Our Story so far:

Once upon a time it was the year 1996. This one guy named Andrew thought it a good year to build a band to play some Beatle-esque songs he had written. Thus he gathered some like-thinking fellas-with-instruments-and-voices, called the group 'The Cry Ugly', and together they started to record and rehearse. And ultimately, play live. More and more did they enjoy what they were doing and more and more other people enjoyed to hear and see them do it.
Sometimes a bandmember fell off the bandwagon, only to see his place taken by someone else. As it goes with all bands. The band loved the super-melodic pop of the sixties and seventies, especially the stuff from Liverpool that once invaded the world. And from Muswell-Hillbilly. So the music they wrote had some kind of stylistic and characteristic resemblance to those invaders of yore.

Then came the day that the band thought it a good day to start recording an album. It took some time to record and raise the money and to plan and to hire equipment and all that. But finally in 1999 the band's first record was released. It consisted of fourteen songs, they called it 'Book Of Dreams' and they were happy. Other people said the record made them happy too. People started talking and writing about the band and their album. Ben Ohmart, a wacky writer/poet/artist-of-all-trades whom they had never even heard of before, reviewed it for 'The Muse's Muse' and he raved: '...this (The Cry Ugly) could be a world-conquering band someday. Not like Hitler, but you know.' The band read the review, along with other enthusiastic reviews, and they were still happy.
Then they started to play live. A lot. They played all over the gigantically small surface The Netherlands stretch out on. They made a video for their song 'Monica' that reached No. 1 in the Westpop Top 10 for five consecutive weeks, keeping big national hitmakers like 'Anouk' and 'Kane' away from that first spot. They had fun.
They played gigs opening for bands like 'Racoon', '16 Down', 'Nilsson', 'Millionaire'. They won the 'Talent Trophy' in 2003 and played for 3000 people in a line-up with 'Kane', 'Silkstone' and 'Mother's Finest'. Those days were the days!
But even more days would prove to be the days. Their second video 'A Perfect Memory' got extensive airplay, they appeared on national, regional and local TV and radio. And they still played live a lot.
During one of their live radio-apppearances they met Mouse, a highly creative and musical producer, who offered to produce an album for the band. That album 'Representatives Of The Shaggy Set', was released in 2005. It was received really well by fans and critics alike. However, the release also marked a sabatical period for the group. The bandmembers all got more involved in other musical projects. However, time and time again, they keep stressing the fact that the band 'has not disbanded!'.
In September 2006 the band made a successful appearance at the sold-out 'Ontzettend Leiden Festival' in the LVC in Leiden, The Netherlands.

- Barry O'Hara

- Current bandmembers:
Andy (vocals, guitars, songs)
Hilly (bassguitar, keyboards, backing vcls)
Marty (drums, backing vcls)

- Former bandmembers:

Michel Vroomans (guitars, backing vcls); Machiel Verhaar (drums); Marco Dirne (bassguitar); Erwin Steenbergen (keys, backing vcls); Arto Boyadjian (bassguitar, backing vcls); Olaf Fase (drums)