Skinny Lister are a family of like-minded musicians who came together in 2009. Quintessentially English to the core and with folk in their hearts, Dan, Lorna, Maxwell, Samuel C.Brace and Daniel are kindred spirits with a passion and verve that courses through their barnstorming music; equal parts traditional folk and ramshackle pop, rip roaring and rum totingly exciting, a Skinny Lister gig is an experience that spins you round, lifts you up and puts the diddle in the middle of your smiling face. Whether its heave-ho-ing shanties, family penned traditional songs or their own trade mark sounds from a lost summer spent tripping through fields of corn or hazy nights at a country pub, Skinny Lister is a lifestyle and the soundtrack to happiness.

This summer is the first summer of Skinny Lister and what a summer it’s been.. From Glastonbury to the Isle of Wight, Camp Bestival to Leeds Festival and Leek to Greenwich and back, Skinny Lister have spread the colours of the summer with their sunkissed brand of pop-folk songs, flying kites on breezy heights across the UK, winning and spinning fans along the way. For a Skinny Lister gig is more than just songs, it’s about singing and dancing, do-si-do-ing, laughing and leaving all your worries behind for just a few minutes. The only blackberries Skinny Lister know are the ones that stain your hands and turn your ice cream purple.

Skinny Lister’s infectious melody’s and good times songs such as Plough & Orion, Colours and Kite Song have already pricked the most discernible of ears including, 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson who championed the band’s fledgling release, December Song. The Independent summed up the Skinny Lister sound with “It’s really quite lovely music - tunes to soundtrack a day spent relaxing’, whilst NME Radio hailed it ‘Bruisingly pleasant stuff”, and respected beardstroking online music site Drowned in Sound described the band as ‘Heartfeltedly glorious, somewhere between the Arcade Fire and Los Campesinos’

August two thousand and ten and as the last of the summer rum comes to an end Skinny Lister are embarking on a new voyage and adventure as they set off on their Narrowboat Tour down the Grand Union canal from Linslade in Bedfordshire, cruising the waterways of Great Britain, playing at lockside pubs and hostelries along the way and ending up at Camden Lock for a rip-roaring night of music, song, dancing and fun with the bunting strung high at Camden’s olde Lock Tavern. As they cruise down the beautiful canal ways into London the band will write and sing, write and sing, laugh and love, capturing their unique sound, in new songs and old, in shanties and diddles culminating in the recording of the very special ‘Grand Union’ EP that will be given away to all who sail in the good ship Skinny at the Lock Tavern that night.

So come along for the ride, we are Skinny Lister…Haul away, Haul away

Skinny Lister are:
Daniel Heptinstall: Lead vocal & Acoustic Guitar
Lorna Thomas: Vocals
Dan Gray: Double bass & Ukelele
Samuel Brace: Electric Guitar & vocals
Max Thomas: Melodeon

Links:
www.myspace.com/skinnylister
www.waterways.org.uk Festival Opening Times:
10am - 6 pm Saturday & Sunday, 10am - 5 pm Monday
The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is holding it’s 2010 National Festival at Beale Park on the River Thames at Pangbourne, near Reading during the August Bank Holiday weekend, 28 - 30 August 2010. With over 450 visiting boats booked — a lovely riverside campsite — and exciting exhibitors IWA’s 2010 Beale Park Festival is promising to be an event to remember.
The 2010 National Festival also coincides with the centenary of the birth of one of The Inland Waterways Association’s founders - Tom Rolt. L T C Rolt met with Robert Aickman and others at a historic meeting in August of 1945, at Tardebigge Lock, on the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. This meeting led to the formation of The Inland Waterways Association in the following year.
To celebrate the centenary of Tom’s birth, The Inland Waterways Association will be holding their 2010 Festival in his honour.
Speaking on behalf of IWA, the Festivals Chairman, Ian West, said:
‘We are delighted to be returning to Beale Park, which has proved to be such a successful venue in previous years, and we are pleased to be able to hold it in Tom’s honour in this, his centenary year. In making this return we hope that many members of the IWA will join us in re-enacting part of the famous “Cressy” cruise which Tom Rolt undertook and which he recounted in his book ‘Narrow Boat’, which did so much to capture post war interest in the plight of the waterways’. ‘IWA is equally delighted