We’ve remixed, remastered and re-sequenced our Jumpstart album, which was first released in 2013. A number of songs have also been axed, to give the album a tighter feel. 

The album can be found on most streaming sites.

Volume 3 in our Blackbird series includes Blackbird Song and ‘Til Tomorrow, both written by the band.

Ian Barrett’s linocut has been used once again.

Two new songs are out on streaming sites, as Volume 2 in our Blackbird series.

Spotify link

Both “Who’s Insane Now?” and “The Populist” were written by the band and are in some mysterious way connected.

We’ve used the Ian Barrett linocut image and will do so again shortly with our next release.

We have a new single out on streaming sites from 30th March: “May A Man Be Merry” and “Dolly Rocker”. Unlike the live single we released in February, these are new studio recordings. This single is Volume 1 in a series we’ve called “Blackbird”.

Spotify link

“May A Man Be Merry” was written and recorded by Lionel Bart in 1968 for his failed psychedelic album “Isn’t this where we came in?” Unfortunately it didn’t quite fit in anywhere. Bart wrote huge hits for Cliff Richard (Living Doll), Tommy Steele and others in the 50’s and particularly the musical “Oliver” in 1960. “Oliver” was a massive hit both on the stage in London and Broadway, but also on film. Lionel’s flamboyant lifestyle, drugs and alcoholism caused a career nosedive. He put large sums of money into various musical projects for the London stage, but nothing took off. He managed to squander the millions he earned and sadly ended his life through liver cancer in 1999 at the age of 68. He was then living in a small apartment above a betting office in London.

Lionel was homosexual and by 1955 the expression “gay” had found a foothold in the language. But homosexuality was also illegal at that time, so had to be hidden. “Merry” would appear to be a euphemism for “gay” and the answer to the question “May a man be merry?” back then would have been no! You could definitely not be openly gay anyway. Lionel was a party animal, generous and by all accounts great fun to be around during the 60’s. Noel Coward once said he would ‘rather spend five minutes in a four-ale bar with Lionel Bart than a year’s yachting cruise with the Oxford Debating Society’.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1120183/The-genius-destroyed-Oliver-The-success-Lionel-Barts-masterpiece-sent-spiral-drug-fuelled-hedonism.html#ixzz4coiHEg80

“Dolly Rocker” is from a sketchy Syd Barrett demo, wildly unfinished, which we’ve reworked to a very large extent.

The great cover art has once again been created by Ian Barrett. It’s the first version of a linocut and will be used again as the next volumes in the “Blackbird” series are released.