These links are mainly related to music and sport, but I hope that some of my other interests will find their way here in time.
MUSIC
One of my favourite bands is Little Feat. Not only are they one of the best live improvisational bands around, but they have an immensely loyal fan following, such that their offical homepage is run by fans for the band. They even have a grassroots movement which the fans started to get them gigs when they were between record labels and had no management! They also welcome live recording and the exchange of tapes among fans. How refreshing.
Spyder's fan site was something of a homage and included complete lyrics to all his songs. Did you know his first name was Clyde and he was born in Germany? Unfortunately I've lost the link .. if you come across it please let me know!This fan site is more newsy and informative about current happenings.
Chris Rea - the Middlesborough slide guitaristwho fell seriously ill just after completing his 2000 album but he recovered to tour again and released "Dancing on a Stony Road". He does his farewell tour in 2006 - got my tickets already
The doyen of English folk/rock guitarists is the brilliant songwriter Richard Thompson [look out also for his son Teddy's superb second album]. Two good pages on Richard are here:
I'm also into traditional music and one of my favourite bands is the extremely hard-working Battlefield Band. The band were all too briefly joined by the singer/writer and traditionalist Davy Stewart, formerly of Ceolbeg. Davy died from cancer in April 2001, at the age of 52. Alasdair White joined the line-up and on the most recent album "Out for the Night" Pat Kilbride from one of the early line-ups rejoined the band.
My favourite instrument is the bodhran (pronounced bow-rawhn) the single-sided Celtic drum, of which I own and play a few. Believe it or not, the most technically unsophisticated of all instruments has a huge website!
Many years ago I first started singing by attending a club run by Dave Burland in Barnsley. Dave appeared on one of Richard Thompson's albums, and Richard Thompson himself appeared on an album Burland did of his songs, which won an award. Dave is one of the classiest interpreters of both traditional and contemporary music around.
Appearing as a backing singer with me on Burland's 1980 album You Can't Fool the Fat Man was my old mate Robin Garside, with whom I had played in Rentacrowd and once toured Germany. He is still making good music. Check out his art pages too.
When I was singing and playing in bands around South Yorkshire in the 70s, one of the session players and a member of various bands, Steve Rusby, used to occasionally bring people like Willy Russell along to join in. I really believed that he knew everyone in the world! Even more occasionally he would bring his very small daughter along, who used to charm us with a song more or less as soon as she could talk. She has also more recently been nominated for a Mercury Music Award and is one of England's best and most creative interpreters of and in the folk tradition. Check out the wonderful Kate Rusby - a credit to her Mum and Dad!.
Finally my adopted country, Australia, has a pioneering band who crossover traditional aboriginal music with rock based arrangements and instruments as well as the yidaki (didgeridoo). If you have never heard Yothu Yindi, then you are in for a big treat.
The love of my life has to be Barnsley FC, for whom my dad once played, a passion my youngest son, Ben was just discovering when I was able to take him to see them play the last competitive final against Ipswich for promotion to the Premiership in 2000. They lost, 4-2, but it was a great day. The carrot crunchers didn't stay up, but neither did we..!
And of course, there's cricket too… to which Barnsley's Darren Gough - now perhaps more famous as a dancer from his efforts on "Strictly come Dancing" - is trying to draw our attention. Of course England won the Ashes in 2005 and I got the T-shirt but being an Australian citizen too I can't lose a series anyway..
And Yorkshire managed to win a County Championship after decades in the wilderness, but are now back in the second division
And I used to play a lot of rugby union when I was younger and the weather seemed warmer… and England seemed never likely to win a world Championship as they did in 2003. They are now rebuilding and the coach is under a lot of pressure as the team seems to have run out of ideas and even the powerful pack is underperforming. Don't write them off yet, but don't expect dramatic change either. At least they aren't peaking too soon.
Despite not actually playing any more I still managed to break a finger catching a ball in the stands at the Parc des Princes when I went to see my favourite team, Leicester Tigers (where I lived at the time) win their first European Championship 2000 -2001 (Heineken Cup) - I also saw their second and Wasps first all without incident, so I'm now looking forward to Tigers' third ... maybe next year
here's picture from the Leicester Mercury of me (at the back on the left) in an uncharacteristic pose - outside a bar with a beer in my hand.. never...
I've been a fan of American Football since the early 80s, and have been to the American Bowl at Wembley a few times, and even saw my favourite team, the 49ers, at Candlestick Park - from an untaken press seat...
My adopted country, Australia, have one or two good national teams - including the first one ever to be able to say "Bill's back" - Bill being the William Webb Ellis Trophy and Australia being the first country to win it twice...
When I left Australia in 1998, one of my leaving presents was a Wollongong Wolves (soccer) shirt. I never dreamed that in 1999-2000 and 2000 -2001 they'd be back to back national champions!
And the St George Illawarra Dragons (Rugby League - a merger of the St George Dragons and the Illawarra Steelers, who lost the 1999 grand final by a mere 2 points in their first season) and were knocked out in the semis in 2005
