The Bristol Stingrays are a New Wave band formed in 1977. If you live in the UK, you've probably never heard of them....

On May 8th 1980 John Peel described the Bristol Stingrays Countdown EP as “Excellent” after which things went a bit quiet for the band... Lead singer, Russ Mainwaring, takes up the story. “In 2009 I was amazed to discover that the Countdown EP was selling for 7000yen in Japan, I was even more surprised to discover that it had been re-released by the Japanese 1977 Records Label in 2003. A hazy idea formed that maybe we could play some gigs in Japan.. “

Fast forward to 2016 and the band have completed their 6th tour of Japan and have played in venues from Kagoshima in the south to Sapporo in the north In April 2016 they recorded the album Ticket from Home in the heart of Osaka's thriving live music district.

Russ Mainwaring continues, “From the very first gig in Kobe people came up to us asking to sign copies of the Countdown EP and wherever we have played in Japan since the same thing has happened, somebody will appear with a copy for us to sign.”

But our story isn't as simple as that of the band coming to Japan to perform a fans' favorite. We have been hugely influenced by the Japanese Live House scene both in terms of performance and song writing and now we have taken this another stage further by recording in Osaka with legendary punk engineer Ippei Suda manning the dials”

Lyrically Ticket from Home considers the past, in for example Girl from the Greengrocer's and Charms which revisits the characters in the song Countdown but also looks optimistically to the future in songs like Life's for Living the title track Ticket from Home, “I've got a Ticket, a ticket from Home, its here in my pocket, I'm ready to go!”

Early plays of advance copies Ticket from Home by the same Japanese DJs and collectors who helped to push up the price of the Countdown EP to such high levels have been received enthusiastically. Fifi of well respected Tokyo punk band Teengenerate also received an advance copy of the album and described the music as being made up of, “Beautiful Voices and Savage Guitars” and called it, “a masterpiece” LATEST UPDATES GIDEON COE PLAYED CARE CARE CARE FROM TICKET FROM HOME ON HIS SHOW ON 20TH OCTOBER RISE BRISTOL DESCRIBED TICKET FROM HOME AS “A RAW RAWKUS SLAB OF BRISTOL PUNK VIA JAPAN”

Bizarrely since 2010 The Bristol Stingrays have played more gigs in Japan then in Europe But in 2017 to celebrate their 40th anniversary they will redress the balance by following up their 7th tour of Japan in April with a tour of Europe....and for the first time ever they will end, what is their first world tour, by playing gigs in the USA and Canada.

But The Bristol Stingrays haven't forgotten there Japanese fans as a special Japanese edition of the album which includes the extra track Different Life will also be released in 2017 in advance of their Japan Tour

Tracks from Ticket from Home can be heard at The Bristol Stingrays Bandcamp site https://thestingrays.bandcamp.com/

The Bristol Stingrays Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/thebristolstingrays/