Sir Richard Starkey, known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, usually for one song on each album, including "Yellow Submarine" and "With a Little Help from My Friends". He also wrote and sang the Beatles songs "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden", and is credited as a co-writer of four others.
Stiff Little Fingers are an Ulster punk rock band from Belfast, Northern Ireland (UK). They formed in 1977 at the height of the Troubles, which informed much of their songwriting. They started out as a schoolboy band called Highway Star, doing rock covers, until they discovered punk. They were the first punk band in Belfast to release a record – the "Suspect Device" single came out on their own independent label, Rigid Digits. Their album Inflammable Material, released in partnership with Rough Trade, became the first independent LP to enter the UK top 20.
James Chance, also known as James White, is an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer.
Black Oak Arkansas is an American Southern rock band named after the band's hometown of Black Oak, Arkansas. The band reached the height of its fame in the 1970s, charting ten albums according to Encyclopedia of Arkansas. Their style is punctuated by multiple guitar players and the raspy voice and on-stage antics of vocalist Jim "Dandy" Mangrum.
John "Jake" Burns is a singer and guitarist, and is best known as the frontman of Stiff Little Fingers, although he has also recorded with Jake Burns and the Big Wheel, 3 Men + Black, and as a solo artist.
Alistair Jardine "Ali" McMordie is a bass guitarist, best known as a founding member of Stiff Little Fingers, playing with the band from 1977 until they broke up in 1983, and joined them on the first few years of reunion tours five years later.
Hanx! is a live punk album by the band Stiff Little Fingers, released in 1980. Originally intended for the American market, in order to introduce the band before they toured there, it was subsequently released at a budget price in the UK, for the band were concerned that a lot of their fans would insist on buying the album on import anyway for a higher price. Jake Burns remarks on the sleeve notes for the CD reissue that only "Johnny Was" came from the Rainbow Theatre show, with the remainder recorded at the Aylesbury gig.
U.S. Bombs are an American punk rock band, formed in 1993 in Orange County, California, by Duane Peters and Kerry Martinez. For much of the band's career, the U.S. Bombs consisted of Peters and Martinez, with bass guitarist Wade Walston and drummer Chip Hanna. They have also played with Jonny "Two Bags" Wickersham. The U.S. Bombs play '77 style punk, influenced by The Clash, Heartbreakers, Ramones, Flyboys, Chelsea, Stiff Little Fingers, Shane MacGowan & The Popes, Sham 69, the Flys, & the Ruts.
"Shapes of Things" is a song by the English rock group the Yardbirds. With its Eastern-sounding, feedback-laden guitar solo and anti-war/pro-environmental lyrics, several music writers have identified it as the first popular psychedelic rock song. It is built on musical elements contributed by several group members in three different recording studios in the US and was the first Yardbirds' composition to become a record chart hit. When it was released as a single on 25 February 1966, the song reached number three in the UK and number eleven in the US.
Anton Fig, known as "The Thunder from Down Under", is a South African session drummer, perhaps best known as the drummer and second-in-command for Paul Shaffer and the World's Most Dangerous Band. David Letterman, for whom the band served as house band on his late-night talk shows, often referred to Fig as "Anton Zip" or "Buddy Rich Jr." Fig is also well known for his work with Kiss, Ace Frehley and Joe Bonamassa.
Adam Bomb is an American guitarist who worked with artists like TKO, Black 'N Blue, Steel Pulse, John Paul Jones, and Michael Monroe. His stage name is a play on the name Atom Bomb.
Jimmy Maelen was an American percussionist from the 1960s to 1980s, who worked with many artists including Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Peter Gabriel, James Taylor, Dire Straits, Barry Manilow, Alice Cooper, Kiss, Madonna, Bryan Adams, Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and John Lennon. He also played on hit records by Bob James, Duran Duran, Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Yoko Ono, Meatloaf, Alice Cooper, BJ Thomas, and many others.
Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie is an American drummer, and an influential R&B, soul and funk musician. He is known for his precise musical time-keeping and his signature use of triplets against a half-time backbeat: the "Purdie Shuffle." He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 2013.
"Running Bear" is a teenage tragedy song written by Jiles Perry Richardson and sung most famously by Johnny Preston in 1959. The 1959 recording featured background vocals by George Jones and the session's producer Bill Hall, who provided the "Indian chanting" of "uga-uga" during the three verses, as well as the "Indian war cries" at the start and end of the record. It was No. 1 for three weeks in January 1960 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States and the same on Canada's CHUM Charts. The song also reached No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart and New Zealand in 1960. Coincidentally, "Running Bear" was immediately preceded in the Hot 100 No. 1 position by Marty Robbins' "El Paso", and immediately followed by Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel", both of which feature a death of, or affecting, the protagonist. Billboard ranked "Running Bear" as the No. 4 song of 1960. The tenor saxophone was played by Link Davis.
Indians in Moscow are an English synth-pop band formed in Hull in 1981 who later moved into the techno and house music genres.
Cecil Bridgewater is an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
The Destructors are an English punk rock band from Peterborough, England, originally existing between 1977 and 1979 and then 1980 until 1984. They reformed as Destructors 666 in 2006 and then changed to The Destructors in 2009. The Destructors continue releasing their own brand of punk / skuzz / garage to this day.
"Suspect Device" is the debut single by Northern Irish punk band Stiff Little Fingers, released on 17 March 1978.
