Pink Floyd - Led Zep
The Police - Neil Young
Elbow - Muse
Radiohead - Bowie
Cat Stevens - Nick Drake
The Smiths - Crosby, Stills & Nash
Happy Mondays - Loads o stuff
Sounds Like
Original sounding band who have always strived to make sure that the material they produce is different and interesting. Hope you like it.
LIVE REVIEWS
I have high expectations and they are all met. Gaia are clearly at home performing live and play beautifully crafted, folk-tinged, anthemic rock. It's all solid acoustic guitar work building and layering into big choruses, topped with squally, echoing guitar solos. Their faithful fans are enthralled and nod sagely. If you are uninitiated though, Gaia won't grab you by the throat when they play, they'll sort of put a friendly arm around your shoulder. They are like Arsenal without the Tierry Henry bloke, the interplay is fantastic and they are a pleasure to watch.
Live Sheffield Sandman
Gaia are a Barnsley foursome. Gaia's hard-edged, visceral, acoustic sound recently won them many fans and virtually sold them out of CD's at the Rotherham Rocks MMV festival in May.
Live Hard Rock House
These Barnsley based beardy prog stoner boys are ace as owt. Sounding like post Syd / pre Dark Side Floyd with some grinding political lyricism. Expect songs fantastically played without any pomp, camp or fuss. The best collection of beards in Barnsley.
Live Student Guru
"Saving Grace" is the jewel in the crown with its big sound and soaring outro - quality stuff. With Verve-esque guitar effects heaven "Turn the Other Way" and Saving Grace", Gaia have two truly excellent tunes.
Live CD of New Roscoe - Leeds Leeds Music Scene
Local promoter KMM said this in a recent review: Well crafted toons beautifully delivered by a band completely at home on the stage. Those that have seen them on previous visits to The Snooty will no doubt agree this is praise well earnt.
Live - KMM Promotions
Pulled off with style and genuine emotional force, slow burning, moody, post-grunge rock that crashes out into rock explosions All of which suggest a band of some talent.
Live
Eerie Powers
All the way from oop north in Barnsley Gaia turned up to amaze everyone. We were so impressed. Their style blends a lot from early Hawkwind with their driving bass lines and Uriah Heep with a touch of Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd) style electric slide guitar thrown in for good measure. This with luck won't be your last chance to see them. We're hoping they're going to come back and entertain us all over again at the summer festy
Live
Unity Promotions
Friday is a date that I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. A band from Barnsley called Gaia got passed on to me by bAd DoG Paul, who simply said these guys are great! So I got them to play The Moon and Sixpence earlier in the year and they weren’t great at all… they were amazing (as everyone in The Moon kept telling me for days after) Well, they're back this Friday. With the buzz that is going around if you want a seat for this night you better start queuing up in the afternoon! Their style blends a lot from early Hawkwind with their driving bass lines and Uriah Heap with a touch of Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd) style electric slide guitar thrown in for good measure. Pulled off with style and genuine emotional force, slow burning, moody, post-grunge rock that crashes out into rock explosions.
Live
The Glossop Advertiser
A four piece from Barnsley with a tip of the hat to Floyd, a hint of Folk, a nod in the direction of Psychedelic and a sprinkling of hard-edged rock. With such a combination of styles and influences I found this 11 track album to be an intriguing listen. There is a gentle fragility to the opening acoustic strumming of ‘Southern Comfort’ that reminded me of Syd Barrett’s erratic solo albums. This takes us into the second track ‘Household Objects’ (another Floyd reference in the title but I shall let the train spotters amongst you work it out) and it’s already clear that Gaia are just that little bit different. They have come up with one absolute gem of a song here, ‘Saving Grace’ that builds to a huge chorus from a gentle opening and really is a top quality effort. If any major labels are reading then this band are worth signing on the strength of this one song alone. This is most definitely the ace in the pack; in short, a classic. What this band do best is convey emotion and feeling through their laid back style and this is best found on the likes of ‘Words of Love’ and ‘Turn The Other Way’, the latter another track that comes with more Floydian moments such as echoing guitars and children’s voices. Well crafted and well worth seeking out. An eleven track album of highly original stuff.
Soulwind (Album review)
Hard rock house - Dean Pedley
SELF RELEASES
1998 - VERBAL RESUSCITATION
4 Track E.P.
2000 Degrees - April truths - Boredom - She
2000 - MIA JUP E.P.
4 Track E.P.
Mia Jup - Whole inside - Sirens song - Electric
2002 - MEDUSA
4 Track E.P.
You and all - Too late now - Pretty smile - True love
2005 - SOULWIND
11 Track Debut album
Southern comfort - Household objects - True love - Saving grace - Hole inside - Sorry it turned out you - Terrorphobia - Words of love - Mia Jup - Love me do - Turn the other way
(GUY - A)
Mother Earth - Greek Goddess - Lovelock Theory
HISTORY
The band members are an amalgamation of three bands and have been playing on the live original circuit in the North of England for over ten years. Gaia have played most of the prestigious venues in the North and regularly travel the circuit from Newcastle to Nottingham promoting their Folk Rock Psychedelia. Festivals played so far are Bom fest, Chunky fest, West fest, Big day out fest, Denby Dale fest, Devonshire Green fest, Green fest, Floating Lotus fest, Sunrise fest, Rokfest and are looking for more (get in touch).
RECORDING
Gaia have worked on several projects in the last ten years and in 2003/4 started to hear the fruits of their labour of love when they self released Soulwind which was written, recorded, produced, financed and distributed by the band. Soulwind has over 2000 copies circulating in the U.K. and the album has gone as far as Poland and Australia. Gaia have been working on their second album at The Hive studio in their home town of Barnsley and are presently in the final mixing stages. The second album is called Sun into gold it will have 8 tracks at the moment and will be ready for release later this year. The new material is again an evolution of the band as friends and as a team with tracks like Jezebel, Dirty Cider town, Homelands, Shylock and Flicker taking Gaia into the next stage of their dedicated, passionate, and sometimes obscure destiny.
GIGGING
Gaia have gigged all over the place, and having mainly stuck around the North doing hundreds of gigs from Newcastle to Nottingham, are now ready to spread their wings. They have recently been on a U.K tour of Rock and Indie venues to promote their second album "Sun into gold" but are more suited playing festivals and this is the route the band would eventually prefer going down. The band have played alongside such greats as Desmond Dekker,Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets), Nik Turner's Space Ritual (Ex Hawkwind) - Kerbgrinder, Vaughn, fronted by Danny Vaughn (formerly of Waysted and Tyketto), Galactikos, Here and Now and Mark Morris (The Bluetones) The lads are well up for playing good causes like the Big Issues gigs, Cancer fundraisers, and are also playing at Floodfest with Saxon this year in Barnsley. If you know anyone, or happen to be involved in a festival or gig and fancy Gaia playing then what are you waiting for? Get in touch.
The band kickstarted the BOM collective which has now become a committee, receives funding and is responsible for the organising of BOM fest an annual outdoor music festival in the town with such names as Tom Hingley (Inspiral Carpets), Senser, Nik Turner (Ex Hawkwind), Nucleus Roots supporting their efforts.
SOULWIND CD REVIEW
From the Barnsley area of England, Gaia opened Rotherham Rocks Festival 2005 and, after hearing them live, a CD purchase seemed ideal. The band consists of Dave Hancock (acoustic guitar, lead vocals) Iain West (bass, backing vocals) John Rose (electric guitar, backing vocals) and Steve Booth (drums). This quartet are performing a few shows around the country and are well worth a visit, but the CD is a worthwhile listen, and features some fine mellow tunes.
The CD clocks in a dash over fifty six minutes, contains eleven tracks, and all relate to the eighties, the miners strike, Thatcher, etc, you get the picture. I must admit, there is a lot of feeling in Dave Hancock's vocals, one of the best emotional voices I've heard in a long time, and it's if every song tells a story and how life was back then.
Opening track Southern Comfort has the 'got no job and no fags because I'm broke' sort of situation, but this song has a strong message not only in the lyrics, but in the guitar playing from John Rose. Lots of reverb and a little distortion make this one of the strongest tracks on the album. Third track True Love has a nice dreamy feel to it, again Dave's voice is very emotional and the lyrics are just exact, and it should make a good single too.
Influence wise, I can pick out sixties feelings from the Beatles Help period and a splash from The Yardbirds. Add a touch of Neil Young, and Atom Heart Mother/Meddle period Floyd, a little Radiohead, Porcupine Tree and Pineapple Thief. There is a suggestion in the electric guitar of Dave Gilmour in John's playing on most of the tracks too, but I can't help thinking that this should be a big label release. So if EMI are reading this, sign this lot!
Highlight for me is track six, Sorry It Turned Out You which has a strong psychedelic approach, which has a nice harmony all round, and with songs like this, they must have a solid future ahead.
There is no poor song at all on the album, it just flows through moods and feelings, and with this their first effort, I hope the next one turns out in a similar vein.
Danny Mayo Hairless Heart Herald
Stage Fright- Monday @ Tiger Lounge Manchester, Friday @ Moon and Six Glossop
Monday in Manchester @ Tiger lounge sees ourselves joined by the two other incredible acts- The Filthy Souls and Gaia. If you haven't heard them before have a listen on their MySpace sites, it's gonna be special. Pls try to get down early as you don't wanna miss any of the acts... trust me!
Friday is the first Stage Fright @ the Moon and Six in Glossop. It's headlined by one of Liverpool's most influencial bands of the past decade. The only trouble is they rarely leave their home town which makes us even more privileged to have them come over to entertain the people of Glossop.
Obviously we'll be DJin into the night as well!
It really is not a week to be missed.
Remember entry is always free at a Stage Fright night so come and enjoy the music peeps!!!!!!
