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• Singer - songwriter

Vinny Peculiar [aka Alan Wilkes] has been variously described as – ‘An under sung national treasure’ [UNCUT Magazine 2014] – 'a warm hearted Morrissey' [Q Magazine 2014] and 'the missing link between Jarvis Cocker and Roger McGough' [Irish Times 2014].

Vinny has collaborated with Bill Drummond, shot videos with Tom Robinson and his various bands have included ex members of The Smiths, The Fall, Aztec Camera & OASIS. A former compere on the Glastonbury Festival Acoustic Stage, he has toured extensively opening for British Sea Power, Edwyn Collins and Nils Lofgren to name a few. He’s the main songwriter in Parlour Flames, a musical collaboration with ex OASIS rhythm guitarist Bonehead; their acclaimed debut album was released in 2013 via Cherry Red.

Whether performing with his a band, solo or duo Vinny Peculiar live shows draw comparisons to a plaintive gentler Eels or to the pastoral storytelling elements of The Kinks. Current shows focus on songs from SILVER MEADOWS, the new concept album set the world of long stay psychiatric Institutions. Its darkly tragic comic reflections and astute social history have already seen it dubbed a British ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest’ set to music. A stage play is currently in development.

Blending nostalgia and sentiment (English Village, Catalogue Trousers, I Only Stole What I Needed, The Doo Kum Inn) with resignation (Girl at the Bar) and wit (The King of Pop, Antony Gormley), Down the Bright Stream succeeds so well because the veracity of the largely autobiographical lyrics makes it intact and invulnerable.

Part Pulp, part Kinks, and very much part Peculiar, this is observational, punk-tinged songwriting at its best. IRISH TIMES ****

‘A well-measured introduction to an under sung national treasure’ UNCUT MAGAZINE 8/10

‘The missing link between Jarvis Cocker and poet Roger McGough and some of the wittiest lyrics this side of Wreckless Eric’ THE TIMES

This fifteen-track album from the Salford based singer songwriter is frankly, unmissable. A real joy. AMERICANA- UK

Crashing poppily through Vinnys world of nostalgia and insight every song stuffed to the gills with melody and eccentricity, clever, funny and wonderfully weird’ R2 MAGAZINE

‘If Tony Hancock had made pop records they’d have sounded like this’ MOJO

“Wildly witty with abject sadness and pathos in swathes, like a warm hearted Morrissey no less’ INDEPENDENT