DECEMBER 2006 con't

Hi, we’ve just had confirmation of a special gig early next year... and it’s BIG! We’ve been asked to open for Joe Bonamassa on his only UK gig at The Shepherds Bush Empire in London on Thurs 29th March 2007! The gig is expected to sell out with a capacity audience of 2500 people so it looks to be one amazing night.

You can link through to Joe’s website and ticketline for more info on the gig and ticket availability etc. Hopefully we’ll see you down in London if not before, cheers, SSR.

DECEMBER 2006

To finish the year off we head into the studio to lay down a few new tracks. These new tracks will be compiled with our previously released Tangents EP to create a complete studio album. After we finished the tour we had basically sold out of everything so rather than repressing 4 individual EP’s we’re compiling the more electric EP’s 1, 2 and 3 into one album and the more acoustic Tangents with some new acoustic material into another. This updated ‘acoustic’ album will include a new reworking of ‘Upon Weathered Sands.’ These new compilations will be available around March time where they can be purchased direct from this website as well as from ourselves at live gigs.

We have a number of ‘big’ gigs in the pipeline for early next year, but until everything is confirmed we’re keeping things under our hats! As soon as everything is sorted and confirmed we’ll be posting all the info right here so keep checking back for the latest updates.

Well all thats left to say is a big thankyou to everyone that has supported us this year. To everyone that has come to see us perform, bought our records, posted great comments on myspace and emailed the website, we really appreciate it! Cheers, have a great Christmas and New Year and we’ll see you in 2007! SSR.

OCTOBER 2006

A brief update for you guys!

Well here we are, the tour is over and what an incredible success it was for everyone involved. Every gig was a sellout, we played 15 dates in a row to an average audienece of around 600 a night and I’m pleased to say every venue we played in the audiences were exceptional! We sold well over 200 albums during the tour and would like to thank all the fans, everybody that bought CD’s, T'shirts and to all the great people we met along the way for their support!

We’d also like to say a special thankyou to everyone that was involved with the tour. Pod and all promoters, The Agency Group and especially Joe Bonamassa, his band and crew who were all a pleasure to work with, a more professional hard working group of people would be hard to find.

We’ll have tour diaries uploaded very soon as well as dozens of tour photo’s! We have a number of dates to finish the year off, check the list and hopefully we’ll see you out there! Cheers SSR.

AUGUST 2006

Hi there, time for a quick update! Well it's pretty hectic working up to the tour with Joe Bonamassa. We have our newly acquired tour bus, a great big VW (yeah we were gonna go transit in true British rock style, but we decided to go supped up San Francisco with a VW!) Everything is in place, hotels are booked, travel arrangements etc, and we’ve been rehearsing up a number of different sets so it’ll be fresh every night.

Another date has been added to the end of the tour on Saturday 7th October in Sutton at the Boom Boom club... sounds like a 60’s go go dancing swingers bar... should be fun! You can find out ticket info through links on our err links page of course aswell as checking Joe’s own website, which is well worth a look. The tour and Joe have been getting plenty of promotion over the last few months in all the major guitar and music mags, and we’ve heard that a number of venues are well on there way to selling out! If you’re not familiar with Joe’s work there’s a great version of Led Zeppelins ‘Tea For One’ covered by Joe in this months Classic Rock with a certain Jason Bonham on drums who plays on all of Joe’s new album ‘You and Me’ (tis a small world as we supported Jason and the Quireboys last year in Manchester... there’s a pic around here somewhere!)

A big thanks to Globe Promotions Rae Leeson for putting on the Fringe Festival last week in Glossop, we played at the Moon and Sixpence on the Sunday to a great crowd who were out enjoying the Sun on what was a sweltering day. It was a real mixed bag of musicians that played throughout the day from the acoustic folk that opened the proceeding’s though our own brand of psych prog rock and blues finishing with a band from Australia (The Good) that consisted of a bass player, guitar player and a didgeridoo player who together played a fantastic yet bizarre version of AC-DC’s back in black amongst other self penned tunes.

We have a big Charity gig on Thursday August 17th in Stockport. A number of bands appear on the bill at whats looking to be a great night. Details can be found on the flyer linked on the gig guide. We have a number of dates booked in before the tour so check out the gig guide for listings and hopefully we’ll see you out there!

Well all thats left to say is cheers for your support and hopefully we’ll see you on tour, whether it be Manchester,London, Glasgow or wherever, if you are coming to any of the gigs don’t forget to say hi, cheers!

MAY 2006

How do, tis time for an update and it’s good news all round! Firstly if you didn’t already know it’s a big congratulations to bassist Lee and his wife Vic on the birth of their first child Joe!!! It’s been a few weeks since the birth and Joe is doing really well, as are Lee and Vic although somewhat exhausted and sleep deprived by all accounts.

Whilst Lee adjusts to fatherhood the band will be carrying on gigging with our good friend Dave Caddick standing in on bass (F.Y.I. Daves wife, Shell, sang backing on our album Terra Mama!) We’ve been rehearsing up the set with Dave over the last few weeks and it’s coming together really well. Our first gig with Dave will be at The Moon and Sixpence on the 10th June. You might have thought May a quiet month for the band, on the gig front yes, however with a lot of rehearsals, bass players having babies, Carl off on his hols to Egypt, myself to Amsterdam it’s been a busy few weeks which leads up to even more good news...

We’ve secured our first full U.K. tour supporting American guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa!!! The tour will see us performing 13 gigs in 12 venues all across the U.K. Starting in London, up to Glasgow, down to Exeter back up to Cardiff then after 2 1/2 weeks finishing in Newcastle. Check the gig list for the promo flyer and full details of all the venues we’ll be performing at. Lee will be joining us for the whole tour as well as our road manager Bryan, and roadie Stuart as we trek up and down... and back up the country in our van... a transit of course, anything else just wouldn’t be Rock N’ Roll! We hope to make a full tour video diary to be uploaded on the site, so you can see what we get up to on the road... well most of what we get up to anyway... More details will be posted as and when we know, so keep checking back for the latest updates.

Our last gig with Robin Trower in Nottingham was great! We got to meet Robin and the band, his playing was inspirational to say the least. Also a big thanks to Robins road crew and techs, a really great bunch of guys that were really accommodating. There’s a really good review on the reviews page to give you an idea of what went on. Also we have footage of 2 of our songs from the gig, Tapestries and the Shape I’m In. We thought the footage, sound and performance was good enough to upload on the site, we’re just sorting out a few technical glitches and we’ll have them uploaded a.s.a.p!

Our next gig is this Sunday (28th May) at the Manchester Academy supporting American cult rock band Mountain. This will be our first gig at the Academy and for us something we’ve been looking forward to for a while now. Tickets are priced at £12 with us taking the stage at 7:45pm. There’s a link for Mountain on our links page so you can get all the info on what they’re upto as well.

Finally we now have our myspace page up and running where you can listen to 4 tracks from the album. If you like what you hear you can now buy ‘Terra Mama’ direct through this website via the shop! If you’re on myspace link up as a friend, the more the merrier! Anyway have a good’n and thanks again for your continued support!

PS. Michael will be performing a solo acoustic set at The Globe, Glossop this Saturday (27th May) as part of a 'Live' podcast via www.Stereograffiti.com. The gig starts at 8:30pm and features a number of artists performing throughout the evening. If you don't get chance to catch it live, you can go on the website anytime and listen back to this and previous shows. Rae and Brians show 'live' from Brian's Gran's shed is hilarious and well worth a listen!

APRIL 2006

Quick update for you! Excellent news, we’ve just booked in two new gigs, firstly a support slot with Robin Trower in Nottingham at The Rescue Rooms (Wed 19th April) and then a support with Mountain at the Manchester Academy (Sun 28th May).

We tried last year to get a support slot for Robin Trower, but he had tour support already booked in, so to get offered the chance to perform with him this time round is great! If you’ve come to see us play before you’ll know we throw the odd Trower track in from time to time, he’s been a big influence on the band over the years so we’re really looking forward to this one!

Then Mountain, we’ve supported these guys numerous times over the past few years, a great band! Fronted by larger than life Leslie West with original drummer Corkie Laing and Ritchie Scarlet on bass it should be another great evening. It’s our first gig at the Manchester Academy and is looking to be a great night. More info on these gigs can be found on the gig list with links to various ticket booking outlets.

Hopefully we’ll see you out there, your support is always appreciated, cheers!

MARCH 2006

The curse of Stone Sole River has struck again! We’ve parted company with our present bass player Jon Walsh, so are once again on the look out for a full time replacement. Are you up to the job or do you know anyone who is? If so get in contact! For the moment our old cohort Lee Buckle has very kindly agreed to cover gigs with us until mid April, after that we’ll be getting session guys in to cover gigs already booked until a full time replacement is found.

However to keep things rolling as opposed to waiting around for a new bass player, myself and Carl have started working on a new acoustic set that will involve us performing as a duo, Carl drums, percussion, mandolin and myself vocals, guitars and gadgets, with guests dropping in from time to time. We’ll be performing some small intimate venues and playing very much off the cuff. The new set will feature some brand new songs as well as reworkings of older material as well as some off the wall arrangements of Hendrix, John Martyn, Joe Walsh and Pink Floyd tunes.

The first of these gigs will be this Sunday (19th March) at The Witchwood where we are playing as part of a charity benefit all dayer, our set time will be late afternoon, early evening. Also straight after that we’ll be doing an ‘acoustic’ set supporting Kirk Brandon (Spear of Destiny) on Wednesday (22nd March). Other acoustic dates will be listed on the gig list as such in the upcoming months.

Our first single off the album ‘Tapestries’ is getting air play on various radio stations including XFM, the track can be heard on Myspace.com/manillapr. Sample tracks from the album will be available from this website and a number off free download tracks will be available from our own myspace site, www.myspace.com/stonesoleriver.

Recently we played The Attic in Accrington playing alongside the fantastic Alfa9, a great little venue, however we never really clicked with the idea that with it being called ‘The Attic’ it was just that... an attic. This of course meant we had to lug all the gear (and if you’ve seen us play you know that’s a lot of gear) up 3 flights of stairs! However it was well worth it, we hope to be back there later on this year, keep an eye out, it’s well worth a visit!

Also our return to The Moon and Sixpence in Glossop was a real blast, we’d not played in the town for nearly two years, so it was a long over due return. We played for nearly 2 1/2 hours, we would have carried on, the audience was well up for it, but I think poor Carls arms were about to drop off. We make our return on Sat April 1st, so get yourself down, if everyone’s up for it, lets see if we can add to our 2 1/2 hours!

We were back at The Witchwood again (19th March) playing alongside Medicine Hat, we’ve played with these guys a number of times, they’re a great bunch and a top band. It was a good set, lots of energy and a very supportive crowd, what more could you ask for! As mentioned before we’ve got a number of dates coming up very soon at the venue, with more in the pipeline.

Also on the upcoming gig front we’ve got a gig for the Northern Harley Owners Club in Northwich (Saturday 8th April). This is an all day event, details can be found on the giglist where there is a downloadable flyer. If you fancy a day out get yourself down, we’ll be on about 9ish and there’s also camping if you fancy starting the summer off in style!

We’re also back at the Thatched House (Stockport) to kick off their St’ Patricks weekend fest. There was a bit of a cock up with dates last week, but we’re definitely back this Friday. This will be the debut gig for our newly acquired light show, along with the new backdrop and smoke machine it’s gonna be a full on sonic, visual treat, so get yourselves down for a very Anglo/Irish crack!

Anyhow cheers for your support, if you’ve not got a copy of the album ‘Terra Mama’ you can now buy it directly from this site through paypal... isn’t technology great! Also all our previous E.P’s and T’shirts can be purchased from the shop! Have a good’n we’ll see you out there!

JANUARY 2006

Its been a cold start to the year to say the least, non colder than last Sunday when we were stood on top of a hill in sub zero temperatures having a photo shoot with top rock photographer Karen McBride. Karen has previously worked with bands like The Darkness, Greenday and Bullet For My Valentine, so we were very lucky to get her to take some decent shots of our ugly mugs, man she even made us actually look cool (a very talented woman indeed)! Shots from the session will be uploaded in the gallery a.s.a.p. You can check out Karen’s work on her website www.Karenmcbride.com, we get a mention on her diary page and there’s a pic as well.

Our first gig of the year saw us return to The Moon and Sixpence in Glossop. It’s just been taken over by Paul and Julie who are doing a great job at bringing live music back to the venue after the previous managers turned it into a Karaoke bar? We played for just over 2 1/2 hours to a great audience who hadn’t seen us play Glossop for over 2 years, it was a triumphant return, a great night. We’re back there for more of the same on Sat 1st April, (you’d be a ‘fool’ not to come... get it?).

We’ve a number of dates coming up at The Witchwood. Firstly a ‘Big Friday’ session with our good friends Shallowface on the 3rd Feb, quickly followed by our first headliner at the Witchwood on Sun 19th Feb, a kind of launch 2 for the record similar to the event we put on at The Bierkeller late last year. Tickets are £3 payable at the door, with doors at 7pm, also the lovely people at the Witchwood are throwing a BBQ on, so you can get food, beer and live music all at once!

Other events this year will see us perform again at this years International Festival of Rhythm and Blues held in Ramsbottom just outside Bury. The festival takes place over 3 days 16th/17th/18th June, we’ll have a confirmed date and set time nearer to the event. Also a possible set at this years Colne Festival has been touted, again an International festival of rock and Blues featuring some great artists from around the world. As soon as we get some more information we’ll let you know! Also on the gig front we’re venturing up to The Attic in Accrington on Fri 24th Feb to support recently signed Psych Rock band Alpha 9. It’s free on the door, we’ll be taking the stage around 8:30, should be a great night!

Anyhow check out the gig guide for other dates we’ve booked in so far and keep checking back for new info, pics and downloads. Cheers, we’ll see you out there!