PHONES SPORTSMAN - thinks he can sing, play guitars, keyboards and drums, samples, electronics and ‘concrete’ sounds; the band’s bard and composer....... Phones is the front-man because the other male members of the PSB collective are generally seen as child-frighteners and gurning champions, and it was considered in the interests of decency to leave them under wraps…
/ THERESA SPORTSMAN: an artist, garden designer and dog-breeder who interrupts recording sessions with ideas, refreshments, backing vocals and inspiration.
/ NIKKI BEE: Website design, vocals. Early influences include Nervous Norvus and Phones Sportsman.
/ ALLAN and GEORGE NOMAN: guitar, bass, drums, backing vocals and remixing of PSB tracks for public consumption.
/ ’CAZ’ MASSEY: Fender guitars with various modifications, banjo, electronic drums, computer support. One of his guitars and amps is currently on loan to a grateful Phones.
/ NINA DiGREGORIO: is the Muse for Phones and is the inspiration for some of the songs. She is Edie Sedgwick to his Andy Warhol.
/ JOWE HEAD: A Swell Map until their split in the early ‘80s. Since then a painter and musician with a long string of releases. Currently working with Topplers Records. He migrated south and settled in the Metropolis many years ago.
/ NICK ’FATLIP’ BUTLER: A former member of Junior C. Reaction in the 1980s, Nick is now a neighbour of the Sportsman family. Saxophones are his thing.
/ MARK PORTER: Mark is a ukelele man, amongst other stringed things, and has a wild hat collection; some of his other work can be seen on YouTube.
/ Hangers-on:
/ Sean Pooman: a young rocker who may not be invited to record with PSB due to questionable hair and fashion sense.
/ Jolly Giant: 6’ 8” and may be useful as a bouncer. The source of info on many good, but otherwise unknown (in the UK), Danish bands.
/ Groupies aka The Rock Chicks: DANIELLE / REBECCA...
-----------------LINKS---------------
PHONES and JOWE CAN BE SEEN AT www.TOPPLERS.net /
MARK CAN BE SEEN IN A SERIES OF ZANY VIDS AT http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=brillphillmill
/ The NoMen CAN BE SEEN ON THEIR EXCELLENT SITE AT Topplers records ----------
/ If your stomach can take it, try the NoMens video nasty of "I am the Dad of George NoMan" on http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=DgIP2wBmkkI but they are miming to it - Phones actually played all the instruments.
Influences
P.G.Wodehouse, Dr Seuss,
Tom & Jerry cartoons,
The preludes and fugues of J.S.Bach, the Bartok and Shostakovich string quartets, Gilbert & Sullivan, Rodgers & Hammerstein,
The Oscar Peterson Trio, Pat Metheny,
Nervous Norvus, Nick Drake,
Pink Floyd, Foo Fighters, Underworld, Ozric Tentacles, Groove Armada, Leftfield, Claude Challe, Jack Johnson, Katherine Jenkins, Battles and Trentemøller (bet you haven’t heard of them unless you are Dansk).
The band was ‘formed’ in 1979 as a means of releasing some Swell Maps tracks which were considered too eccentric to go out under that name.
Phones was one of the founder members of the Maps, having known the Godfrey brothers since about 1972 and Jowe Head soon after (see Wikipedia and elsewhere for more accurate info.) In 1980 the first PSB 45rpm EP included several tracks which can now be seen and heard on www.Topplers.net alongside reworkings by the Kilmarnock band The NoMen.
Phones was by this time a part-time Map, pursuing a career as a Master of Fossils. After a life spent travelling and whacking stones together in such places as Sudan, Congo, Oman, Dubai and the arctic bit of Norway, and after a sequence of odd little coincidences, he made a spontaneous decision to renounce air travel and full-time geology and to re-form the PSB in early January 2008.
The words and the music had been bottled up inside for over 25 years, and an explosion of what might be called creativity and inspiration (if it was associated with musical talent) was let forth. A series of songs is currently in progress, and the first 3 have been completed by mid January.
An album of some sort is possible, with the working title “May Contain Nutters”. The idea of a highly lucrative contract with EMI or Sony was rejected as being too materialistic and unchallenging. Instead, the band prefers to work with Topplers Records and to use other less formal methods of self-publicity. The ethic of the co-operative is to have fun and to neither make nor lose money.....................
Click the image to order a free copy of Topplers Records latest compilation CD featuring an amazing selection of bands from 1977 to the present day. Swell Maps, Nyah Fearties, Thrilled Skinny, Jowe Head & Phones Sportsman, Paul Groovy, Steve Treatment, The Cult Figures, Nikki Sudden... and more!..
All you pay is the postage... get it while stocks last!!!
