Newssave the witchwood from stupid council and developers!27, Apr 2004The daft council in ashton under lyne and some developers have decided to knock down the marvellous venue and community pub called the witchwood, cheers tom 
last nights fan reviews are on the guest book02, Apr 2004check out fans reviews to last nights storming witchwood show at the guestbook, we cant wait for the warrington show on the 30.4.2004, cheers tom
Lambretta clothes store opening saturday 6th March26, Feb 2004Tom will be performing 2 acoustic sets at lambretta's new clothing store in manchester at one o'clock. Bez will be djing from 3 onwards, call 01618395070 for details.
Theories, rants etc20, Feb 2004Tom sticks his head above the parapet: The latest of Toms columns from 'Manilla' Magazine. And boy is he pissed off... The spirit of tokenism is alive and stalking the land of pop music in 2004. Television talent shows pit young hopefuls against one another, any with genuine talent or distinctiveness get weeded out by the process of careful presentation and orchestrated media manipulation of telephone voting. The contestants who get chosen therefore allegedly have some quality, which gives them a recognition factor that will make them distinct enough for the public to remember them. So, the ‘peoples choice’ is Michelle in Pop idol, because she’s fat and ugly and Alex wins Fame academy because she is ‘Gay’. It’s an irony that musicians once were accepted as being primarily great voices, and that their personas, physicality, and sexual orientation was secondary in the star making process. Far from challenging celebrity cultures obsessive requirement that all female singers should conform to the Rachael Stevens/Girls Aloud/stick thin mould, Michelle’s challenging looks and waist size actually act to reaffirm them. In the spirit of Jerry Springer it’s a ‘thank god I don’t look that bad’ exercise, future prospective singers will be doubly rejected if they don’t fit the predetermined ‘look’ of anorexic transvestite. I dearly hope the poor girl understands all this when she is doing her round of Brannigans soon. Alex from Fame Academy’s ‘Gayness’ is a similarly hollow phenomenon. Whatever her sexual orientation is or might be, is of no interest to me. The significant fact is that her music is awful. I suspect a surprising budding of bisexuality of even heterosexuality may strike her before her second ‘authentic’ album is sold into the record shops later on in the year. The rot set in with Will Young, outing himself after winning the original series of Pop Idol, the sub context being ‘I am the under dog, buy my record although/or because Iam ‘Gay’. Then there is the ‘Buy my record because I have a stammer’ approach of other singers. There is nothing wrong with being ‘Gay’, fat, or having a lisp- I mean I’m a singer who is fat and has a lisp myself, but Im not asking the great record and T shirt buying public to buy my tripe because of it. On the basis of under dog music, perhaps the call sign of the ill fated Beagle 2 Mars explorer written by Blur ought to be released as a single, and if we all feel sorry enough for it/them, it may even be a hit! I was talking to a friend the other day about how the British National Party are rubbish. I was explaining that most things with the word British in front of them are rubbish, British Wine, British Cars, British Weather the latest crop of British pop singers may have to be added to that list. If you put your head over the parapet so to speak and want to be famous, then you have to put up with all the piss taking and intrusion that fame entails. These singers want to make a virtue of their non-musical attributes. We should think about how difficult it must have been for George Michael to contemplate what effect coming out might have had on his career during the eighties and early nineties. We should remember Dusty Springfield who struggled as an artist because she didn’t fit into any easy definable sexual sub group, and Mama Cass’s many struggles in and out of caftans before we take the marketing manoeuvres of these second rate cabaret singers seriously. Im not interested in Mylene Klass’s tears on Frank Skinner: I didn’t make her attend stage school at the age of 3 onwards, she cries for her own and her parents sins- not mine
April Fool Gig27, Jan 2004The Lovers announce their first show of 2004 at the Witchwood, Old Street Ashton April Fools Day. Fighting fit and ready for the new challenges of the year, more dates to be annouced soon T [scars healing nicely]
Tom on road to recovery - official08, Jan 2004All of us here at The Unlearning Curve wish Tom a speedy recovery after his recent spell in hospital... not least because it's another reason the album still isn't finished, and the column opposite is empty. . . Tom is doing fine and hopes to be dancing as well as ever at the next Lovers gig. Make sure you check out the NEWS section of the website, which is updated regularly with reviews and gossip from the wonderful world of The Lovers. Previous editions of the NEWS (There should be a new edition every month, with several updates in between) can still be viewed from the drop-down menu This months news contains more reviews of the bands debut single, a very bad translation of a french interview with Tom, and several glowing reviews of the live Lovers experience.
News,views, reviews and issues05, Jan 2004More reviews for your delectation here- you can still see the info for December by selecting in the 'month' box Review of Yeah/3145 from the Manchester Evening News, 12 September The Lovers - Yeah(New Memorabilia) They've had the adoration, now they're having some fun. Inspiral Carpet Tom Hingley gets together with The Fall's rhythm section to form The Lovers. Together they make the kind of lo-fi, skuzzy punk which anyone with a few mates and a battered old guitar might use to work off a bit of after-work adrenalin. It sees them rubbish the modern phenomenon which is reality TV using 70's-style gob-in your-eye techniques. What's more, my version is a good old-fashioned piece of seven inch vinyl. And it's bright yellow. Do I like it? Yeah. Scootering' Magazine made 'Yeah/3145' their single of the month in October… the review's below. The first-side of this yellow vinyl offering from Inspiral's frontman Tom Hingley, and his band The Lovers, I immediately liked. 'Yeah' is a dig at the TV and media circus in general, and for that alone it scores points, but add the garage-like sound of The Lovers on this track and Tom's Inciting vocals and it's ebven better, even if it did show up the fact that I need a new needle on my player…man. 3145 is a lot easier to listen to if you're not into the grimy garage sound of Yeah, but it still retains that wonderful rawness about it. It's a sing-a-long that would fit as well with the likes of The Prisoners in the 80's to the 90's Brit pop. A song you can dance to, hum with, and play in front of your granny. Probably, Except she's probably plugged in to some shite chart toppers like Gareth gates or Will Young, which when compared to The Lovers makes you wonder if there actually is an justice in the world. Yeah. NB: all single reviews must end in the single-word sentence Yeah. Yeah. Paul Carrera was at the Lovers gig at Oxford Bullingdon Arms on 12th October 2003 and reviewed it for 'Nightshift' magazine: Tonight is a master-session in performance, attitude and class. In fact, every citizen who aspires to, or does, run a band, should have been herded in here by the Nightshift reviewers, to see just how a local boy made good'- having risen through the most basic of rural Oxfordshire upbringing, to the national consciousness, albeit in Madchester's Inspiral Carpets - can still sustain that quality and drive in front of a sparse Sunday night crowd, giving everything as if it were a sell-out at the Hacienda. tonight fronting his 'other band' The Lovers, Tom's enormous voice finds its true home, and all the pith and clarity in it chops in finely with their densely-layered jamming. Brothers Steve and Paul Hanley, the former legendary Fall rhythm section - who look like a couple of debt collectors for an undertakers - lay down the paving slabs ut all stands on, while Kelly Wood's Clint Boon-like Farfisa organ and Jason Brown's planet-worrying special effects guitar, show there is simply no room for Carpets covers, as everything that follows is equal to any look over the shoulder. 'Happiness' and 'No way Out' with their good vibe and keyboard riffing, are juicy pop apples which don't fall far from the Inspirals tree, but it's the punkier fruits, that fall into Velvet Underground-style waters that make them so entertaining to bob for. 'Work, Rest and Play' and new single 'Yeah' snap, crackle and rock with caustic and amusing lyrics covering celebrity rapists and prostitution. Add to that 'Boy band' and 'Girls Aloud' with their skin-shredding denouncements of Simon Cowell; tie it all in with the selective use of punchy backing loops, and you have a set without a single moment of boredom. Tom is an arch songwriting communicator, on a par with the muscular ends of Costello and Weller. Forged in the heat of fashion, tempered by a decade, and still Cool as F**k Fantastic review, but any ideas what 'Girls Aloud' is really called? Answers on a postcard… Heres an hilarious translation of part of an interview Tom did for a french magazine during the Inspiral Carpets tour. For an idea of how good the translation tool is, 'The Lovers' is translated as 'The Coil' which is a bit Freudian if you ask me... After The Inspiral Carpets which were your feelings and your wishes? I was very sad but I knew that we had all needs of a station wagon so because of our professional difficulties that for other motives. Which were your occupations after the separation? We did not never separate ourselves but Clint did a brilliant career solo with The Clint Boom Experience.Martyn created many musical partitions for video games, a duet of dance 12 inches and at the same time took a project cool named DC10.Craig created the group Proud Mary, that Noel Gallagher took in his own label Big Brother. drum.Graham worked in the music but administrative side. I did two albums solo and I have a group The Coil with Paul and Steve Hanley that were before dans The Fall. What do you think about the musical current English scene?There is very dynamic bands as The coral, The music, The Libertines and Doves. I think that today will be a beautiful era as 13 years ago, with all these new groups And as for your career solo? I am recording with the Coil an album that go out this year end. To this era, which were your musical influences? Which music listened you? The punk music, The Sex Pistols, The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Stranglers all this that did not be pretentious How was born The Inspiral Carpets?Which were your motivations? The group was born because we wanted to play the music punky garagey with a near sound of the one of the keyboards of the years sixty. We take pleasure to play and we leave to others the care to edify an empire If you disposeed only of three words to characterize your music, which would they be? Fascinated, true, dangerous. So there you have it. Don't forget... Take pleasure to play and leave to others the care to edify an empire. Heres an interview with Tom from The Sheffield Press (if you can read it!) Another review here, this time from the Liverpool Lomax 2 gig on the 'Inspiral Tap' tour: When it comes to no-nonsense, no bullshit performances, few groups have ever bettered INSPIRAL CARPETS, who your correspondent saw three times, twice at Liverpool's Royal Court and once with the mighty FALL at Manchester's Academy. So, you could guess the anticipation coursing on discovery of THE LOVERS' rhythm section: none other than ex-FALL stalwarts Steve and Paul Hanley, who along with ex-INSPIRALS vox man Tom Hingley are the core of this new outfit. Starting off their "INSPIRAL TAP" (!) set list with the brothers Hanley banging out a rattling meaty rhythm, displaying a similar kinetic understanding to their FALL years, only this time bouncing off guitarist Jason Brown (also from "deep house" Manchester group METTLE MUSIC COLLECTIVE) and keyboard player Kelly Wood, who's stepped into the Clint Boon role. Getting stuck in via the INSPIRALS' "Commercial Rain", the band alternated between Carpets' material (sorry, no pun intended) and Hingley solo compositions, spaced by and large that way throughout the set. Indee, the next song was "Work, Rest And Play", only without a Mars Bar in sight. THE LOVERS then crunched through "Saturn 5" - one of the most under-rated INSPIRALS tunes - giving it a whole new lease of life thanks to vocal harmonies from Messrs. Brown and Hanley(P) and the robust bass of Hanley Snr. Now minus the pudding bowl haircut, but sporting a car coat, Tom Hingley broke his silence to apologize for his voice, which he said sounded like the little girl from "The Exorcist". Despite this, he came into his own on "Isolation Tank" - for me the pick of his newer, solo compositions - earning deserved cheers from the small, but committed Lomax faithful tonight. Tom didn't seem convinced, mind, leering at the audience and muttering "Mmmm" as "Isolation Tank" wound down, only to perk up for forthcoming single "Happiness", executed in typical straight ahead fashion an without the merest hint of KEN DODD, despite its' title. Later, Hingley tried a different tack. "Could you all move a bit closer...it feels like I've just been born," he said, obviously using all his silver-tongued charm, as the audience duly obliged, staying stage front up to the glorious end. Indeed, the final strait produced serious thrills all round: the INSPIRALS cupboard ransacked in fine style with "This Is How It Feels","Directing Traffic" and "Dragging Me Down", but never outshining "Soul Fire", "Man Made" or "Whole." For the encores? "Joe" and "Sackville", as vintage as ever. This performance proved once and for all how brilliant bassist Steve Hanley is, a mighty bassist who many have imitated but none bettered. It's also terrific to see him on top form and not being berated by the notorious Mark.E.Smith as I remember him last from a Krazy House gig circa 1998. Also, Hanley Jr. reminded us all of his skin-beating prowess and both Brown and Wood gave the songs plenty of colour. Let's face it, THE INSPIRAL CARPETS were always the top dogs from the "Madchester" heyday,(damn the History books) and tonight's performance only underlined the superiority of their back catalogue, plus a goodly smattering of Mr.Hingley's future intentions. Besides, they're a sodding sight more entertaining than yer average police or hospital drama that you'd be glued to if you weren't here. author: DAVID TWIGGE Click below for the legendary INSPIRAL TAP tour poster: A more recent review of the 100 club gig, slightly less flattering , but still interesting, this is taken from The Falls website (which probably explains a lot!) Out of 7,172,091 people plus tourists London managed to cough up a Japanese macaroni and a very distrait Tom to welcome The Lovers. It's the old story, Man United on the box, London stays at home. The bands made up for it by bringing their own support - there were Hingleys everywhere, and a couple of Hanleys as well, of course. To their great credit The Lovers bust a gut to squeeze some energy out of the place - in my book they succeeded too. Steve and Paul are not small men. But by dressing in white and standing at the back of the stage they try to keep themselves away from the action. It is a bit like a couple of elephants trying to hide behind a drainpipe. Paul is the craggier of the two, chewing away behind his drumkit, like a particularly talented ruminant. He'll concentrate intently on a couple of drums then speculatively throw at an arm in front of him, like a dartist going for the bull. Steve is more avuncular, rounder. When I reviewed an embarrassing Ark gig a couple of years ago, I said that Steve looked like a caged animal. Now, after years of hard toil under Smith's cudgel, he looks like he has been released to graze on the sunlit uplands of Tom Hingley's power pop pastures. Both seem to enjoy themselves, smiling a lot, with Steve jigging about a bit. They are even allowed to do some backing vocals, although Steve is not given a mike, prudence perhaps suggesting that atonal long-horn cattle imitations don't go too well behind the friendly sounds of The Lovers. I am not very good at all at judging music from live sets, but the music seemed really well written - it was structured, varied, but had potency and power. If that sounds like I am checking boxes, all I can say is that it didn't blow my mind away, and there were longeurs, but also that I wasn't feeling at all well, and the place was empty. I also found Tom Hingley irritating. His stage presence is that of a toddler trying to get his mummy to take him to the toilet. The music was powerful, but not at all unsubtle, Hingley's voice was rather bludgeoning in comparison. Sometimes it worked perfectly, but other times I just found it a bit off-putting. They also had a guitarist, and young woman on keys, who seemed a bit baffled, but both did good jobs. Going back to Hingley... In repose, he stands with a hand over his paunch, as if unconsciously aware of the problem that faces The Lovers, which is their age. In many ways the problem is bigger for Tom Hingley than for the Hanleys. His act is, as I have said, a juvenile one that doesn't sit well with burgeoning tum and receding temples. This may be a problem with society - we don't allow our Dads to play buzzsawing garage pop rants - this seems to be Hingley's view anyway, with his songs railing against reality tv and boy bands. Fair enough, maybe, but it's like trying to fight foam with a cannon. The Hanleys look like artisans from a bygone age, Dickensian somehow, as they should have a calling card saying something like - The Hanley Bros - Plying a trade to lost standards of excellence, restrained in manners, unbuttoned in performance. Steve's bass really is something worth singling out, gigantic and loping, but somehow nimble and articulate. Even when they fluff their lines it seems that they are better fluffed than not. Still, they do not look a pop group, which can only be a good thing, but which might stand in their way whithout greater depth to their songs. They perhaps deserve better, being no worse than a lot of popular rock around at the moment, in fact being quite a bit better, but the aura of Status Quo or Peter Stringfellow, or the 'why should I grow old gracefully?' hangs around them uneasily. Public opinion may often be the enemy of creativity and freedom of expression, but it won't brook contradiction and the force of its disdain lies in its suffocating indifference. The most Fall-like song, as I think Paul Hanley has pointed out, is the new single, Yeah, which had a driving guitar riff mildly sinister, and the trademark 'Guest Informant' drums. The song was fun, with plenty of punch, and unlike some other songs didn't outstay its welcome. I would have bought the single, but I didn't see anyone hawking it and I had to nip off sharpish and collapse on a bus. The Japanese macaroni had left even more quickly, though he had stayed to the end of the set. He was standing in the entrance on Oxford Street. He must have been a bit baffled although, inscrutably, he didn't show it.
Lovers home town triumphs and other stories19, Dec 2003The Lovers played their final engagement of the year at the Night and Day last Tuesday and the gig proved to be a triumphant finale to another successful year. The concert was only slightly marred by bassist Steve Hanleys near-death experience when trying to negotiate his way from the stage after the sound check. The specially constructed portable stairs gave way beneath him and Steve was lucky to escape with only minor cuts and bruises. A spokesman for the legendary guitarist said: 'We were hoping for more extensive injuries so we could sue.' The gig caps off a year which saw The Lovers gig regularly, release their debut single and record the bulk of their as-yet unnamed album. Heres Tom discussing The Lovers in YO1 online magazine recently: So apart from teaching and the Inspirals, you also have another band, The Lovers. Tell us a bit about that. The Lovers have been together for about two and a half years. There’s Kelly Wood on keys and vocals, Jason Brown on lead guitar, Steve Hanley, who used to be in The Fall on bass and Paul Hanley, who also used to be in The Fall, on drums and vocals – and I do vocals and guitar. The music’s best described as humorous garage pop, in fact, I’d like to call the album ABBA Are The Enemy, not because I don’t like ABBA, but in the 70s everyone who liked garage hated disco, and ABBA symbolised that.I want to get that idea back into the music. What, like re-starting the Punk Wars, you mean? Yeah, kind of like that! You know, some people say they like reggae and then they say they like Schubert, it’s like music and crochet, you can’t be into it all! So yeah, all the songs we’ve done as The Lovers are quite punky, but with messages – one is about boy bands, one’s about receiving spam mails about buying anti-depressants on the Internet, the single’s about reality TV. All the messages are humorous, a bit wry, having a laugh, they’re low-fi and fun, and this is approach of the band. So the single, Yeah, is out, but only available as a limited edition? Where can fans in York buy it from? They can buy it from the band’s website, www.thelovers.co.uk, though it has some swearing on it, so under 18s had better ask their mum’s and dad’s permission before they buy it! (laughs )What about the album? When can we expect that to be out? We’re all very busy, so I’d say it’ll be out next year hopefully – though I’ve been saying that for the past two and a half years! (laughs). I suppose I’ll have to do some work for it first, though, it won’t just make itself! And will it be a limited edition release, like the single? It will be available in the shops, but will be a specialist release, so Jamiroqui doesn’t have to worry yet! A Recent review of The Lovers in Manchester by Chris from The Fall Website: Comprising members of The Fall and Inspiral Carpets, The Lovers sound like neither but have managed to create a sound capitalising on the talents and sounds of each band member. Elements of Rockabilly, Garage Rock and Punk are three of the sounds heard tonight but The Lovers' sound is more complex than that as the set drives along on a wave on great rhythm and delightful noise. It is strange to see Steve Hanley actually enjoying himself on stage but he clearly is thriving on being able to play live without some cantankerous bugger turning his amp down and glaring at him. The bass sound is unmistakeably his and he pins the songs to the ground with such determination you cannot fail to realise how important he has been to The Fall sound over the years. Along with Paul Hanley on drums the rhythm section of the band has a quality that will be no surprise to Fall fans but it is fascinating to see the duo operate outside of The Fall. Steve seems to have added a little bit extra to his playing and whilst maintaining the throbbing heavy bass sound he has made his own. Paul plays rockabilly like no other drummer and the two together work like a dream. They could almost be brothers!! Tom Hingley delivers his vocals with vigour and passion. Working the stage like a man possessed, his words have depth but also contain many humorous moments and the odd swear word which, as we all know, is simultaneously big and clever. The excellent guitar work provided by Jason Brown sounds like he's been playing with the Hanleys for years, allowing the rhythm to dominate for large parts of songs before crashing in with some great sounds. Kelly Woods' keyboards complete the band and add that little bit extra to the sound. All in all a thoroughly enjoyable concert. It would appear The Lovers are enjoying themselves and as a Manchester "super group" of sorts have found a worthwhile vehicle for the talents of some of Manchester's finest. And from Manchester Online: Despite the presence of ex-members of the Fall, the Hanleys in the Lovers, they are Hingley's band, if only because their sound is dominated by his enormous vocals. Musically, they sprint away from any Inspirals comparisons, punching out a more immediate, punky and fresher sound. With jangling nerves, Hingley produced a performance that showed how much he, and the other Lovers, still want to be part of Manchester's music scene. Work, Rest and Play blistered and spat in its anger, Soulfire bounced around, and the solid screaming vitriolic rant of new single Yeah burnt across the half-full Night and Day. Before the brilliantly acidic Boy Band, Tom looked into the lights and muttered that "Simon Cowell needs his testicles removing." He's got a point. If the dark prince of all things pop ruled the world, older average looking bands like the Lovers wouldn't get their chance in the spotlight, and on tonight's performance, that'd be a very sad state of affairs. Here's a review of YEAH/3145 from IF E-Zine (Oct 2003): Artist: The Lovers Title: Yeah/3145 Label: Newmemorabilila Recordings Release date: Out now Rating: ++++ Fronted by Tom Hingley from Inspiral Carpets and featuring ex-Fall members Steve and Paul Hanley, The Lovers are a strange bunch. Blurting forth discordant punk with a mix of quirky pop and what I can only imagine is the result of one too many late nights, they have created something that some will call genius and others will smash with a hammer. I'm standing in the genius group. What else can you call a band who use the lines "Watching reality TV/wars/starvation makes me feel so much better about myself," and "I'm gonna live my life as a tiny horse" in a song? Evil, evil, genius I tell you! (AM)
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