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Manic Street Preachers, one of the most important bands ever to emerge from Wales, arrived in the late 1980s with heavy eyeliner, feather boas and political sloganeering. Not the sort of thing you'd usually find in the small South Wales town of Blackwood, but from unlikely beginnings came a band very much relevant 20 years later.

They came together in 1986, when James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Sean Moore and rhythm guitarist Flicker formed Betty Blue. Two years later, Flicker had left and Nicky's friend Richey Edwards, previously the group's driver, joined in his place.

Years later, Nicky would later say in Vox magazine, "If you built a museum to represent Blackwood, all you could put in it would be shit. We used to meet by this opening called Pen-y-Fan. It was built when the mines closed down but now the water has turned green and slimy. They put 2,000 fish in it, but they died. There's a whirlpool in the middle where about two people die every year". A bleak image, then, but it provided the necessary fuel to drive the band.

Inspired by the passion of The Clash, and moved by Thatcher's suppression of the miners, the band's lyrics exploded with politicised anger. Their first single, the self-financed Suicide Alley, didn't make great waves, and the band moved to London. There, they found a sympathetic character in the form of Bob Stanley: later a member of St Etienne, but then a freelancer for the Melody Maker.

Stanley released a collection of their demos as the New Art Riot EP in June 1990. It caught the attention of Philip Hall, who became their publicist and co-manager.