HISTORY
As with many bands that have been going for sometime, members have come and gone and MANIFOLD is no exception. Alan, Renee and myself being there from the beginning.
The commonality which brought us together was our jobs. We all work (or did) at the international astrophysical observatory (ORM) here on the beautiful island of La Palma in the Canary Islands. Although Alan had played guitar and sung with some former employees, it wasn't until the arrival of Guy Woodhouse (who happened to play lead guitar) that the idea of putting an 'observatory band' together came into being. Guy must have heard Alan singing (haven't we all :-) in the corridors at work and things moved on from there. I was the next to join the band; at first using a 'Beatle Bass' that Guy owned then followed by Carlos Gonzales on drums (Mar 1998 to Oct 2005) and Renee on second lead guitar.
The present line up of the band is as follows:
VOCALS, RHYTHM GUITAR & HARMONICA - Alan Chopping (a good 'ol SE London geezer like myself :-)
SECOND VOCALS - Mayra Silberman (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
LEAD GUITAR - Renee Pit (Holland)
BASS GUITAR - John Mills
DRUMS - Edgar Perez Dudamel (La Palma) From June 2008
We've had a few short term drummers since Carlos left in 2005 and thanks go to Jonas, Carla and Manolo.
WHY THE NAME: MANIFOLD
It took us quite a bit of time to come up with this name. As well as being a gas porting duct (like as in the exhaust manifold of a combustion engine) in a symbolic sense it could also be interpreted as the coming together of different elements into a common medium. As we have an international line-up and come together to play music, the name MANIFOLD is very appropriate. Not forgetting to mention that as we are based in the Canary Islands, the name is very easy to pronounce to a Spanish speaker.
PHOTO GALLERY
To make things simple, I have broken this down into the variants of MANIFOLD over the years and added comments where appropriate. Hope you like the photos...
MANIFOLD III (2001) Included are links to two MP3 files of the band.
MANIFOLD V (2003 - 2005) Some images enhanced.
MANIFOLD VI (2006) Includes our meet up with Brian May!
MANIFOLD VII (2007 - 2008) Bar Guantanamera gig
MANIFOLD VIII (2008 - ) 4th July gig NEW... Latest images.
The band's resumé (in PDF format)
Necesitas un buen grupo de musica para una fiesta, bar, hotel, etc? Versión en
ESPAÑOL
Need a good band for a party, bar or hotel, etc?
Version in ENGLISH
NOTE These PDF files are now somewhat out of date and will be updated soon.
