Another Broadside Banger by Julian Gaskell & his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Granny Smith, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Pink Lady and Jazz, we know how they got their names, but what about the Cat’s Head Apple?  Find out how it got its name in our rendition of a 200 year old proto-music hall ballad.   NEWLY RECORDED in 2024 for our forthcoming ‘Broadside Bangers’ album, which will be … Continue reading CAT’S HEAD APPLES REVISITED

After a summer of gigs and festivals, Julian Gaskell & his Ragged Trousered Philanthropists return with a new recording ‘The Signalman’, a song familiar to audiences at ‘Broadside Bangers’. The lyrics are from two 19th century broadside ballads (Roud V15826 and V15682) telling a tale of disaster averted on a train line thanks to a supernatural intervention, they are full of the fear of uncontrolled … Continue reading The Signalman

NEW ALBUM – ‘A SHANDY BALLAD’ An 11 track 50/50 shandy of ballads and originals. Recorded by Julian, Cally and Thomas in October 2023. OUT NOW ON BANDCAMP! Free to download or stream but digital only, we have no spare money for physical products and suspect you don’t either. And all you poundspotify streamers on the budget platforms will have to wait until we get … Continue reading A Shandy Ballad

Here’s ‘Burial Club’ a 19th century broadside ballad set to music by Julian and the Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, backed with a hauntingly haunting reading of ‘The Ghost of Maria’. Taken from our forthcoming Broadside Bangers project, a new anthology of some of the most melodramatic, gruesome and supernatural broadside ballads from the 17th to 19th centuries. These popular ballads, selected from archives by Gaskell, cover … Continue reading Burial Club c/w The Ghost of Maria

A new 4-track digital EP! For the third instalment of our sheet music collection for 2022, we present, after many years of deliberation and dither, the string-laden epic ‘Mizzle Eyed Maiden of the West’. Featuring extensive orchestral renovations by Cally Gibson as well as storming folk drums by the much-missed Dave Hart, this song takes an inscription from a Zennor gravestone for a lop-sided tango … Continue reading Mizzle-Eyed Maiden of the West

Folks outside of Cornwall won’t have seen us live in a long time, so we recorded a couple of songs in Gaskell’s Penryn mansion on Sunday to remind you of who we are. Continue reading New Videos from our Penryn Lounge

A new 5-track digital EP! The second instalment of our sheet music collection for 2022, the new song ‘Shuffling the Same Deck of Cards’ is accompanied with a selection of instrumental and vocal novelties collected from Gaskell’s musical binbag. ‘Shufflin’ is a self-explanatory gamble in a post-brexit wasteland, and is notable as the first Philanthropists release to feature the actual Mrs Mills piano. Cally Gibson … Continue reading Shuffling the Same Deck of Cards

Our first new track for 2022 A new song written by Julian Gaskell and recorded in Penryn, Cornwall, January 2022 with Thomas Sharpe and Cally Gibson. This is the first in a series of ‘sheet music’ releases which will happen in 2022, there are many more in progress which will be available here very soon. Only available on Bandcamp. JG& his RTP cannot be bothered … Continue reading The Exception that Proves the Rule