unkle bob

i found this article about a band called unkle bob that has become one of my new favs. you may have heard one of their songs on (gasp!) grey's anatomy.. and if you can't jog your own memory then i will do so for you. it was during the ending scene of the episode where meredith dies. meredith is all better and izzie is walking out of the hospital and she connects with denny. tear! ok anyways the song is called swans and you should check it out.


"It may seem strange now but, in that crazy year (2006), Unkle Bob were not yet a household name and their tunes - as sensational and perfectly formed as they may be – were yet to be as significant as they have now become, their presence barely acknowledged on the nation’s airwaves. In short, 2006 may be remembered for several events but the barely-perceptible arrival of a gang of twenty-somethings from Glasgow University and environs is probably not one of them. Historians, however, may choose to disagree: in amongst the manufactured pop drivel, the excitable indier-than-thou new Smiths-elects and the R & B soundalikes you too may have had the good fortune to have stumbled upon something quite special. Enter Unkle Bob with debut album Sugar and Spite.

Well, we can dream, but we are not without a sense of bonhomie here at Unkle Bob Towers. Nor are we alone in believing that Unkle Bob have the wherewithal to be one of this decade’s greatest bands. Surely formed by the thought that “they just don’t write them like that anymore do they?” Unkle Bob are a band you will want to listen to again and again - just to make sure they are as good as you think they are. In the past few months you may have heard a lot about Guilty Pleasures and The Feeling and Orson and the return of the song but Unkle Bob are another thing altogether – instantaneous, classic, contemporaneous. Indeed, what were you expecting - a Supertramp revival?

Unkle Bob are Rick Webster (vocals, guitar), Stuart Cartwright (vocals, guitar, banjo, mandolin), Ron Yeadon (drums, percussion), Tad MacDonald (bass) and Geoff Widdowson (keyboards). Formed in and around Glasgow University in the last few years, Unkle Bob have an uncanny knack of sounding like they’ve been hanging around your record collection your whole life. The band’s list of (guilty) listening pleasures includes Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Van Morrison, Tim Buckley, John Lennon, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground, Carole King and John Martyn – though Cartwright, the band’s only Scottish-born member, mentions the Stone Roses, and Widdowson (the only band member to have been schooled in a monastery and be taught by monks) cites the Doors, Blur and the Incredible String Band. Having said all that an Unkle Bob song can remind you of REM, Shack, Prefab Sprout, the Pernice Brothers and Radiohead - all in one unbelievable flurry of activity they (rather blithely, in my opinion) call a song."