. Caerphilly was one of the few regions that would allow them to play there, but it seems as though the locals were still fearful of a particular wrath that was just waiting to come down upon them. I am not sure if it was the temptation to act like a Sex Pistol or fear of the apocalypse.
Blind Ambition, with an unforgettable act of class, quickly apologized and obliged to the council’s request. Lead singer, Martin Care, said, ” We’re grateful to Caerphilly Council for how they’ve handled this situation.” Further, a spokesperson for the council stated, “We take an extremely tough stance on graffiti and indeed all other environmental issues in our county borough.
“We believe our residents should be able to live their lives in a clean, green and tidy environment and we will not tolerate the very small minority who feel it is acceptable to deface our environment in this way.”
Clearly, bus stops are part of the natural environment in Caerphilly. You can check out the BBC article here and listen to their new single “Judgment Day” here.
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