2012
New Collaboration with OASIS legend BONEHEAD
March 2012
Vinny is collaborating on a new album with Oasis legend Bonehead - its been on the cards for awhile, Bonehead previously played bass with the VP band as well as appearing on the last album 'Other People Like Me' - this time its full on shared songwriting and production. Work started November 2011 and after an extended break over Christmas the pair have moved on with aplomb recruiting drummer Che Beresford into the mix. Dave 'sweet tooth' Fyfe is engineering the sessions. Boneheads signiture wall of guitars sound has been retained across some of the more up tempo offerings and there is a cinematic quality to many of the songs. Big strings and toy xylophones prevail. Pianos also proliferate. More on this as the project develops.
New Vinny Peculiar album 'Other People Like Me' is finished and ready to go - hoorah! [and about time too]....
Its available to download from 4th July 2011 and in shops on CD/limited edition Vinyl with drop card 12th Sept 2011 -, the website shop will have all the details as and when...
Other People Like Me was recorded at Analogue Cat Studios in Mossley UK over the summer/winter of 2010 with guest guitar performances from Luke Haines [The Auteurs] and Bonehead [OASIS] - both added significant dramatic poise and frenzy to proceedings. The early 70s was our a sonic reference, there's an element of stompability, Slade, Mott, Bowie all get the nod, plus a healthy dose modern melancholia, the glam with the gloom. Analogue Studio's work work well for me. I can't ever see myself going back to the future.
Shadrack & Duxbury PRESS RELEASE
Album Title – ‘OTHER PEOPLE LIKE ME’
Artist – VINNY PECULIAR
Release date - digital download 4th July 2011
Release date - physical CD/Vinyl SEPT 5th 2011
‘Other People Like Me’ is the new studio album from Salford’s odd ball song-smith and Bill Drummond/Smiths associate Vinny Peculiar [aka Alan Wilkes]. Inspired by early the 70’s, recorded in vintage analogue and featuring guest performances from Luke Haines [The Auteurs, Black Box Recorder] and Bonehead [OASIS]. ‘Other People Like You’ delivers kitchen sink vignettes and glam stomping tunes through a retro-scopic haze of old skool Bowie, with a knowing sneer and droll wit of a lazy sixth form choirboy.
‘I had my hair shaved at the back like Terry Hall in 1984’ croons Vinny on ‘A Vision’ – a song that recalls the briefest moment of never to be repeated inspiration; it’s enough to make you go to bed in the middle of the afternoon. Album opener ‘My Generation [I said goodbye to…] is all hard guitar rock n attitude; it’s about reconnecting with roots, returning to face the music. Luke Haines’ guitar rockets along in a frenetic cacophony of stabs and wails. ‘I said GOODBYE’ chant the assembled bikers at the village fete – ‘I’m coming back at the drop of a hat it’s as if I never went away’ retorts our Vinny…
Shoe string ballad ‘Judy Wood’ is a little bit Park Life on Mars, piano led, cello driven, like exerts from an Alan Silitoe story set in the first failing flushes of wonky youth, ‘Alice Cooper on Top of the Pops, signing on and feeling GREAT’ - ‘Judy’s brother died in a boating accident, her father hit the bottle before he left’.
'Other People Like Me' resonates with typically detailed observational flair, comedic but not exactly funny, warped yet accessibly knowing. The Tony Hancock of pop [UNCUT] is back, and it’s as if he never went away.
‘Other People Like Me’ showcases an insightful and possessive song craft that feels like1972 is happening all over again– Hunky Dory, Slade, Mott all referenced throughout the making of…here is a concise taught song-craft that’s unashamedly old sKOOL. ‘Bad poems, dull prose, pretty girls on tiptoes, in the ballet school over the road, do you want to make it in the real world – NO’.
‘Other People Like Me’ is a compelling album, an album of truths and misdemeanors, hard guitars, two finger piano work outs, dirty synths, claps and beats and tape spool hiss. Adolescent insecurity, voyeurism, misplaced sexuality and middle age angst are the driving themes here an engaging intriguing re-collection from the UK’s most idiosyncratic talents.
BIOG Brief - [promoters]
Vinny Peculiar [aka Alan Wilkes] is a UK Manchester based singer-songwriter and poet; he’s released seven albums, toured with The Killers, British Sea Power and Edwyn Collins, created SOUP ART with Bill Drummond [KLF, The 17] and his various bands have included ex members of The Smiths, The Fall, Aztec Camera & OASIS. His kitchen sink confessional stye of writing is often described as quintessentially English -‘homespun tunesmithery in the Robyn Hitchcock/Martin Newell vain –wry nostalgia, witty wordplay’ ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE.
Assorted press quotes:-
’The Tony Hancock of pop' - UNCUT MAGAZINE ****
'poignant, devious, life affirming pop obscurest' Q MAGAZINE ***
'effortless jangle, copious talent,' ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE****
'alt-pop music never felt so odd, so beautiful, so compelling' BIG ISSUE****
'bedsit stripes Bowie plays retro-glam era power pop' THE INDEPENDENT****
'Adirian Mole the Opera as scored by Leonard Cohen' UNCUT MAGAZINE****
Live Review Edinburgh Festival – ‘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. 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’. *****
