SEPTEMBER
Just to let you all know where we're at, I can tell you it's been a pretty frantic time of late, plenty of last minute gigs and rehearsals getting Lee up to speed and what a fantastic job he's done. All the usual numbers have been learnt and perfected in no time and now we've started working on some new numbers for the acoustic E.P. (which we hope to record at the end of September).

Our latest gig at the Globe in Glossop turned out to be a fantastic evening, a packed house ensured a great gig. Thanks to everyone who came down, we hope to see you again on Saturday 19th October for the live recording! Also, a big thanks to Tony for coming down and taking some more photo's (the results will be up soon!).

Highlights of late have included a last minute booking at the Debdale Festival, we certainly couldn't have asked for better weather, sweltering on stage we really enjoyed the set playing to a very appreciative audience. A big thanks to the organisers and to the crowds (we hope to see you there again next year).

Talking of festivals, another last minute booking for us was an open air festival held in Stockport town centre on the bank holiday weekend. We had a one and a half hour set and played to a really great audience that had come down not only for the music, but also a really excellent bike show. The greatest weather again really suited the out door festival vibe and the whole set went down really well. The gig was captured by Tony (photographer extraordinare) and the pictures will be posted on the site. All proceeds from the gig went to The Rainbow Trust charity.

While on the subject of photo's, a rather interesting afternoon was spent with Tony the other week taking promo shots of the band. We couldn't remember who's bright idea it was going for the hippy dippy forest shots, and though they turned out great, we were being eaten alive by all manner of bugs and midges (the things you do for your art!!)

Another gig we had been looking forward to was the Witchwood on Thursday 29th August, a support with Budgie turned out to be a great gig, the club was rammed and had turned into a bit of a steam bath (a nightmare for trying to keep your guitars in tune) but it all added to the feeling of a really great rock concert!

All in all it's looking pretty busy for the rest of the year, which is exactly the way we like it! The only break in the middle of November when Carl heads back home to New Zealand for a few weeks. Not that it will stop completely, we plan on to carry on mixing both the acoustic and live recordings in the studio as well as a couple of stripped down acoustic gigs to keep the ball rolling until Carl's return when we've got a number of dates near Christmas to round the year off!

As always, we look forward to seeing you at the gigs, (the gig list gives you when and where we are playing) if you'd like to email us with any question, comments or ideas, then please do and we'll get back to you a.s.a.p.

Anyway, until next time!

JULY
Just a quick update on the latest goings on. We've had to say goodbye to longstanding bassist Tim Payne, Tim has been with the band since the beginning, but it was decided between Tim, Carl and myself to carry on Stone Sole River without him. Our best wishes to Tim for the future!

On the flip side of the bad news however we have some good news, in this case a certain Mr. Lee 'Doggy' Buckle who will be taking over bass playing duties in Stone Sole River on a permanent basis (well we've never been ones to waste time!) Lee is already up and gigging with us, so no dates have been cancelled.

So as with all things Stone Sole River "the wheel rolls on!"

MAY
Right, I suppose it's about time we updated this page and tell you what we've been up to and what we've got lined up. It's been a rather interesting few months with some great gigs. Highlights included a rather unexpected evening at the Witchwood with Medicine Hat. Just as we'd played our set to a fantastic audience (thanks to everyone that came down) Medicine Hat unfortunately couldn't go on due to their singer's voice completely disappearing. As we were walking off stage one of the guys asked us to carry on for the rest of the evening, how could we refuse! We ended up playing a 2 hour set and had a great night. The only downside was that we still haven't seen Medicine Hat perform, hopefully we'll catch them next time round.

We've got more dates from some of the premier clubs in the North, The Witchwood, a support with Amor being one of them, as well as gigs at Bar Cuba in Macclesfield, the Bury Met and the Globe in Glossop! (all listing of dates can be found on the gig guide).

Another highlight was a charity gig at the Thatched House, a very supportive and enthusiastic audience were great to play for, hopefully we'll see some of them at a later date at what's definitely turning into one of our favourite venues. Another of our favourite venues, the Bike and Hound, has seen us play a couple of times so far this year with more dates to follow. Both gigs have had great turnouts and very supportive audiences, hopefully we'll see those faces again at later dates.

New venues for us have included the Whitton Chimes in Northwich, the Queens in New Mills and the Glass barrel in Atherton, all of them very enjoyable gigs with great audiences. More dates at these venues have been booked throughout the year.

We're back in the studio again at the beginning of June to record a new number, Black on White, a very unusual number for us as it clocks in at around two and a half minutes as opposed to the usual 6-7 minute ramblings you might be used to. But never the less, the song still contains all the usual SSR trademarks, a heavy as hell opening from Carl into a super chunky riff with a slight eastern vibe in the chorus (of course), a time change and a complete about face in the middle, through to a hell for leather end. Oh and the open turning of the guitar is completely jacked up to!

On a complete change of style, we've been working on some very chilled out acoustic pieces, something we never really get to air at a lot of gigs through various reasons. A couple of pieces in the bag are a song called She's a River and a work in progress called Tapestries, a kind of blues grass meets eastern styling. We've been toying around with the idea of just doing a pure acoustic recording, maybe another 4 track E.P. What we really want over all is to let people hear the wide variety of styles and influences we use in our writing from the acoustic right through to the harder rock side.

Last time I mentioned our intentions to do a complete live recording, this is slowly coming to fruition. We hope to record at the Globe in Glossop (home to The Lift Globe Music Club) which has just been taken over by Ron and Diane who have got some fantastic ideas to turn the place into a complete arts centre, jazz, folk, rock, poetry, comedy, world music etc. The recording will either be in August or October, so to have yourself immortalised on a SSR album, you're more than welcome to come down and make as much noise as possible!

Anyway, we'll try to make a concerted effort to keep you up to date with what we're doing, and if you have any questions or useful info, please email us and we'll get back to you a.s.a.p. Again, just before we go, the band would like to thank all of you for your support and interest and hope to see you again soon!

FEBRUARY
Welcome to the Stone Sole River web site, we thought we would put this site together to keep people up to date with what we¹re doing and where; also as a kind of history and scrap book of things we've done.

So far in January 2002, we've been back into the studio to record our 3rd EP (as yet untitled like the others!) This time we've spent a bit longer than before and really tried to push the boundaries of what we¹ve recorded previously, (something about recording the drums in the bathroom because the acoustics are great, only problem it's to small to use any distance miking!!!) I can tell you that the tracks we have recorded are songs that were written last year; Lost Son, Ocean Song, and One Day Soon. These songs have all been performed live.

Lost Son has become a kind of standard set opener, people that have seen us perform at the Witchwood, Roadhouse and Castle etc, should recognise it, all be it without the intro music, (the chanting eastern thing we sampled from the amazing Loreena McKennitt!).

Ocean Song is I think the most recent piece we've written, a homage to the people that come to the gig's, the audience! (Its actually an analogy I borrowed from Robert Plant, the 'oceans roar' being the audience!).

One Day Soon is a new piece written just before Ocean Song, what the song's about I'll let you decide, and if you find the answer let me know as I've only got a vague idea myself. It's one of our more upbeat songs, inspired by Robin Trower, musically that is, (maybe even lyrically as I sometimes wonder what he's banging on about as well!)

Anyway gig wise we have dates until December at our regular haunts, any gaps we hope to fill with new venues. This year we've been invited to go back up to Scotland for some more gig's, we played a number of dates their last year that were just fantastic!

We also hope to do a live recording this year, mix it in the studio and put it out along with the new EP. We also hope to post MP3 downloads and samples of our music soon onto the website along with other odds and ends as well!

I've just received confirmation of a gig with Medicine Hat at the Witchwood on Sunday the 24th February (we were supposed to perform with them late last year but unfortunately they had to pull out due to recording commitments!) We really do enjoy these gigs and are especially looking forward to this one.

If you would like advanced ticket's/flyers to this or any of our gig's then please email us your details and you can join our mailing list!

A huge thanks to all the people that have supported us at the gigs, bought the C.D's and T-shirts, especially the people that have seen us at one venue, then turned up the following week to see us somewhere else. It really is fantastic recognising faces in the audience from previous gigs!

The band would like to say a special thanks to Stuart for designing and sorting out this great website (fantastic work, Cheers!) Also thanks to Tony for the excellent photo's (you can view more of his work on his own website, there's a link to it somewhere round here???)

A special thanks goes to John at the Shed Studios for recording the 3 EP's (and for letting us try our weird and wonderful ideas of miking up and recording the instruments, as well as coming up with some great ideas himself!)

Last, but by no means least we would like to thank Bryan, without his help and support (accountancy skills, logistical skills, roadie skills, driving skills etc, etc, etc!) we probably wouldn't have made it to our first gig!

Thanks to all, and to all goodbye...for now anyway!