Biography

Milky Wimpshake are a lo-fi indie punk threesome from Newcastle originally consisting of Ms. Joey Ramone (drums), Christine (bass/vox), and frontman Pete Dale, whose scene credits include running the Slampt label; FAST Connection fanzine, and the bands Avocado Baby, Pussycat Trash, and Red Monkey. An early cassette-only release called Songs of Zoom and Buzz introduced the band's playful post-Television Personalities interpretations of modern life and included perhaps their most earnest recorded effort, a cover of Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End." A variety of sought-after 7"s followed, including Slampt's The Deviation Amplification Spiral and Seven Unlucky Sevens. Like their folk counterparts Belle & Sebastian, the band is charmingly literate with a due amount of self-deprecation to keep the kids from getting jealous of their cleverness. In 1997, the band put out its first true album, Bus Route to Your Heart, which included such postmodern punk song titles as "Noam Chomsky vs. the Ramones" and "I Wanna Be Seen in Public with You." By this time, Ms. Ramone was replaced on the drums by Grant. In 2002, Lovers, Not Fighters appeared on Troubleman Unlimited in the States, continuing the band's brand of jangle pop guitar and bouncy bass, while lyrics name-checked Kierkegaard and Max Weber and ruminated about a crush based on a Scrabble triple-word score. The band's next record, 2005's Popshaped, was its first for new label Fortuna Pop, and was followed in 2008 by the One Good Use for My Heart EP. During this time Pete Dale also had a folk project called Pete Dale & the Beta Males and a noise rock group, Chronicity. In 2010 Milky Wimpshake released their fourth studio album, My Funny Social Crime, which was followed up five years later with the excited, spring-like tones of fifth full-length Encore, un Effort! The album featured the debut of new vocalist Sophie Evans, dueting with Dale on more than half of the album. Significantly younger than her newfound bandmates, Evans hadn't even been born by the time Milky Wimpshake had started playing out in the early '90s. ~ Daphne Carr, Rovi