The new Strawhead album ' Sovereigns' .As has been the format on the last two releases this will be a CD Extra- so you can listen to it as an audioCD and read the history and the lyrics of the songs as an Adobe reader on your computer. As you can see the album cover includes eleven monarchs on whom the songs are based. There's the opening 'Chapter of Kings' and then a song each, except for the two queens who get two songs each - so fair do's all round! There's even a song for James the Third and Eighth - who? - clue - we had to 'pretend' with that one. Visit the Shop for more purchasing details and our Download page for a sneak preview.

Have you seen the Banner? If you want to see a large banner and text click anywhere in the banner. This amazing backcloth to our live performances came from the Hall family, notably Catherine. Given the incredible detail and work involved we asked them how it was done ...... here is their 'recipe' should you feel a quick banner coming on!! Catherine roughed out several designs, but we fairly quickly settled on the coat of arms format and she sketched out all the various parts. She cut out patterns in newspaper, and copied the lettering for Strawhead from the early album covers. The lettering is red felt, and felt was also used for the shield, the scroll and its lettering, and the silhouetted figures - including an "attachable Alison" to be added whenever she is performing! We bought red velvet ribbon for the cross of St George on the shield, but most of the other material came from Catherine's vast collection of scraps. The wonderful heavy blue background material was a bit of serendipity - one of our local charity shops just happened to have this large piece of material for a mere £10! (We had thought about using a sheet, but decided something heavier was needed so it would hang properly.) The shield's supporters are a Civil War Royalist soldier on the left and a vaguely Nelsonian seaman on the right. Their hair is made from the fluffy wool that is so popular at the moment for knitting scarves and gloves! In the centre of the shield is the Lamb and Flag of Preston, and there are red roses of Lancashire in the foliage around the scroll at the bottom. Lurking in the foliage is a small "straw head", copied from the original logo that was drawn many years ago. The instruments and the beer speak for themselves, although the drum depicted is symbolic - Gregg's current flat drum does not lend itself to pictorial representation. The music which winds from the accordian (more picturesque than a keyboard!) is the opening bars of the Rochester Recruiting Sergeant.

Catherine's Instructions on How to Make your Banner Aim: To create a banner Equipment: 1x big bit of material for the back, 1x needle (more if disorganised and likely to lose them). cotton in a variety of colours, assorted scraps of material, scissors, old newspaper and felt pens, an awful lot of pins, sewing machine (useful for the edges but not essential) large floor (indispensable; borrow someone else's if necessary) 1x band or similar subject matter. Method: 1:First chose a rough design. Begin by asking the band if they have any ideas. They haven't. 2.Sketch out lots of possibilities before deciding you liked the first one best, and discarding all the others. 3.Work out the easiest bit to begin with (usually a fairly self-contained part). Sketch it out on sheets of newspaper. 4.Realise the proportions are wrong. Try again. 5.Pick your material (beg borrow and steal if necessary. No one will miss the odd shirt, though if you prefer the honest route, then charity shops are good for cheap stuff to cannibalise) 6.Pin and tack the material round the newspaper ready to applique it. If the material is thin and diaphanous, then cut the shape from plain felt and use that to back it. 7.Applique the shape onto the backing material, sewing as many sides as possible before removing the newspaper, and pinning down the last edge. 8.Realise you haven't removed the newspaper, unpick, remove, resew. 9.Possibly realise it is in the wrong place (things move, even when pinned), unpick, resew (or, alternatively, realign everything else instead) 10.Repeat stages 3-9 until all the main bits of the material are in place. 11.Add 'embellishments' (hair - fluffy wool, buttons, ribbon etc) (Note: you will probably discover during stage 10 that you leave all the difficult and boring bits to the end. Unfortunately they don't do themselves if you leave it alone and untouched for weeks. I know, I tried) 12.Add the writing. Cut out of felt and blanket stitched. Easy to do, but almost impossible to get straight. This is where you need the large floor, and an awful lot of pins. You will also find during this stage that your hands aren't actually really big enough to hold the mass of material you are trying to sew. There is no real solution to this problem. Deal with it. 13.Hem it. Really you need a sewing machine for this and the sewing machine needs a persistent personality and a dogged determination. You will be sewing though several layers of material at once, and the machine's needle will break if you get the angle even slightly wrong. (NB. Fancy machines that can sew ducks along a border are no good for this. You want a no-nonsense, no-frills one that won't give up at the first difficulty). 14.Get someone else to make a frame. Results:One x banner minus x 3 needles, minus x half a pot of pins 2 months of finding bits of fluffy wool over everything 10 x scabby fingertips Banner includes following 'symbolic' features...Lancaster roses and Preston lamb and flag, Original 'straw head' symbol, Nelsonian sailor, and Civil war soldier, Musical instruments and beer (the things most associated with the band), Musical stave, Silhouettes of the band (plus an attachable Alison) Conclusion: Make up your own mind...!