This will mostly be greeted with a big warm "who?". But they're a local band to me who made it pretty "big" for the area and released their debut album on Fierce Panda and were also signed to Universal and Island at some points.

They were pretty special to the area as all the lads in the band were pretty well known locally who were all just normal lads, Nic Andrews (the lead singer) just works in a local venue serving drinks whilst other shit bands (e.g. Towers Of London, The Paddingtons) play at shit "NME Clubnights" and the fact that most of the talent from Stoke pretty much gets ignored.

That's not to say there isn't any, but Agent Blue gave a big boost of hope to local music scene. Our musical export from the area seems to be Robbie Williams and Johnathan Wilkes. Woop-e-do.

I don't listen to their album as much anymore but I still think it's a really good listen that should have gotten a lot more attention when it was released.

All in all I shed a big wet tear for this sad occasion. For those who want a listen here's their myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/agentblue