Please feel free to make any comments about Deke's work or this site using the form below. A selection will be posted here.

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Pete Strandhill, County Sligo Ireland.

(On digital radio) I stumbled across the last in the series of the Radio Wales programme. What a gas man! When's the TV series? Pure Spinal T.

Any guitar players or lovers of guitar music might want to check out the Strandhill Guitar Festival web site. Great place great guitar music.

Respect to all.

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Laurence I spotted that the old Man records have been released with extra tracks the other day. I was really pleased to see that some of the extra stuff I remember hearing in 1973 through to the 1980's is there now for all to enjoy.

Anyway I have just played side 1 of my "Maximum Darknesss" LP at full watts. Wow!! Forget Led Zeppy! Go immediately to 771-551!!
Carl Adams Winos Rhinos and Lunatics is one of the best rock n roll books I've ever read. Laugh out loud funny. What a life these guys lived, sure beats doing 9 to 5 like the rest of us. Fucking brilliant, I gotta get May Be I Should Have Stayed In Bed now!!!! Great player, great band, great book. Rock on.
El Marco I just read Rhinos for the first time. I read it in one sitting and couldn't put it down.

A mate of mine (who I should look up really) introduced me to Man one drunked evening after we'd played a gig in some grimy pub that should have been puled down by now. I added Man to the mental shopping list of albums to add to my collection and got off to a great start in the 80's seeing you guys at the now defunct Duchess of York in Leeds. I was living with a rather mad girl who shouted things in Welsh, being from Haverford West I think she felt entitled. I managed to get a couple of CDs that she later nicked. Women eh?

Anyway, this was a great gig and I would dearly love to see you lot playing again and will keep my eye out for something I can get to!

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Raz I remember walking through Swansea on a Saturday afternoon past a pub called the Cardiff Arms and hearing a guitar wail, I peeked around the door and Micky Jones was guesting with local outfit Contraband, one of the best afternoons of my life.
Colin Rennie I can recall a gig at the Roundhouse that I was at way back when I was in my teens. We were having a ball but for the chap standing in front of us continually shouting for Banana's to be played. Unfortunately when it was eventually played he was fast as sleep on the deck. We didn't bother to wake him but we did let him know what he had missed when he awoke from his beer (I think) induced slumber. It was a great night and I've been a fan ever since.

Deke you need to come to Scotland and in particular the Famous Bein Inn, Glenfarg (look it up). Keep up the great work and thanks for all the years of superb music.

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Fernando Arancon I'm Spanish fan. Since I was sixteen I like your musical work, I play the guitar too in various bands, and we play sometimes "Lousiana Hoedown".
Bob Davies Thanks Deke, for the contribution you've made to Welsh rock. I'm 57, a musician myself amd a life long Man and Iceberg fan. I look forward to hearing of your one man show coming to a Blaenau Gwent venue. If they ever make a film of even some of your on the road escapades, it'd better carry an XXX rating!!! Love the Radio Wales broadcasts. Keep rockin'...

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Shaun Brown Just a note to say how much I enjoyed hearing you on Freak Zone on BBC Radio 6 a week or two back.

I am broke! but have a new job starting soon. When I have the money I will buy your CD. That song about Guantanamo Bay was wonderful.

Nice to hear people who bother.

I really like it.
The O'Sullivan brothers There are 5 of us and we've seen Man and Iceberg at locations ranging from the Patti Christmas bashes to the Wigan Casino and the Boot Hotel in Aberdare over the last 30 years.

The recent gigs with Brian Breeze have been brilliant, especially at the Britton Ferry Rugby Club. I urge you all to get to Neath Legion on 17th December 2006. You will not regret it!
Johan Wollberg For me Deke´s music is outstanding. His songs always make me in a better mood than I was before listening to him. I also like the liner notes he has written to some of the records I own. I live in the north of Sweden, Lycksele, a small town in Lappland, and Deke and the MAN-band has always been on top of my music-list. Sorry my English ain´t that good but I think you will understand what I´m writing anyway.

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Chris Clark Hi Deke, saw you at the Dugout at Farnborough on Saturday and thought it was a great show - a shame that this will be Brian's penultimate gig but now he's got a proper job ...

Thanks for signing all my bits and pieces as well, it was a pleasure to meet you and I hope I will get the opportunity to see the next incarnation of Iceberg when you are up this way again.
Martin Daughton This isn't really a comment. No, that is incorrect. This is not a comment - it's a question. Can you remember which tracks you contributed to on the Rachel Sweet "Protect the Innocent" LP? You mentioned in Issue #1 of TWC "I've Got A Reason" and I am trying to compile a definitive discography to aid Julian at the Archive.

Yes, you are not right. I recorded four songs for Rachel Sweet, including 'No Reason', but I don't know if they used all of them or remember what they were called. Glad I could be of help. The other day, Martin Piper from Sevenoaks gave me a copy of 'Shelley', the Marty Wilde single I played on. I'd never heard it before. It was allright. I also played piano on the B-side of the Mixtures' second hit. I think it was a song called 'Slow Train', but I could be wrong. Ah, those fleeting moments of greatness.
Don't run with scissors,
Deke

Ian Rogerson I loved the article in the Guitar & Bass magazine, and I particularly liked the mention of your original sunburst Telecaster - which could so easily have been mine!

We were on the same bill as your band in the Casino Ballroom in Mumbles in 1967, and I was using a Gibson SG with P90 pickups as a replacement for my recently-stolen Telecaster. I remember that you pestered me for ages to swap my Gibson for your Tele, but I was enjoying the Gibson so much at the time that I refused to even consider an exchange - pity really, because some years later I swapped my Gibson for Whitey's '62 Stratocaster, and that turned out to be a bit of a dog. Although I've still got the Strat and I still play it, with hindsight I would rather have had your old Telecaster - oh well !

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D. Wells "Rockin' the Blues from Canada" A fascinating background you have! I learned about you from a John Cipollina recording (Raven) wherein he covers your musical masterpiece, "Razor Blade & Rattlesnake". Was there another band that recorded that? It sure sounded familiar to me, but surely from another source...?

Note - it was originally on the album Iceberg - there is an mp3 clip in the music section.

Roger Cooper I remember the first gig that I saw Deke play was when he was supporting Brinsley Schwartz At Barry Memorial Hall, I was the DJ for the evening. He arrived late as the bands gear had been pinched and had to do with hastly gathered equipment. Although the equipment wasn't the best, Deke made the best of a bad situation and played an amazing set and was better recieved then the Brinsleys.

I met up with him a year later in Coventry where he kindly spent some time to chat. The highlight that night was Deke and Iceberg joining Man for an extended Spunk Rock.

Deke is truly a superb guitarist, totally underated and I look forward to seeing him live again some time soon.

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FJ in SF Every year on April 3rd I think of the Deke Leonard song of the same name from Kamakaze.

Deke you are an amazing talent. Has anyone ever noticed the similarity between your musical style and that of Beethoven? Aside from being born on or near the same day, your music style is very bold, has many underlying and recurring themes yet maintains an overall seemingly simple melody.

The guitarwork on Kamakaze especially never ceases to amaze me. Not that you are playing impossible lines but that you are layering one beautifully tasty part over another.

I never got the idea that you were nearly as much a fan of yourself as some of us are but I just wanted to put down in writing what an influence your musicianship, lyrical abilty, vocals, arrangenments and sense of humor have been.
Barry Mitchell Have been a fan for years and years ever since I heard "Diamond Road" back in the good old days. A DJ on an underground station in Birmingham, Alabama used to play your music in the 70s, his name was Father Tree!!

I love Deke's music and want info on how to purchase the new album. (I'm at work now so I'll have to wait till I get home to check it out).

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Vivienne Jones What a fantastic gig at the Briton Ferry Rugby Club. These are the true legends of Rock and Roll. Unique sound and style they don't make Rock stars like this any more, these guys have class and we have been fortunate to have seen them over the years. To anyone who hasn't read Deke Leonard's books please do so now. They are candid and very funny as well. To do what these guys have done is very brave. It's about time they were knighted for their contribution to music and hellraising and also to remain true gentlemen.
Mutt Nearly ten years after those two Man gigs at the Bottom Line, Shepherds Bush, (now the Walkabout), where you signed my Iceberg/Kamikaze CD "To Michael, Amaze Yourself With Your Own Daring"! Well, I haven't, but l've tried! The Jayhawk IS so Special.

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Simon Simpson I first heard Man when I was about 13 and arriving at my older bro's house I heard Scotch Corner. I think it was 1976. I smoked my first non-tobacco "jazz cigarette" that day. It seemed I had missed all the fun of being a Man fan. Still, I obsessively collected eveything I could lay my hands on in the way that teenage boys do. I couldn't believe it when Deke started playing the Hope & Anchor in Isington - I went to every gig and for some bizzare reason I annoyingly shouted for Map of India between each song.

When Man reformed in 1980 I was thrilled, by then I had met at gigs a number of similar minded man fans my own age - we were all there at the Marquee gig - now on DVD. The highpoint of my fandom came when a pair of us decided to travel to Coventry from London to see the band at a pub gig and arrived hours early. The band were very generous to us and we helped pack away the kit at the end of the night. They invited us to join them at an indian resaurant afterwards (my friend Andy unfortunately threw up all down the side of the car we went in) and I was treated by Deke to my first ever curry. I don't remember too much about the evening but the band put us up in their hotel. Andy went home the next day but I stayed on and travelled with the band to their next two gigs acting as an honorary roadie.

I remember arriving at Barry and the young waiter at lunchtime asking Deke for his autograph and Deke later in the afternoon standing in the road looking at the sea quoting Dylan Thomas. Probably the most bizzare gig I went to was in the Battersea Community Centre, in South london - I think it was someones party - we chatted to the band before the gig and I happend to have a couple of tabs of acid in my possession - I offered the "spare" one round - the only taker was Mr Ace.

I can only describe what followed as the most maniacal bass playing I've ever witnessed - although to be fair by the time Man played I was feeling a trifle unusual. I haven't seen the band much at all these last 20 years - jeez that sounds a long time - as I've been busy getting married going to Oxford University to get my masters degree (I mention this only to demonstrate that Man fans really are the intellectual cream of the listening classes) - but the generosity of Deke and the band and of course the thrill of hearing such fantastic music will always remain with me and has had no small part in shaping the course of my life.

thankyou thankyou thankyou.

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Jim Hresko In Deke's book "Rhinos Winos and Lunatics" he mentions he would like to know what the Japanese writing on the cover of Kamikaze says. Here it is.

The front cover says (are you sitting down?): "Deke Leonard Kamikaze"

The back says:

"Dedicated to followers of cricket worldwide.
This abum was recorded with the "invisible" recording process.
Released by United Artists"
Laurie Cardiff Castle 1976? Man, Thin Lizzy, 10cc, Steeleye Span... Bananas in the rain... blistering guitar from Man... Iceberg/Kamikaze, oh, my friends thought you were so uncool, but I didn't care, guitar work so fluid and lyrical, lyrics so apt... thanks Deke...

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Just Another Jones from Llanelli So Deke Leonard was seen in San Francisco. That’s nothing, I saw him in ASDA Llanelli, what a show, the way he pushed that squeaky trolley around the crisps and biscuits was great, and the checkout was brilliant, smooth as silk. Great light show too. Twenty five years since your last solo album, you do that again mate and I’ll come round your house cut your guitar strings off. Need another album by 2007 or that’s the last time I come to see you in ASDA. You have been warned.

Thanks for Freedom and Chains and all your music throughout the years, it’s kept me sane in this mad mad getting madder world. Music may not have made you a lot money, but just think, how abundantly rich you are because of it.
Nick Katterle Swansea I´m coming! Since I´ve read the announcement of the gig in Patti´s on this homepage some weeks ago it was immediately clear for me: you have to go there to see him on stage the 15 July! Today I´ve bought the flight ticket from Hannover, Germany to come to the gig. Now I hope that I still can get an entry- ticket on the night -I don´t know how to do an reservation from Germany. It´s crazy all this, isn´t it? Doing 2200 km by aeroplane "only" to see Deke on stage.

But I must. Since about 30 years he - and surely the Man-Band are an important part of my live. Several times the week his music gives me great moments between all the dayly obligations of live. For me it is absolutely relaxing. Sitting down in a chair very near by the boxes or wearing headphones, a glas of wine in the hand, music on and than dreaming away with the guitar of Deke. Since the middle of the 80´s (the reunion I think, no?) i try to see him and the Manband on stage every time possible. This would be the first time that I´ll see Deke live on stage with Iceberg and that I would see him outside of Germany. Since the booking-moment tomorrow morning i´m really excited for this moment. Go on making your great, fantastic music for us, Deke. With your own band or (and?) with the Manband.

Greetings from Hannover, Germany.

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Duke Lee We did a filmed called ALICE IN STORAGELAND shot in San Francisco. The writer and director, Fred Jardin is a great fan of Deke Leonard. The lead character in the film (a med genius) wears an old Deke Leonard Iceberg T-Shirt from the 70s.

www.aliceinstorageland.com

Fred Jardin boasts that he saw Deke Leonard and Man perform three nights in a row in 1975. One night at the Savoy Tivoli in San Freancisco (private music biz gig), the next night at Winterland and the 3rd night at the Keystone Berkeley.

Jardin got to meet his hero in 1985 at a London club. Arriving early for a club date Fred introduced himself to Deke. He's says Deke was gracious, bought him a beer and sat down to chat.

Jardin's favorite Deke line "Living isn't something I do well" .
Bob Gordon Glad to see 4 Corners of Hell officially recorded - much better quality than the old cassette tape I made of the broadcast, back when I was a fit and lithe twenty-something.

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Paul Eric Bishop I've been a Man Fan ever since I heard Sudden Life in 1969 on John Peel's radio show (what a great man he was.) I went out and bought Revelation, then every other studio album, a few live ones, and your Iceberg & Kamikaze. Thank you for giving me so much aural pleasure over the years! Even now I listen to a few tracks every night!! To me, you are Man's Lennon and Micky is the McCartney of the band's musical style. I know you have to do your own thing from time to time but I hope that one day soon you'll return to the fold. I have just read both of your books and they're BRILLIANT. Hope there'll be an episode three!
Rob Lewis Good to see the website up and running... I've read both the books on quite a few occasions, nice to see Rhino's back in print.

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David Bell Austria calling! Today Swansea tomorrow the World!! I´ve finally got an add where I can get in touch! Just wanted to say I´m still enjoying the books tremendously as we (my girlfriend and I) are the Man band CDs. We are looking very much forward to hearing your last solo cd "Freedom and Chains"...
Ed Beecher About 30 years ago, when I was about 9 years old, I was dumpster-diving in the behind the dorms at Ohio University. I found a copy of ICEBERG. Over the years this has stayed one of my all time favorite records of the era. Thanks so much! Looking forward to hearing the new stuff!

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