News and Forthcoming Gigs!
"The Rising Road" is now available for download!
Please follow the links to download the album by clicking on the banners below. The full album is a mere £7.99 and single tracks can be snapped up for a measly 79p!
TMTCH are now on iTunes!
Four of the Men They Couldn't Hang albums are now available on iTunes, these are:
* How Green Is The Valley
* Waiting For Bonaparte
* The Domino Club
* The Cherry Red Jukebox
The following are also available for download:
TMTCH "The Cherry Red Jukebox"
Odgers & Simmonds "Baby Fishlips"
Biography
The Men They Couldn't Hang were officially formed in early 1984. The founding members were Phil "Swill" Odgers (vocals, guitar), Paul Simmonds (guitar, bouzouki, keyboards) and Jon Odgers (drums) from punk-pop band "Catch 22" with Shanne Bradley (bass, flute - former member of Shane MacGowan's band "The Nips") and Stefan Cush (vocals, guitar), whom they met while busking in West London.
Shanne in 1985 - Christmas party in Leeds.
photo by Mo Dixon - thanks a lot for this great pic!
TMTCH appeared at a St Patrick's Day festival in 1984 and were also asked to play at a benefit gig for the striking miners. Paul Simmonds wrote the song "Shirt Of Blue" on the way to the gig when he watched a whole police force gathering.
The Men's first big hit was their cover version of Eric Bogle's "Green Fields Of France", which ended up in John Peel's Festive Fifties two years running!
In 1985 they released their first album "Night Of A Thousand Candles", closely followed by "How Green Is The Valley" in 1986. Among the TMTCH fans, these two album remain the most popular due to now classic Men songs like "Ironmasters", "Ghosts Of Cable Street" and "Shirt Of Blue".
Shanne Bradley left in 1987 and was replaced by Ricky McGuire, a former member of punk band the UK Subs.
The third album "Waiting For Bonaparte", released in 1988, was again bursting with great songs such as "The Colours", "Smugglers" and "Bounty Hunter", which became live favourites.
By now they had attracted the attention of the rest of Europe and by the time they released their album "Silvertown" in 1989, they were asked to play at a big festival in Estonia in front of thousands of people.
Their fifth album "Domino Club" released in 1991 showed a darker mood with the songs "Family Way" and "Great Expectations", while the single "The Lion And The Unicorn" was very reminiscent of their first three albums.
By this time cracks and uncertainty about the way forward started to show in the band's makeup and they decided to call it a day. A Farewell Tour produced the live recording "Alive, Alive-O" and filming "The Shooting" at the Town and Country Club in London (now known as The Forum).
Paul and Swill, together with Paul's equally talented brother Neil Simmonds, started a new project called Liberty Cage while Cush and Ricky played and toured extensively with Folkfinger. Jon Odgers meanwhile decided to settle down and worked for Northern Irish noise merchants Therapy? as a drum technician.
Cush and Shanne at the Mean Fiddler, London in 1994
many thanks to Sean Taylor for the photo!
By 1996 they were missing the thrills of working together as TMTCH too much and duly reformed the band after playing the occasional gig together.
They released the album "Never Born To Follow" and the EP "Six Pack" in 1996 and 1997 respectively and toured Germany with their new sound less mandolin, bouzouki and 12-string guitar which Paul used to play.
In 1997 they were invited to play in Egypt. Click here to read Swill's report on this rather unusual tour.
Two compilation albums of their best songs were released in 1998, which were followed in 2003 by "Cherry Red Jukebox", an album with all new songs written by Paul Simmonds.
After a very successful trip to Canada to perform at the Calgary Folk Festival in summer 2008, the band started working on their new studio album.
June 2009 saw the release of "Devil On The Wind" on Robb Johnson's indie label Irregular Records. Signing up to the indie label allowed the band the artistic freedom they had craved since their first record deal. The new album is an interesting mix between the new TMTCH sound while reflecting on earlier gems.
An extensive discography can be found at their Official Website.
To order TMTCH and related goodies, please follow this link to their online merchandise shop.
More TMTCH stuff is available at Barn End Video.
Other TMTCH links:
official TMTCH band website with news, downloads and lots of info
join the TMTCH mailing list at Yahoo Groups!
TMTCH at YouTube add some videos to your profile!
TMTCH at Wikipedia biography
TMTCH discography
TMTCH at Last.fm get "scrobbling"!
Paul Simmonds' MySpace page with new demo songs from TMTCH's main songwriter!
Swill and the Swaggerband at MySpace
Swill and the Swaggerband at Last.fm more scrobbling to get Swill played!
Liberty Cage at MySpace
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