It’s not just a band… it’s a brand!
Rob Clarke and The Wooltones are from Liverpool: Rob Clarke, guitar and vocals, GP Chesters, bass, Pepe Hoonose, drums and Fran Ashcroft, production.
With a mix of Psych/60s/Mersey and West Coast styles they’ve featured on vinyl, CD and download compilations from Fruits De Mer, Winter Records, Active Listener, Psychedelic Underground Generation, Trip Inside This House and Psychgaze. And in many more blogs, compilations and playlists with tracks played on internet and radio stations worldwide, including the BBC and Rodney Bingenheimer (SIriusXM).
Current album ‘Putting The L in Wootones’ released in August 2020 achieved a top 50 albums of the year rating by Goldmine Magazine which noted ‘Words cannot express how much fun this album is’.
‘In the top 10 albums of 2020’ - Pop The Beat Bubble
'I'm glad he 'put the L back in Wootone', otherwise we'd here be missing Liverpool, love and local heroes’ - Bucketfull of Brains.
'Their songs give me traumatic sixties flashbacks and I wasn't even alive then!' - Liverpool Gigs
Albums ‘The World of The Wooltones’ (2014) (Staff Only Records), 'Are You Wooltoned?' (2016) and 'Big Night Out' (2018) (both released on USA New Jersey label Kool Kat Musik) have cemented this line up's Scouseadelic credentials.
Destined to drive your dansette delirious, this cool cookie is their debuting full length. Welcome, dear listener, to ‘The World Of The Wooltones’.
Tucked away in their secret studio lair Rob Clarke and The Wooltones and producer Fran Ashcroft have fermented a timeless song craft that digs deep into pop’s rich past blending skiffle, 60’s beat cool and sunny psychedelics, whilst echoing to a more recent memory.
‘The Wooltones pull off some incredible twists and turns. Imagine Donovan writing for early Cheap Trick – or, perhaps, vice versa' - Goldmine Magazine
‘Sumptuously honey glazed in a shit faced tab toking aura so laid back its almost comatose ….Essential – like you hadn‘t already guessed’ - Mark Barton
'Woolton may be known hitherto for its retirement homes, swimming baths and irresponsible conservatory home improvements.
But now, with a similar wild enthusiasm, Liverpool's brightest hit parade headliners, Rob Clarke and the Wooltones, take their ticket from the Mersey Tunnel to the Pier Head, and across the world and beyond with ‘Are You Wooltoned?’
And just like the forefathers of the Liverpool music scene, the songs are instantly likeable. They glimmer with guitars drenched in the tones of a Vox AC30 and come swaggering in the kind of authentic smoking cool 60’s apparel that suggests they’ve just sauntered from out of the back way of a magical shop through some kind of a time portal.
So, dear listeners, this album is a compilation of the band’s greatest work and when you buy it you also get a Bonus Disc of the bits that fell out.
'A pleasingly pukka piece of 21st century Merseybeat' - Bucketfull of Brains
'Its delectable, and lyrically simple and equally easy to get a grasp on. This will have you on your feet dancing like it’s 1965. Simply brilliant' - The Pentatonic
‘With guitars a plenty and melodies that stick with you after a single listen...there’s not a clunker in this baker’s dozen of songs'. - Power Pop News
What's the biggest, best, Big Night Out you ever had?
A particularly memorable one for me was dropping 5 tabs of acid on the way to see Blackpool Illuminations, but we want to know all about YOURS.
Were you arrested taking a bunch of daffs to Harold Wilson, perhaps? Or tied to a lamp post and serenaded with a violin? Surely not, we don't expect that kind of behaviour from our readers.
It’s groovy, innit? Get yours.
‘Clarke is undisputed leader of the modern Merseybeat mission' - Bucketfull of Brains.
‘Buttoned and braced in all manner of coolly coalescing smoked paisley pop purrs... one of those rare beasts plucked and fashioned from the finest threads of a lost time in pop's rich past... in short pure class' - Thesundayexperience
And There’s More - pass me another firelighter, man. In July 1957, John Lennon and Paul McCartney (you remember them) met for the first time at St.Peter’s Garden Fete in Woolton, where John’s Quarrymen were playing that afternoon.
Who better to celebrate this once in a lifetime 60th anniversary with than The Wooltones, joined by none other than Mr Colin Hanton of The Quarrymen, playing a skiffle set in the very same venue, as on that fateful day that started everything. This record is available as a free Bonus Disc, with the purchase of Big Night Out - and you get 2 drummers for the price of one. A wonderful souvenir - especially for the band, who took some of the floorboards home. Ask for Mr. Orwell
'Clarke’s vocals do the business on songs played that day which are delivered faithfully, rocking out and swinging with style. Someone needed to pull this together and Rob Clarke was always that man' - Bucketfull of Brains.
Singles include Iron Eyes Cody, the Brown Single and Jump In My Igloo.
