about Vinny Peculiar...
UNCUT MAGAZINE described Salford based singer songwriter and poet Vinny Peculiar [aka Alan Wilkes] as the ‘Tony Hancock of Pop’ upon the release of his 2002 album ‘Ironing the Soul’. Since this inspired debut which included the almost hit single 'Jesus Stole My Girlfriend’ - he’s put out nine albums of ‘outsider pop’ music to great critical acclaim. Artistic collaborations have included the making of SOUP ART with Bill Drummond [KLF], video installations with Tom Robinson [BBC 6 Music] and his various bands have included former members of The Smiths, OASIS, Aztec Camera & the Fall. Peculiar live solo shows are song and poem based affairs, self-deprecating monologues prevail; comparisons to Jarvis Cocker, John Cooper Clarke and Wreckless Eric have been cited in dispatches.
Vinny has played European and US tour dates opening for the likes of British Sea Power, Edwyn Collins and Luke Haines and he’s a former compere on the Glastonbury Acoustic Stage. He is presently writing and recording a new album with BONEHEAD from OASIS scheduled for Sept 2012 release.
The recent glam rock inspired album ‘Other People Like Me’ on his Billy Liar inspired Shadrack & Duxbury label continues to attract rave reviews.
‘Imagine a surreal episode of My Two Dads where said fathers are Jarvis Cocker and David Bowie, who bully their child into liking them and everything they like, like glam stomp, kitchen sink vignettes, mordantly witty lyrics, nostalgia, dreams and a sneer, and you‘re ready for Vinny Peculiar, Manchester’s premier forward thinking backward looking song smith’ If success was commensurate with talent, Vinny Peculiar would himself be referenced in the future post-modern style releases by future kitchen vignette writing students of the past. A splendid success Sounds XP
More reviews, updates, listings, free downloads on….
www.vinnypeculiar.co.uk
Edinburgh festival Review 2010
'With his flat cap, florid blouse and fidgety nervous energy pitched somewhere between Andy Warhol and Jarvis Cocker, there's an anarchic elegance to Vinny Peculiar which is both at once both thrilling and faintly unsettling. The Manchester troubadour is a veteran from the city's anti-folk circuit specialising in Glam tinged kitchen sink vignettes. Storming through a set of oblique, tortured punk poetry, he wins over an initially skeptical crowd with his animated delivery and taut, frenetic pop hooks. Channeling all that eccentricity and barbed wit into something strangely compelling Vinny Peculiar is the sort of unlikely, heroic pop star they just don't seem to make anymore'. *****
with Amy Smith [the English Crumpet] Oct/Nov 2011 UK Tour
