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NI Soul Troop

About Me

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I've decided to write a new Bio as things have changed for the NI Soul Troop so much in the last year. We began as a 4-piece, meeting through college. When college broke for the Summer I began divising a plan to bring a bit of soul back to Belfast. I called some friends, tracked down some people I didn't really know and tracked down some people I hadn't seen for years and August 2007 we had our 1st NI Soul Troop practise as an 8-piece!Between this 1st practise and our 1st gig in December 2007 we lost trumpet, keys and clarinet players, but I found replacements; we also lost, replaced, regained, lost again and replaced again our drummer; after the 1st few gigs got a tenor sax player in who was subsequently replaced too! Then, Mary our sax player decided to teach English in Ghana for a year so we recruited Chris Malinski- another day, another sax player. So all in all we've had 17 members in our short history.Our basic mission is to play good original music: our songs make you dance, make you sing, make you listen, make you happy, make you love (mostly dance though!) We sing about politics, relationships, vices, freedom, happiness, love, hate, sunshine and, again, dancing! Using soul as our basis, we also take elements of funk, ska, jazz, blues and rock'n'roll and wrap it all up with a Northern Irish twist.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 23/05/2007
Band Members: At the minute anyway:Brendan Scullion - Drums,Tom Hughes - Bass,Becca Hopkins - Vocals,Donal Scullion - Vocals, Guitar,Marc Tweedie - Trumpet,Zoe Alexander- Clarinet,Conor Scullion- Keys,Chris Malinski - Tenor Sax,We're a flexible line up so this can, and probably will change from time to time, but hey, it keeps things fresh!
Influences: Many influences. Obviously soul, also ska, funk, raggae, blues.Gil Scott-Heron, Sly & the Family Stone, Bill Withers, Aretha, Otis, Marv, Bob Marley, The Skatalites, Jimmy Cliff, Parliament Funkadelic, anything George Clinton touches, Jamie Lidell, James Brown (aow!), Marlena Shaw.I could go on and on and on..... If it's got soul, then we can dig it.
Sounds Like: SUPERGROOVIFUNKALICIOUS DANCETASTICKNESS !!
Record Label: Unsigned

My Blog

Get your Willowstone Festival tickets NOW !! 27th June

It's 1 month until the Willowstone festival and I recommend you get your tickets asap. It's happening in Delamont Park (out Downpatrick/killyleagh direction) and it is shaping up to be one of the best...
Posted by on Tue, 26 May 2009 09:53:00 GMT

EP Launch - Black Box - 14th June

The NI Soul Troop have set the date for our EP launch: it will be Sunday 14th June in the Black Box (we tried to get the Spring & Airbrake but they said their precious venue is more suited to indie ba...
Posted by on Tue, 26 May 2009 09:51:00 GMT

NI Soul Troop on the BBC!! ...and other news

That's right The Soul Troop's 1st TV appearance, although very brief, took place last weekend on BBC 1 and then I think it was repeated the following night on BBC 2. It was part of William Crawley's d...
Posted by on Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:07:00 GMT

New recordings (early mixes)

Got 2 new tracks up! "Jekyll & Hyde" is a completely new recording. The other "Nice Indication" is the same song only with added brass. We've still got a few more bits and pieces to record onto th...
Posted by on Sun, 15 Jun 2008 10:52:00 GMT

Recordings SOON- watch this space !!!

The past month or 2 was pretty hectic with some of us finishing up Uni/College and stuff. But now that is all behind us we can finish the recordings we started a while ago. We should have 4 songs fini...
Posted by on Wed, 28 May 2008 11:23:00 GMT

Roll on Summertime...

It's hopefully going to be a soul-packed Summer for us. We've a few good gigs booked already- 19th June in Spring & Airbrake, 12th July at Innishfree Festival and one in The Waterfront on 1st Augu...
Posted by on Wed, 28 May 2008 11:20:00 GMT

Couple U105fm radio sessions

The guys who do the Soulfood show on U105 have been really digging the Soul Troop for the past while. We've been in to do 2 acoustic sets live on air and they've been playing one of our tracks too. Ch...
Posted by on Wed, 28 May 2008 11:16:00 GMT

What’s goin’ on (in the words of Marv)

Hey soul fans. A few cool things been happening for us lately: did a couple of shows in the Black Box- 1 of which was packed out and jumping, the other a social experiment to see if people would ...
Posted by on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 03:35:00 GMT

RINKA part deux! (Plus 2nd half of R. Kelly Trapped in the Closet!)

That's right folks, FINALLY sorted out another gig in Belfast. To those of you who were at the last RINKA gig, this one is pretty similar only it's Parts 13-24 or R. Kelly's musical masterpiece Trappe...
Posted by on Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:30:00 GMT

Derry’s got SOUL!

Well, things have been moving in the right direction. Played a really good show in Mason's bar in Derry, which was great craic. They've asked us back to play the Derry Jazz & Big Band Festival in ...
Posted by on Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:25:00 GMT