The Wizards of Twiddly were formed in Liverpool 1988. They created wildly ambitious music using a wide and varied palette of colours with large chunks humour and theatricality. Two distinctly different albums were produced by them on their own Fracture for Pleasure record, ‘independent legs’ (1992), and’man made himself’ (1994). They were largely ignored by the mainstream media (‘Scouse Gets NME 1993), but they did manage to gather a group of dedicated supporters, including Tim Smith from Cardiacs, Mark Radcliffe from Radio One, and Vivian Stanshall, the late great Vivian Stanshall. The Wizards of Twiddly began a year-long collaboration with Kevin Ayers in 1994. Market Square Records released the live album ‘Turn The Lights Down – Live in London 1995′. Kevin was accompanied by the band on some of his most memorable songs. Wizards of Twiddly also collaborated closely with Kaboodle Theatre Co (Threepenny Story1991/2), Liverpool scrap musicians Urban Strawberry Lunch, and Terry Titter. The band was awarded the Liverpool Echo Arts Awards’ best band award in 1993. Shack’s most recent album (2006), The Coral’s ‘Magic’ contains a few Twiddlys from 1996.
