DAKOTA TIIIREE are a Manchester band working out of  Hope Mill based in the North West of  England.

Originally, we started out as husband and wife team, Josh and Clare Langton. Our musical journey goes way back beginning many years ago listening to and recording our favourite tunes from the radio onto cassettes - the only way to download in those days! In our mid to late teens it was all about buying vinyl from Manchester's finest record stores, such as Piccadilly Records, Record Peddler and Yanks to name just a few, then rushing home to listen to them on our Hi-Fi's. 

We both have an open mind where our musical tastes are concerned but have been largely influenced by rock and folk in particular and would go to see as many gigs as possible. In those days it was mostly at venues like Manchester Apollo Theatre, The International l and ll, The Boardwalk, UMIST and Band on The Wall.

As a teenager I sang in a band for a short while and learned to play piano as a child. Josh on the other hand, despite his love of music never picked up a musical instrument until he was forty years old. As a result of his foray into learning to play acoustic guitar and with  encouragement from our very good friend and producer Simon Sparkes, whom we couldn't have done it without, we both entered into the world of songwriting. On hearing our first attempt, which we recorded at home on a mobile phone, we decided to take the plunge and go into Simon's studio to see where it would take us.

It has been a learning curve for the both of  us and to date we are very pleased with what we have written. At first we wrote and recorded three songs of our own - Person That Is Me, Echoes of Laughter and Helpless. These were initially put down in a more basic format but during this process we gained confidence and with new ideas began to develop these songs. After completing all three we thought it would be interesting to revisit our first recording 'Person That Is Me' which resulted in a new remix adding music, vocals and harmonies.

We enjoyed this process very much and decided to continue to write, develop and record our own songs. Simon became more involved with our songs, with his experience, ideas, production and some talented guitar playing.

Simon, originally from Carlisle, is a Manchester based guitar teacher. He has played in several rock bands and gigged around the UK. He experienced some success in these rock bands back in the 1980's, notably for me, supporting one of my favourite bands at the time, the Scorpions at Manchester Apollo Theatre in April 1982 where I was in the audience. Who would have thought all these years later we would meet in a very different way?   

Now we have become DAKOTA TIIIREE, 3 friends who get together once a week for a couple of hours to do what we enjoy, writing, recording and developing our songs together. We all have busy lives with full time careers, family and other commitments and can only dedicate a small amount of time to what is essentially a hobby.

We have reached a stage now where we would like to share our songs. Why? Well, as with all things, time moves forward and projects / hobbies evolve. We have written and recorded 13 songs and are working on our 14th. We decided we would like to share them with family and friends and maybe even reach a wider audience...who knows. 
 
Clare