Broke his drumsticks.... threw them over the wall...
STRANGELAND were formed in the December of 1992 out of the remnants of two other bands, they spent the first six months of 1993 writing, rehearsing and searching for the right vocalist. By May, the line-up of Ian Skinner (Guitar), Tom Colvin (Guitar), Jonah Webb (Drums), Jem Carroll (bass) and Sam Scannell (Vocals) was complete, and then they performed their first gig in july, 1993 at The Mill in their home-town of Banbury.
The rest of the year was spent performing in and around Banbury, Oxford and High wycombe area, with a memorable trip to the east coast in September. In total the band played about twenty-five gigs in the last few months of 1993, culminating the bands first major headline event, at The Mill Theatre in banbury on christmas Eve to a capacity audience, and a further twenty gigs in the early months of 1994.
Strangeland recorded 5 tracks in Dungeon Studios in Oxfordshire in the august of 1993, and returned to complete the project early the following year with another 5. Sadly the album was never released, but the master tapes are kept safe for some future endeavour. In total there are well over 3 hours of unreleased material including demos & rehearsals.
In Ireland, one of the country's top promoters arranged to have the song 'The Other Side' played on the leading national radio station. Radio stations in the USA also took to Strangeland's music before any domestic interest.
The band also featured on 2 compilation albums: "the Progressive Rock Directory Vol3", and the first track on "Silhobbit- The Young Progtenders", which also fratured early material from Porcupine Tree, Geoff Mann, Incubus Sucubus and a host of other luminaries and otherwise.
The band's style of music has been compared to many diffent and sometimes conflicting genres, and names such as King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Fields of the Nephilim, Yes and Hawkwind have been used to describe the overall sound. Magazines and fanzines such as Organ, Curfew and Screech have reviewed the demo, and have provoked continued discussion as to Strangeland's brand of rock music.
Sadly in mid 1994 the band split, and as is often the way this happened just as the group were beginning to gain recognition and see their efforts bear fruit.. Their song writing was maturing and sadly some of their finest material was only recorded as a live concert, which is now lost.
Unable to find a suitable replacement for departed vocalist Sam Scannell, the others hung up their plectra and threw their broken and burnt drumsticks over the wall to focus on individual musical projects.
Guitarist Ian Skinner switched to bass and had a spell with Slovakia's bizzare woad-painted Hardcore-Industrial-Jazz outfit Jesus Underground Band (Review: http://www.angelfire.com/ky/orangishblue/news1.html ) before they too disbanded. He then moved into music retail management, and has been at HMV since 1999. Tom Colvin (guitar) currently writes music for computer games, as does bassist Jem Carroll (who's credits include the soundtrack to Gusto/Eidos' Championship Manager 2006 among others!). Drummer Jonah Webb currently lives in South Wales and works in publishing, and enjoyed success with the acclaimed London group Betty. Sam got through to Boot Camp on the X-Factor a year or so back (Cowell liked him, wonder what he'd have made of Stranglehold...) and currently sings and guitars with The Callers with some other old Banbury types: http://www.myspace.com/thecallersuk.
Tom is, so far the only Strangelander not to have spawned an offspring. (As far as we know...)
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