NEW! You can now buy all my CDs, books and DVDs listed below online from a new independent Brighton-based company (ironically called Corporation Records)
To Buy Attila's Stuff Click Here
You can also get all my songs, singly and as albums, from Itunes. Loads are up here and at my other sites for free download, 'cos for me that's the right thing to do - but this is my living, so feel free to buy stuff as well and support your local/global ranting poet/songwriter....
'Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people'
(Adrian Mitchell)
I want to change all that!
Welcome to my main MySpace site. This is the one to leave messages on, contact me about gigs, etc. Here you will find one poem and a selection of my songs, mostly with my band Barnstormer. The lyrics are up there too (lyrics are very important to me!) And I'm currently writing my autobiography - snippets of it will appear from time to time here in my blog.
If you want to hear more of my poems, which are 50% of what I do, please go to my spoken word site myspace.com/attilathestockbrokerpoetry - you can get to it easily by clicking on my picture in the first 'friend' space below. There you'll hear a selection of the poems from my new spoken word/music CD 'Live in Norway'. On my second song site myspace.com/attilathestockbroker - the logical URL for me, grabbed in the early days by a young punk from New York, now grabbed back - you can hear some more of the songs I've recorded with my band Barnstormer. .
You can get to that one by clicking on my picture in the second 'friend' space below.
If you enjoy this site, the 2nd song site and my poetry MySpace site there is loads more stuff (poems, free downloads, interviews in English and German, posters and photos to download, links to my favourite fellow artists, an online merchandise shop, etc) at my long established website www.attilathestockbroker.com
So who/what is Attila the Stockbroker? I'm a high energy rebel performance poet, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist bandleader - first gig 8th September 1980, about 2500 so far! My themes are topical, my words hard-hitting, my politics unashamedly radical, but I aim to make you roar with laughter as well as seethe with anger......
Solo, as well as doing countless gigs on my own I tour a lot with the brilliant US songwriter David Rovics, and from time to time collaborate with my old mate John Otway and with celebrated classical guitarist and neighbour Richard Durrant. In addition to my solo and band gigs I am now once again playing bass in CONTINGENT, the incendiary Brussels band I co-founded in 1979, now reformed 28 years later! If you want to hear some stirring melodic punk with French lyrics go to myspace.com/contingentbelgiumpunk or click on the Contingent 'friend' space below.
Here's my biography!
Inspired by the spirit and the Do It Yourself ethos of punk rock, and above all by The Clash and their overtly radical, political stance, I started as a punk bass player in 1977 and took the name Attila the Stockbroker in 1980, blagging spots for my poems and songs in between bands at punk gigs. I quickly got a couple of John Peel radio sessions, a deal with London independent label Cherry Red Records and before very long was on the cover of Melody Maker. I haven't looked back since!
The 25th anniversary of my first gig as Attila was September 8th 2005: I celebrated with a massive tour of the UK and Europe and a half hour programme on BBC Radio 4 called 'Giving It Lip' and I'm currently writing my autobiography! I have done countless gigs across the world at literary and music festivals, rock venues, arts centres, pubs, universities, schools, folk clubs and punk squats in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Belgium and the Basque Country - and more improbably in Romania, Bulgaria and a hotel basement in Stalinist Albania. I've released about 17 LPs/CDs and 4 books of poems over the years: the best of the early LP stuff is now on the Best Of CDs listed below.
As well as all my solo gigs, where during my songs I accompany myself on mandola, I play violin, bass guitar and a variety of early music instruments and from time to time gig with my band, BARNSTORMER, a unique and energetic mix of punk and early music!
BARNSTORMER have 4 songs and live footage in a major German feature film, 'DoppelPack' which was released across the German cinema network on August 17 2000. A new Barnstormer DVD, recorded/filmed live in Ulm, Germany, has just come out (December 2006) My third album with Barnstormer, 'Zero Tolerance' was released in April 2004, following on from 'Just One Life' (2000) and 'The Siege of Shoreham' (1996) In addition to my new solo DVD, 'Live at the Heartland Cafe' recorded in the US, and album 'Live in Belfast' I currently have two solo Best Of CDs on release, 'Poems Ancient and Modern' (A Live Anthology 1980-1999) which is my definitive spoken word release to date, and 'The Pen & The Sword' (Selected Songs 1981-1995) which documents my best songs up until the formation of my band, now the main vehicle for my songwriting.
If you want to buy any of these, go to one of the two 'To Buy Attila's Stuff Click Here'
points further up on this page.
I am P.A. Announcer and Poet In Residence at my local football club, Brighton & Hove Albion. On 9 January 2005 my hastily put-together band 'Seagulls Ska' got to Number 17 in the UK Top 40 singles chart with 'Tom Hark (We Want Falmer)' a song about our club's continuing battle to secure a new stadium. You can hear the Hit and read all about the campaign at www.myspace.com/seagullsska
I've published 4 books of poems: Cautionary Tales for Dead Commuters (Unwin, 1985) Scornflakes (Bloodaxe, 1992) The Rat Tailed Maggot (Roundhead, 1998) and Goldstone Ghosts (2001)
I gig constantly all over the UK, mainland Europe, the US, Canada and anywhere else that will have me and am constantly on the lookout for interesting new places to visit!
So if you fancy organising a gig, in the UK or anywhere else, please get in touch....
