Introducing...

Perhaps, but here is a brass band with a difference.

Skip back about 130 years to 1873 and you find the first mention of the Harton Colliery Band playing at a local festival - the Grateful Dead were probably headlining.

Through various mergers and name changes, they started the 1960s as the Harton and Westoe Colliery Band.

However, following the 1984-5 miners' strike, financial and other difficulties meant that membership dwindled to a handful.

However, their darkest moment gave them the opportunity to rethink and, slowly, they began to rebuild.

The last link to the collieries was severed when the Westoe colliery was closed in 1993.

However, an enlightened part of the NHS in South Tyneside realised that music is as good a tonic as most medicines and stepped in and continues to support the band.

Since then, they have steadily risen up the brass band league and even competed in the national finals at the Royal Albert Hall.

However, probably more importantly, they have finally got themselves into a recording studio and released the cleverly and realistically entitled Beyond the Colliery, available from their website.

It has an arty cover and there are no photos of the band in garish, badly fitting band uniforms.

Indeed, for the group photo, only one member seems capable of finding a tie to wear.
Elsewhere, band members adopt poises usually associated with the Gallagher brothers.

Musically, this first album isn't quite as forward-looking, but the selection of tracks is well balanced with a good selection ranging from classics like Amazing Grace to tunes that you may well not have heard before.

Interestingly it is quieter, gentler pieces where the ensemble playing works best.

They even cover Music by John Miles, a song that I rate on a level with Chris de Burgh's Lady in Red, but I found myself listening all the way through their version - something that I rarely managed with the original.

The album is dedicated to the memory of the Westoe Colliery.

However, it sadly must remain a memory as, whether it is musically or as part of the community, brass bands can't afford to live in the past - a tough lesson that the Westoe Colliery Band seems to have learnt.

RICHARD HILTON