Info to come
The Community Challenge
Info to come
The Octorama
Info to come
The Straad Players
Info to come
The Bonny Moorhen
Info to come
Southbound: Released At Last
Three tracks recorded circa 1977/8 by popular North East band Southbound. I produced this session for the Neat label but it never saw the light of day. Now some 38 years later I’ve dug out an old cassette, digitised it and then ran it through some sophisticated software to breath some life into the recordings. These tracks will be available soon: Released At Last !
More about the band here.
Before We Depart
I got chatting to an old buddy that I cut a couple of albums with and toured with back in the 80’s and the upshot is we’ve started trading licks for a possible new album. Mostly under wraps for now. More soon. He’s a track I’ve started working on that bears the title BEFORE WE DEPART (This Mortal Coil). The brackets are a gag and will probably not make the cut.
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Down To The River
Down To The River is a Multi Media adaptation of the epic Tom Kelly poem “GEORDIE” which was published by Red Squirrel Press in a collection entitled “Dreamers In A Cold Climate”.For the purpose of this new work which will be released on DVD the 20 minute reading has been broken down into 9 distinct pieces beginning with “Geordies Lament” and culminating in “Down To The River” and an Overture has been added. The sound sculptures to create this body of work have been developed by producer/songwriter Steve Thompson and photographer Kev Howard has joined the project team. Images are being shot to produce the visual aspect and you can preview some of them here. The work will also become a student project for Middlesbrough College as a piece of site specific physical theatre.
The audio only rendition of this work can he heard below. One piece has been set to images and you can see that at the foot of this page.
The “Overture” set to Kev’s pictures.
Jobling
A Musical: Book and Lyrics: Tom Kelly, Music: Steve Thompson
JOBLING is based on events surrounding the gibbeting of William Jobling, Jarrow Pitman and the last man gibbeted in the north in 1832. Jobling was tried and hung at Durham, then gibbeted on Jarrow Slake for his part in the murder of South Shields magistrate Nicholas Fairles.
The action moves between 1831 and 1832 in the north-east and London: from the 1831 Binding Strike, a year after the birth of the Northern Union of Pitmen, led by Tommy Hepburn, to the gibbeting of Jobling in August 1832.
Click here for the story of William Jobling
Three new pre-demos just in from somewhere on the Seven Seas. Tony Markey ably assisted by Christine Milburn has added vocals to these tracks. These songs are by no means finished but they offer more scope than my own poorly sung rough demos.
Apologies – rough demos with my dulcet tones (Steve T)
Voices
Click “play” to see all pieces play in order. Click on “playlist” for info and to watch pieces individually.
Dam Head Rangers
This project began life as a musical. We’re now developing the story to become a Monkees/Beatlesque/Mash TV series. We’re working with Teesside University students to form a scriptwriting team and we may also be working with Middlesbrough College.
Men from the Swallwell and Whickham area of Gateshead deserted during the First World War and lived hand-to-mouth in the open along the banks of the river Derwent. At the end of the war they changed their names and returned to society. They became known as the ‘Dam Head Rangers’. For the purposes of this project the story will be re-located to the River Tees.
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THE DAM HEAD RANGERS
August 1914
Men march off proudly to fight in WW1. Wives, mothers and children wave them off.
Children at school are told of the war abroad that it will be over soon. “By Christmas” their fathers and brothers will be home.
A young boy carries a telegram. All the street watch to see which house will receive the telegram telling of a loved ones’ death in the war.
Children and women work, try to make a living while the men are away. They wash clothes, others on farms. It is a hand-to-mouth existence.
Some men return with mental disabilities and do not know their families and are often in distress and throw themselves to the ground in the street, re-living the horrors of war.
Others return during the night, furtively, these men are the Dam Head Rangers.
They have deserted from the army and are living in make shifts tents by the banks of the River Derwent.
We see the way these men survive, and the comradeship as they are constantly pursued by the authorities.
On the eleventh hours of the eleventh day of 1918: The war ends. The Dam Head Rangers take up new identities. And, like the rest of society, try to make new lives.
Steel Town
September 12th 1980 – The British Steel Corporation closed down Consett’s iron and steel works thus ending a 140 year old, proud tradition and throwing 3000 people out of work.
Steel Town, (the musical) tells the story of the dying days of steel making in Consett and the town’s struggle for survival. All of this is set against a young man’s dream of rock stardom and escape from an industry in decline.
This is a story of laughter and tears, heartache and pride. The show was a great success when it premiered at the Customs House in South Shields – April 2000. It ran again in September at the Consett Empire twenty years on from the closure of the works. Visit the Steel Town website.
You can hear the original cast album here and you can also download it.