| Alone: James Reichelt records electronica under the guise of alone (that's right - no capital a). Stephen Morris met him for a cup of tea and a chat about what makes him tick musically.
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| The Black Flowers: The Vintage Chimps have subdivided into two new acts, one of which is The Black Flowers, writes Stephen Morris.
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| CasioKids- the back page interview: This time round it’s Ketil Kinden Endresen of Casiokids’ turn to answer the questions. He tells us about his interesting taste in bar snacks and police twitter accounts. Oh, and he seems to know exactly what tools you need if ever you get stuck in a lift.
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| Caspar Chamberlain: Creative writing graduate Caspar had a 'eureka' moment in the sauna when he hit upon the idea of starting his own publishing company - Stephen Morris found out more.
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| Daisy Chapman: Eleven o’clock may not seem particularly early in the real world, but when you’re on festival time it might as well be the crack of dawn - especially when you’re on stage performing. This is the predicament that Bristol’s Daisy Chapman finds herself in at the Wychwood Festival on Cheltenham Racecourse...
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The Colourful Fan: The Colourful Fan are a band who feel they 'could do so much more'.
Dan Harris and John de Gruyther explain themselves to our resident music reviewer Stephen Morris...
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| Si Connelly: From local pub gigs to a contract with Chrysalis Records, Cheltenham's Si Connelly is a bona fide musical talent with an exciting future. Stephen Morris quizzed him on his ambitions and inspirations. |
| Respected local duo The Colourful Fan disappeared into a chrysalis and emerged as the beautiful fivesome Crimson Flight. Vocalist Dan Harris chats to Stephen Morris about his high hopes for the new band...
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| Dear Reader - the back page interview: Today, it’s the turn of Cheri MacNeil, aka the animal loving Dear Reader. Read more to find out about NOT listening to music, dropping out of university and a fear of being in small spaces with a particular South African politician…
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| Earnest Cox: Earnest Cox and I have agreed to meet up for a drink at "The Linden Tree" in Gloucester. It seems like a sensible idea, and is hardly a difficult thing to grasp, but there is one problem: I haven't got a clue who I am looking for...
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| Earth Prayer - the back page interview: Now it’s the turn of vocalist Heidi Jo Hines from London based Earth Prayer – a band who like to rock it old school with more than just a dash of the mystical and mysterious.
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| Ex Norwegian - the back page interview: The other day, we ran a feature called ‘Norwegian’s Good’ about some of the best music from Norway. A band we didn’t mention was Ex Norwegian. Mainly because they’re actually from America. Florida to be precise. In fact their name comes from a ‘Monty Python’ skit.
The band have a new album out called ‘Sketch’. Here, Roger Houdaille (centre in the picture) from the band answers our questions. |
| Laura Gibson - the back page interview: Don’t forget to check out Christopher Moffatt’s review of Laura Gibson’s album La Grande when you’re done with this interview.
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| Favela: Now, where would four student blokes get a band name like Favela from? “We just liked it because it’s different,” says Dan Gore, Favela’s bassist.
It sounds like he’s holding something back...
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| Irritant: It’s Saturday afternoon and I am in a grimy warehouse. It’s the place to be of a weekend. Other people might prefer to spend their Saturday afternoons doing a spot of light shopping or watching the football results churn away. But not me. Oh no...
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| Is Shepherd: This time round it’s the turn of Ben Trenerry of Is Shepherd, a prog influenced folk/rock band from Newcastle. Get hold of their new record, ‘Songs For Sons’. But not before you’ve found out a bit more about Ben...
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| Jayl: Jayl is an enigmatic character whose subversive creativity is helping to enhance the Gloucestershire music scene ... and the dance scene ... and movie making ... and ...
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| The Jezabels - the back page interview: Today, Sam Lockwood (far left) from Australian band The Jezabels answers our questions. Read more to find out more about his interest in classical music, his fear of the politically conservative and his musings on the existence (or not) of God and his/her similarity to an octopus… |
| Thom Kirkpatrick: It's the Wychwood Festival on Cheltenham Racecourse. Leamington Spa's Thom Kirkpatrick is on stage and has surrounded himself with an array of instruments...
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| Laveer live review and interview + Wheels live review: The Barge in Gillingham is an unassuming looking pub down a long narrow street. There’s a mild maritime theme and a small stage from which you’ll always some excellent of the best music from Medway’s bustling and thriving music scene and beyond. Apparently Ellie Goulding played here while she was studying in Canterbury...
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Mark Saunders: Reviewer Stephen Morris recently praised a CD by a chap known only as Mark.Now - at last - he's managed to track this enigmatic chap down for a face-to-face interview.
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| Matthew Macaulay Lowe: Our resident music scribe Stephen Morris scrutinises the angst-fuelled work of Matthew Macauley-Lowe.
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| Dan Mangan: For this edition of The Back Page, we’ve crossed the Atlantic to interrogate Canadian Dan Mangan (he’s the one on the right of the picture!). If the name sounds familiar, we featured his song ‘Post-War Blues’ in our Top Ten Downloads of the Week feature a couple of weeks back.
The great news is it’s still available with not a penny to pay...
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| Pony Club: Stephen Morris discovers that Pony Club are three women and drummer who produce some very exciting, furious punky music.
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| Project Twinkle: Our resident muso Stephen Morris has a pint and a chat with Simon Whitson, founder of Project Twinkle.
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| Savage Nomads: Here, Cole Salewicz of London’s The Savage Nomads answers our questions with no less than a fair bit of aplomb.
If you’ve not come across them before, check out the Soundcloud embed below. Catchy guitar riffs and smooth, bang on vocals with just a hint of 80s nostalgia about the whole thing.
For a greater insight into their album, Coloured Clutter, take a look at Fraser Balaam’s review. But not until you’ve read this…
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| Shatterpoint: It’s both a great day and a sad day for Shatterpoint. Great because they’ve been doing what they love: performing their brand of blues heavy, heavy metal to a big crowd; sad because bass player Sandy Wardrop is leaving. Today. In fact, he’s just gigged his last gig, moshed his last mosh, head banged his last head bang.
But it’s not the end of Shatterpoint. Oh no...
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Souled Sounds: Back in April 2004, three young men met in The Bumble Bee, Quedgeley, to sup beer and talk music.
The conversation threw up all kinds of other subjects too: rugby, Star Trek and Dutch art. Naturally. It's what pubs were built for.
Now, some seven years later, two of those men are still writing and playing songs.
The other one still spends much of his time hunched over a keyboard analysing song lyrics and comparing bass lines to Arctic Monkeys riffs.
You can probably guess who one of them is...
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Sound of Arrows: Today it’s the turn of Stefan Storm of Sound Of Arrows to answer our questions. Just nobody mention JC. No, not Jesus Christ, John Cleese or Jarvis Cocker: John Cusack.
Don’t forget to check out Coral Williamson’s review of the band’s album Voyage.
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| Sundae Club: Visiting the home of Hamstell Ridware, one half of Sundae Club, is like stepping into a musical museum. There's a Melatron, a Wurlwitzer Piano and something called a VCS3. There are a variety of other synthersisers and electronic organs from the past several decades including, much to my delight, a Pheramin.
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| Carrie T-G: Carrie T-G has just come off the stage where she single handedly opened up the Keynestock ’11 festival. Armed with just a guitar she performed the unenviable task of warming up the crowd for the festival ahead while simultaneously competing in her own right to win today’s talent competition...
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| Talk in Colour: This time round it’s the turn of Chris Bangs from Talk In Colour. Their single, ‘Nightshifts’ features on the film ‘Junkhearts’. You can download it at the bottom of this very page.
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| Talk in Colour - the back page interview: Earnest Cox and I have agreed to meet up for a drink at "The Linden Tree" in Gloucester. It seems like a sensible idea, and is hardly a difficult thing to grasp, but there is one problem: I haven't got a clue who I am looking for...
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| Troumaca - the back page interview: We turn to Geoffrey from Birmingham band Troumaca. Their tropical sounding song ‘Sanctify’ recently appeared in our top ten free downloads of the week. Find out more and watch the video for ‘Sanctify’ right here...
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| Stuart Turner: Stuart Turner just won’t shut up.
That is no bad thing of course. More of an observation. In the space of a quarter of an hour he holds forth on all manner of subjects from badgers to not murdering ex-girlfriends. It’s all linked together with musical anecdotes, of course, but his enthusiasm for anything and everything seems to be untamed...
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| Rob Udberg: Video interview with Canterbury based Singer/Songwriter (now removed).
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| The Vintage Chimps: Stephen Morris is the BBC website for Gloucestershire's secret weapon. He's our CD reviewer extraordinaire. He also does interviews so check it out...
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| Young Guns - the back page interview: This time round we check in with Simon Mitchell who plays bass with Young Guns. Keep reading for advice on avoiding weight gain and twitter following. And the true identity of God is finally revealed…
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