Mr Cyn
 Musical Genre/Type: Rock
Formed: 1987 Split: 1988
Dave Fitzgerald - Lead Vocals (Stonydelph)
Tim Latham - Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals (Fazeley)
[Also in Omen and One On One]
Andy Malkin - Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals (Leyfields)
[Also in One On One]
Stuart Blain (Pickett) - Drums (Stonydelph)
[Also in One On One]
Gary Lancaster - Keyboards (Polesworth)
[Also in One On One]
Formed from the members of One on One, they were great times! The Assembly Rooms gig was recorded 'live'.
Cold Eyes (Mr Cyn)
Sweet Taste (Mr Cyn)
The Only One (Mr Cyn)
Secrets (Tim Latham)
Shine on Me (Mr Cyn)
First Gig: Tamworth Assembly Rooms (08/1987)
Last Gig: Tamworth Assembley Rooms (08/1987)
14/02/88
Battle of the Bands
The Conspiracy
Mr Cyn
Torn in Two
Scream Dream
Future Field
Tamworth Arts Centre
11/03/88
Scum Ball
Scream Dream
Spiral Eye
Mr. Cyn
New Age Gypsies
The Detroit Sinners
Assembly Rooms
Thanks to:
Andy Malkin
Tamworth Herald - 29/01/88
Salute the best in new rock talent
TAMWORTH ARTS Centre is to stage a new version of the annual ‘Battle of the Bands’ in February – featuring only bands who are new to the scene. The idea was to turn the event into a ‘Most Promising Band of the Year’ contest and it has been thrown open to any group who have emerged since the last ‘Battle’ of 1987.
Already 15 groups have been nominated to take part over three heats in February. The winners on each night will then be invited to a gala final on Friday, march 4 with a £75 prize and Young People’s Arts Festival awards for the eventual victors.
Among the better known bands who will be involved are Fetch Eddie, The Conspiracy and Kubla Khan, but the event will also be the platform for first ever concerts by groups such as The BBC, Mr. Cyn and DHSS.
Although there may be slight alterations before the finalised line-ups, the current running order and the new ‘Battle of the Bands’ is as follows:
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 7:
Torn in Tow, The Conspiracy, Scream Dream, The Cuddly Spiders and Future Field.
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 14:
New Age Gypsies, Mr Cyn, Fetch Eddie, Jim Crows, The Band With No Name.
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 28:
DHSS, Kraze, Kubla Khan, Spiral Eye, The BBC.
On each night the judges will be made up of members of longer-established Tamworth bands such as Wolfsbane, Catch 23, A5, Rape In Yellow, Depth Charge (now called Never Say Die) and so on. It will be their job to pick one winner from each night, who will go forward to a grand final along with the second highest-scoring group.
For the winners there will be cash and trophy prizes, but perhaps more importantly, the title of Tamworth’s Most Promising Band of 1988.
On each of the heat nights the bands – who cover everything across the rock spectrum – will have just 20 minutes to impress the judges, and with five bands on each night no-one should have anytime to get bored!
We will give more details of each of the concerts in the next couple of weeks but for the time being clear your Sunday evenings in February and get ready to salute the best in new rock talent within this music barmy area.
Tamworth Herald - 12/02/88
Plans have been unveiled for a major new-band concert at the Assembly Rooms on Friday, March 11. The show, which should be a perfect finale to the new group ‘Battle of the Bands’ contest, have been ambitiously put together by members of Scream Dream and Spiral Eye who have taken the brave and highly commendable decision to go for broke at a venue that has seen the likes of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Dr. Feelgood and even Dickens! The bands on offer at this the ‘Scum Ball’ will be Scream Dream, Spiral Eye, Mr. Cyn, Detroit Sinners and The New Age Gypsies. Tickets must be bought in advance and cost a mere £1.50 but we have two to give away in a simple contest. Just tell us the answers to the following and two ‘Scum Ball’ tickets are yours. (1) What was Spiral Eye drummer Jim’s stagename as a member of Attica? 2) What band did Tim Latham and Ted Wilson used to play on?
3) What was Scream Dream drummer Duane, publicly labelled at this time last year? Simple isn’t it? Just send your answers to Musicbox.
Tamworth Herald - 12/02/88
OUR TEAM of reviewers have been out and about again this weekend concentrating on two gigs in particular – the special Comic Relief show on Friday night and the highly successful ‘Battle of the Bands’ show on Sunday which brought over 200 people to the Arts Centre – the biggest attendance at the venue since last year’s battle.
Mr Cyn – Battle of the Bands
IMPRESSIVE entry to the world from a band who gave us exactly what we were expecting – style. They combined the Olde One On One professionalism with a new, clearly defined sound of which ‘Shine On Me’ was…Musically it was faultless under Tim Latham in brilliant form and Dave Fitzgerald impressing everyone with his powerful vocal show. Undoubtedly once of THE new bands of 1988.
Sam Holliday
Tamworth Herald - 28/02/88
There are only two weeks now to the ambitious ‘Scum Ball’ project at Tamworth Assembly Rooms. As a reminder, various enthusiastic new bands have pooled their resources and finances to book the Assems for the (Friday) night to put on an array of new talent. The five bands to be featured – Mr. Cyn, Spiral Eye, Scream Dream, The New Age Gypsies and The Detroit Sinners – are eagerly awaiting the chance to shine on such a big, impressive stage and they hope the audience will turn out in big, impressive numbers. Tickets are now on sale for the show, from members of all the bands involved or directly from The William Tolputt Press, George Street.
Tamworth Herald - 11/03/88
A UNIQUE concert takes place tonight (Friday) at the Assembly Rooms. Under the banner of “The Scum Ball”, the special concert is designed to be another major display of the area’s rising musical talent spotlighting five relatively new acts.
Among these are new Battle of the Bands winners Scream Dream plus three other groups who sparkled in the contest – Spiral Eye, Mr Cyn and New Age Gypsies. And to complete a strong line-up we find a totally new and not entirely serious act who call themselves The Detroit Sinners.
“The Scum Ball” is so unusual in that in the spirit of the Tamworth Rock Festival it has been totally paid for by all the bands on the show. The Assems does not come cheap and with all the attendant PA costs and more, it means all five groups had to put their hands deep into their pockets to ensure that we could all go to the ‘Ball’.
The five bands all see the concert as a chance to further discover the talents that were graphically unveiled during the ‘Battle of the bands’. One of the bands, Spiral Eye, say that all the groups will be playing longer, stronger sets than in the ‘Battle’ and will be offering one or two additional extras.
It should be a real party atmosphere and all the Scum Ball organisers hope that a successful turnout at Tamworth’s top venue will mean that more concerts of this kind will find their way onto a stage which has welcomed the likes of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in former glory years.
The bands on offer – with the exception of the Detroit Sinners – should now be known to local audiences thanks to the Battle of the Bands. Scream Dream of course will come fresh from their triumph last Friday and will no doubt still be in celebratory mood at being acclaimed as Tamworth’s Most Promising New Band. Their sound has its roots in modern Sisterhood and latter-day punk and involves sterling guitar work and punishing vocals. The New Age Gypsies offers a rock-base dose of hippydom! While the Spiral Eye contingent offer a hippy-based dose of hippydom! Their debut show at the Arts Centre was both amazing and eye-opening and combines Velvet Underground sounds with a later Sixties atmosphere and attitude which was quite intoxicating. It will be very interesting indeed to see how that translates to the wider theatre of the Tamworth Assembly Rooms.
Completing the quartet of bands who you will already know are the ‘new’ One On One – Mr. Cyn. The band opened their account with a professional, stylish show in the ‘Battle’ contest which would probably have won them a place in the final had it not been such an amazingly strong heat.
Unlike the more alternative-based bands on the ‘Scum Ball’ line-up, Mr. Cyn should appeal to people who like to hear rock in all its various shades and anyone who likes to hear first-class arrangements and first-class musicians. As for The Detroit Sinners they are a real ‘wait and see’ act who feature a host of interesting musicians and cause wide smiles whenever their name is mentioned. Watch that space.
So five different bands and one very different concert. The Assembly Rooms is a lovely, credible setting for rock concerts and if tonight’s show is the success everyone is hoping for, it could be opening its doors on many more occasions yet. All the musicians who set up the ‘Scum Ball’ (which starts at 7pm and goes on until 12.30am) deserve support and credit so if you want to support a worthwhile show and enjoy a fine concert to boot get along to the Assembly Rooms tonight.
It costs a mere £1.50 on the door and there are not many balls you can get into for that meagre amount.
Tamworth Herald – 02/06/89
ANOTHER MUSICBOX reader-reviewer was on hand at the b and Mr Cyn show last week, so here are the reviews of Kevin K, followed by another report of the recent Big Noise gig.
Big in Texas
Coming all the way from Coventry it must have been disheartening to see only a handful of spectators. The rest of you don’t know what you missed!
I wouldn’t like to categorise the sound of the music, it’s got so many different elements to it, the singing had a definite Siouxsie/Sinead edge to it.
Stand out songs were ‘Honey’ and ‘Don’t Know About You’ and the last song when they all went mad and the singer from Flowers in the Attic joined in. Supa!
Curious Oyster
Sounding very like The Cocteau Twins with the dreaded ‘drum machine’. Very ‘Gothy’ and soft and warm and cuddly, I’d like to listen to them while lying in batch of milk.
Mr Cyn
One packed Arts Centre and lots of fans ensured a very warm welcome for these young men. They couldn’t really go wrong, could they?
Well they didn’t and played really well, a bit like Magnum. Who was the guitarist! Sack him now, send him to Canada or something! (Ha, Ha)
One bad point, the keyboard player was wearing a black vest. Still.
Lots of Love,
Kevin K. |
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