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In 1991 he joined his brother Steve's
rock cover band Mr Snake
and played approx 100 gigs per year
between 1991 abd 1996. Mr Snake won
third place out of 350 acts in the Evening
Chronicle search for a star competition
in 1995. In 1997 the band changed their
name to The Shine.
With the name change came a style change,
but the band's popularity continued
and they took many of the fans along
with them from the Mr. Snake days. It
was during a gig at the Stormin'
The Castle festival in 1998,
where The Shine were the opening act,
that Ritchie met Dave Burn
for the first time. Dave's band Nobody's
Fool, who at that time were
a rock covers band, were also on the
bill and Ritchie and Dave struck a rapport
up straight away after Ritchie heard
Dave play Lights Out.
Shortly
after this meeting Ritchie was asked
if he would like to record the vocals
for Nobody's Fool's debut album as their
previous singer did not want to be part
of the new direction the band were going
in, namely writing and performing only
their own material. Ritchie agreed and
they set about rehearsing the material
to be recorded. The material was mainly
written by Dave, with Ritchie contributing
lyrics to two tracks. The album Little
Black Dress was recorded at
Trinity Heights Studio and engineered
by Fred Purser (Penetration and Tygers
Of Pang Tang).
When recording
was finished Ritchie was asked to join
the band full time, which he did. Nobody's
Fool's debut gig was the first heat
of the Undiscovered Originals competition,
which the band won. They went on to
the regional final and so on to the
Grand Final at Wembley I.E.C.C. They
played a number of gigs to promote their
new album, and Dave and Ritchie started
work on writing material for a follow
up album to Little Black Dress. Ritchie
then did some vocals for Skyclad-guitarist
Steve Ramsey's solo project.
Nobody's
Fool returned to Trinity Heights to
record their next album Turn
Another Page. This was a slightly
more commercial offering, and the band
set about gigging again with the addition
of classic rock covers in their set
(an average set would be 2 hours!) including
songs such as Stargazer, Kashmir, Addicted
To That Rush, and Lights Out.
Nobody's
Fool broke up in December 2000, but
Ritchie and Dave continued to work together.
Initially they started rehearsing a
set of rock covers that included a number
of UFO songs. They then decided to turn
it into a UFO tribute band, and UUFO
(pronounced Double UFO) was born. This
outfit was also very well received by
audiences and UUFO
worked the circuit for about a year.
But due to problems with line-up changes
the band lost momentum and Ritchie and
Dave called a halt to the band.
Ritchie
and his brother Steve got togther and
still perform as an acoustic duo under
the name The Chordwainers
and are in the process of recording
a cd of the acoustic songs from their
live set.
Ritchie
formed a new wave/rock band with some
old friends from the Mr Snake days,
but this never got off the ground.
Ritchie
contacted Dave in 2004 with the idea
of recording a mini album of UFO ballads
and acoustic songs. UUFO
was reborn for this project. The result
is what you see at this website!
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