IN 1983 a team of crack draw enthusiasts created a masterplan for a way of living so revolutionary that its very concept was a threat to the fabric of society - GLC, The Manifesto.

One of those architects was Maggot, a curious scam-loving man from the Ebbw Valley, now the father figure of the GLC.

At 38 years of age and a retired crim he's the crew's Fagan and he keeps the younger members amused with tales of his crimes.

They tried to list them on the confessional The Maggot, which describes him as "dripping with charm, style and panache", and "stealing pensions".

That track may or may not be on Goldie Lookin' Chain - Greatest Hits, out on Monday, but it's a live favourite and will give him the opportunity to "run around and get sweaty" in Cardiff Uni on Saturday, October 2.

Roller Disco is definitely on the album, but Maggot don't skate.

"I don't like the independent movement of the legs thing, know what I mean?" he says. "I hung around the arcade machines.

"I would try and get fags for the boys and see if I could make a rise on the deposits on people's skates.

"We'd get a couple of skates out and then try and sell them a bit more expensive to the kids. If you do that a couple of times y'laughin."

It's from those glory days captured in the GLC's 80s retro-tastic masterpiece that Maggot got his name.

He had a flesh-coloured coat from a certain store on Skinner Street which made him look like a maggot, and he also looks like Penelope Keith, y'know Margot.

"People say that we just make our names up but it's not like that. I've had my name for years. All this stuff started in 1983."

Now, after 21 years in the underground, Maggot and the other shadowy figures of chaos are ready to release their manifesto onto the greater public.

Greatest Hits is the best of their half-dozen-odd self-released albums currently floating around on the Internet as MP3s.

The release date might have been put back a week to Monday, September 13, but after Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do went in the charts at number three, chances are the album's going to be massive.

GLC have been adopted by many musical tribes, and unlike 50cent they went down well at Reading and Leeds last month.

"Leeds was sunny and Reading was wet and a bit muddy," says Maggot.

GLC opened the main stage at both and even went to the Kerrang! awards the following Thursday.

"We seem to have been adopted by the rock fraternity," says Maggot. "It's all hairs and guitars, you know.

"I'm strictly Newport hip hop, but I'm from the Valleys originally and there's a strong metal contingent there. It had its influence."

Most of Greatest Hits, or at least the bulk of the sampler sent to the Argus (the completed album is a closely guarded secret), is retro 80s electro.

Tracks like Roller Disco and Your Mother's Got One are "a memory-jogger", says Maggot. "They reminds you of the things that you can't remember."

On the latter he says: "A lot of people are trying to find intellectual depth in that one, but they shouldn't.

"It's just about an experience and a story - it's not the Poseidon Adventure."

The album could be the scam that finally lets Maggot retire gracefully and Newport can go back to sleep at night.

But at the moment money's a bit of a sore point for him.

"To be honest you get asked that a lot (whether we've made much money)," he says. "It's a bit of a funny one. I'm waiting to get paid. I'm on £13 or £14 a week so it's a bit like the lottery; will they pay you? won't they pay you?"

Meanwhile, the rest of the city's booming on the back of the GLC, not that it's a bad thing, says Maggot.

"Hyper Value is now on the tourist circuit. Tracksuit sales have rocketed. Everyone is making something out of it."

They could even start a tourist bus tour of GLC locations.

"Start at Kings Hotel, then the castle, the leisure centre and end up down the Big W. You can get anything there. It's like Sun City in South Africa, only bigger."

* Buy Goldie Lookin' Chain - Greatest Hits from Monday, September 13.

* See Goldie Lookin' Chain in concert in Cardiff University on Saturday, October 2.