‘How I Learned to Love the Freaks’ by Vinny Peculiar
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Release Date – 15/9/23
Cat SAD CD043
Vinyl 12 inch LP SAD LP43
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 1 Death of the Counterculture
2 Going to San Francisco
3 Peace and Love
4 Head Shop
5 Ashram Curtains

6 Hippy Kids
7 How I Learned to Love the Freaks
8 Peter and the Rainbow
9 All Property is Theft
10 Flower Power

UK singer songwriter Alan Wilkes aka Vinny Peculiar has been putting albums out to for the past twenty years to considered critical acclaim. ‘How I Learned to Love the Freaks’ is his thirteenth studio release.

The record is inspired by Hippy culture, the summer of love and the socio-political awakenings of the late 1960’s. It’s part tribute to an emerging free-thinking youth culture, the risks they took, values they espoused, sacrifices made as well as the failings and ultimate implosion culminating in ‘The Death of the Counterculture’. The record looks at the personal impact of these cultural shifts and its impact on subsequent generations, specifically from Wilkes’s unique standpoint as both disaffected youthful enquirer and seasoned older cynic. ‘Peace and Love’ considers protest, apathy and mistrust. ‘Flower Power’ is both celebration and reminder of what can be achieved and how easily it all slips away. ‘Going to San Francisco’ tracks a young man’s awakening and pilgrimage to the Haight and beyond. ‘How I Learned to Love the Freaks’ is a hard rock guitar infused Grateful Dead inspired Jefferson Airplane revisited Chocolate Watchband approved Ken Kesey imagined kind of record. Like Allen Ginsberg once said ‘We had too much too dream, we had so much to lose’.

On Vinny Peculiar

‘Wilkes is also one of those few songwriters that can wring genuine smiles and pathos out of ordinary memories’ IRISH TIMES

“One of the finest and most individual and literate voices in contemporary English music’ Mike Davies

‘Disgust and disillusionment as a fine art’ CLASSIC ROCK

Vinny Peculiar has written, toured and collaborated with Bonehead from OASIS as PARLOUR FLAMES and ex SMITHS Andy Rourke Mike Joyce and Craig Gannon were his former backing band. He’s also worked with Bill Drummond [SOUP ART} and compered the Glastonbury Acoustic Stage. He has played/toured shows in UK, Ireland, Germany and the US.

 


Press Photos


Assorted Press Quotes

 

‘If Tony Hancock had made pop records they’d have sounded like this’
– UNCUT MAGAZINE – Simon Goddard

‘A songwriter who deserves to be taken seriously’
Q Magazine – Jon Aizlewood

‘Wilkes is one of those few songwriters that can wring genuine smiles and pathos out of ordinary memories’ IRISH TIMES

‘When you listen to a Vinny Peculiar album you cannot help but think that you have come across his diary and as you sit and read it you feel both uncomfortable and wonderful all at once. His music is littered with the complex and yet everyday emotions that the masses go through and it is reassuring to know that we are not alone in our ponderings and self-analytical behaviour.’
– SOUNDS XP

‘Songwriting’s Angel of the Odd, Vinny Peculiar is like a celestial observer of the small, unseen dramas of daily life, delicate and delightful’.
– MEN Reviews

‘Like Vic Chestnutt tooled up for an armed robbery’.
– Irish Times

‘Curiously elegant confessionals from one of the UK’s most criminally under-rated talents; make room in your heart for this peculiar, but highly likeable man’.
-W&H

‘Nostalgia’s not what it used to be…
Imagine a surreal episode of My Two Dads where said fathers are Jarvis Cocker and David Bowie, who bully their child into liking them and everything they like, like glam stomp, kitchen sink vignettes, mordantly witty lyrics, nostalgia, dreams and a sneer, and you‘re ready for Vinny Peculiar, Manchester’s premier forward thinking backward looking song smith.’
– AMERICANA-UK

‘“Confessions of a Sperm Donor” begins with the wonderful couplet “I used to be a feminist, I used to be a freak. Sold my sperm for bus fare I got £15 a week” – and indeed lyrically the album is devastatingly funny and moving almost right the way through’
– Big Issue

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