The Band

Who does what then?

Joe plays piano & organ, sings backing vocals & writes, on average, about one song per album. He wears hats & his lips are easily stained when he drinks red wine, giving him a peculiar look when he’s been at the booze. He speaks rather quietly & moves through the world with carefree caution, if you can imagine such a condition. But on stage he’s an ivory & indeed ebony pounding monster. Unsurpisingly, he has a collection of vintage 1960s Italian made organs. Look out for some pictures of them on the pictures page somewhere. He’s also a stalwart of Neville Staple’s band, so he spends as much time playing Rat Race as he does Gravity Calling. Buy him a glass of red wine at one of Neville’s gigs…

He looks like this:

Joe

Then there’s Mike who plays the drums & whose presence on the Flipron stage is like a cloud of noxious Sarcasm Gas. Mike also collects stuff, much of which doesn’t work, & enjoys his spare moments in a Somerset field, enhancing the scenery with decaying caravans & tending with paternal care his vegetable plot. The whole thing is protected by a complex maze of lethal home-made electric fences, in case you get any ideas. He is very, very particular about his drums

& he looks like this:

Mike

Jesse sings, plays guitars & other things & writes most of the songs. A contemplative, pensive type who, nevertheless, given the meerest whiff of an opportunity, seems hopelessly drawn to shameless frontman-style showing off. He will also talk far too long between songs, unaware of other band members nodding off or undermining his utterances with mocking gestures of contempt. His house is a grotto of worthless, broken musical instruments.

This is what he looks like:

Jesse.

And who plays the bass?

Since the first album, several people have played bass either on record or live, but the current official main bass man is John. He looks somewhat like the evil emperor of a space empire, the Lord of some distant solar system whose inhabitants are known for their barbarism, their cruelty & their colonial ambitions, & indeed in his spare time he maintains a medium size undergound lair/rocket launch base with a little monorail & henchmen in futuristic overalls. He is known to some as the Emperor Mingus & he can wither an indoor fern or a yukka plant just with a glance. He, like Joe, is also a full time Two Toner, as he plays bass in the Selecter as well as Flipron.

When John is unavailable, (galactic domination makes big demands on his time) Flipron have two further bass players, Firstly, super-sub Nick. Nick much prefers gardening to any of that space business. Quite right. The band phone him as little as possible because his otherwise friendly dog transforms, Jekyll & Hyde style, into an explosive, phone eating hell-hound should the poor man attempt to speak on such a device in said canine company….

Secondly, Tom. Tom is a quiet man who travels, like some kind of assassin of the lower frequencies, with an enormous stacked bass rig, a deadly monolith of ground shaking, sphincter loosening, knee slackening profundity. At least it would be if we let him turn it up that loud. Other than a fondness for cider, the band have yet to learn of any other weaknesses.