(Updated 9.4.13)

In a bid to get the new studio CD 'Women and Horses, Power and War' recorded and released, Blyth power are putting together a Kickstarter Project, hopefully to be launched in early July, culminating in a grand push at The Ashes. This is a way for you to pre-order the CD, and also choose other rewards in order to back the release. More details can be found here.

Changing Places

Fond farewells and thanks to guitarist Steven Cooper, and a cabinet reshuffle sees bass player Jerry Hellfire take up the guitar. Bass will be supplied by another brother – this time a Lovely one in the shape of Ben Bailey, so now it’s just like the Partridge Family only without the annoying freckled one.
What this means for live shows is an almost completely new set. Some twenty five songs - new, old, and so old as to have been totally forgotten, and hence almost as good as new – are under rehearsal, and we look forward to giving an airing to some that have not seen the light of day for a very long time. ‘There’s an awful lot of ideas coming thick and coming fast …’  

Book News

Well if the clutch hadn’t needed replacing we’d have had it by now! Many people have asked for a sequel to ‘Genesis to Revolutions’, and while there is a plan for something along these lines (see Ashes News below) it will not be a book as such. The next published novel, however, will be ‘Full Circle’. This is a work of fiction… but with some autobiography, and more than a little on the erstwhile anarcho-punk movement that featured so strongly in its author’s roots thirty years or so ago, The book was initially written five years ago, but has now undergone a definitive revision, and comprises the recollections of a middle-aged train driver, reflecting on his misspent youth as he works MGR trains round the Yorkshire coalfield. It’s a nasty beastly book, and we are looking forward immensely to its publication. We should have it on sale at this year’s Ashes at the very latest.
This will be followed by ‘Stonehaven’, a foul black comedy set some 20 years in the future in a political prison in the Orkneys. See elsewhere on this site for an excerpt…

Women and Horses, Power and War

This will see the light of day eventually – we just need around £5000 to record and manufacture it to a standard we are happy with (that’s why our CDs cost more than £4.99). In the meantime songs are being worked into the set. Send blank cheques to the usual address…

The Ashes

Looks like the OBCs have sorted it all out finally! Big changes this year as we are running over on to the Bank Holiday Monday at the request of the venue. Monday, then, will feature not only a galaxy of stars, but a number of astonishing attractions, including tethered balloon rides. The afternoon will feature a ‘village fete’ with stalls, tug-of-war, games and rip-off sideshows, while in the evening there will be a special performance by Blyth Power. This will be a one-off set in which a single album from the band’s 29½ year history will be played in its entirety. Which one? Aha! You’ll have to come and find out!
The idea is to do this every year on ‘Ashes Monday’, reviving the entire back catalogue. A special booklet will be available on the day, and on the day only, telling the complete story of that specific album and its recording, with O-Level notes on the songs, and the sordid and grisly truth behind the characters that played on it. This, then, will add up year by year into a frighteningly candid history of Blyth Power, as related by Mr Porter to a third party author.
Heavens! Is that really advisable? Well no, but we don’t care. Nor, to be frank, will many people, but for those who do then don’t miss Ashes Monday for the full and unadulterated dirt on Blyth Power as told by the only person in a position to know it all.

Tickets are now on sale for a measly £20

Out and About

Of course with the brats now older, the band will be playing more, but Annie and Joseph are also travelling as Blyth Power Duo, playing semi-acoustic sets in smaller venues and clubs. It’s going down very well, and allows even more of the 130-odd songs in the Blyth Power canon to be heard live.

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