Another post in the occasional series about top quality unsigned bands who had a too-brief and almost too-beautiful burn across this planet of ours…
I can’t remember how the name of the Oxfordshire-based ‘The Winchell Riots’ first appeared in my consciousness, but from the first track of theirs I heard – the lovely ‘Undertows’ – I was hooked.
I followed the work of The Winchell riots; live and recorded, I became a consumer of their top quality indie performances.
I saw them at countless local venues. I was jumping up and down in the front row, rejoicing in their top performance, during their stunning set on the BBC Unsigned stage at Reading Festival in 2011.
I was, months later, in the audience of the Jacqueline du Pré auditorium in St Hilda’s College, Oxford University, for the band’s farewell/break-up gig.
The Winchell Riots never failed to deliver, to their extremely loyal fans, a top class performance. Their songs speak of worlds similar to ours, but worlds of emotion and beauty and places tinged with emotional pain.
The Winchell Riots’ self-composed, self-produced musical art puts to complete shame so much of the utter crap that mainstream radio thrusts at us.
Even now.