Member Since: 05/10/2006
Band Website: www.echofeet.co.uk
Band Members: echofeet
Influences:
wide open spaces, small things, big things, empty boxes, winter, grief, stick insects, straight roads, fault lines, drystone walling, the 1969 moon landing...
Neil Young, Elmore James, JB Lenoir, Buddy Holly, The Carter Family, Brian Wilson, The Beatles, Donovan, Johnny Pineapple, Dave Crosby, Nick Drake, Tom Petty, Peter Garrett, Midnight Oil, Nick Cave, Steve Earle, Steven Wilson, Ralph McTell, Billy Bragg, James Taylor, Richard Thompson, Peter Gabriel, Steve Knightley, Archie Roach, Victor Jara, Karl Jenkins, americana, folk music, bluegrass, progressive rock, air guitar
aboriginal art, Australia, Rabbit Proof Fence, O Brother Where Art Tho’?, otters, Isle of Skye, Langdale, Diversions Dance Company, The Lorax, Dr Zeuss, Hermann Hesse, Mervyn Peake, Brain Patten, Roger McGough, Hunter S Thompson, Paul Sayer " The Comfort of Madness", Peter Matthieson "The Snow Leopard", David Wheldon "The Course of Instruction", Ursula Le Guin, Marvel Comics, Van Gogh’s "Blue Nude"
Rolf Harris, Bob Harris, David Attenborough, Monty Don, 1984/85 UK miners strike, Gandhi, Tony Benn, Arundhati Roy, Chico Mendez, Lao Tze, Ken Saro-wiwa, Wheanut Stuurman, Idries Shah, Ramana Maharshi, Mr Travers (grade 5 teacher), Amnesty International, New Internationalist
Sounds Like: something made of sand . .
a history lesson
Beginning with a school band called ’Death Wish’... four rebels without a clue, at the age of 15 years old playing school revues, with some borrowed instruments performing Black Sabbath’s "Paranoid" and a heavy metal version of that Laurel and Hardy classic, "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine ".
Perfecting air guitar through appearances at parties and events in an Iron Butterfly (of ’Inagaddadavida’ fame) ’ Air Guitar tribute band’ I moved onto being a roadie for ’Leonard Simon Dream’ (a real band) in England with a shared passion for all things Beatles, Pink Floyd, Mike Oldfield, Hendrix and 10cc called, and then as the guitar/ bass player. A name change to the ’Expanding Pineapple Chunk’, which itself followed on from the ’Exploding Pineapple Cow’. Until it imploded and became ’The Rice Band’, which morphed not so seamlessly into ’Octopus’ ... playing bass until it too crumbled ...on the way to ’Echofeet’.
On to for a band named ’Ziggurat Sunrise’... writing original material in the acoustic, folk, American, alt. country vein. A short-lived stint as a singer in a band called ’Jack Plug and the Deathly Silence’ which went the way of a deathly silence. Ziggurat meanwhile grew from a duo to a quintet, complete with borrowed drummer until its ultimate demise... on the way to echofeet.
The solo years followed.... organising folk and acoustic music clubs and festivals, and then into a journey of ’the English. Irish and Scottish music tradition’ as a folk music duo, ’Handful of Earth’. Inspired by Steeleye Span, Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, at its peak with a cast of 10 musicians and a drum machine. From its ashes arose Scratch Avenue, a feast of country rock, indie rock, and Neil Young.... three + one floater rocking like monsters!
More solo years, seemingly performing unwittingly as ’the interval’, ’the graveyard shift’, ’beer break’... until a short stint with local Cumbrian band, ’Fell Inn’. Sessions lead to founding the Langdale Folk Festival nestled in the fells. Another duo beckoned, calling ourselves ’MARd’, made up of a bit of this an a bit of that, original and traditional.... all the while still flying solo.... on the way to echofeet.
A number of recordings, all now lost or deleted, litters a tortuous path, such as Broke(1996), Cockatoo (1998), Platypus Dreaming (1999).... stumbling headlong on the way to echofeet.
Record Label: Weevil Music