Join tuba playing groundhog Al Camus and psychic reporter Thomas Truax for bite-size updates, strange weather and good fortune in the World's favorite floating expat city.

"It's as if Thornton Wilder and Dr. Seuss had conspired with David Lynch and Nick Cave to script The Waltons, their runtish progeny able to run wild and free in the spookiest of soap operas."  - Neil Cooper, The Herald

Thomas, a former animator on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch and Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken, now makes his living as a touring singer/songwriter who invents his own unique and often bizarre musical instruments (such as the Hornicator).

Wowtown News episodes were originally recorded for - and broadcast by -Resonance FM Radio London in 2004 (though of course Wowtown itself has existed since before the beginning of time).

Treebeard have been a popular attraction on the pub, festival & beer festival circuit for many years now, with regular appearances at Sheffield, Derby, Tamworth, Newark, Stockport, Lincoln, Stoke & Barnsley festivals, as well as performing at Earls Court for the Great British Beer Festival, and at the Cropredy fringe. 

The band play lively Celtic, folk-rock, traditional, original & contemporary songs & tunes on a variety of acoustic instruments, always guaranteed to get an audience up & dancing.

They describe their style as 'Heavy Wood', releasing a first CD of that name in 2002, and a second CD 'Reel Ale’ in 2010. Their track ‘Train’ is also featured on the ‘Forged in Sheffield’ folk compilation CD, and video for 'Over The Hills' has won the runner up prize in the 2 weeks 2 make it filmmaking competition 2011, as well as attracting over 180,000 youtube views.

The band have been through a number of line-up changes over the years and are currently led by founder member Chris McMahon (of Haze, Strongheart, Silverwheel, Outlandish Knights, etc), with long time flautist/fiddler Ceri Ashton (Cadellin, Mother of Crows, Jabberwocky, Outlandish Knights), and new members; in demand percussionist James Howe (Bellhagg Orkestar, Silver Darlings), talented singer/songwriter Rob Lowdon (Jabberwocky, Broadsword) and fabulous singer/guitarist Paul Pearson.

We are currently working on tracks for a new CD and taking festival bookings for 2017.

Line-up:-	
Ceri Ashton - flute, whistle, 5 string fiddle & vocals.
James Howe - cahon.
Rob Lowdon - bass, acoustic guitar & vocals.
Chris McMahon - mandolin, bouzouki, bass & vocals.
Paul Pearson – acoustic guitar, percussion & vocals.

Just some odd sound effects plus live bootlegs of our Bonkers songs.
For the album versions of The Bonkers, see the BandCamp link.

Haze are a rock band from Sheffield, UK. Formed in the 80s they released 3 albums before disbanding in 1988. Members of the group went on to play in World Turtle, Von Daniken, Strongheart, Treebeard & The Outlandish Knights, reuniting for occasional festival & anniversary concerts, including 20th & 30th anniversaries, both released as double live CDs on Cyclops Records.
The band have just released their new studio album, The Last Battle on Gabadon/Cyclops Records in March 2013.
Download the full album from https://hazeuk.bandcamp.com/

A home for orphaned songs written over the last 25 years, JUNKBOND is the new project from Simon Roberts (The Letter/The Farewell State) and showcases those tunes that never made it into bands over the years.

Now armed with debut album 'Spring The Locks', Simon is paying back the debt owed to these long standing songs.

"The syndrome known as life is too diffuse to admit of palliation. For every symptom that is eased, another is made worse. The horse leech's daughter is a closed system. Her quantum of wantum cannot vary." Samuel Beckett, Murphy.

A British-Academy-Funded research project on adaptations of short stories and novels into pop and rock songs. This project draws on the research and practice expertise of literary critic-musicians to bring together textual analysis and the co-creation of musical artworks with a range of publics to devise a new approach to literary analysis. It examines the processes involved when adapting one medium of aesthetic production – narrative fiction – to another – the pop/rock song. There have been numerous instances of recording artists and musicians using novels and short stories as
the inspiration or source material for the composition of songs, such as Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’, David Bowie’s ‘1984’, Emilie Autumn’s ‘Gothic Lolita’, Rush’s ‘Tom Sawyer’ and Lana Del Rey’s ‘Young and Beautiful'
(based on The Great Gatsby). However, there has been no systematic study of the processes involved in the adaptation of stories into song. This pilot project, funded by a British Academy Small Grant, aims to develop a systematic methodology for analysing such adaptations.
The project also aims to pilot a new method for analysing literary texts whereby analysis of the decisions made in the adaptation process allow new critical insights into aspects of the original source. 
The songs on this page have emerged from the project, which will also involve conference presentations and live performances of songs adapted from literary texts, including the ones you can find here.

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