The Coral

Yeah.

But they're not as famous as, like, The Coral and The Zutons.

Uh-huh.

So then he's then ends up in The Zutons, and he, he, I've got an episode where I interviewed him.

Yeah.

There's something about that part of the world, 'cause my, my friends, as we discussed before we went on air, my friends from a band called The Coral, which is from The Wirral, they would always have just these insane stories about local characters that were knocking around.

The Skelly family grew up in, in pubs when they were younger, and they'd just tell me these most incredible stories, and I'd be like, "Where I grew up in Darlington, there was nothing like that going on where I lived that I ever saw." So yeah, there's something about the Merseyside area, I think, that just sort of seems to lend itself to this kind of stuff in a sense.

It's solely because it was a port.

So I asked him early on if he'd, if he'd do a score on a couple of things, and he'd always, like, always do amazing scores.

So this one, because it's, it's six stories, um, and I split the six stories.

I went to Steve and said, "I want you to write three pieces of music for these three." And then there's another, there's a producer in Liverpool called Steve Powell, who's worked with, like, he's worked with The Coral, he's worked with Mick Head.

Uh, he's got a recording studio in Liverpool.

Um, and, and then we went into the 21st century with the 21st Century Underground, and that w- that was tracked by The Big Kids, who was Edgar Jones, who'd been in The Stairs.

Um, The Tramptach, uh, who ha- had Dave McCabe in, who went on to do The Zoo- The Zutons, and the, um, fantastic Holcombe Clones, who were a duo who, who played old kinda like delta blues rag, rag kind of contemporary music, and they always supported The Coral or The Zutons.

So, so we, we kind of, um, crystallized that scene as well, the Liverpool scene, you know, which The Coral was happening simultaneously.

Yes.

But they were already signed to, uh, Alan's label, Deltasonic, you know.

Anyway, that, that was-

The Coral.

Yeah

...

it, The Coral.

So it got...

It, it really sort of took off after they joined, I think it's fair to say, wouldn't you say, chaps?

Why, why did you choose Liverpool to record the record?

Uh, we got talking to James, and obviously, like, The Coral are a amazing band, like, but, uh, we found out that, uh...

We had a call with James.

We were talking to a few different people.

He had a Vespa, but he crashed it.

He used to have, he used to have a garage rock band when he was youn- before us, like.

But, uh, we were trying to turn James Kelly against him, 'cause he loves The Coral and loves James, but James didn't do it.

[laughs]

And I am very interested in their swerve from their production.

So they used to be on the label of The Corals.

Is it James? James Skelly.

And this is their first album without him being their producer.

Krankenhaus 2026.

This is a festival organized by the band C-Power, and it's held in the beautiful grounds of Muncaster Castle.

It started way back in 2019, and then there was a two-year gap.

And then in 2022, it's been going ever since.

You name it, it's all happening at the Krankenhaus Festival.

Krankenhaus, the German word for hospital.

And I wondered why the festival was called Krankenhaus and apparently two years before the festival, the band had an EP out in 2007 called Krankenhaus, and somebody must have presumably thought, "You know, that would be a good title for our festival." And so it's been going ever since.

Highly recommended if you can get up to Muncaster Castle in West Cumbria.