The Leylines, Folk The System, Nick Parker

British folk-punk for a summer’s afternoon, a sound forged in festivals and bonfires, with fiddle-driven rabble rousers and songs that stir the soul.

The Leylines was started by a group of West Country musicians driving home from a session at the legendary Sawmills Studios. Levelling The Land by The Levellers was on the car stereo. Something about the sound of the record, the rolling Cornwall landscapes and the smell of summer connected in writer and vocalist Steve’s head.Steve, a product of council estates and stints in the Army, put his observations on the state of the nation into music and started writing.

Adding the different musical backgrounds of band mates Matt (Guitar), Pete (Bass), Dave (Drums) and Hannah (Violin), The Leylines have created a style that combines the acerbic social commentary of the Mod and Punk eras, and a folk-rock vibe that will send you right back to those long, hazy festival days.The band saying is: “If you wouldn’t go out and have drink with someone, don’t work with them.” With a fiercely loyal and ever-growing fanbase, The Leylines guaranteed to have their audiences up on their feet – and they will be having as much fun as their audience while they’re doing it!

Folk The System
Punk/ Folk band formed in Banbury, Oxfordshire (UK) in 1992 by Simon Hill (Pil) (Vocal, 12 String, Tin Whistle), Maty Tustian (Bodhran, Vocals), Tony Partner (6 String, Bass) & John Tims (Fiddle, Mandolin).

Formed in the early 1990’s, Folk The System’s firebrand mix of folk mayhem and punk attitude soon carried them away from the pubs and clubs of their Banbury home.

Headlining and supporting bands such as Liberty Cage (Men They Couldn’t hang), Citizen Fish, Blyth Power and the Rhythmites (to name a few). They have played festivals and clubs from the tip of Cornwall to the wilds of the Scottish highlands gathering fans and friends where ever they stopped.
The band split up in the mid 1990’s after years of drinking, dancing and general chaos. But always remained friends with many a drunken night ending in plans to reform.

In mid 2013 lead singer and esteemed band leader Simon (Pil) bought a new 12 string and sent word to his troops that the music world needed another blast of Folk The System.
How could we refuse…?

Compared to Levellers, Pogues, New Model Army and today bands such as Ferocious Dog & Leatherat.

Glastonbury (UK) based Nick Parker was 13 when he first picked up a guitar and tried to string together a few chords.

By 14 he had put down the guitar and picked up the mandolin. Not least of all because he wanted to be in his brother, Ant’s band and they needed a mandolin player.

The first few gigs came and went, under the name ‘The Mandolin Brothers’ (genius) before they changed their name to ‘Why?’ (equally genius) and they spent the next 10 years bouncing around on stages at hundreds of venues around the UK and Europe, reeling out their folk/rock/skiffle (latterly known as friffle) sillyness to sweaty teens and twentysomethings.

Now under the name of ‘Nick Parker’ (again quite clever), Nick has released two full-length albums, 2010’s ‘The King of False Alarms’ and 2014’s ‘Angry Pork and the Occasional Bird’ on German label Tonetoaster Records.

Starting to feel a bit lonely, Nick recruited a few mates who quickly became known as the False Alarms who took to traipsing around Europe with him, Tetrissing their drums, bass, guitars, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, pedal steel and accordion into the back of his shiny new bandwagon.

Playing his tongue-firmly-in-cheek folky/country/straggly songs, Nick’s shows – solo or with the False Alarms -are as intimate and light-hearted as they are passionate and downright sweaty.