Tompaulin were an indie pop

Indie pop

Indie pop is a genre of alternative rock music that originated in the United Kingdom in the mid 1980s, with its roots in the Scottish post-punk bands on the Postcard Records label in the early '80s, such as Orange Juice, Josef K and Aztec Camera, and the dominant UK independent band of the mid...

 band formed in Blackburn, Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1999, and named after the Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 poet, critic, and lecturer Tom Paulin

Tom Paulin

Thomas Neilson Paulin is a Northern Irish poet and critic of film, music and literature. He lives in England, where he is the GM Young Lecturer in English Literature at Hertford College, Oxford.- Life and work :...

.

The band initially comprised Stacey McKenna (vocals), Simon "Tap" Trought (guitar), Jamie Holman (bass), and Ciaron Melia (drums), although the line-up changed several times with other members including Amos Memon, Katie Grocott, Giles Cooke, and Lee Davis. The band released five singles on the Action Records

Action Records (Music)

Action Records is a music shop and independent record label based in Preston, England, releasing records by bands such as The Boo Radleys, Dandelion Adventure, Big Red Bus, Genocides, Tompaulin, Fi-Lo Radio, Monkey Steals The Drum, Ricky Spontane amongst others...

, Track & Field

The Track & Field Organisation

The Track & Field Organization is a London based independent record label, founded in 1999 by Steven Drew and Paul Wright. The label's first release was Kicker's "Said and Done" / "Chancifer" single, in April 2000, and The Tyde's debut album, Once, in March 2001.-Artists:* Beatnik Filmstars* The...

, and Ugly Man labels, before the release of their debut album, The Town and the City in 2001. The album was called "amazingly self-assured, confident and among the best releases of 2001" by Flak magazine. The band were often compared to Belle & Sebastian

Belle & Sebastian

Belle and Sebastian are an indie pop band formed in Glasgow in January 1996. Belle and Sebastian are often compared with influential indie bands such as The Smiths, as well as classic acts such as Love, Bob Dylan and Nick Drake. The name Belle & Sebastian comes from Belle et Sébastien, a 1965...

, and their music was described by Kitty Empire

Kitty Empire

Kitty Empire is the pen name of a British writer and music critic.Empire was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1970 and brought up in Canada, Italy and Egypt before arriving in Britain in 1988....

 in the NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

as "equal parts beguiling and entertaining", while The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 described them as "exactly the right balance between grim reality and the chord sequences that lift you out of it". A further single followed on Track & Field in 2002, and the band went on to release two further albums on the label before splitting up.

The band recorded two sessions for John Peel

John Peel

John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...

's BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 show, in 2000 and 2001.

Singles

• "Ballad of the Bootboys" (1999) Action
• Carcrash EP (2000) Action
• "Slender" (2000) Action
• "It's a Girl's World" (2001) Track & Field
• "My Life at the Movies" (2001) Ugly Man
• "Give Me a Riot in the Summertime" (2002) Track & Field

Albums

• The Town and the City (2001) Ugly Man
• Into the Black (2005) Track & Field
• Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt (2006) Track & Field