Dr Socrates release time travelling new album

Jul 1 2009 by David Whetstone, The Journal

Time travelling is not the preserve of Doctor Who. David Whetstone explains how Doctor Socrates also got in on the act

THE North East’s eventful history can be told in song, from the murderous clashes of the Border Reivers – the Charltons, the Robsons, the Ridleys and other 16th Century tribes – to the 21st Century displacement of former shipyard workers from their estates beside the Tyne.

Proof of this musical narrative comes in a new album by Doctor Socrates. It is called Time Travelling and it features 18 songs which span the region’s turbulent past and even touch on the present.

The words to the earliest songs on a varied and entertaining album are mostly attributable to “Trad”, which often means authorship is lost in the mists of time or the fog on the Tyne.

But others bear the name of Phil Kitchen, songwriter and frontman of Doctor Socrates. But what of this band?

“We’ve probably been going about 10 years now but we haven’t done many public performances,” says Phil.

“We don’t do it for a living and we have other interests, but it is a very serious hobby. We tend to concentrate on doing special gigs like the one at Live Theatre.”

This, on July 11, will be to launch Time Travelling, which has been some two years in the making.

Doctor Socrates was named after a 1930s film and the Greek philosopher who poisoned himself with hemlock after a life of deep thought.

It has four members whom Phil introduces. There’s town planner John Dowsett (guitars, mandolin, tin whistle); Ben Grant (drums), “something in sustainable development”; Mark Shaw (guitar, bass, backing vocals), “computers”.

Then there’s Phil, who teaches creative writing and has a deep interest in the history of Tyneside – twin preoccupations which come together in his songs for Doctor Socrates.