Mother's Milk profile picture

Mother's Milk

as funny as feck" - "too clever for their own good

About Me

MOTHER’S MILK have been playing music since they could support themselves for long enough to hold an instrument. However, they have been playing other people’s songs together since they found out what ‘copyright’ meant. The band are currently wanted by the PRS for crimes against professional performance standards, after several members of a recent folk festival audience noted that not a single one of these ‘folk’ musicians appeared to be wearing an Aran sweater, nor did they drink from a tankard, sing traditional songs or, indeed, take themselves at all seriously.With a mission to take pop music to a new level (not specifically higher) and a new audience (not necessarily more intelligent) they set out from their four diverse backgrounds into the cut-throat world of folk music. Guitarist/mandolin player/singer Ben Robinson was raised by badgers from the age of two and has gained the ability to have amazing conversations with the woodland creatures; singer/guitarist/ukulele player Tom Handley was dredged up from the Trent by fishermen and believes Nottinghamshire to be the centre around which the universe rotates; drummer/singer/accordionist James Gafford was found in a Grundon skip and raised on the road with the Australian percussionists/dancers Stomp; bassist/bassist Nick Duxbury is the materialised thought-process of the Morris Ring and was abandoned in a top hat with nothing but a handkerchief to keep him warm. Alone these individuals are frightened and confused, but together they are much the same.They have a combined folk pedigree of a matter of minutes, which is never shown in their powerful and compelling performance of ‘Skuffle’ music. ‘Skuffle’ is spelt like ‘skiffle’ but with a ‘u’ and is the combining of two, or more, music genres not normally considered traditional bedfellows. As well as folk, the band briefly touch on celtic, hip-hop, punk, reggae, rap, rock, gospel, acoustic and the 80s! They have been described, by people that know about these kinds of things, as ‘funny as feck’, ‘too clever for their own good’ and ‘fantastic’.

My Interests

Music:

Member Since: 1/25/2006
Band Members: Ben Robinson - mandolin/vocals/guitar;James Gafford - drums/vocals/accordian;Nick Duxbury - bass;Tom Handley - guitar/vocals/ukulele.
Influences: Sod that... here's who we'd like to meet instead: The dancing Jersey cows that used to be in the butter adverts... Otis Redding... John Bon Jovi... Jennifer Lopez's bottom... the man on the Moon... real musicians... real comedians... someone with a dark secret... Sooty... Donnie Darko... Gonzo... someone rich and pretentious... someone with hairy ears... an old man who stumbles instead of walking... a trumpet player... a dustbin woman... a house husband... a female builder...
Sounds Like: Popular music with a vaguely modern, unrecognisable twist
Type of Label: None

My Blog

Could it be brass?!

Whato our little fluffy friends! There has been many an exciting development in our warped world since last we spoke... Ben went to Scotland and had an epiphony which was trombone shaped, Tom passed h...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Mon, 09 Oct 2006 06:17:00 PST

Customer survey!

Grrr... Argh!  Bet that scared the be-jesus out of ya! Being a band that are truly as mad as a badger in a washing machine wearing pink lipstick, we'd like to conduct a completely unneccasary sur...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Tue, 15 Aug 2006 08:37:00 PST

A thought process

Hello people of the internet, this is Mother's Milk having a thought process here! As we don't really play any shows it often seems that thinking about the band is as close as we come to actually prac...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:17:00 PST

A silence brocken

It's been a wee while little ones... but for the sake of little Eddie, we're not posting any new songs. We're not performing chimps, apart from Tom, and we don't do requests. Well that and we haven'...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Tue, 27 Jun 2006 02:36:00 PST

The modern fear of folk

Wo-betide anyone who tries to push something different into the websites of dirty rock type people! Just look at how slated the tracks we put on Bandman get: http://www.bandman.co.uk/mothersmilk/ Ar...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Thu, 11 May 2006 03:03:00 PST

A new website venture after procrastinating

Hello darlings!Just to let you know that after a period of extended procrastination we're able to get off our rump hide and launch a new website... visit our new site at http://www.bandman.co.uk/mothe...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:35:00 PST

Dartington comes and goes

Well we played at Dartington College of Arts... not that many people will have noticed that because there was next to no crowd!  But we still had fun, James annoyed Nick's housemates and Ben walk...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Wed, 29 Mar 2006 05:13:00 PST

Bored in the field...!

Hello one and all... just a quick note that we've hit 300 listens, which is exciting, and that we shall have 2 brand spanking new songs to debut at Dartington on Sunday 26th March.  Hopefully we'...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Fri, 17 Mar 2006 02:14:00 PST

Play it like you mean it...

Well hello there.  We had a bit of a rehearsal as a lead-up to the gig in Dartington in 2 weeks time (it's like we're some real band of something) which went swimmingly well. We recorded a v...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Mon, 13 Mar 2006 11:34:00 PST

Worrying times ahead

Worrying times do indeed lie ahead... for no other reason other than the fact that we will be having yet another practice (that's two in three weeks), what the hell is going on here?! Ben has also pl...
Posted by Mother's Milk on Tue, 07 Mar 2006 04:57:00 PST