I've been fortunate enough to be in bands in Preston for what some have called a golden age. An age when anything seemed possible. There was The Mill, The Venue, The Lamb, The Mitre, the 12 Bar, 53 Degrees, the early days of The Ferret. Everybody tracked gigs on Prestone. Nobody knew where Mavis was or why so many tickets had the word "fuzzy" on them. Radio One brought their Big Weekend and god damn it we were all going to finally be on the map. Over in Chorley, gangs of kids who listened to too much Ween played at the Community Centre. They were good times.

Cut to recent times, and I noticed that my shoebox full of CD-Rs of old demos and EPs from these bands had started to... well... rot. So much music that we'd all put heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears into was disintegrating. Forget that - I set about ripping and archiving of much of it as I could, and Prestopia was born. Since then, I've been hunting for contributions, and I've been expanding the site to allow for the archiving of photos, reviews, and even general trivia about the bands. Thanks for coming to listen, I hope you find a healthy dose of nostalgia - and then go out and watch more new live bands as they arrive on the scene.

The Radio Free Preston Band Archive

If there's something in the archive you can identify, email any comments or corrections to this address. If you want something removed, let me know. If you have any supporting materials or contributions (would be nice to add photos, sleeve art, lyrics and the like)... get in touch!

And if you want to hear some stuff that's happening in Preston right now, then we've got you covered, have a look at the Prestopia Preston Bands Spotify Playlist!

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