benjamin nicholls- playing pretty much everything himself, all at the same time. Occasionally assisted by Simon Lea (St. Etienne, The Four Tops)-drums, John Greswell (Menlo Park, Ralfe Band, High Class Family Butchers)-viola and Pete Wareham (Acoustic Ladyland, Polar Bear)-baritone saxophone
Influences
For live bookings contact Sinan Ors.......sinan@elasticartists.net
Sounds Like
Get this video and more at MySpace.com Little Johnny video, directed by Barney Clay 2007. http://www.myspace.com/barneyclay
One Man in the Band: preview trailer
Add to My Profile | More Videos
Trailer for 'One Man in the Band', the one man band scene documentary directed by Adam Clitheroe.
Dennis Hopper Choppers is Ben Nicholls, a one-man-band, simultaneously playing guitar, bass drum, high hat, organ bass pedals, vox-organ and a 1969 Fender Dual Showman amplifier originally designed for Dick Dale which he said is ‘probably the loudest thing I’d ever heard.’ This coming from a man who played bass in the Silverjets and Menlo Park.
His debut, self-released album, Chop is 13 tracks of high-plains-via-East-London fretboard wrangling and heartfelt rockabilly stomp while his rich and astonishingly versatile baritone gives the album it's soaring range.
The story of Chop's making reads like a great unwritten Hollywood screenplay. Ben holed-up to write the album in a deserted villa in Tabernas, Spain. A villa whose owner, in true Hitchcock style, was murdered out of the blue by her son. Tabernas was also the location for filming of Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and Chop has soaked up the fights, the hangings, and the hint of confederate gold carried on the wind off the dusty mountainside.
This all percolates deep into the album's landscape: 'The Ballad of Fu Manchu and the Red Bride' is a tale of murdering wives with a nod to Christopher Lee; the reverberating guitar-stabbed violent chaos of a heart gone off-road in 'Lust' to the jealousy seeped mellow-malevolence of 'World Gone Green'.
Chop was recorded at Ben's Bud Sticky Sounds studio in Hackney early this year, but, ever the Peckinpah-esque outsider, he was on the receiving end as society came knocking. He was forced to leave his studio as the developers moved, knocking down artist studios to make way for the Olympics. Besieged at home under the ominous threat of eviction and with mounds of earth everywhere, he put the finishing touches to it just in time.
DHC is making a name for himself as one of the main characters on the one-man-band circuit. He created the soundtrack for this year's Raindance award winning documentary 'The Ballad Of AJ Weberman' directed by Ollie Ralfe of the Ralfe Band, about the life of obsessive Bob Dylan fan and 'garbology' inventor Weberman. He has also appeared in the upcoming one-man-band documentary 'One Man in the Band' (dir. Adam Clitheroe) and has appeared on the USA Rockabilly fanzine/label Rock'n'Roll Purgatory's 'Attack of the One Man Band' compilation. The hyper-noir video for single 'Little Johnny' was directed by Barney Clay who has also made promos for Dirty Pretty Things, John Spencer Blues Explosion, Bonde Do Role and Gnarls Barkley.
DHC collaborative work has heard him appear on albums by the Ralfe Band, Big Sur, and Cara Dillon, and tours with Seth Lakeman.
After his first gig playing between rounds at a boxing match in Bethnal Green's York hall, DHC has played shows at Glastonbury, Brighton's Hanbury Ballroom, The Borderline and at The Spitz Festival of Blues. Chop's release will be followed by a gig at the Ladyluck Club, London on 29th November where he’ll be joined onstage by Acoustic Ladyland’s Pete Wareham who also appears on the album. A November UK tour will also soon be announced.
Like the carburettor cowboys of the post-woodstock road movies, setting out into DHC's edge-of-country country may promise an easy-ride and moonshine-redemption, but, like his silver-screen namesake's motorcycle at the end of Easy Rider, Chop will leave you in a flaming wreck with a mouthful of blood and grit on the side of the road to nowhere.
Chop Track list:
Little Johnny,
I Was Born,
Listening to MC5,
Fools Rush In,
Ballad of Fu Manchu and the Red Bride,
World Gone Green,
Lust,
If I Lied,
Side of the Universe Found,
Don’t Run From Me,
Whispering In My Other Ear,
Dancing Shoes,
Stomp (Dennis Hopper Chopper vs Pete Wareham).
I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
BANDS Lyres (USA) Reigning Sound (USA) The Thanes (Scotland) The Urges (Ireland) Thee Attacks (Denmark) Los Chicos (Madrid)
DJs Alessandro Casella (Italy) Dj Bone (Holland) Pablo de la Cruz (Madrid) Gianni Fuso (Italy) Iwan Le Terrible (France) Vic (Madrid) Sr Varo (Valencia) Rafa Evil (Toledo) Edu Sinner (Toledo)
BILLY CHILDISH LIVE INTERVIEW/AUDIENCE Q&A, AND PERFORMANCE BY BILLY CHILDISH & THE MUSICIANS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE... FOLLOWED BY CLUB BEAT HAPPENING FROM 12AM, WITH BEAT HAPPENING DJS SPINNING GARAGE ROCK, R N' B, AND PUNK CLASSICS TIL 4AM!
This years festival is headlined by Billy Bragg (Friday), Seth Lakeman (Sunday) and Peatbog Faeries (Saturday) with many more top artists also performing.
Online Now!
