Norman Blake (born 20 October 1965, Bellshill, Glasgow, Scotland) is a singer-songwriter in the Glasgow based band, Teenage Fanclub.

Blake and Sean Dickson(The Soup Dragons) were in The Faith Healers together, which also contained various members at different times Stevie Gray, Hugh McLaughlin, Brian Carson and Colin Murray to name but a few. Blake and Carson were also in another Bellshill band Finding Faust which also had Paul Quinn and John & Bobby Nailen.

Blake was a member of the Glasgow group, The Pretty Flowers, with school friend Duglas T. Stewart, Frances McKee and Sean Dickson. After the group split Blake formed the Boy Hairdressers in 1986, the original lineup being really just Blake assisted by Dickson and Stewart. Later Blake was joined by Joe McAlinden, Jim Lambie and three future members of Teenage Fanclub Raymond McGinley, Francis MacDonald and Paul Quinn (after MacDonald’s departure). The group recorded one EP for 53rd and 3rd Records featuring three of Blake’s compositions.

In 1986 Blake also joined BMX Bandits, originally on drums and later moving to guitar. Blake became a key song writer for the Bandits co-authoring some of their best loved material including “Disco Girl”, “Serious Drugs” and “Right Across the Street”. Blake also joined Glasgow garage group The Clouds for a short stay, playing all the guitars on their only single. In 1989 Blake formed Teenage Fanclub with McGinley, later enlisting Francis MacDonald and Gerard Love to record their debut A Catholic Education. When MacDonald left to concentrate on university studies then BMX Bandits, Brendan O’Hare stepped in. The album was primarily composed by Blake and included the anthemic “Everything Flows” (later covered by acts including Velvet Crush, Dinosaur Jr, Idlewild and Gallygows. The album was recorded in Glasgow back to back with the debut album of Blake’s other group at that time, BMX Bandits, the ironically titled C86, which Blake also wrote much of the material for.

Blake officially left the Bandits in 1991 after their Star Wars album but continues to be an occasional contributor to their records. Blake has found international fame and acclaim with Teenage Fanclub for his songwriting talents and vocal abilities in both lead and harmony roles. Blake’s songs are melodic and despite their rock roots betray Blake’s Celtic roots, and an appreciation and understanding of many musical genres. His best loved songs for Teenage Fanclub include “Alcoholiday”, “Did I Say” and “Neil Jung”.

Norman Blake (born March 10, 1938 in Chattanooga, Tennessee) is a Grammy-nominated instrumentalist, vocalist, and songwriter. In a career spanning more than 50 years Blake has played in a number of folk and Country groups. He is considered one of the leading figures in the Bluegrass revival of the 1970’s and is still active today, playing concert dates and making albums with his wife Nancy Blake.

When Norman was one year old, his family moved to Sulphur Springs, Georgia where he was raised.

Although known as one of the most prominent acoustic guitar flatpickers, Norman Blake is a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist. Other instruments he plays include the mandolin, 6-string banjo, fiddle, dobro and banjo.

Blake is best known for his work with John Hartford, Tony Rice, and his wife, Nancy Blake. He has played backup for Johnny Cash, June Carter, Bob Dylan, Steve Earle, Kris Kristofferson, Ralph Stanley, and Joan Baez. Blake also played on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band album, Will the Circle Be Unbroken. From 1969 to 1971 he was a regular on ABC’s The Johnny Cash Show, supplementing Cash’s band the Tennessee Three.

Blake is listed in the credits of the Bob Dylan album Nashville Skyline and the Johnny Cash album Orange Blossom Special. He was featured on the Steve Earle comeback album Train A’ Comin’ and on the multi-platinum O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack, which ignited new interest in bluegrass music and won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. Blake participated in the “Down from the Mountain” tour which resulted.

Most of the music that Norman Blake plays could be described as neo-traditionalist Americana folk and roots music (folk, bluegrass, country, blues), and many of the songs he plays are traditional, but he plays this acoustic type of music with a style, speed, and quality that has evolved and progressed in the modern age. Though probably best known for his fluid renditions of classic fiddle tunes transcribed for the guitar, Blake has also written songs that have become bluegrass standards, such as “Ginseng Sullivan” from Back Home in Sulphur Springs, “Slow Train through Georgia”, and “Church Street Blues”.

Blake has produced 32 albums and has recorded on the Rounder, Flying Fish, Country, Takoma, Shanachie, Western Jubilee, Red House, and Plectrafone labels.

Richard Hugh “Ritchie” Blackmore (born April 14, 1945 in Weston-super-Mare, England) is an English guitarist, who was a founding member of hard rock bands Deep Purple and Rainbow. He left Deep Purple in 1993 due to a growing rift between Blackmore and other members in spite of renewed commercial success. His current band is the Renaissance influenced Blackmore’s Night. He was ranked 55 on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest guitarists of All Time in 2003.

Musical style
With Deep Purple and Rainbow, Blackmore almost exclusively played a Fender Stratocaster. He is also one of the first guitarists to use a “scalloped” fretboard where the wood is shaved down between the frets. It requires the player to play with a lighter touch as pressing hard will cause the note to sound sharp. The result is increased control of vibrato and bending at the cost of making chordal playing more difficult.

One of Blackmore’s best-known guitar riffs is from the song “Smoke on the Water”. He plays the riff without a pick, using two fingers to pluck the D and G strings in fourths. In the TV program ‘Classic Albums Live’, he demonstrated the proper way to fingerpick the riff while remarking that everyone is mistakenly told to use the pick. In the same video he also plays the low G with his left thumb, above the fretboard, as often used in fingerpicking.

In his soloing, Blackmore combines blues scales and phrases with minor scales and ideas from European classical music. His resulting style has been referred to as “neo-classical” and has been emulated by many modern heavy metal guitarists. While playing he would often put the pick in his mouth to play with his fingers.

He has two guitar solos ranked on guitar World magazine’s “Top 100 Greatest guitar Solos” (”Highway Star” at #19 and “Lazy” at #74, both from the album Machine Head).

Ryland Blackinton is the lead guitarist for the band Cobra Starship. He is from Wilmington MA, but was born in South Kingstown Rhode Island on March 31st. Before joining Cobra Starship, Ryland, along with high school best friend Alex Suarez formed the folky/pop duo This Is Ivy League. The two originally met in high school, but lost touch before re-connecting in Brooklyn, New York after seven years. Incidentally, the duo were living ten minutes away from each other, and fell back into familiar habits once they discovered that. Perhaps Blackinton’s most notable performance in college was when he portrayed the difficult role of Victor Emmanuel Chandebise in the French farce, A Flea in Her Ear. He starred in this production alongside Nicholas Ciavarella who played Dr. Finache. Blackinton also has a knack for being hilarious and impersonating Gabe Saporta quite well.

Ryland can be seen in several recent TAI TV podcasts for The Academy Is… as ‘Guy Ripley’, a fictional reporter for BBC World News. Ripley is reputed to have an enormous crush on Victoria Asher. Guy Ripley is often referred to as ‘The Queen of Fangirls,’ and in TAI TV Episode 39, stole a lock of William Beckett’s hair. Guy Ripley’s catch-phrase is “Delicious.” He has repeatedly asked his favorite musicians to sign his shoes.

Mike Carden dedicated a song to him during the Sleeping with Giants Tour in Orlando, Florida.

He has a small fan club entitled, “Team Pleasure Ryland” who has been spotted at shows wearing yellow shirts with black lettering sporting their fan club name.

Ryland also co-stars in Misplaced Planet’s short zombie video “Brains!” and contributed the bulk of the music for Misplaced Planet’s production of “Momentary Engineering,” along with Stirling McLaughlin.

Thomas Jack Black Jr. (born August 28, 1969) is a Golden Globe-nominated American actor, comedian and musician.

With his friend Kyle Gass, Black makes up one half of the comedy and rock music duo Tenacious D. The group has a large cult following along with 2 albums and a full-length movie. His acting career is extensive, starring primarily as bumbling, cocky, but internally self-conscious outsiders in comedy films. He is a member of the Frat Pack, a group of comedians who have appeared together in several Hollywood films, and has been nominated for a Golden Globe award.

Black is the lead singer for the rock comedy band Tenacious D. They have released two albums, a self-titled debut, and the follow up, The Pick of Destiny (from which their song “The Metal” went on to be used in music video game guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock). The latter coincides with the movie Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny. The film, directed by Tenacious D veteran Liam Lynch, features recurring characters such as Lee the superfan and Sasquatch. Tim Robbins cameos (both Black and Gass appeared in Robbins’ 1999 film Cradle Will Rock), as does Dave Grohl as Satan. Ben Stiller also makes an appearance as a worker at guitar Center, and also another appearance in the music video for Tribute.

Tenacious D recently helped the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation[9] to raise awareness and funds in San Diego on June 16, 2007. Tenacious D can also be seen performing in the Pauly Shore film Bio-Dome, where the duo are performing at a “Save the Environment” party. Black was also a guest star on an episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show entitled “Ellen the Musical”, alongside Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth and teenage singer-actress Olivia Olson. On the show, besides singing, he discussed his then-upcoming film Nacho Libre with the host.

Black has also appeared on Dave Grohl’s Probot album, providing vocals for the hidden song “I Am The Warlock”, and Lynch’s Fake Songs album, providing vocals for the song “Rock and Roll Whore”. Black performed a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” in the last sequence of High Fidelity. He lent his musical abilities to the Queens of the Stone Age song “Burn the Witch” with rhythmic stomps and claps, some performed with his eyes closed.

Black has appeared in music videos by Beck, “Sexx Laws”; Foo Fighters “Learn To Fly”, “Low”, and “The One”; The Eagles of Death Metal, “I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)”; Sum 41 “Things I Want”; and Weezer “Photograph.”

Clint Patrick Black (born February 4, 1962) is a Grammy Award-winning American country music singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor. Signed to RCA Records in 1989, Black made his debut with his Killin’ Time album, which produced four straight Number One singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks charts.

Although his momentum gradually slowed throughout the 1990s, Black consistently charted hit songs into the 2000s. To date, he has amassed more than thirty singles on the U.S. Billboard country charts (of which thirteen have reached Number One), in addition to releasing nine studio albums and several compilation albums. In 2003, Black founded his own record label, Equity Music Group.

Black has also ventured into acting, having made a cameo appearance in the 1994 film Maverick, as well as a starring role in 1998’s Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack.

Black and his friend Hayden Nicholas began playing and writing songs together, soon signing with Bill Ham (manager of ZZ Top, among others) at RCA Records. To date Black has sold over 12 million albums worldwide. Clint’s first single, “A Better Man”, landed him a #1 country hit, as did the next three singles off his debut album, Killin’ Time; the album itself was also #1 in album sales. He swept the Country Music Association’s awards in 1989, winning in six different categories.

Black’s second album, Put Yourself in My Shoes, did not meet with as much critical acclaim as his debut, but nonetheless still included several hit singles. He began touring with Alabama and soon married actress Lisa Hartman. A royalty-lawsuit with Bill Ham was ongoing while Black recorded his third album, The Hard Way, which received mixed reviews but became almost as successful as the previous two. His next albums were popular within the country music scene, although his neo-trad approach to music would become less popular over time. Despite being one of the most popular acts of the 1990s, he would land only one Top 5 hit in the 2000s, a duet with his friend Steve Wariner.

After parting ways with longtime record label RCA, Clint started his own record label, Equity Music Group, in late 2003. Clint has released two mainstream records on his own label, as well as a Christmas album and a collection of love songs. On March 11th, 2008, Black released his first ever digital EP, available for download on all digital websites. Titled “The Long Cool EP,” the collection features Black’s brand new single, “Long Cool Woman (In a Black Dress)”, as well as his recent single, “The Strong One,” and a new duet with his wife Lisa, titled “You Still Get to Me”. The iTunes version of the EP features an exclusive fourth bonus track: Harry Nilsson’s hit “Everybody’s Talkin’.” All of these songs will also be found on his next full-length studio release, due out early in 2009. According to an interview with the Las Vegas Sun, Black says the new album does not have a title yet, but expects the album to be released in February 2009.

Clint Black’s Star on the Hollywood Walk of FameAlongside his musical career, Clint has also tried his hand in acting. He has appeared in TV shows such as Wings, King of the Hill, Hope and Faith, Hot Properties and in Las Vegas as himself, not to mention a major role in The Larry Sanders Show (Season 3, episode 16), and an appearance in the final episode of the series, where he sings “A Bad Goodbye” to Larry. He has also had roles in movies such as Maverick, Still Holding On: The Legend of Cadillac Jack, Going Home, and Anger Management.

For his contribution to the recording industry, Black has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7080 Hollywood Blvd.

Black was a contestant on the short lived CBS reality show “Secret Talents of the Stars,” which debuted on April 8th, 2008. Black’s secret talent was stand-up comedy. After making it through the first round, he was scheduled to perform again in the semifinals on April 22nd, 2008. However, CBS announced that after airing just one episode they would cancel the series.

Anders Björler (born 26 February 1973) is a thrash/death metal musician from Sweden.

Heralded as one of the fathers of Gothenburg melodic death metal, he led At the Gates, an influential and popular death metal band. A founding member of At the Gates with his twin brother Jonas Björler, Tomas Lindberg, Alf Svensson, and Adrian Erlandsson, he wrote much of their material and went on to inspire many to follow their style of music.

In 1996 at the end of the European tours of their final album Slaughter of the Soul, At the Gates split up and Anders started a band with Jonas and drummer Erlandsson called The Haunted. They released their first album, the self-titled The Haunted in 1998.

In October 2007, it was announced that At the Gates has reformed for tour that will kick off in the summer of 2008. On the official band’s website Q&A, Anders stated that they currently have no plans to make a new album and declared, “it would be pointless to release something more than 10 years after Slaughter of the Soul”.

Kat Bjelland (Katherine Bjelland, born December 8, 1963) was the lead singer and guitarist of the rock band Babes in Toyland. She is also the lead singer/guitarist and founder of the band Katastrophy Wife. Bjelland is known for her loud, dramatic, and powerful vocal range, as well as her keen, intense, powerful physical presence.

Though most associate Bjelland with the music scene that sprung up in the city of Minneapolis, she was actually born in Salem, Oregon and grew up in nearby Woodburn, Oregon. Her mother was Lynne Irene Higginbotham (married to Lyle Bjelland).

She attended Woodburn High School where she was a popular student and cheerleader. It was while a teenager that Bjelland became interested in music. Her uncle, David Higginbotham, taught her to play guitar, and her first performance was at a small bar in Woodburn called Flight 99 (now defunct), with the band called ‘The Neurotics’. A Portland band called ‘The Dots’ opened for them.

Shortly after graduation from high school in 1982, Bjelland moved to Portland, Oregon, where she formed a series of bands, first The Neurotics and then an all-female band called The Venarays, which Bjelland has described as “rock with a ’60s edge”:

The Neurotics were comprised of Kat Bjelland (rhythm guitar); her uncle David Higginbotham (lead guitar); Marty Wyman (vocals); Dave Hummel (drums); and Laura Robertson (bass).

After The Neurotics I got this band together with my best friends, so it was an all-girl band. We were called The Venarays. The name came from the word venary which means actively hunting out sex! We began as a way of having fun with each other.
In reality, the Venarays was not an all girl band. Drums were performed by Dave Hummel, and later, Jack Rhodes. The name ‘Venarays’ was originally taken from a Television character from the early 50’s program called ‘Rocky Jones Space Ranger’ in which actress Sally Mansfield portrayed Vena Ray. After the band was named, some members of the band discovered the word ‘venary’ in the dictionary and became confused regarding the origin.

After quitting The Venarays, Bjelland formed a band with a new friend, Courtney Love, and bassist Jennifer Finch. Love went on to form the band Hole, while Finch would be part of L7. The band went by several names, including: Sugar Babydoll, Sugar Babylon and Sugar Bunnyfarm.

Around 1985, in San Francisco, Bjelland and Love formed a new band called Pagan Babies with Deidre Schletter on drums and Janis Tanaka (later in Stone Fox, L7, and with the famous singer Pink) on bass. When Love left, this lineup played under the name Italian WhoreNuns.

Demo versions of songs that Bjelland and Love worked on together, including “Best Sunday Dress”, which was later played by Hole on numerous occasions, are available on various Hole fan sites.

Big Tom (born Tom McBride in September 1936) from Oram, Castleblayney, County Monaghan, Ireland is an Irish country music singer, guitarist, and saxophone player. Established since 1966 he is currently front man of the Irish showband Big Tom and The Mainliners.

2000 - Big Tom underwent a nodule operation on his throat.
September, 2004 - Big Tom was reported to have been in a list of Irish tax evaders .
8 July 2005 - A plaque was erected by the local community in Big Tom’s home village in appreciation to his contribution to Country and Irish music.
November, 2006 - Big Tom suffered a sudden heart attack at the age of 70 , this had put doubt into whether he would ever tour again with his band.
1 February 2008 - Big Tom began a 12 date tour of Ireland after doctors gave him the all clear.
24 March 2008 - Big Tom performed at Castlebar’s TF Ballroom’s final farewell night (in its current guise) but he was reported to have taken ill on stage during the performance.
25 May 2008 - Big Tom performed for the closure night of the Galtymore dance hall in Cricklewood, London .
27 July 2008 - Big Tom was headline act at London’s Irish Festival .

Marco ‘Maus’ Biazzi, (born April 3, 1977 in Sesto San Giovanni, Milan, Italy) is a guitarist in the Italian metal band Lacuna Coil. Maus’ favourite bands are said to include Meshuggah, Type O Negative, Alice in Chains, Opeth, Pantera and Slipknot. His favorite Lacuna Coil songs are reportedly “Swamped”, “Tight Rope”, and “Angel’s Punishment” (as of 2003).