TWISTED WHEEL

+ Skirt + The Bophins

Presented by: Mars promotions

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0	CORBY: The White Hart
P	Saturday 12th May, 2018
N	7:30pm

Event information

For Twisted Wheel, Snakes and Ladders is not just a board game, it’s a CV. Born in the backwaters of Oldham in 2007, the young band, fronted by the feral, precocious Jonny Brown, roared into the race of indie rock with such anthems as ‘You Stole The Sun’, ‘She’s a Weapon’ and ‘Lucy The Castle’. Their irrepressible energy and ability to deliver inspired rock’n’roll gained them the support slots with Oasis, Kasabian, Paul Weller, The Courteeners, The Happy Mondays and Ian Brown to name but a few, as well as sell-outs on their first UK and European tours.
Constant touring across the UK, Europe and Japan the UK (thanks to the Grass Route movement and the big festivals) led to a solid fanbase despite the dramatic trajectory of its frontman, Jonny Brown - or maybe because of it. Twisted Wheel has indeed rocked and rolled, been smashed up, fallen off the wagon, gone solo, kicked to the kerb – before finding its groove and getting back on it, full speed ahead.
The unlikely combination of elegance and raw inspiration, the familiar coupled with the random, make Twisted Wheel an undeniably popular act that delivers the goods in a way few bands can. But ‘Snakes and Ladders’ is a tour and album far closer to the bone that anything previous. The band has grown up and Brown’s song structures and lyrics are on another level, beyond haggard experience now, worn in with wisdom and wit. As he says: ‘The song ‘Smash It Up’ epitomised me. I set out to do things and was on the road comfortably and then I turned off and smashed it to bits. I get stuck into things with a passion and then I have to destroy it when the passion’s gone. Mess everything up so that I’m free again to reinvent, create.’ And ‘Snakes and Ladders’ is frankly about the band blowing the ladders of opportunity they were given – and the snakes which led to them falling off the board. It’s a tour about getting back in the game, finding opportunity again and avoiding those slithery serpents.
Twisted Wheel is back like a man from the dead and with tunes to make up for time lost.
The Oldham four spoker (Harry Lavin, James Highton, Richard Allsopp and Jonny Brown) has a gang of songs above and beyond their previous best, recording in Preston as this goes to press. A new UK tour starts in April plus a single, festivals and a further tour before the album release in the autumn. The band built a great foundation through the Grass Route venues which were the genuine ladders through which Twisted Wheel gained its success. A decade later, and they are still how Twisted Wheel gain access to the game – this time avoiding the pitfalls.
Twisted Wheel were the hardest working band in 2009, gaining the PRS Award for playing the most gigs of any young band. They are grafters, rock n rollers but with the edge of genuine poetry; few can forget Jonny’s ‘Bouncing Bomb’ or ‘What’s Your Name?’ but audiences will be hungry for his more poignant blues numbers on this tour. ‘We’re not just in a rock ‘n’ roll, punk box. I write a range of songs. This time, more of my poetry will come out which focuses on things that matter, a commentary on what’s going on in the world. Bands play it safe because they don’t want to upset people. But your job as an artist is to say what others can’t, to speak the truth.’
Twisted Wheel – it may have been bad, bent and broken but it’s back, a band with integrity, fun and experienced authority.
Named after the iconic central Manchester soul club, local Oldham act Twisted Wheel comprised guitarist and lead vocalist Jonny Brown, bassist Richard Lees, and drummer Adam Clarke. Born in February 2007 out of the ashes of Brown and Lee’s previous \'60s rock-inspired project the Children, this raucous and ramshackle, punk-inflected indie rock trio performed their first gig only a week after their formation.

As with a handful of their U.K. contemporaries -- in particular Dundee\'s the View and Coventry\'s the Enemy -- the band shared an obsession with the spikiness and immediacy of the Jam, the Clash, and Oasis. Critically, their suitably raw and energetic demo found its way to the mutually revered Paul Weller -- via former-Inspiral Carpets organist and fellow Oldham indie luminary-turned-XFM DJ, Clint Boon. This resulted in a handful of opening slots with the ex-Jam frontman and an invitation to record at his Surrey-based studio, to boot. The combination of hometown support, a growing web presence, and the band\'s confidence and hard-working attitude led to a deal with Columbia, who issued their 7\" only single \"You Stole the Sun\" in July 2008. Setting out their stall, the track pushed Brown\'s gruff and heavily accented vocals to the forefront, while the verse dared to dabble with a double-speed rhythm more commonly associated with U.S. hardcore punk acts such as NOFX. Further singles -- such as November\'s \"Lucy the Castle\" and in particular, the following year\'s \"We Are Us\" -- stayed true to the no-nonsense, straight U.K. indie approach of Oasis, who in turn asked Twisted Wheel to support them at various mammoth European shows during 2008 and 2009.

Indirectly aping the Beatles\' completion of Please Please Me in one 1963 day, Brown unabashedly recorded all of his vocals for Twisted Wheel\'s self-titled debut in one 24-hour Los Angeles studio session. The Dave Sardy-produced album was released to mixed reviews in April 2009, but was filled with the same youthfulness and vigor that epitomized their live shows as well as much of early 21st century, post-Arctic Monkeys, mainstream U.K. alternative rock. ~ James Matthew Wilkinson