Our story
Starting in the late 70's playing acoustic guitar and singing a mix of popular folky tunes and self penned creations with his great friend 'Keef' Johnson [also on guitar] Tobe was founder member and the main driving force behind the 'Blue Grid' the phenomenally successful 80's westcountry rock band. Moving on and creating the rather eclectic 'Antony Pig' in 85 and then moving to Kent in '88 and quickly assembling 'The Thieves' playing all originals for much of the next decade, all the time developing his voice, guitar playing, and songwriting, Tobe had come a long way. The Thieves disbanded in '98 having never truly recovered from the tragic early death of founder member and drummer Mr Russel Vaughn in '96 and in '99 Tobe joined the newly formed 'Cell Block 9' - just for one gig on guitar initially, 2 years later he found himself the lead singer and band leader and that's when it took off. After 12 years, 500 gigs, and 25 members CBL9 was gently put to sleep and out of the ashes came 'Machine' playing old school R&B in the style of Dr Feelgood and a number of impressive originals, still with the same set up: guitar, bass and drums. Since the early days of the The Thieves in the 90's Tobes bands have all played the famous 'Cornwall Tours' managing to jam 8 or 9 gigs into a hectic 10 day slot and in 2015 the band added the Dorset Tour to it's calendar. Unfortunately Covid has removed a couple of years from the bands gig history but things are getting back to normal now and the band are currently very busy recording predominately original material in their shipping container studio, making videos, and are about to start booking lots of gigs again.
Check out the members below, [or don't bother....I wouldn't]
