The Hot Seats. Promoter in Scotland: Brookfield Knights music agency and representation, UK

When you hurtle down the musical helter skelter as these guys do, friction burns become a hazard of the job.

It is fitting, then, that performances have frequently been described as “white hot”.

In 2008, when formerly known as Special Ed & The Shortbus, they tore the biggest festival in the world – Edinburgh Fringe – apart, and won a coveted Herald Angel, the equivalent of an Oscar, for their outstanding contribution to the event. The Herald, Scotland’s best-read broadsheet, described them as
“sensational”.

The hot seats that time around were in the front row for each of the nightly shows at the prestigious Famous
Spiegeltent.

Now the band has changed the name to provide a kind of “high voltage” warning to those at the gigs who opt for a close-up view.

Performances, you see, have also been described from time to time as “electric” and “high energy”.

Let’s just say that you may feel the odd spark shooting through the air when they let rip.

So, the name may have changed but the content remains just as potent and entertaining as ever.

Those other Edinburgh Fringe favourites (and stablemates) The Wilders, call them “crazy bluegrass scientists”.

Others have attempted to pin them down as a “bubbling fountain of virtuosic insanity” and “bonkers but brilliant”

Maverick magazine said: “Great musicianship aside, it’s near impossible to explain what makes them so fantabulous as the show is so stuffed full of multi-faceted delicacies.”

The band has been together for seven years, fine-tuning their skills on the redneck bars and college clubs circuit where they experimented with a suitcase-full of assorted toys to supplement the guitar/mandolin/banjo/fiddle/bass line-up, employing everything from kazoo and jawharp to washboard, tin can percussion and Chinese blocks.

It’s an irresistible combination with elements of jug band, Vaudeville, country blues, old-time - and even Zappa - all added to the mix.

They were the “fave rave” act at Leicester’s Summer Sundae Festival and stand-out crowd pleasers at Maverick magazine’s first big summer bash in Suffolk.