The Strange Death of Liberal England
The Strange Death of Liberal England is the name of the book George Dangerfield wrote in 1935 in an attempt to dissect the ins and outs of the slide in to obscurity of the British Liberal Party between 1910 and 1914. Some seventy years later, in 2005, five friends from Portsmouth though it would act as a great title for their apocalyptic post rock / indie / folk band. And with only that to go on, you can probably hazard a fair guess as to what TSDOLE as a band are about.
Yep, all five members of this remarkable collective (Adam Woolway, Andrew Wright, Andrew Summerly, Kelly Jones – not that one, this one’s a girl – and William Charlton) have their own way of doing things. For example, instead of talking to the audience at gigs, they choose to address the gathered throng using enormous placards with slogans such as “We are bandini!”, “Repent!” and “Thank you!” written on them. Indeed, their first songs were also devoid of the English tongue whatsoever.
Their more wordy efforts have since found their way in to the world via a 200 only pressing debut EP, the singles ‘A Day Another Day’ and ‘Oh Solitude’, and most recently the mini-album (well, it’s got eight songs, that’s as many as ‘Marquee Moon’!) ‘Forward March’, the last three all on the Fantastic Plastic label. This year has seen them tour with the Manic Street Preachers, wow audiences at the Latitude festival, and generally thoroughly impress Rockfeedback.
** COMING SOON ** - Rockfeedback’s Chris Helsen caught up with the band at their recent gig in London’s Metro Club to discuss, amongst other things, the plays of Bertolt Brecht. The results will appear here in due course.
MYSPACE.COM/TSDOLE: TSDOLE use their MySpace (of their ‘My [waste of] Space, as their refer to it) to throw videos, press quotes, a Maida Vale session and their two singles to date in your direction.
TSDOLE.CO.UK: The band’s official site has a coded Japanese message (which I guess if you’re Japanese is just a message), a very up to date news / blog service and a ‘capitalism’ section, where your filthy money can be exchanged for their shiny new goods – t shirts and the like.
GEORGE DANGERFIELD’S ‘THE STRANGE DEATH OF LIBERAL ENGLAND’: Buy the book. Then go up to the band after a gig and tell them they completely misunderstood it.
A DAY ANOTHER DAY: A five star retelling of our first encounter with Liberal England’s Strange Death.
LIVE @ LONDON SCALA, JUNE ‘07: On just before kindred spirts Of Montreal.
LODESTAR FESTIVAL: TSDOLE, after slaying Latitude fest, will also grace the stage of the inaugural LodeStar event in Cambridge next month. Have a look at the line up, and head towards our competition section if you fancy attending.