In the beginning . . .

Tetra'tum was born early in 2004 when singer, Zeph, and guitarist, Didg first made contact via a dodgy muso site. They arranged to meet up one dark winters night in a country pub somewhere in Buckinghamshire and, after an entire evening chatting about the fundaments of Didgeridoo(!) they embarked on the long and rocky road of rock.

Soon after that came former drummer Slayer (currently playing with Strange Folk) and former bass player Dr DK Thrust PhD (currently playing with Honeymoon On Mars) and in no time at all tetra'tum were ready to rock the world.

The current line up includes SGB vii (bass) who joined the band in 2005. He made his own bass guitar, the clever sausage! And Johnny Depp (on drums) who, after depping for us for a spell, eventually joined the band full time in 2007. He provides the fun stage props (don't ask)!

To date, tetra'tum have contributed to raising over £2,000 for various charities, including the SIA.

Why the Spinal Injuries Association?

At the time of Zeph and Didg's first contact, Zeph's partner Martin was recovering from a serious road traffic accident from December 2003. He was still convalescing at the Spinal Injures Center, Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Aylesbury. He had sustained multiple serious injuries, including severing his spinal chord, which rendered him a paraplegic.

The Spinal Injuries Association, which is based in Milton Keynes, have a stall at the Spinal Centre. This is run by volunteers. These kindly people offered support - not only to those who had suffered a spinal injury, but also to the family and friends of those patients. These volunteers would also happily have one-to-one chats with the bewildered (such as Zeph and Martin) to give reassurance, advise and above all show that life does go on after paralysis.

The SIA and its representatives have provided Zeph and Martin with so much support over the years that it was decided it was about time we gave a little something back to show our gratitude. And so, the Tettie Fest music festival was born to raise funds for this worthwhile and hands-on charity whilst having a jolly good knee's up at the same time.

What's In A Name?

The band was named Tetra'tum, thanks to the nurses at Stoke Mandeville. You see, nurses have a weird sense of humour (a-hem!). Anyway - because paralysis resulting from a spinal injury can result in the patients acquiring flaccid stomach muscles, those patients inevitably end up with a bit of a bulging belly! The nurses (bless 'em!) used to take great pleasure in light-heartedly teasing patients about this inevitability by declaring the patient to be suffering from (in non-too medical terms) a 'tetra-tummy'.

Being of strange humour ourselves too, we decided to adopt their pet name for tetraplegic and paraplegic tummies, by using it for our band name. We think it works!!

As for naming the festival Tettie Fest; tetra'tum are affectionately known as The Tetties amongst our muso friends,so it seemed only natural to name our festival after our nickname.

This is our first attempt at organising a music festival on this scale. Should Tettie Fest 2008 prove to be successful we will organise regular events of a similar vein in years to come. And to be honest, with the fantastic bands and performers we have managed to book for this event, we can not see how it could be anything other than a great success!