blanket bear

aka: fluffy brain
age: 32 (bear years); 9 (human years)

Blanket bear was fashioned by one Mrs Anne Collinson (unsung needlecraft genius) in the summer of 1993 using an old comfort blanket of her son's. The reason for his birth was an upcoming local church fete.

Having used no sewing pattern in his manufacture and never having made a bear before, Mrs Collinson deemed the final result endearing but not quite good enough for the intended purpose (nor any other). Fortunately her son was on hand to rescue poor blanket bear from the vegetable peelings and other horrors that awaited him in the dustbin.

Blanket bear was then harboured away for several months before he was reborn into the world on Christmas day under the twinkling tree in Jo Mango's house. There he was loved and accepted entirely for who he was and eventually immortalised in song.

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jim mango

aka: Squid Boy Jim
position: Bass player / backing singer / victim of band ridicule

Jim was womb-mates with Jo for the first nine months of his life. Having survived that, he was well equipped for anything life could throw at him post-foetus.

He began playing the bass aged 9, taking lessons to stave off boredom at boarding school. Progressing so quickly, Jim played at Meadowbank Stadium at the tender age of 13.

Like so many others, Jim found his rock roots at age 14 in a high school band. Soon after, he formed “The Mangomen” with best friend Donald, enlisting school chum Calum as drummer and sis Jo (as a last resort!) as singer. The story of the name of the band is - according to Jim (!) - as follows: Donald lived in Jamaica until the age of seven. Just before he left to come to Britain, there was a horrific accident in his neighbourhood involving the workers who deliver mangos to homes and various establishments. A mangofloat had crashed, killing and terribly injuring a number of them. The name therefore came as a heartfelt tribute to those mangomen who died.

Jim headed to Oxford Brookes University a year later to study Automotive Engineering - thus the end of the Mangomen.

In 2001 he decided that Formula One Racing was far less glamorous than sound engineering and moved to Glasgow to study, thus being re-united with both Jo and his musical passions.

Before one of his early gigs with Jo, Jim famously dreamt that someone had emptied a container of squid over him as he slept. So real was this dream that he jumped up and went to get a bag to put the squid in. He awoke to find himself at four o'clock n the morning standing over his bed, all his clothes on back-to-front, a trail of bin liners leading from him to the kitchen.

Along with Alan and Calum, Jim is also one quarter of the rockin' Glasgow band ‘El Dog’.

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calum mango

aka: calum scott / calm scott
position: drummer / producer / guitarist

Born on Halloween, the first thing Calum saw was his sister dressed as a witch. His startlingly pumpkin-like face is said to have resulted from this encounter.

Calum took up and dropped piano at an early age. He began on drums at age 13 (and was allowed to continue owing to deaf next-door neighbours). Soon after this he also took up guitar - fortunately his old acoustic guitar was not damaged after he sledged down the stairs on it and he was able to take up lessons.

He met Jo and Jim as new arrivals at his secondary school in Aberdeen and after teasing them relentlessly for the first few months they eventually became friends.

Moving to Glasgow in 1999 to study Applied Music at Strathclyde, he specialised in studio production and music for film. There he met Katherine and Simon.

Calum has been in so many bands and orchestras of different types it is hard to get them all in here, but the highlights are The National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland at age 17, various other high and low profile jazz bands, The Invention Ensemble (contemporary music), a Ben Folds covers band, a salsa band and a wedding band. He currently performs mainly with El Dog whilst also laying down hip-hop tracks for the likes of Infinite Lives and Scheme.

The lucky man works part-time as a session musician and spends the rest of his time driving a pink van full of flowers.

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simon mango

aka: Simon Fullarton
position: guitarist / tiny piano player

Simon began learning piano and violin at primary school and taught himself the guitar (under secret cover from the violin/piano purists!) whist in his early teens.

At that time he played in several bands around the Kilmarnock scene (which was later to produce the likes of Biffy Clyro).

Simon joined folk-rock band ’The Honeythieves‘ in 1999 with whom he toured extensively, the highlight of which was a festival performance to large crowds in Rostock, Germany. (We think it was primarily this German influence which led to his ‘moment of madness’ when -live on radio -being interviewed as part of the Jo Mango band, he uttered the immortal words “I'm a Bavarian smoked man’.)

By this point Simon was living in Glasgow, studying Applied Music at Strathclyde University. Here he met Calum (quiet, continual hat-wearing drummer in the year below) and Katherine (floaty flute player).

The first time he heard Jo’s music was as sound engineer for one of her earliest solo acoustic gigs. They then met as Jo honked away at bassoon parts in the University orchestra.

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alan mango

aka: Alan Peacock
position: backing singer

The youngest and cutest of the band.

Alan puts his good ear down to his playing violin from a young age. He played in several youth orchestras and studied up to SYS level.

He began guitar in primary school after he saved up £70 worth of pocket money (what stamina for a young thing!) to buy a guitar from his sister's boyfriend.

The sacrifice of many weeks worth of penny-sweeties paid off in 2000 when Alan joined and founded “New Jersey Shoreline” with Chris (now of “The One Who Flew”and Wickerman records). It was during this time that Alan discovered his voice.

New Jersey Shoreline played many gigs in and around Glasgow and Edinburgh and their two EPs “I Tread on Wooden Paths” and “The Great White Hope” got airplay north and south of the border. That beautiful thing ended in 2002.

Meanwhile, one Monday evening, Alan met Jo whilst waiting in the queue to sing at Sleazies open mic night. Initially Jo was merely amused that they had the same shoes. But soon she was awe struck by his tenderhearted and thoroughly heartfelt vocals and he was enlisted in the band.

Since 2002, Alan has played with the magnificent hoodlums 'El Dog’.

He also does lovely solo acoustic stuff which he has just finished recording.

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katherine mango

aka: katherine waumsley
position: Flautist / Harpist / the phantom bum-grabber of the band

Katherine woke up one morning chanting out loud the phrase - which she felt she urgently needed to remember - “Three cheers for the marvellous Jo and her wonderful show... three cheers for the marvellous Jo and her wonderful show!“

Ho hum.

Kath studied flute, piano and clarsach (Scottish harp) through her teenage years.

She moved to Glasgow in 1999 to study Applied Music at Strathclyde University with flute as first instrument. She later specialised in composition and community music.

She met Jo at Strathclyde University through Calum and began playing flute for her in 2001 after Jo (also a flute player) felt the need to write some parts. She acquired her harp (made by Archival Harps) very recently as part of her burgeoning crazy-musical-instrument collection.

‘The Waums’ currently studies and performs Indonseian music with Glasgow Gamelan group (Naga Mas) and works as a community musician (and covert cleaner) around the Glasgow area.

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trusty

aka: squeezebox / concertina
age: 38

An inscription atop Trusty's tattered hexagonal box belies that Trusty was originally purchased as a gift from Jo's grandma to her father (Jo's great grandfather) on one of his latter birthdays. Pops had always wanted an accordion. Sadly, Trusty, being a concertina, did not live up to the grand expectations placed upon him and he was hardly (if ever) played.

Thus he found himself many years later, dusty and unused at the back of a cupboard in the Mango household. One day Jo, with a mind to write some sort of quirky composition, was rooting through the aforementioned cupboard looking for an old Casio keyboard. Her eyes met with Trusty's across the clutter and the rest is history!

He now accompanies her everywhere she plays and remains in fairly good health despite a brief period of reed crisis several years ago.

(His cousin Leonard Skynard is a younger, more hardy instrument who is occasinally spotted at gigs when Trusty doesn't feel up to it.)

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