MUSIC

Solstice take their goods to Towersey

Solstice - set to play Towersey Festival

Biffy Clyro on a visit to MK

The UK’s longest-running independent festival is happening a mere 20 minutes outside of Milton Keynes at the end of the month, with four days of music and merriment to carry you through the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Artists performing between August 26 & 29 include Del Amitri, Imelda May, Turin Brakes, Kate Rusby, Howard Jones Acoustic Trio, Anais Mitchell, Ferocious Dog, Blazin’ Fiddles, Hackney Colliery Band and many others.

Strictly winner Bill Bailey will also be showing his musicality at the bash, and MK’s own Solstice will be following up an appearance at Glastonbury by taking the stage here.

Fellow new city mobs Togmor, forest of fools and Cock and Bull Band will all be showing their faces over the weekend.

The festival initially launched as a one-off event to raise funds towards the repair of Towersey Hall – that was way back in 1965!

Aside from music, comedy and dance, many workshops will happen, together with circus and theatre shows, storytelling, outdoor games, history and ghost walks and music jams.

This is the first year that the event is being hosted by the Claydon Estate and festival director Joe Heap is thrilled to get back to normal after two years of cancellations.

“With a packed line-up of music, dance, comedy, workshops, food, real ale, crafts, games, workshops, ghost walks - you name it! - Towersey Festival 2022 is set to be the most exciting yet, a worthy testament to my grandad who founded the festival back in 1965,” Joe said, “With a pristine new site, incredible line-up and our much-loved community atmosphere, we can’t wait to welcome attendees young and old to join our Towersey Festival family.”

> Tickets can be booked by clicking to towerseyfestival.com

MK Music Archive: Mon the Biff!

> For more on Milton Keynes’ musical history visit FB @miltonkeyneswiredforsound

Well, I’ll be Damned!

The Damned were due to headline The Field of Avalon stage at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, but with a last minute cancellation due to some of the band being struck down with Covid, Captain Sensible decided to use his newly acquired time off to good effect.

Writing on his Facebook page @sensiblecaptain shared his love of MK’s own Stray, saying of their 1970 elpee: ‘I’m cheering myself up by listening to one of the first albums I ever purchased. One I STILL love too - all killer no filler.. full of great tunes, psych, guitar wizardry and fabulously mixed. Can you believe they were even better live - and guitarist Del is still out there doing it!?’

Readers of Pulse Music know only too well that Stray are still out and about, and the next local date for your diary is Friday, November 11 when The Stables presents An Evening with Del Bromham & Stray. Tickets are on sale now. F resh from their headlining appearance at this year’s Download Festival, Scottish rockers Biffy Clyro announced a huge UK arena tour, but the band spent some of their early times here in Milton Keynes; and long before they supported Foo Fighters at The National Bowl.

Biffy recorded their first two albums at Great Linford Manor studio and hit The Pitz Club for some particularly frenetic, fired-up shows. There was also a Virgin Megastore in-store.

Stray are the business - and the captain says so!

A Multitude of the marvellous

The Craufurd Arms has a festival in a day for you this August, with three stages delivering the best of the local rising and breaking acts at Multitude.

If you’ve not been keeping an eye on music-makers from the area, expect to have your mind blown – the scene right now is bubbling with talent and some must surely be on the brink of good things.

“We want to celebrate the multitude of talent in the local and national music scene,” Craufurd promoter Jason Hall told Pulse, “Multitude is very much about all things new, independent and breaking.”

A few of the artists are from a couple of junctions along the motorway, in Northampton.

“It has the busiest scene imaginable at the moment. Every day a new band pops up full of youth, and of the highest quality,” Jason said, “The MK and Northampton scenes have almost merged together and support each other. The line-up for the event on August 13 runs as follows:

Sail stage: Torus (MK), Byker Grove Fan Club, Cusp (MK), Serma (MK), The Mundays (NN), The Mezz (Oxford) Altercation stage: Tragic (NN), Punk Band, TBA, Snayx, TBA, Memes Bare Bones (stripped back) stage: Bare Bones, Low Girl, Manny, Safest Spaces, Eddz, Enjoyable Listens, Nailbreaker

Tickets are on sale for a tenner – that’s about 50 pence per band! - and AvegetativeState will be dishing up the best in vegan food. Gourmet topped fries will also help keep hunger at bay on the day, and vinyl junkies will be in luck with a number of stalls offering releases.

> Doors will open at 3pm, and tickets can be purchased at thecraufurdarms.com

Tragic play the Altercation Stage

In a spin type of thing

While on the subject of The Craufurd Arms, the venue will host another Record Fair on Sunday, August 21. A chance to flick through the racks in search of an elusive seven-inch, that rare elpee you’ve spent years hoping to track down, or maybe just something you spot on a whim and want to add to the collection.

It’s the only shopping you should be doing on a Sunday! Doors at midday through ‘til 4pm.

A Devil in Disguise?

It’s the fusion that few thought possible – an Elvis fronted Nirvana ensemble called Elvana.

Apparently, ‘Elvana tear through Nirvana’s catalogue whilst splicing in a grunged up section of the king of rock & roll’s finest moments, culminating in a whopper mash up of overdrive and old school rockabilly.

They went down an absolute storm at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, and A Little Less Conversation and a little more grunge can be yours on August 27 when the band brings Disgraceland to MK11 in Kiln Farm.

We still remember being entertained by Dread Zeppelin, the US reggae rockers who delivered the songs of Led Zeppelin with an Elvis impersonator up front. That was a Pitz Club night in another life. It certainly feels that long ago.

> Heart of a Coward will play this year’s Bloodstock Festival. The MK heavies will play the Ronnie James Dio stage on Friday, August 12, on a bill also featuring Eyehategod and Discharge.

In preparation, the quintet have announced a hometown warm-up date at MK11, on Thursday, August 11.

> Tickets are on sale now at £14 (+bf). Visit mk11kilnfarm.com for details and to book.

Torus are on tour

Pic: Richard Hedge

When Torus curates their stage at the Multitude Festival (see elsewhere on this page for more about that), it will bring the curtain down on the band’s first tour, in support of the Sail EP, which has just been released.

If you’ve got petrol to burn (yeah, we know!), the trio will play the following dates:

July 29 – The Cobblestones – Bridgewater July 30 – The Hat Factory – Luton July 31 – Voodoo Daddy’s – Norwich August 5 – The Star – Guildford August 6 – Suburbia – Southampton August 10 – Signature Brew - London August 13 – Craufurd Arms – Milton Keynes

Remembering Steve Groom

Pulse’s Sammy Jones speaks with Pete Winkelman about the sad loss of a true Milton Keynes original.

As tall as he was in stature, Stephen Groom was quiet in nature.

Steve (as he was known) spent decades at Great Linford Manor; first working for the historic house when the Development Corporation took over the premises in the 1970s, then under the management of Harry Maloney who reinvented the building as a recording studio in the 1980s, before Pete Winkelman took control, giving the studio a second wave of success in the 1990s.

“Steve was the odd job man, the gardener, the person who welcomed the groups, but more than that, he was the one who could always be relied upon. I refer to him as the custodian of the house,” Pete told Pulse, “He was an honest, warm and wonderful human being and I think everyone that met him would say the same.

“When you worked with him, you realised that Steve knew everything about everything.”

As anyone who has been privileged to be around the workings of a recording studio will know, alongside bursts of band creativity can come bouts of frustration and high jinx.

It can be a pressured environment and reading the room can be tricky on occasions, but not for Steve, who was always calm and collected.

“He saw unusual things go on all the time,” Pete remembered, “But he had so much discretion. Steve never made anyone feel ill at ease – you could throw him into any band environment and he would be part of the banter.”

It was Steve who was the ‘public face’ of the annual Waterside music festival. He was integral to the success of those popular events.

“It was one of his legacies,” Pete said.

But Steve wasn’t just someone that musicians could lean on. He was a musician himself, playing instruments including the banjo, ukulele and guitar, and he always created personas for his bands.

One of his characters caused alarm when Pete first spotted him in the house.

“During its time as a studio, you never knew who might pop into the Manor. One day I remember walking through the house and there was this really tall, long haired ageing rocker there. I said to my wife Berni, ‘Who the hell is that?’

“We left him to it, but he had definitely caught our attention. Later, he knocks on our door and comes into the room towering over us and we are both thinking ‘Who is this?’ and then when he started speaking, we realised it was Steve with his alter-ego!”

That was the first time Pete came face to face with the inimitable Jimi Volcano, whose single releases included Never Sit On A SunDial and Kicking Out The Jam.

But Steve’s music-making wasn’t limited to Jimi, and fans might remember Bingo, The Trees and Big Laundry Bill among others. Lots of names, but with Steve at the core of them all.

Art was another passion – and something he excelled at.

He studied Fine Art at Leeds Uni and then an MA at the Royal College of Art and his quirky, clever designs had been exhibited widely, including at Milton Keynes Gallery.

Steve’s pieces had equally clever titles; ‘A Nightingale Coughed in Berkeley Square’ and ‘Friday Night Is Bath Night Whether I Need One or Not,’ give an idea of the creative at work.

As a youngster at school, while other kids would use playtime to get rid of excess energy, Steve would sit and draw. It clearly paid off.

“It’s contemporary, humorous, entertaining, surreal, poetic...” he told me during one of many interviews and chats we had enjoyed during my time working with him at the Manor, “There are serious things going on, but overtly it’s quite

Steve Groom: ‘We are all going to miss him terribly’

Steve as his alter-ego, Jimi Volcano

humorous and I try to make my work as accessible as possible.”

He succeeded: In the mid-noughties he exhibited 52 pieces of work at MKG – every last piece sold-out at the private view!

Alt-rockers The Tindersticks used Steve’s artwork on one of their EPs and many artists who passed through the Manor purchased pieces – including PJ Harvey who has some Steve Groom originals in her collection.

“He was an incredible artist,” Pete agreed, “He could draw, he could paint, and he could make games. He would always remember everyone’s birthday every year and would deliver some kind of special toy that he had invented with an irony to it.

“So there were all these personas – the musician who was many different characters, the artist that was very accomplished, and this great friend and confidante of Great Linford Manor.

“The news of his passing was devastating. Steve was special, and we are all going to miss him terribly.”

Steve is survived by his son, Paul. He was a proud grandfather, and stepfather to four daughters.

> Steve’s family are putting together a catalogue of his art and music. Moving forward they would like to hold an exhibition, and maybe release a book of his work in tribute. If you have items of Steve’s art or music in your possession, please take a photo of the item(s) or write your recollections of Steve and email to ursywhite@icloud.com