The Snape of things to come

Together with Sam White he has been making Germans, French and Italians in particular jostle to the indie disco charms of the likes of Fear Of Fragility, the catchy new single that brings them to Sheffield's Leadmill.

"It is always impossible to say why we go down well there," says vocalist Jack, "but there's quite a strong tradition of electronic music."

As there is in Sheffield, although the former Tupton Hall School pupil reckons he wasn't influenced much by the '80s electronic scene.

"It's more to do with hearing club music and dance music when I was at university and using computers to adapt it to indie," he says of the act he formed as a physics student in Durham while Sam was studying history of art.

"I advertised to start a band and we started with a drummer and bass player but I kicked them out when I began writing demos on my computer. Now we are playing guitars and synths so we are busy on stage, although we're writing a second album and it is looking like from the style we'll have to get a drummer. It would help the new stuff to mesh with the old as it's got more of a natural rhythm."

The laptop-loving lads won plenty of fans with their debut album Messages, which had flashes of Phil Oakey-style vocals and early Erasure synths but a very modern energy.

To My Boy are now based in Sam's hometown of Liverpool, also home to electonic combo Ladytron.Jack admits his duo doesn't go down as well as they'd like there.

"We are quite different to Ladytron. I'm not really into the dark and sexy side of electronic. I prefer the fun side; we're not into pouting and posing.

"There are lots of bands we like but none that match lyrically and these nu-rave bands have different beats; dance music but with guitars and drums whereas we do it the other way around; indie but using the instruments of dance music."

The set-up also means less gear to drag around to gigs. "We started off driving round in a little car, a Polo, because we had no drum kit to cart about, so we've got a nice low carbon footprint."

Unlike one of the previous bands Jack was involved with around the Springbank Centre. - a Commitments-style 15-piece Motown covers act called St Lawrence & The Peacocks who did weddings.

He's been sampling trumpets from one of the members of that lot and is still in touch with others when he returns to north Derbyshire.

"I like to write in the peace and quiet so it's quite good to go back to my mum and dad's and write there."

Support comes from Icelandic six-piece Jakobinarina who release new single His Lyrics Are Disastrous also on September 24.