Producer under the name Capstone (WahWah45)
Keys-player for Bonobo (Ninja Tune)
Keys-player on Kate Walsh Debut album 'Tim's House'(Mercury)
An appreciator of all good music.
Simon ‘Capstone’ Little – Producer, DJ, ivory tinkler and bearded man.
Simon Little was born on February 20th 1975 with an incredibly hairy face. After a number of years of forced labour in the circus, young Mister Little decided that a career in music halls was the way to go for him.
After his Cornish, straight-talking, honky-tonk piano playing grandmother’s mysterious death in 1783 Little inherited her old Joanna. He’s still got it, and plays it to this day; the same tune, a half-cocked version of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ played under the moniker of Knuckles O’Toole.
In 1990 Simon attended college in Stratford in the Midland area of England. Here he slept his way through a music/performance course while keeping both his hands in, whenever possible, on the blacks and whites. In fact he spent most of his time playing on the very same piano William Shakespeare wrote ‘Love On The Rocks’ with in 1784, the year after Simon’s grandmamma’s untimely death. Spooky.
College did spawn new interests for the budding entertainer though; girls of course, but also discoteques. Yes, it was 1994, the dawn of disco, the beginning of a new age in ‘dance’ music. Little started putting on nights with such names as ‘Jazz Junkie’, and ‘Beetroot’, a revolutionary horticultural rave which ended in disaster when the sound system managed to blow all the windows of the greenhouse out in one fell swoop.
After a six month ban, temporary imprisonment and plenty of come-downs Little moved to the more sensible Sunday and Wednesday night slots in the local hot night spot of Worcester, as well as putting on the occasional boat party and dodgy happy house night, before realizing that his first love (the piano) was the only thing that would deliver true ecstasy.
So it came to pass that on February 30th 1996, Simon was enjoying half a whisky at his local free house, The Barrymoore, when a man walked in who’d change his life forever. Simon had never heard of a ‘Rhodes Electric Piano’ before, but as the honky-tonk was still at his parents’ house (his father, a vicar, had taken to using it at his Sunday sermons under the name of Big ‘Tiny’ Little – actually a real honky-tonk player, check http://www.spaceagepop.com/lphonk.htm if you don’t believe me!) he needed something to exercise his talents on. So after £200 had changed hands, and ten minutes on his knees round the back alley of The Barrymoore, Simon Little became the proud owner of his first, and possibly last, Fender Rhodes Electric Piano.
In the very same year Simon joined his first band, Root Source, as keyboard player (luckily). The drummer in the band was a young man called Russ Knight, a nice bloke, nice and fat, with a quiff and rough hands, who Little would soon encounter again, in far more salubrious circumstances.
After a stint of touring working men’s clubs in Torquay, Simon moved to a small village on London’s South coast called Brighton, in 1999. Prince was on the radio, mobile phones were all the rage, and a band called The Space Raiders were trying to make some records for a small indie label called Skint. Simon’s fingers worked wonders and impressed the Raiders so much he recorded three releases with them for said poverty stricken label, to much critical acclaim.
It was at almost at this very moment that Simon was introduced to Tim Bidwell. The pair connected immediately and a musical stream of consciousness resulted in two twelve inch, a seven inch single, and fourteen top five hits under the pseudonym of Spear n Jackson. Ok, I made that 'top five hits' bit up.
Simon and Tim’s musical partnership grew and it wasn’t long before the duo morphed into the outfit known as Hardkandy. They were signed to Catskills Recordings and haven’t looked back since. Sort of. The second Hardkandy album is released this year, although Mister Little is now concentrating his efforts on solo production work, performing with other live bands, and DJing under the moniker of Capstone.
It was in the live arena that Simon reacquainted himself with twenty stone drumming legend, Russ Knight. Little put together the Hardkandy band with Knight and drug addled flautist and vocalist John Hughes (now both in top Indie outfit The Lodge). Things progressed for Simon in the live arena, and it wasn’t long before he joined Hughes and Knight in The Quantic Soul Orchestra and became an integral part of Bonobo’s live band for Ninja Tune Recordings. Simon now regularly jets around the world, and hookers, groupies and amphetamines are just a normal part of every day life.
In 2004 Simon Little released his first solo single ‘I Don’t Know’, under the name of Capstone, for one of the finest and most fashionable record labels in the land, Wah Wah 45s. The record sold over twenty copies and was subsequently released in remix form (remixed by rising star Aaron Jerome) to go on to sell another thirty-eight.
Simon is currently working on his debut Capstone album and can be found DJing around the globe. He still tinkles the ivories for Bonobo, and still has an unfeasibly hairy face.
