From 1982 to 1985 Steve was in a number of imaginatively titled bands, either as bass player or guitarist, including: The Guests, The Uninvited, The Magnificent Severn, Nightshift, The Doctor’s Pond, The Ungrateful Dead, The Victims, Bastard Squad, The Mystery Girls, The Tryp, The New Mexicans and The Chaos Brothers to name but quite a few.Stormclouds (Steve Lines - instruments & Louise Allen - vocals) were formed in March 1986 from the ashes of The New Mexicans and their first gig was The King George pub, Calne on 9th June. In September of that year they began recording sessions for what would become their first cassette album "It's Raining Still" along with Jellymonsters (Rod Goodway – vocals and guitar & Christine Cotter – guitar and vocals) who were also recording their album "Two True Believers". Having recorded an album each, Stormclouds and Jellymonsters decided to team up and play some live gigs. They chose the name Jellyclouds, for obvious reasons, and embarked upon their ‘Sunny Daze’ tour of the West Country throughout the summer of 1987. Their first gig was at Compton Bassett, on 2nd May 1987 and their last at Calne Town Hall on November 6th.In January 1988 Jellyclouds finally decided to call it a day. Rod went on to re-form Magic Muscle and Steve reverted back to Stormclouds who immediately started studio work again recording material for their second cassette album release. "Raindrops" was released on Acid Tapes in May 1988 followed by a flexi given away with Unhinged magazine "The Creature From Galaxy X" c/w "He’s Trash".After a handful of local gigs and a brief tour supporting Magic Muscle, Stormclouds began work on their third album "Lost In Space", released on Acid tapes in February 1990. February 1991 saw the release of their "Psychotronic" album and December 1992 saw the release of "The House On The Borderland", again both on the Acid Tapes label.Next the band enlisted a third member, Ken Flynn (as engineer and musician) and began recording material for a projected album to be titled "Nightmares In The Sky". Slowly work began on what was to be Stormclouds debut album. Recording sessions were at weekends at Ken Flynn's 8 Track Thunderhead Studios in Calne and slowly the songs began coming together.During this time they had a couple of tracks on vinyl compilations and also released their first single on their own label, Rainfall Records – "Lost In Space" c/w "When Worlds Collide" released in December 1992.During the recording of "Nightmares In The Sky", Allen was sacked from the band and replaced by Melanie Townsend. Allen’s recordings were shelved and work began anew. Mel’s first recording work included a cover version of "Ride A White Swan" for the Old School Records Bolan tribute album "The Resurrection Of The Warlock" which was released in December 1985. Another early studio recording was a cover of Galaxie 500's "Hearing Voices" for Elefant Records tribute 2 CD set 'Snowstorm', released in May 2001."Nightmares In The Sky" was finally released in March 1996 on vinyl and October 1996 on CD (with extra tracks and alternate versions on the CD format). This was followed by an archive album (with Louise Allen on vocals) of the Stormclouds ‘sci-fi/fuzz pop' material. The album "Not of This Earth" was released by Elefant Records in June 1997. An earlier vinyl single The 2D Man EP had been released by the Spanish label in December 1993."Sleep No More" was the next album by the band, released by Rainfall Records on September 18th, 2000 - again on vinyl and CD. Guests on the album included Childe Roland who contributed his excellent guitar work to most of the tracks and also a song, "Sacrifice". Reefus Moons played almost all of the instruments on his arrangement of "The Sleepy Tree (Sleepy Version)" and Mark Angell provided vocals on "The Strange Inventor"
and "Gray". The album cover was designed and painted by Steve and Lorretta 'Rett' Mansell."Strange Aeons" was Steve’s next project. Released on August 6th 2001, it was a double CD album of music and poetry inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft and the ‘Cthulhu Mythos’. It was a various artists compilation and bands featured included Stormclouds, Childe Roland, Rod Goodway, The Petals, Astral Weeks, Fireaxe and many others. The album also featured a number of Lovecraftian poets and authors reading their own work, including Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Simon Clark, Robert M. Price, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., John B. Ford, Tim Lebon, Joel Lane, Susan McAdam, Michael Cisco, Kevin Broxton, Lorretta Mansell and many more. It also included the works of Thomas Ligotti, Richard L. Tierney, Simon Clark, Tim Lebbon and Ann K. Schwader. It was during the recording of "Strange Aeons" that Melanie Townsend parted company with the band in June 2000In January 2003 Steve and Ken decided to dust off Allen's "Nightmares In The Sky" recordings and complete the unfinished songs. The result was "The Darkest Hour" released by Rainfall in March 2005. This was followed by a collection of outtakes and alternate versions of material from Melanie Townsend’s two albums and was titled "Shadowqueen".Next was "The King In Yellow" album based on Robert Chamber's King in Yellow stories and the mythos which has grown up around them. This was similar in format to "Strange Aeons" and once again included material by Stormclouds, Childe Roland, The Petals and Lodovico Ellena.Stormclouds will be recording a new album later this year. Watch this space!
