Vinnie Whitehead is a singer songwriter and acoustic artist renowned for his charismatic stage presence and engaging live performance. In April 2016 Vinnie recorded his first solo acoustic live album at The Duchess, York. Simply titled Live & Acoustic The recording of this album was a milestone for Vinnie in his career as a recording artist and live performer. As well as containing favourites from all Vinnie's previous releases it also contains some new and previously unreleased songs. And captures Vinnie at his best and most raw form, Just him with a guitar putting it all into song with an acoustic guitar, his powerful words and vocals with a touch of blues harmonica.

He is also the front man and driving force of the band Vinnie & The Stars. Active on the UK music scene since the release of the single Gone in 2007, Vinnie & The Stars built up a reputation around Yorkshire as one of most dynamic and entertaining bands on the scene. In 2009 Vinnie & The Stars released the debut album Swings & Roundabouts which contained Gone and their 2008 single Spaceship Blues.

2013 saw Vinnie & The Stars release Vinnie's highly acclaimed second album Punkological Business. Recorded at LOOM Studio Yorkshire featuring the singles I'm not from America... I'm from Hull and 4 or 5 Canner.

In 2014 Vinnie started work on the third Vinnie & The Stars studio album Development. The recording process started at Vinnie's Home Studio, Then the drums, bass and keyboards where recorded at LOOM Studio Yorkshire. Next Vinnie flew to Prince Edward Island Canada to work with producer Paul Milner at Shell Lane Studio. Paul has produced over 400 albums and engineered on Keith Richards - Talk is Cheap as well as working with artists such as Eddy Grant and Sting. Paul is a multi award winging producer and as a result of working with him Vinnie signed a music publishing deal with Many Lives Music Publishers.

Performing with Vinnie & The Stars and as a solo artist at venues and festivals across the UK and USA, including Beverley Folk Festival, Beat-Herder, Staxtonbury Festival, Minster FM's Sounds In The Grounds Festival, Trib Festival and the Fake Festivals. As well as Mark's Madness Festival In Louisiana. With a wide range of experiences gained also supporting acts including Goldie Lookin Chain, Billy Bragg, Ben Ottewell (Gomez), Ed Tudor Pole, Josh Pyke, Alistair Griffin, The Martin Harley Band, and Henry Cluney (Stiff Little Fingers).

Front man of Philadelphia's pioneering Hip-Hop Blues band G. Love & Special Sauce - Garrett Dutton aka G. Love says:
“ Vinnie Whitehead has a distinctly original vocal style, the production is raw and I'm feeling it! ” — G Love





Vinnie & The Stars have been featured on The Tom Robinson Show on BBC Radio 6 Music and The BBC 6 Music Introducing Mixtape. Vinnie has performed live studio sessions for The David Burns Show on BBC Radio Humberside. And has also had regular airplay and live sessions on the BBC Introducing shows on Radio Humberside and Radio York & North Yorkshire, which has attracted attention across the region. 

“ I fell deeply and instantly in love with I'm Not From America, I'm From Hull on first hearing.  John Peel would have adored this. ” — Tom Robinson, BBC 6 Music

Vinnie Whitehead is an all round entertainer who acknowledges and interacts with his audience. He writes music in a punky acoustic style and with a self deprecating sense of humour his lyrics take a wry look at real life events and experiences that audiences soon identify with. The result is great story telling over a musical soup incorporating Funk, Blues and Country with a Hip Hop thread binding it all together. The music carries a certain, energetic pop edge and Vinnie is renowned for his live stage presence and crowd banter that has been likened to that of a stand up comedian.

Since the birth of the label in 1997, FatCat has always had a solid engagement with material sent to us as demos. Where numerous labels will throw demos straight into the trash unopened, at FatCat we've always made an effort to listen and reply to every demo received. Numerous FatCat artists have been picked up having been discovered in this way (including Frightened Rabbit, The Twilight Sad, David Karsten Daniels, Welcome, Odonis Odonis, Get Back Guinozzi!, Silje Nes, Ensemble, Xinlisupreme, Songs Of Green Pheasant, Janek Schaefer - to name just a few), and it has always been really exciting to unexpectedly discover something great in this way. Just as when we started, this philosophy of keeping an ear to the ground and attempting to support good new creativity remains at the core of what we do.

With rapid changes in technology of recent years, the majority of demos are now sent to us electronically, but we are still happy to receive material through the post as CDs (please mark as 'demo submission' and mail FatCat Records, PO Box 3400, Brighton, BN1 4WG). Whilst we are still receiving a high quantity of demos, with our ever-busy release schedule and ongoing commitments to an expanding roster of signed artists, FatCat are now finding fewer opportunities to physically release material from new artists. As an antidote to this, back in 2004, we began using our website to showcase the best of the demos we were receiving. Alongside a DIY microsite built specifically to help people who wanted to release their own music, we hosted the our favourite demos online, with artwork and MP3s available for free download. In 2010 we began to use the more immediate freedom of SoundCloud as a platform - setting up a dropbox for people to submit tracks to and a player on the front of our site to showcase the best demo submissions. 

In February 2012, the new and improved FatCat demo site you are now using was launched, again using SoundCloud as the engine to drive the site. We have kept all of the the original demo artists on the new site - grouping them in collections archived by year. There is a lot of really great material stored away here, so please do spend some time looking around. 

The choices of who we have asked to join this archive are highly selective, and we make no apologies for this. These are tracks we consider to be really good quality material, tracks that we are happy to help promote and to have associated with FatCat. If you like what you hear here, then please do download the tracks and share this music with your friends.

I'm Tinkermuffin (a.k.a Tom Maynard). 

Music is my occupation! 

I'm a DJ.

I'm an Audio Engineer. 

I'm an Archivist. 

I'm a Music Producer.

Resident at MASHED, Crescent Community Venue, York.

Resident at Southbank Sessions, Knavesmire Pub, York.

One half of the duo Personal Space Invaders.

Part of the long standing collective known as Hedstate.

Working this craft for 20 years...!


Please check out my music here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/Tinkermuffin
https://www.soundcloud.com/Tinkermuffin

I'm also one half of Personal Space Invaders. Check out our music here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/PersonalSpaceInvaders
https://soundcloud.com/personal-space-invaders-359638271

Have also been part of the long standing collective known as Hedstate

https://www.mixcloud.com/Hedstate
https://www.soundcloud.com/Hedstate

The official Soundcloud page for One&Other magazine based in York.

"Murky, jazzy, trippy psych-indie doesn't come more soulful, more evocatively than this. Asio's Eyes combine world influences with emotionally intelligent delivery to blissful effect" -  Pete Wise, Editor 'One & Other Magazine'

www.asioseyes.co.uk

OvO

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