“The utmost finest band to appear in Cornwall for a long time...Insane Genius!â€
Local rag "The West Briton"
“ I’m partial to a bit of Yuppie Flats myself!â€
The well-known property developer and tycoon Steve Lamacq, commenting on the Philanthropists after one of their many radio appearances.
Mr Julian Gaskell and his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists are a performing group of musicians. They play a mixture of originals and traditional songs covering a variety of styles, including English and European folk, punk rock, klezmer, cajun, blues, country and swing. Julian writes songs and digs into the dusty archives the traditional on behalf of the band. He has practiced as a naive singer, songwriter and producer for many years, having fronted the 'near legendary' Manchester outfit "Icons of Poundland" and produced tracks for
all and sundry in the northwest.The philanthropists are based in various locations in west Cornwall and perform regularly in their vicinity, with occasional excursions into the rest of the UK and abroad.
All the tracks on this myspace are from our album "Julian Gaskell & his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" - you can buy it here for £10 (plus a quid P&P) - that's 18 tracks and 69 minutes of this nonsense in a digipack with fancy artwork, lyrics and all the trimmings.
Alternatively, you can download the album (as well as previous releases by Julian Gaskell and Icons of Poundland) from our fancy new download store .Here is a review of the album from manchestermusic.co.uk:
Superbly packaged, Julian Gaskell’s latest album absorbs elements of his last demo and alsocalls up an old classic, each and all played in his now familiar style – A long timeresident of Manchester , now relocated back home on the south Coast, Gaskell has his ownparticular brand of gypsy punk – a craft he was honing in 1999/2000 in places like Night &Day, Jabez Clegg, Big Hands and The Roadhouse. As a singer who’s always had a touch of JoeStrummer about him, the vocals have a slight growl, and sneer along with his trademarkpolitical and social commentaries. As he hits “I.D On My Gravestone†Gaskell is in fullflight, but at this point the music has slowed to a wonderfully energetic crawl. At timesthe style is pushed well out of even his own boundaries, as the swing time and even morecarefree style of “It’ll Never Turn Out Nice Again†sounds like John Lydon and Robert Wyatttearing out a couple of numbers from “Bednobs and Broomsticksâ€, as though it was a stillbeating, bloody heart. Over eighteen tracks it’s a delightful, well constructed journeywhich also resurrects “Billy Slag†from an earlier era in the Gaskell career - it all seemsto fit together so perfectly. A pioneer of new wave skiffle and the use of acousticinstruments as weapons of new punk, Julian Gaskell is one of Britain’s few, truly originalfolk masters.
For the track listing and more details, go to www.raggedtrouseredphilanthropists.co.uk
More tracks are on Julian Gaskell'smyspace .
"The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" is the title of a book written by Robert Tressell,details of which are here .
Some live footage from Krakow, Feb 2008...
