| [About Paul]_[Music]_[Theatre]_[Contact] | |||
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 Paul, aka Dr Space Toad, fronts his band, The Dr Space Toad Experience, at the Hobgoblin, Brighton, 2005 |
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Au revoir, Bruno, Paul sings in French for his cat. |
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| ABOUT PAUL | |||
| Paul Francis Cheetham started his musical career in Norwich by forming a punk band called the toads who built up a big local following. He went through a musical evolution and formed his next band the Ebonyset, a new romantic/gothic band who also had local success but split as they were beginning to take off. His next band, The Blue Warthogs were a psychedelic rock guitar band who played around Norfolk and also Dingwalls in London, doing a short tour of Holland before splitting up in 1985. He then formed the Ruskinsons this deriving their name from his own stage name: Jean Paul Ruskinson. This band was best described as a psychedelic jazz rock, country fusion band. When the Ruskinsons split, Paul left Norwich and moved to London, playing gigs as an acoustic singer songwriter under the name of Jean Paul Dionysis | |||
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He played around London in venues such as The Troubadour,Bungies, The Town and Country Club, The Poodle Lounge at Club Dog etc. The picture at left was taken by a female photographer from New York at The Troubadour. After a little time, Paul became known as 'The Troubadour'. The Troubadour and the other new acoustic venues were a platform for the rich variety of artistes around at the time such as Keziah Jones (now well known in France as well as the UK), Sam Green, Ference Azman, Dave Ryan (author of John Lennon's Secret) PJ Fahey, Miro and Roy Harper to name but a few. Paul became a pivotal figure in this emerging scene | ||
| After three years, Paul left London disillusioned with the competitive nature of the scene. He returned to Norwich after a brief spell in the West Country and trips to France and Ireland. He felt he had lost sight of what he was trying to achieve and in Norwich formed a new band, 'The Time Machine'. Whilst in Norwhich, he also got involved in the theatre, discovering a talent for acting. After a year, he moved to Brighton where he started Club Space Toad after having reinventing himself as 'Doctor Spacetoad'. It was here that his new band, The Doctor Spacetoad Experience, came together. |  |
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| The band toured around England,Belgium making regular appearances at festivals such as Glastonbury and the the Big Green Gathering. This band was described as weird,wonderful and vaudeville withCaptain Sensible(sometimes known as the Godfather of Punk) on bass guitar, 'Monty the Moron', a psychiatric nurse ( or possibly patient) on keyboards, Captain Barrington-White, (a local Brighton eccentric) on space whisper machine and a succession of insane drummers. This band can lay claim notoriety, since it became known as the only Dada-ist band in existence.... In 1996, Dr Spacetoad and the band brought out an inter-galactic concept album called 'Time Machine' which is still available on voiceprint | |||
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| As well as fronting 'the Experience', Paul also kept a busy gigging and recording schedule with his solo acoustic act, playing at many venues throughout the UK and indeed, he also performed some Scandinavian gigs with appearances in Brittany,France etc. | |||
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These two pictures are from the gig that Paul did supporting Sonja Kristina at the Concorde in Brighton. On a few of his songs, he was joined by two other musicians:violinist Ashar and Monty on percussion. Coincidentally, Paul also knew Sonja from the Troubadour days in London when she had become involved in the happening music scene. | ||
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| Keeping his hand in by regular busking in London,Brighton,Paris, Amsterdam, Venice and even Marrakesh, Paul continue in the Minstrel tradition. Here is a picture of Paul playing outside Windsor Castle. The wonderful image of the castle in the background, helps make this image especially magical considering Paul's timeless minstrel persona. In the last few years, Paul has played extensively throughout France( a country which he feels appreciates his artistry) and recently Holland(Van Gogh is Paul's favourite artist). He has also made some appearances in Spain. He loves Flamcenco guitar playing especially and now for a number of years, he has been studying the techinques of this incredible music. He has also mastered a number of classical Spanish guitar pieces, including some music from the sixteenth century. | |||
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Recently, Paul has completed a three year degree course in music and related arts at Chichester University, which helped to hone his ecclectic talents including opera singing. Although he had been out of higher education for many years, he succeeded in recieving a 2/1 honours degree through tenacity and self-discipline. Now Paul has gone back to his Troubadour roots and is busy playing and composing with a view to recording more music for his next album and forthcoming concerts.
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