The Wisemen

The Wisemen was originally conceived as an acoustic duo when Richard Turner (armed with songs and a guitar) moved to Lancaster and hooked up with Scott Morley, who had just purchased a banjo and mandolin to compliment his guitar and harmonica. Together, they played regular local gigs and soon (perhaps too soon) had recorded their debut ep, released in 2000. That was followed in 2001 by a mini-album released on Peoplesound.com which showed a bit of progression.
At this point, Richard and Scott were playing several parts each, but future Wisemen Paddy Garrigan guested on a couple of tracks. This continued on the "Golden Rays EP" released in 2003. In January 2004, Paddy had come on board as a full-time Wisemen and contributed autoharp, fiddle and mandolin to "Eight Trips To the Country" which was us putting on our musical cowboy hat. We then recorded 3 new tracks in the summer of 2004 and put the whole shebang together for our monster "26 Songs" acoustic anthology.
"26 Songs" has sold out everywhere except Circa Records in Kendal:www.circa-records.co.uk. For details of our other releases, see the Morner Bros page, or check out the 'Shameless Plug' blog on this very page.
However, by the time "26 Songs" came out , the Wisemen had become an electric band (inititially with Rob Daniels on drums), surprising people who thought we were just "folkies", and rocking up the roots and throwing in a bit of psychedelia and soul into the mix too. 2004/5 saw the Wisemen play lots of gigs accross the UK, get a "Record Of the Week" from Manchester's legendary Piccadilly Records, lots of good press, and new fans and some decent CD sales.
In 2005/6, the Wisemen also recorded 6 new songs with new recruit Gulliver Brodbeck (drums). Two of these ("We Cut Eachother Up" and "A Kiss") were released at the end of 2006 - see blogs. The other 4 ("Seek the Sky", "Holding On", "Wednesday" and "Snowballs") are languishing in the vaults until further notice. A preliminary mix of "Seek the Sky" was released in April 2007 on RU Records - "Lancaster - the Bands" for the benefit of Lancaster Musician's Co-op.
"We Cut Eachother Up" - apparently sounding like "bohemian tinted dark folk" according to Manchester Musc, is out on Timbreland Recordings' sampler "Furthest Branches From The Trunk", distrbuted in the UK by Forte. £5.99 for 16 tracks, including Dan Haywood's New Hawks, Nancy Elizabeth and loads more.
It looks like this:

It's available at Piccadilly Records, Rough Trade, Norman Records, Boomkat, Play.com, HMV etc...distributed by Forte in the UK.

A further 6 acoustic-based songs were released in October 2007. The new songs are "Brine", "Someone Is Bound To Come Along", "Butterfly Song", "The Story Of An Ever-Decreasing Man", the traditional tune "Fair & Tender Ladies" and Woody Guthrie/Cisco Houston's "Get ALong Little Doggies". This CD is available exclusively to Piccadilly Records. There is only 1 copy left.
Paddy continues his musical adventures with the Weirdstring Band, and solo - see his myspace in the top 4.
Richard 's activities can be viewed in the Goldmundo myspace.
Scott has now retired from live music.