Paul Hawkins (Vocals)
Ian Button (Drums, Production & Backing Vocals)
Kate Arnold (Violin, Dulcimer & Backing Vocals)
David Serra (Guitars)
Harvey Dodd (Keyboards & Backing Vocals)
Alex Templeton-Ward (MicroKorg, Samplers & Backing Vocals)
Jes Walton (Bass & Backing Vocals)
+ Occasional Cameos from Tom Mayne (Keyboards & Backing Vocals)
Influences
We're not deliberately trying to sound like anyone else but, if it helps, our music tastes are as follows:
Paul really likes Suede, Belle & Sebastian, Elliott Smith, Nick Cave, Hefner, R.E.M, Leonard Cohen and what he'd term "outsider pop music". If he's utterly honest he was massively into West End musicals as he grew up and that probably influenced him a lot too. He still thinks the music to Les Miserables is better than almost everything else ever.
Ian really likes 60s pop music and what he'd call "pop music that sounds slightly wrong".
David is a big fan of Guns N' Roses and the Mars Volta. In fact his Guns N' Roses obsession is such that the rest of the band attempt to avoid mentioning the words "Axl" and "Rose" around him for fear of a three-hour monologue on the said individual. Like Paul, he loved Suede when Bernard Butler was in the band. However (unlike Paul, who loves Coming Up and even really likes few songs on a New Morning) he isn't much a fan of the post-Bernard years. He also wants to make it known he really loves cats (as in the animals, not the Lloyd-Webber musical). Paul's a bit confused as to what this has to do with his music taste.
Kate has a fairly extensive knowledge of goth music, folk music and arabic music. Her favourite bands and musicians include Echo & the Bunnymen, Siouxie Sioux, Abdul Halim Hafez, Kalman Balogh and the Gypsy Cymbalom Band.
Harvey Dodd is a huge Divine Comedy fan. He's also a damn good performance poet in his own right, which isn't really anything to do with a musical influence per se but probably should be mentioned somewhere and here's as good as anywhere...
Alex's favourite band of all time are the Doors. He is also interested in noise music, especially stuff like Sunn O))) and anything that is so close to not being music that it is difficult to define it thus.
Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences started out in 2006 as a collaboration between outsider pop maverick Paul Hawkins and Death in Vegas guitarist turned underground producer Ian Button and have expanded into an exhilarating, eccentric and ever-evolving eight-bellied beast of a band.
Previously part of the same UK antifolk collective that spawned the likes of the Bobby McGees and David Cronenberg’s Wife, Hawkins’ work with Thee Awkward Silences has seen him develop into one of the most intelligent, charismatic and confrontational frontmen in the UK today. Meanwhile the band have subtly shifted from their beginnings as a modern twist on the post-punk/garage rock of the Fall, the Stooges and the Birthday Party to a thrilling, inventive and continually surprising combination of sonic experimentation, darkly entertaining caustic cabaret and driving rock n’ roll, all underpinned by Hawkins’ knack for crafting compelling narratives and uncompromising and unconventional pop songs. The band have been compared to the likes of Elvis Costello, Edwyn Collins and Nick Cave but "Hawkins sounds like no-one. Someone doing something truly on their own and making the rules up as they go along." (artrocker)
In 2008 Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences recorded a session for Radio 1, played the Swn and Latitude Festivals and released critically acclaimed debut album “We Are Not Other People” on Jezus Factory Records. In 2009 they are recording a new album have plenty of other tricks up their sleeve…
To buy Paul Hawkins & Thee Awkward Silences Releases Click Here here
hi! here's the flyer for your gig this friday at the dog house with pagan wanderer lu and dig for fire. will be fun! remember to tell all your mates... xxx
I will playing a track of yours on my show today on www.radioreverb.com (simple folk show) (6-8pm uk time) but gets repeated early hours of sat (1-3am uk time) Tune in !
Join us THIS WEDNESDAY for a PARTY! of Rockin' Electro at The Macbeth with some great live talent and Djs K Spiral and James Theaker (radio NME) SPINNING.
Doors 8pm/£5. 2 for 1 entry before 9pm.
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Click on the flyer above to visit the facebook event page.
Hopefully see you there!
Ed x
p.s. We're also doing London's LoveMusic Hate Racism Sister Act on 31st May @ The Legion. Which is FREE ENTRY. DOORS from 5pm/live music from 6pm.
Join us on THURSDAY for a night of Alternative Rock 'n' Roll at The Legion with some great live talent and Dj The Boy marking his return with a new monthly residency.
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Click on the flyer above for the facebook event page.
Thursday 23rd April club ccVii - £2 entry 8pm-11pm
ESIOTROT
"Velvet Underground filtered through a secondhand tape-recorder and a collection of Postcard Records." - Everett True (Plan B)
"They make music that sounds like it’s played out sepia tinged montages of days out on the beach at, say, Eastbourne. And that’s a good thing... Esiotrot are a brilliant outsider's band" - Drowned in Sound
“A great find - this artist has a voice up there with Cat Powers.. I don’t know whether Madelaine drinks bourbon and smokes Luckys but what a superb voice; smoky, aching fragile and powerful...” Jamendo
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