Recently described as “The UK’s rising star of Jazz/Pop” – Tom Seals literally has the world at his fingertips. The 20 year-old virtuoso pianist is pure entertainment. Tom adds Sad Café to his list of acts that he’s worked with, which include; Dame Cleo Laine, Billy Ocean, Tony Christie and Daniel Bedingfield.
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The Boozie Woozie Band is an upbeat Piano based three piece combo, featuring Andy Stones, ably accompanied by Tom Shevchuk on Double bass & Rick Lacey on Drums, playing the best of Boogie-Woogie, Blues, Swing and Rock & Roll.
Support for Mike Peters at Nantwich Civic Hall on Sunday 31st March. You can also catch them at The Bowling Green on Monday @ 2pm .
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Heidi Browne’s jazzy voice and enigmatic finger-picking style along with songs appeal to all ages, described by TF10 Music
as ‘a string of pearls for the ears, nothing less’. BBC 6 Music’s Tom Robinson says of Heidi: ‘The writing is sharp and the vvocal performance is absolutely immaculate.’
Heidi is supporting The Wonder Stuff at Nantwich Civic Hall on Friday 29th March and appearing at The Crown Hotel on Friday.
Damn Vandals’ new debut album ‘Done For Desire’ became Shaun Keaveny’s Record Of The Week on BBC 6Music.
Featured recently on Sky TV, accolades have been flowing – including making Bloomberg’s ‘Best CDs of 2012’ list and earning a remarkable 10/10 from The Press Association. Unforgettable live, This Is Fake DIY called them ‘one of the most exciting bands to surface from the UK this year.’
“Absolutely Marvellous … we think this is simply amazing … Utterly fabulous … one of the best rock tunes we’ve had for a long time. Damn Vandals, they are AMAZING!”
Shaun Keaveny, BBC 6MUSIC
“Kasabian, and Green Day, should weep.”
4/5 – Bloomberg
“Swaggering Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
Time Out
“Injecting a fresh boost into the British music scene, with the re/birth of Brit-Pop-Rock.”
Record Collector
“Such a distinctive sound … the Vandals have the goods.”
Classic Rock Magazine
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Supporting Shakatak at the Civic Hall on Saturday 30th March, Optimystik Visionaries are a four piece Space Fusion Jazz Rock band, bringing out the best of originally written instrumental music back to the forefront with clever time signatures and lead line melodies in latin/funk/jazz/rock styles
It all started when Nick Steed(keys) met Greg Morgan(drums) early 2000 and after sharing a common interest in fusion/prog rock from artists such as George Duke, Ozric Tentacles, Herbie Hancock, Camel, Frank Zappa, ELP etc and performing together in various bands started taking about forming a fusion band…
After 10 years of taking about writing a fusion album but never having the time due to busy gig schedules, Greg and Nick finally started the wheels in motion in January of 2011 and the writing began.
Additional players were not a problem as both musicians work alongside many talented performers, but the main thing was to write the core basics of the music and then pull in the musicians for particular songs to give each song a magical flair of sound.
For the bass playing they have not only a good friend but amazing fretless player John Sandham, who adds to the already tricky bass lines written and as for main guitarists we have a few on offer, all available to play on all tracks and all with an amazing feel for the music: Nick Waddacar again a highly experienced player of fusion that has worked with Greg on many fusion projects, Peter Mason another heavy weight player with a natural feel and years of touring around his belt, we also have KC who is currently producing the work who has added guitar on some tracks, as well as the talents of Greg whom not only being the driving force of drums is quite handy on the bass and guitar..
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The Wonder Stuff formed in 1986 in an area of the Midlands known as The Black Country. Their first EP, ‘A Wonderful Day’, was released on the band’s own Far Out Recording Company and financed by Rob Jones (aka The Bass Thing, the band’s original bassist) after a fortuitous win on the Football Pools. Although this release had only a small impact on a loyal following it did bring the band to the attention of Polygram Publishing who helped finance the band’s second release ‘Unbearable’, a UK Indie Chart Number One single. Whether it was this early commercial success, or the incalculable number of live shows the band were apt to perform during 1987, they were quickly signed to Polydor Records at the end of that year.
Touring being the band’s main activity they recorded their debut album, ‘The Eight Legged Groove Machine’ over a period of twenty eight days in 1988, taking time off from support tours with Big Country, Zodiac Mindwarp & The Love Reaction and Pop Will Eat Itself among others.
Although it took a further three single releases to reach the Official British Top 40, The Wonder Stuff regularly graced the covers of New Musical Express, Melody Maker & Sounds – the three essential music weeklies of the day. It was here that the arrogant, self-confident manner of vocalist/guitarist Miles Hunt, began to make something of himself beyond the sneering lyrical content of the band’s songs, a personality known well to thousands of fans that had seen them live.
Since 2006, Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls have toured together performing acoustic shows in the UK, Europe and the USA.
To date they have released two studio albums alongside one live album.
Prior to this, Miles has performed both as a solo artist, alongside Wonder Stuff guitarist Malcolm Treece and also as part of a group under the name of The Miles Hunt Club. A number of albums and singles were also released during this time.
The Wonder Stuff Acoustic – Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls – Civic Hall – Fri 29/3/13
Support: Heidi Brown
Doors Open 7:45pm
Unreserved Cabaret Style Seating
Tickets available on the door.
For a few years in the late 70s and early 80s, Sad Café may just have been the best live band on the planet. Their charismatic and under-
The solid-
At their commercial peak, their single “Everyday Hurts” sold 600,000 copies but there was so much more to Sad Café than that ballad. Listen to Paul out-
Paul Young of Sad Café sadly passed away in 2000, but in 2009 and early 2010 the band gathered to complete an album using the vocal tracks that Paul had just finished at the time of his sudden passing.
Sad Café’s new activity means that there is no better time than now to discover this band who were without doubt one of Manchester’s finest.
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Mike Peters is known primarily as frontman of the internationally acclaimed Welsh band The Alarm and more recently as guest vocalist for celt-rockers Big Country. Mike is also an inspirational solo acoustic performer and (as a two times cancer survivor), founder of what is now regarded as the world’s leading rock and roll cancer charity ‘Love Hope Strength Foundation’.
Mike Peters has played acoustic guitar all his musical life and and the sound of the instrument has been at the core of all his work from the very beginnings of The Alarm to the present day.
Achieving over 15 Top 40 UK singles and over 5 million album sales worldwide along the way, Mike Peters’ musical journey has seen him sing with some of history’s greatest performers such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young & Bono. Mike has also taken his trusty acoustic guitar to some of the world’s highest elevations performing at ‘The Highest Ever Concert On Land’ at 18,500 feet on Mt. Everest (2007), and only this summer at the ‘Highest Concert in Britain’ on the summit of Ben Nevis (4,409 ft), in Scotland.
Mike Peters formed The Alarm in 1981, first becoming successful soon after with classic singles such as ‘Sixty Eight Guns’ and ‘Rain In The Summertime’ and building a reputation for all out shows based on their thoughtful and challenging music.
In 1992, Mike Peters and The Alarm became one of the first bands to have a dedicated internet site www.thealarm.com and in that same year, founded The Gathering, the annual Mike Peters-hosted ‘Alarm’ event held in North Wales which now attracts fans from all over the world.
Throughout most of the 1990’s Mike Peters took a step back from The Alarm, beginning with the release of ‘Breathe’ in 1994 (which debuted at number 5 in the U.K. independent charts). A second solo album, ‘Feel Free’ (1996) documented Mike Peters’ first battle with cancer (Non Hodgkins Lymphoma). Rejecting conventional treatment, Mike Peters went to see a faith healer instead, and continued to tour extensively in the UK, Europe and USA. Upon being told that ‘green’ was a powerful colour in his life, Mike Peters wore green combat fatigues every day until he eventually went into spontaneous remission.
In 2000, it was time for Mike Peters to reconvene The Alarm once more, touring (as special guests to Big Country) in support of the groundbreaking ‘The Alarm Complete Collection’ (the band’s entire 1980′s musical output in a nine-CD box set, along with a ground-breaking bonus ‘audio dedication’ CD personally recorded by Mike Peters). Never before or since, has such a gesture been undertaken by a recording artist.
In 2004, The Alarm released the controversial ’45 R.P.M.’ single in the U.K. under the pseudonym ‘The Poppy Fields’ and entered the UK charts at number 27, immediately becoming the subject of an international news story. The furore centered around the fact that The Alarm’s identity had been kept hidden from the media and instead a stand-in group of 18 year old musicians appeared in the video. ’45 R.P.M.’ was played throughout the UK and championed by unsuspecting DJ’s and critics as the first release by a brand new band. It was only after the song entered the charts that The Alarm revealed the true identity of ‘The Poppy Fields’, thus causing a storm of worldwide media speculation. The band even featured on prime time America’s CBS News with Dan Rather. (The story has subsequently become the inspiration for a film entitled ‘VINYL’ which will be released in cinemas nationwide this February 2013, starring Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia) and Keith Allen (Trainspotting).
In 2006, Mike Peters’ life journey entered into its darkest phase when, just days before the release of the hit single ‘Superchannel’ (from the album ‘Under Attack’), he was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL). Throughout a six month spell of hardcore chemotherapy, Mike continued to play and perform, taking to the stage each time in his trademark ‘green’ combat fatigues and taking the first steps in beginning the Love Hope Strength Foundation by leading a host of Alarm fans to the summit of Snowdon to raise funding for the local cancer care centre in North Wales that had helped put Mike on the road to recovery. A revealing and insightful BBC documentary, ‘Road to Recovery’ was screened in October 2007 chronicling Mike & Jules Peters’ inspiring story, including their battle with cancer and infertility.
Since then, Mike has embarked on a series of remarkable journeys to raise funding for cancer care both locally and globally, In 2007, his travels took him to Nepal where he inspired a team of musicians, cancer survivors and supporters on a trek to Mt. Everest to perform an acoustic unplugged concert at 18,500 feet (The World’s Highest Concert on land), filmed by VH1 America and currently screening in the USA as ‘Everest Rocks’. The trek was instrumental in providing Nepal with its first mammography machine which is now housed at the Bhaktapur Cancer Centre.
In 2008, The Alarm released ‘Guerilla Tactics via an audacious acoustic concert in New York’s Times Square and along with the prophetic ‘Three Sevens Clash’ gate-crashed America’s airwaves once more, reaching number 3 on Billboard’s Rock Alternative Chart. The follow up was 2010′s ‘Direct Action’ an album which is now the band’s best selling work of the digital era.
On the 31st of December 2010, Mike Peters took on the challenging role of singing for Big Country and picking up up on a musical relationship that began in 1983 when Mike and his friend, the late Stuart Adamson, were introduced to the stage of U2′s ‘War’ tour by Bono, as being “part of the new breed’. The Alarm also continued to perform in 2011 celebrating it’s 30th anniversary with the release of the acoustic driven ‘Sound And The Fury’ album. Throughout 2012, Mike has been performing with Big Country celebrating their 30th Anniversary of ‘The Crossing’ and performing at major UK festivals at home and abroad.
Mike is often dubbed by his friends and fans as ‘the hardest working man in rock’ and remains as passionate as ever about his music, Wales and charity Love Hope Strength www.lovehopestrength.co.uk
When Mike was first diagnosed with cancer in 1995, quitting music wasn’t an option and he is now in his second remission from Leukaemia and still challenging himself and his audience through music and the outreach of his charitable actions. In his own words and from the title of one of his own songs “Never give it up without a fight”.
Support: The Boozie Woozie Band
Doors Open 7:45pm
Unreserved Cabaret Style Seating
Tickets available on the door.
It was the release of “Easier Said Than Done” that gave the band the radio exposure needed for their first top-twenty hit. This record introduced their instrumental-unison vocal sound to a much wider audience, and the track stayed in the UK chart for seventeen weeks. The follow-up, “Night Birds”, was their first single to reach the top ten, and the album of the same name gave Shakatak their first gold album, entering at number four and remaining in the charts for twenty-eight weeks. By now a major international act, the success of the release gave them the number-one jazz album slot in Japan, and attracted interest across Europe and South America. Night Birds was used in the feature film “Away We Go” directed by Sam Mendes and was used as the demonstration song on many Casio Piano Keyboards such as the Casio CT-460.
Two more albums – Invitations and Out of This World – were recorded in 1982 and 1983, resulting in several more chart hits, and paving the way for the next major breakthrough in the band’s career. With a subtle change in musical direction, yet still retaining the band’s identity, Jill Saward (formerly of Fusion Orchestra, Brandy and Citizen Gang) became their lead singer to make Shakatak’s fifth album, Down on the Street. The resulting single releases “Down on the Street” and “Watching You” had great success, and brought them attention in new parts of the world. The following year saw the release of the group’s first live album, which was recorded in both Tokyo and London.
The seventh album, Day by Day, saw the development of songwriting by all of the band members. In 1986 Saward announced that she was expecting a baby later the same year. This news allowed the band to ease their hectic touring schedule for a while, and enabled them to concentrate purely on recording for a brief period. The band were in the top five foreign acts in Japan, and after winning the coveted Silver Award in the Tokyo International Song Festival, Shakatak were asked to produce an extra album each year exclusively for the Japanese market. By this time they had two extra albums released there entitled Into the Blue and Golden Wings. Both sold well, the latter winning the “Best Instrumental Album 1987″ at the Japanese Phonograph Record Association Awards.
However, following this success the band felt it was time that they re-directed their efforts back to singles, and an album for release to the rest of the world. The result was Something Special, closely followed by the night club and chart hit “Mr Manic & Sister Cool” from their next LP, Manic and Cool.
In the 1990s, the band had success in the US when they had two albums that went to No 1 in the contemporary jazz charts, and were also awarded the Japanese grammy for best international instrumental album six years running.
Shakatak continue to appear regularly throughout the world with recent festival performances at Jakjazz, the Jakata International Jazz Festival, Bangkok, Hua Hin and the Bratislava Jazz Day and they make annual appearances at the Billboard Clubs in Japan and the Pizza Express Jazz Room in London plus numerous other concert and club performances.
The band celebrated their thirtieth anniversary year in 2010.
Bassist George Anderson is to release his second solo album ‘Expressions’ on the 3rd September 2012 through Secret Records. Coming three years after his first album ‘Positivity’, this album again sees George writing, arranging and producing all of the tracks on it.
Keyboardist Bill Sharpe worked with American jazz pianist Don Grusin on a joint project called Geography released in 2007. Sharpe’s second collaboration with Grusin, Trans Atlantica has been completed and is to be released on the 3rd September 2012. This is to be released through London label Secret Records and will also include their first album Geography as a special 2-CD package.
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Formed in 1977 to promote Ian Durys’ album ‘New Boots and Panties’ on the first Stiff Records tour of the U.K. Chaz Jankel, Norman Watt-Roy, Charlie Charles, John Turnbull and Mick Gallagher became known as ‘The Blockheads’ In 1978 released ‘What a Waste’ that reached number five in the U.K. charts. They were then joined by saxophonist Davey Payne and toured the U.S.A supporting Lou Reed across North America ending with their own dates in California.
In 1980 Wilko Johnson joined to record and release a third album called ‘Laughter’ and released ‘I Want to be Straight’ and ‘Supermans Big Sister’ as singles. They toured throughout 1981 in the U.K and Europe, ending the year with a tour of Australia.In 1978 Chaz composed ‘Hit me with your Rhythm Stick’ with Ian, and in 1979 had a number one hit record with it in the U.K. They went on to record the ‘Do it Yourself’ album and toured Europe and the U.K. recording ‘Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3′ in Rome. Released as a single in late 1979 it reached number three in the U.K. charts.
In 1982 Ian Dury & The Blockheads disbanded and were not to play together again until 1987 when they went out to Japan to play three shows, disbanding again until 1990 when the death of Charlie Charles in September of that year re-united them to play two Benefit gigs at The Forum, Camden Town in aid of Charlies’ family. The band recorded a live album ‘Warts & Audience’ at the Brixton Academy in December 1990.
In 1994 the band were invited to play the Madstock Festival in Finsbury Park which led to a series of hit and run gigs in Europe, Ireland, the U.K.and Japan throughout the rest of 1994 and 1995. In March 1996 Ian was diagnosed with cancer and, after recovering from an operation, was determined to write another album.
To this end The Blockheads went into rehearsal in August 1996 and began recording. The album ‘Mr. Lovepants’ was released in 1998 and in May, Ian & The Blockheads hit the road again.
The band now including Dylan Howe and Gilard Atzmon continued to play gigs throughout 1999. The last performance by Ian Dury & The Blockheads was February 6th 2000 at The London Palladium. Ian died at 9am on 27th March 2000.
At this point the band had to make a decision to either stop or continue. The choice was made and the band have continued making albums and touring the world. Now after nearly a decade since Ian passed away The Blockheads still perform to packed out venues around the world.
A new fan base has continued to build on the on the foundations already laid.
Now after over thirty years The Blockheads are still building their wall of sound and it just gets bigger and better.
