The fire festival is proud to present two of the finest, eclectic and damn right fun music stages to ever grace the South West. Showcasing bands from local to national level status, festival goers will be able to experience some of the finest artists within the genres of Rock n’ Roll, Gypsy, Skiffle, Swing, Hoedown, Bluegrass, Rockabilly, Psychobilly, New Folk and much much more. Keep checking below for updates on confirmed bands for The Fire Festival.

The Glitzy Bag Hags
The Glitzy BagHags are a 9 piece acoustic all singing band specialising in spreading glitzy joy & laughter through their unique entertaining gypsy-jazz-pop-cabaret-skiffle-swing performances. Audience participation & joy is inevitable!! All Glitzy BagHags are virtuso kazoo players and trained in the martial art of trouser warming ferrets.

Cut A Shine
Cut A Shine is a London based troupe of traditional musicians, dynamic dancers and crazy callers determined to spread the word that the Hoe Down is a’happening. From Hoxton to Humberside, from Amnesty International to Bestival, Cut A Shine are putting ceili back on the map. This “Anarchic Hillbilly Barn Dancing Squad” bring a rip-roaring, thigh-slapping, pavement-stomping, exhilarating, heart thumping, blood pumping barn dance creation to your event. Whilst the banjo and the fiddle set the tone, the callers instruct any audience through do-si-do’s and strip the willows, until all are involved!

I am Kid Carpet and I am a Pop Star, it says so on my new business cards (a bargain at £4 from the train station) so it must be true. I've done an album, super pop videos, been in the pop charts and all of that stuff. Check it out if you don't believe me.
It all started as a bit of a doss and after doing a few shows and putting out my Shit Dope ep I got given some tours to do and some artist residencies and i got a business start up plan and l got loads of hype in the press. Even in the Sunday Telegraph and the NME and stuff, it was weird.

So yeah, I did an album called Ideas & Oh Dears and then Tired and Lonesome Records kindly made cds and lovely vinyl singles out of it and put 'em in the shops. Nice. I had a launch party at my local carboot sale in a multi storey car park and strangers tried to buy my keyboards off me.
Here's a list of some of the trendy pop bands that i've toured with and supported: Badly drawn Boy, Mylo, The Go! Team, Willy Mason, Art Brut, The Presidents of the United States, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, The Pipettes, The Hot Chips, The Dangermouse and Cut Copy.
I've gone down great at festivals like Glastonbury, Bestival, V, Homelands, The Big Chill, The Wee Chill, Fuji Rocks, Isle of Wight, Isle of Skye, Belladrum and Get Loaded. At Ashton Court festival in Bristol I had my biggest arena rock moment when about 5 thousand people came to see me play and two kids at the front had a banner that said You're Special. That was for me. Fock.

I've gone down great at festivals like Glastonbury, Bestival, V, Homelands, The Big Chill, The Wee Chill, Fuji Rocks, Isle of Wight, Isle of Skye, Belladrum and Get Loaded. At Ashton Court festival in Bristol I had my biggest arena rock moment when about 5 thousand people came to see me play and two kids at the front had a banner that said You're Special. That was for me. Fock. In the middle of my set at Arumdo festival a four year old boy called Max got on his Dads shoulders to gave me a big plastic saxophone, he just had to do it. Then i got given a laughing gas balloon by someone else and ended up falling over. Things like this happen all the time.I've done 'Live from Maidavale' for Steve Lamacq and Huw Stephens and played in the hub at bbc6 a few times. Rob da Bank plays me quite a lot and i've done a mega dj mix for them and a few stations. Never found out how Pop Goes The Weasel went down on KissFM.
Sometimes I get asked to do remixes which is pretty cool. I've done them for fatty Fat Boy Slim, Polysics, The Holloways and I did a crazy one for Estelle and she refused it. My Estelle mix was meant to be getting given away or sold by a charity website and so after my mix got refused they put a different track of mine out instead and it ended up NME single of the week. Funny old game.
I am also an Internationally Acclaimed Artist after doing shows in Japan, Norway, Austria, Holland and Iceland and I'm arranging some Australian dates at the moment. How mental is that?
I had a spot of trouble when I lost a bag of my gear outside a club in Nottingham. I phoned up the promoter when I realised it had gone missing and he went through the cctv footage that the club keeps and noticed a tramp making off with a bag that i'd left lying around outside the venue. So if you see a rough looking geezer in Nottingham with my white plastic guitar, furby and red playpals telephone can you tell him that I got over it in the end? I sampled off furby from the 7" single on the little sampler that the dole bought me as a golden handshake and I managed to find a replacement white guitar. Phew.
So I've been getting some new shit together. Trying to develop the Kid. I started shopping on ebay. Ohmigod. But it leaves a bad taste in yer mouth. I've been playing a few of my newies out live recently and it's kicking. It's Pop Music kids. I'm just in the middle of mixing 4 tracks for an ep called Fantasticate Your Mates or Failed World Record Attempt or something equally as clever and sexy. It's hard to make up your mind sometimes.

Oh yeah, I have a radio show. Yep. I do a radio show on the first Thursday of every month from 8-9pm with my friends. It's run from a community centre and we broadcast and you can download it on the internet. It's nerdy community amateur brilliant rubbish and I LOVE IT. Its called The Carpet Megastore and you can get it on www.radiodialect.net 1st Thursday of the month remember. We have the best theme tune and jingles. I bought a pay as you go phone special so you can TEXT THE SHOW on 07856 522 552. oh man.
I do a feature on the Megastore called My Strange But True Rock N Roll Adventure Stories where I waffle on about all the crazy stuff that I've experienced in the poppetty pop world. All the stars, like when I made Howard Marks a cuppa tea (milk, one sugar) and the whores, the tramps and the shows, man, I love the rock shows. But anyway, this bio thingy is getting a bit tiring to write and I've got my tricky 2nd album to finish.
I'm Kid Carpet. Thanks for reading all the way down to here.
Come to my gigs. Listen to my radio show. Send me money. And take it easy *Kc.

Sometimes, you have to go back to arrive at the future. Whether it’s a hip-hop producer looking for a new beat, or a band looking for something fresh, if they look for it hard, the smart ones will always find it in the past. That, at any rate, is what Vincent Vincent and the Villains have done, and now they’re forging a musical future – playing decidedly modern, decidedly British rock ‘n’ roll.

“I adore rock ‘n’ roll music,” explains Vincent, the twentysomething who fronts this excellent band. “I want to be a songwriter who offers up something new. I want everyone to hear what we do. You want people to discover something that makes them feel special.”

We could tell you about how Vincent made this kind of discovery himself. About how as a young man allowed to rummage through his father’s record collection, he discovered the visceral power of 50s rock ‘n’ roll singles (Vincent, of course, calls them “45s”) which would so inform his own music. For now, though, let’s talk about the music Vincent is himself making.

As you’ll know if you’ve heard it, it’s quite unlike anything else around. A tall guy with a big voice, Vincent makes rock ‘n’ roll songs with meaning and heart. Whether he’s writing about overcoming personal demons (I’m Alive), about his own band’s occasionally troubled past history (the great new single Johnny Two Bands), or pulling off a classic Bo Diddley-style bit of grandstanding (as he does on Seven Inch Record), this is a songwriter with a sense of humour, and a great eye for detail.

Oh yes – and the songs sound great. Never wanting to simply emulate the glories of rock ‘n’ roll hits past, Vincent has arrived at his style – as say Jonathan Richman and Johnny Thunders did before him – because he thinks it’s the freshest and most direct way to communicate his ideas, and offers the biggest contrast to any other music around. It could reach the young, for sure. But Vincent doesn’t just want to want to appeal to them – he wants to appeal to everybody.

“The truer I can be, the more people are going to relate to us,” he says. “If you can come up with something that people relate to then that’s part and parcel of being a great band, I think. I can find salvation through a song.”

On these songs, Vincent is accompanied by three musicians: drummer Alex, guitarist Tom, and bassist Will, that he collectively refers to as “the boys”. Steady now for just over a year, this line-up of the band put an end to the slightly uncertain musical existence that had been Vincent’s lot since 2003.

The story? As with many other musicians, Vincent’s ideas started to come together at art school, and upon leaving, he decided to put together a band. While working in an East London pub, he met a co-conspirator, and with him began writing his own twist on classic rock ‘n’ roll compositions. Things were not, however, destined to work out. A man with ambitions for his own band, his friend would not commit fully to Vincent’s project, and decided to depart – leaving Vincent with only the determination to continue, and a great idea for a new song. Such was the birth of Johnny Two Bands, for Vincent Vincent and the Villains now almost a signature tune.

The song is just one of the highpoints in a set that Vincent Vincent and the Villains have been piecing together over the last twelve months. Born out of the conviction that a live band – however sincere their music – should make an effort to engage with an audience, this is a band on a mission to entertain. For them, it’s a serious business. I’m not a big fan of bands who have their backs to the audience and come on in ripped jeans,” says Vincent. “I feel that if you’re an entertainer, it’s not enough to just stand there and bash out the songs – you’ve got to look cohesive as a group. Everybody has a job. This is our job, and we have to do it right.”

Understandably, this has confused a few people. But though the band’s style has seen them featured in the pages of many a fashionable publication, Vincent is adamant that this should be seen as a group that has both its substance and its songwriting at the forefront of its concerns. Sharply-dressed he and his band may be, but it would be an extremely foolish person who thought this made the band some kind of retro package.

“We’re a group of young British men who are excited to be in a rock ‘n’ roll band,” says Vincent. “I want to be a songwriter who brings something new to the table. If there’s a band making pop music with integrity, then people are going to be interested.

“There’s a lot of diversity in British music at the moment, and we’re a big part of that ,” says Vincent.

What we’ve heard so far, then, is just for starters. Now it’s time to get ready for the main course…

WATCH FOR THEM. ASK FOR THEM.

www.vincentvincentandthevillains.com