Labelobit: Alan Wills

Alan Wills, drummer with Shack, Top and The Farm and founder of Deltasonic, has died.

The importance of Deltasonic's support for Liverpool's music scene is shown by the one paragraph from the Echo:

Mr Wills went on to sign some of the biggest and most influential bands to come out of Merseyside in a generation, including the Zutons, The Dead 60's, The Little Flames, The Rascals, The Basement, Candie Payne, The Longcut and The Suzukis, The Sand Band, The Tigerpicks and The Dirty Rivers.

And that's without even mentioning the Coral - for whom Alan originally founded the label - or the publishing arm of the business.

Wills died Sunday following a cycling accident on Thursday night, which the police are investigating:

Inquiries into the crash are continuing, with witnesses being spoken to.

Police are appealing to anyone with information to contact them.

Inspector Mike McFall, said: “We are investigating the full circumstances of this incident and would appeal to anyone who was in the area at the time and might have seen something to call police.

“The information you provide could be really important for our inquiries.

“The incident took place on East Prescot Road near the junction with Ashover Avenue, which is a busy area, and I would urge anyone with information to call Merseyside Police on 0151 777 5747 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.”

Coral drifts back

The other day, watching someone talking about The Zutons on the television, we found ourselves thinking "whatever happened to The Coral" before our attention wandered elsewhere - we think we might have come to chasing a milkfloat down the street or something.

Well, you'll never guess what we've heard this morning: first, United Dairies is taking out some sort of restraining order; and second, The Coral are about to get out their shabby bear suits all over again:

We're just ending the album process with a few of us off to New York next week for 'mastering' then if all goes to plan then the latest long player from The Coral should be in your grubby little hands very soon.

In all we spent about two months in Noel Gallagher's Wheeler End studio with Craig Silvey of Dr Barnabus at the helm. I'm not really too interested in giving much away about how we have (once again) revolutionised music but I'm sure you can picture it; If you can't then think Zappa sharing a jazz omelette with Gnarls Barkley. We're all excited to get out there and gigging again, getting a little sweaty and moistening some of you lucky lovelies at your local discos.

Gallagher's studio? Let's hope the landlord didn't keep try to intervene, like a musical Harry Cross...