~13 Stars~

In this upcoming band spot we are looking to the North of England quite close to the Scottish border, based in the city of Carlisle are 13 Stars.

Named not as you might think after the flag of the Confederate South but that of the fledgling United States about the time of the revolutionary war reputedly a flag made by patriot Betsy Ross at the behest of George Washington. 13 Stars also style themselves as rebels adjusting their playing styles and repertoire to avoid being pigeon holed (or labelled by me which is a b*gg*r) as a particular genre of band, segueing between Skynyrd-esque southern rock,blues,to balladetic occasionally folk rock and on into hard rock territory they cover a lot of ground. They are not the only band to do this my collection has that well worn end made up of bands with transitional styles if you can make it work then there is a big audience waiting and from what I've seen they will tailor the performance to suit the gig even going as far as playing acoustic sets based around songs from their earlier album. They are slick players and getting a great audience response across the country, making it onto local radio this year has helped spread the word, with an already decent calender of tour dates including (handily) a couple of visits to Manchester I can see them spreading out further very soon. A list of dates is here and they make no bones about being readily available so its an ideal opportunity for venues with spots to fill. With tour credit for being out supporting Fish, John Waite, Dan Reed and It Bites not forgetting Festival appearances notably they did a massive set of an hour and forty minutes at last years Maryport Blues Festival, needless to say they have a lot of experience and material to call upon.

The band was formed in 2010 and with recent line up changes now features founder Matt "Hoss" Thompson (who doesn't really look that much like 'Hoss' of Bonanza)who covers Vocals, Guitar and Keyboards, Jax Sedgwick on Guitar, Matty Eden on Bass and Vocals and Andy Bates (late of Feed Me) on Drums - (Jax and Matty were formerly with Cumbrian Rockers 'Tropical Fruit Disaster' cracking name that for a band )

and as we like to do the band are from the left Andy, Matty, Jax and in the front Matt(Hoss) On to content 13 Stars are releasing their third album their first eponymous (Ok thats self titled) album was mainly folk and heavily acoustic moving more towards southern rock at the second outing, their new album is a much heavier prospect titled 'Way Dju'. Picking just a couple of tracks Hinterland has that slow build Southern Rock feel to it underlined with a thumping rhythm support and a familiar piece wahwah pedal guitar that will find great favour with Skynyrd fans and Turandot which is aimed squarely at willful girlfriends has a very open almost ZZ Top feel to it - we will be reviewing the various albums in depth later so watch out for the review. I am positive whatever your taste you will find a lot to enjoy.