Biography
Note that there is censorship at last.fm; plays of Steve's songs/poems are rarely recorded and don't appear on this page, but you should be able to play them if you click on one of the albums…
Steve Wallis was born in Manchester on the 14th of May 1966. He lived there for the first four years of his life, lived in Sweden for two years, then moved to a large village (that became a small town) called Eynsham in Oxfordshire up to the age of 13, then moved to quite a large town called Penarth near Cardiff. He went to Manchester University in 1984, got a BSc (first class honours) in Computing & Information Systems and PhD in Computer Science, specialising in Artificial Intelligence.
Steve worked as a research assistant/associate at Manchester University, before moving to Manchester Metropolitan Unversity in 1992 to begin work on his artificial intelligence/simulation language SDML (that stands for Strictly Declarative Modelling Language). He has been unemployed since March 2001.
Steve grew up listening mainly to British folk music, particularly Leon Rosselson, the Spinners and the King's Singers - supplemented with a little pop music including Abba and Cliff Richard. Steve finally got interested in pop music when he went to university. The first albums he bought were a Shaking Stevens greatest hits collection and a Strawberry Switchblade album containing the song "Since Yesterday" which he particularly liked.
Steve's current favourite band is Katrina and the Waves. He regarded their obscure (and very hard to obtain) song "Walking Where The Roses Grow", available in Canada on the "Roses" album (which he first bought on a skiing trip), as his favourite song of all-time, but now has different favourites depending on the mood he is in. He regards "23rd Psalm", also on the "Roses" album, as his favourite anti-war song, but (bizarrely it would seem) regards Katrina & the Waves' Eurovision winner "Love Shine A Light" as an anti-war and anti-racist song!
Steve's favourite overtly political band is Latin Quarter. He was not very keen on "Radio Africa" (the band's only top 40 hit in the UK) when he first heard it, but bought their first album, "Modern Times", after hearing the very political song "No Rope As Long As Time" about the struggle for freedom in South Africa, sung by a female singer with a beautiful voice, on Radio 1. He later went off that song due to believing that the core message of the song, that time will solve South Africa's problems, was a big mistake and that action by ordinary black, white and coloured working and middle class people was necessary to end apartheid. He was also particularly keen on "America for Beginners", "Toulouse" and "Cora" on that album. The pacifist tint of that album was corrected by one of the bonus tracks available on newer releases, "Sandanista", in support of the democratically elected socialist government in Nicaragua who were prepared to use arms to defeat the CIA-backed Contra terrorists. Steve has had some mental health problems and regards the final bonus track "Voices Inside" as a good song about dealing with voices broadcast into people's minds by agents of big business.
Steve now regards "Mick & Caroline", Latin Quarter's second album, as his favourite political album. He particularly likes "Negotiating With A Loaded Gun", "The Men Below", "I (Together)", "Sandanista", "Love Has Gone" and "Freight Elevator" on that album. He hates the song "Donovan's Doorway", but (for a reason he does not want to reveal) did a cover version of it, with completely different lyrics and a different tune, with his band Galaxia. This album is extremely rare, particularly on CD, but Steve finally managed to buy the CD on ebay for £35.
Steve also loves Latin Quarter's third album "Swimming Against The Stream" (which he regarded as his favourite political album of all-time until he heard "Mick & Caroline" again). He particularly likes "Something Isn't Happening", "Blameless", "After Maralingua", "Dominion" and "A Slow Waltz For Chile" (although he is unsure whether the latter song was incorrect about saying there was "no quick-step solution" to the problem of Pinochet's dictatorship).
Steve's favourite cryptic political song is Latin Quarter's song "The Colourscheme", only available on a compilaton album (one of two called "Radio Africa").
Steve is a singer/songwriter/drummer, who has produced a large amount of "socialist musical poetry", singing/talking unaccompanied, as well as performing in the Glasgow band Red Day and the Manchester band Galaxia.
Steve moved back from Glasgow to Manchester in September 2008 and reformed Galaxia. He is planning to move to London, or perhaps Glasgow. He is looking for band members and can be contacted at revolutionarysocialiststeve@yahoo.co.uk.
Steve has an extensive socialist website from which you can download all his musical poetry, and read the lyrics for nearly all his songs. Go to www.socialiststeve.me.uk/poetry.htm. He has sites at SoundCloud and ReverbNation, on which he has uploaded some of his musical poetry.
You may also like to go to the Galaxia website or the Red Day website. Steve also has pages on MySpace, Facebook and Bebo.
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