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Bearpit Brothers EP Launch

Thirty years in the making, Bearpit Brothers release first EP

It's the 1980s's and I catch a gig somewhere in the bowels of Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom by a band called 'The Creeping Charlies'. I'm completely blown away by their dissonant, angular mix of Rock 'n' roll, Rockabilly, Early Beatles and vocals that remind me a wee bit of Roy Orbison. I'm thinking, those guys look and sound great they are clearly destined for big things.

Fast forward some 30 years and I'm having a coffee with Robert Ruthven in Tinderbox on Glasgow's Byres Road. Robert is the singer of The Creeping Charles and I'm asking him when the first album will be out.

In the intervening years the Creeping Charlies music got even better even weirder; 'The Charlies' sound reared up like a thing living in a world entirely of its own invention. But along the way they encountered tragedy on both a personal and professional front; if you could stack bad luck they would have needed to hire storage facilities to house it. Master tapes of completed albums were lost in studio fires and crashed hard disks, and even more tragically one band member had mental health issues that led to him taking his own life.

Band managers and producers came and went promises grew hope, which then evaporated with the lost tapes.

Robert just smiles at my question; he's heard it too often and knows that whatever answer he gives will stir something uncomfortable in his psyche. I'm still looking forward to the first album; these guys are no longer doing live gigs but they still make music, are no less great and deserve to be heard.

So we hatch a plan

That plan is coming to fruition on 23rd November 2013 with an EP featuring myself, Robert Ruthven and Lawrence Alexander the two remaining active members of the Creeping Charlies. Together we call ourselves Bearpit Brothers. The music is a mix of the strong musical flavours that both Robert and Lawrence bring to everything they do and my own country, rock and roots influences. Though it clearly draws influenced from the 1950s and early 1960s (think Richard Hawley, Roy Orbison, The Beatles, The Mavericks, pre Rock 'n' Roll country music) it's new music not pastiche.

Thirty years is a long time to wait for your first official release. This will be a special night.

Jim Byrne