Frank Sidebottom: Last News

Shed Seven drummer Alan Leach has announced details of his debut solo album – listen to first single ‘Clouds Behind The Moon’ below.The album, titled ‘I Wish I Knew Now What I Thought I Knew Then’, will come out on November 4 and was engineered and mixed by Embrace keys player Mickey Dale.Discussing the album in a statement, Leach said: “Until I wasn’t in Shed Seven any more, I didn’t realise just how much I was ready for a break and up for trying something different.I’ve had a lot of these songs buzzing around my head for years, but band life can tie up a lot of your energies, so until now, I never got around to doing anything with them.“As this is my debut album, I felt like I had a completely blank canvas, so I just threw stuff at it and hoped for the best. Romantic storytelling seems to be where I’m at my most comfortable writing lyrics, but that hasn’t stopped me from attempting to put the world to rights on a couple of songs.”He added: “Singing has been the big challenge. I went into the studio aiming for the lush northern tones of Jarvis Cocker, Alex Turner, Ian Brown and Richard Hawley, conceding that if the finished product didn’t sound like Frank Sidebottom, then I’d have done ok.”Listen to ‘Clouds Behind The Moon’ and see the tracklist for ‘I Wish I Knew Now What I Thought I Knew Then’ below.1. ‘A Dozen Of Me’2. ‘Clouds Behind The Moon’3. ‘Erica’4. ‘Going For A Song’5. ‘The One Love Generation’6. ‘If This Comes Off’ (featuring Hayley Hutchinson)7. ‘Anthem For The Here And Now’8. ‘Things Like This’9. ‘Clouds Behind The Moon’ (orchestral version)On December 2 and 3, Leach will present the album at two gigs at York venue The Crescent.

Frank Sidebottom’s talk show. Check out the footage below.Soul, best known for playing Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson on Starsky & Hutch in the 1970s, died on Thursday (January 4), following what his wife Helen Snell described as a “valiant battle for life in the loving company of family”.He went on to have his own music career, with the UK Number One singles ‘Don’t Give Up on Us’ and ‘Silver Lady’, but it is a very different musical performance that has been doing the rounds on social media this weekend.Soul once appeared on Frank Sidebottom’s Proper Telly Show, a short-lived anarchic chat show that was broadcast on Channel M in Greater Manchester in 2006 and 2007.The show, hosted by the absurdist comedian Chris Sievey’s persona Frank Sidebottom, welcomed Soul as a guest on the December 1, 2006 episode, with the two of them ending the show by playing a seemingly impromptu version of The Fall’s 1987 single ‘Hit the North’.“He’s playing it, can you believe it!” Sidebottom says as Soul takes to the keyboard to open the track.

Plans to bulldoze the community centre where cult comedian Frank Sidebottom recorded his music could come off the rails because of a restrictive covenant. An application to demolish the Riddings Community Centre in Timperley followed by the construction of five homes on the site has resulted in a 600-name petition amid a tide of local fury against the plan.

The former owner of the recording studio and community centre where cult comedian Frank Sidebottom made his hilarious music has described plans to bulldoze the building as ‘a tragedy’. Plans have been submitted to Trafford council asking permission to demolish the former Riddings Community Centre in the Timperley area of Altrincham in order to build five homes.