The
Story
So Far
From the squats and streets of West London to stages around the world. More than four decades of songs, stories, friendship and glorious noise.
From The Streets
To The Stage
Founded in 1984, The Men They Couldn't Hang evolved from the Shepherd's Bush squatting and busking scene, making their live debut supporting Poguemahone at the Electric Ballroom in Camden at Easter that year.
The early line-up brought together Stefan Cush, Phil “Swill” Odgers, Paul Simmonds, Jon Odgers and Shanne Bradley.
Their uproarious live style, punk energy and songs rooted in contemporary life quickly earned the band a passionate following.
What began in the energy and uncertainty of early 1980s West London would grow into a career spanning more than four decades, filled with much-loved music, constant touring and an extraordinarily loyal fan community.
Along The Way
Records, road miles, changing times and unforgettable nights have carried TMTCH from West London to audiences around the world.
Green Fields Of France
The band's first single was their definitive version of Eric Bogle's anti-war song Green Fields of France. It became an early calling card for TMTCH, combining folk tradition with the urgency of the band's emerging sound.
Night Of A Thousand Candles
The debut album Night of a Thousand Candles established the band nationally and included one of their defining songs, Ironmasters.
The combination of folk melodies, political storytelling and raw live energy was becoming unmistakably TMTCH.
How Green Is The Valley
The second album developed the band's historical and political songwriting, including Ghosts of Cable Street and Shirt of Blue.
The events of Cable Street became one of the clearest examples of TMTCH using songs to connect history with the politics of the present.
Waiting For Bonaparte
Waiting for Bonaparte continued the band's fascination with the human stories behind political and historical events.
The album included The Colours, a powerful account of the 1797 Nore Mutiny, when Royal Navy sailors rose in protest over pay, conditions and treatment.
Silver Town
Silver Town became another major chapter in the band's recording career, while relentless touring continued to take TMTCH to increasingly large audiences at home and overseas.
On The Road With Bowie
Among the many extraordinary stages visited by TMTCH was Milton Keynes Bowl, where the band appeared with David Bowie during his Sound+Vision tour.
A Pause
After years of albums and almost continual touring, the band went their separate ways. The individual members continued making music, but the TMTCH story was not finished.
The Return
Five years later The Men They Couldn't Hang reunited, beginning a second chapter that would ultimately become longer than the first.
New recordings followed alongside renewed touring and the return of the famously committed TMTCH audience.
Twenty Five Years
Devil on the Wind arrived as the band reached their 25th anniversary, celebrated with a return to the Electric Ballroom where the live story had begun.
The Defiant
Thirty years after their formation, The Defiant demonstrated that TMTCH remained interested in creating new music rather than simply revisiting the past.
Cockahoop
Cockahoop continued the resurgence, combining the band's familiar storytelling instincts with the energy that had driven them from the beginning.
Remembering Stefan
The band were devastated by the death of founder member, singer and friend Stefan Cush.
His voice, presence and contribution remain inseparable from the music and history of The Men They Couldn't Hang.
The Magnificent 40
TMTCH marked forty years of music with anniversary concerts, retrospective releases and celebrations bringing together songs, friends and fans from across the band's history.
The Wave
More than forty years after the first Electric Ballroom show, the band are creating another major body of new work.
The Wave takes TMTCH's long-standing fascination with history, people and place into an ambitious multi-generational story.
History.
Politics.
People.
From war and industrial struggle to fascism, loyalty, injustice and ordinary lives, storytelling has always been central to The Men They Couldn't Hang.
Green Fields
Of France
Ghosts Of
Cable Street
Ironmasters
The Colours
From West London
To The World
Touring has always been at the heart of TMTCH. The band have travelled throughout Britain and across Europe, Canada, the USA, Iceland, Egypt and Estonia.
Festival appearances have included Glastonbury, Roskilde, Reading, Pinkpop and Cambridge Folk, while stages have been shared with artists including David Bowie, Van Morrison, Bo Diddley, The Smiths, Elvis Costello and Oysterband.
Through changing line-ups, changing times and generations of listeners, the relationship between TMTCH and their audience has remained at the heart of the band.
See TMTCH Live →Stefan Cush
The band were devastated by the loss of founder member and friend Stefan Cush in 2021.
His voice, energy, humour, friendship and contribution form an inseparable part of the TMTCH story.
The band's response was ultimately the only one they knew: to keep writing, recording and playing live for the community of fans that had travelled alongside them for so many years.
Cush by TMTCH
Stefan Cush, singer, guitarist and songwriter with The Men They Couldn’t Hang, has died aged 60 after a sudden heart attack. Known simply as ‘Cush’, he co-founded the West London folk punk band in 1984, so beginning the messiest, maddest, longest, most life affirming, righteous and uproarious party you can imagine.
A roaring boy from Wales, he hit London in the early 1980’s, working as a motorbike mechanic, courier and eventually as a roadie for Poguemahone, where his job involved carrying beer to the stage and passing the tray for Spider Stacy to headbutt. Busking in Hammersmith subway led to the formation of TMTCH, followed quickly by signing to Imp Records and releasing ‘Green Fields of France’ to instant acclaim. Albums, tours and the riotous theatre of life followed.
Cush embraced the role of front man with ferocious glee. He was charismatic yet inclusive, one of the crowd, yet also their envoy and champion. He was musically unique; his voice could soar like a sail or batter like a hammer; he could freestyle, toast, scat, rap and he could testify. He could roar a lullaby and whisper an anthem. He never met a melody he didn’t want to change. His vocal timing could be so risky you would shut your eyes as he veered to the end of a line. And if he wasn’t going to make it, he would just dive into the crowd.
As a songwriter he was an original. If Syd Barrett had written with Ian Dury it might come close. But not really. His lyrics are full of myths, rural utopias with a dark edge, mad skewed characters with a Dennis Hopper vibe. And throughout the surreal stories, a thick vein of humour and word play runs freely.
So many tales to tell. But flashing through our minds comes the sight of him chasing Nazis offstage with a pole in Gothenburg, grinning while strumming the opening chords of The Laughing Gnome supporting Bowie at Milton Keynes Bowl, stopping the bus to jump into an icy stream in Austria....
Cush was a rocker; one of the finest; a socialist hedonist, happy with either the high life or the low, whichever was on offer. He wasn’t dark or tragic; he thought life was a fine thing to be savoured. Which he did.
We wont say RIP. He would joke ‘I don’t rest and there’ll be no peace!’ So Rip it uP Stefan. It’s time to clear away the glasses. We’ll sleep awhile and when we wake we’ll do it all again.
Forty Years
And Counting
In 2024 The Men They Couldn't Hang celebrated forty years since that first Electric Ballroom appearance.
The anniversary became a chance to celebrate not just a catalogue of songs but the people and friendships that had grown around the band over four decades.
Retrospective releases and anniversary concerts looked back across that history, but TMTCH had no intention of turning the celebrations into a full stop.
Follow
The Wave
More than forty years after TMTCH first emerged from the streets of West London, another ambitious story is taking shape.
The Wave is a narrative-driven project following a single family line from the early nineteenth century through successive generations and into an imagined future.
Set largely at sea and in major British port cities, the project brings together social history, migration, conflict, work, family and the changing relationship between people and the sea.
It is a natural continuation of the storytelling that has always run through TMTCH's music, but on a much larger canvas.
The King's Shilling
As part of The Wave, the band have released The King's Shilling, a demo album and fundraiser featuring early studio tracks alongside acoustic works in progress. It gives supporters the chance to hear the songs developing while helping to finance production of the completed project.
The Story Isn't Finished
See where The Men They Couldn't Hang are heading next.