My Interests No 2 Music - My brief career in bands
When I was at school, say aged about 10, if you would have asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said 'Lead singer in a rock band'. However, around the same time I came to the painful realisation that I am tone deaf and cannot carry a tune in a bucket. So I quickly revised 'Lead singer in a band' to 'In a band'.
In 1979 when I was 15, I bought a Roland SH-09 synthesizer for £180. In today's money that would be about £600 which is alot for a 15 year old. I joined up with 3 friends who lived close to mine, Rob Holden Guitar, Rob Merino Drums and Richie Davies Bass to form a punk band called The Castrators. The only song we ever wrote was called 'Snot Is Green' Sample lyric -
I went to the park the other day
Where I met my local DJ
And he said
Snot aint red
Snot is green, snot is green, snot is green!
We then decided that as this was 1979 we had perhaps missed the punk boat and none of us were really into punk music anyway. Plus we were all middle class kids (I could afford a £180 synth) from Childwall one of the posher parts of Liverpool. We decided to mutate into a Space Rock band because we were all into Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. This suited me fine as all I ever did with the synth was make weird, spacey, electronic noises. We played a combination of covers Astronomy Domine, Floyd, Master of The Universe, Hawkwind and some originals about time travel and space flight. Sample lyric from a song I wrote called The Depths of Space -
We Have flown past planets
We have flown past stars
We have flown past Venus
Now we are flying past Mars
We rechristened ourselves The Richie Davies Band because we rehearsed in Richie's bedroom and we thought it would be cool if we were named after the Bassist which is quite unusual. We rehearsed alot but soon problems started to emerge. Richie had mental health problems and is a paranoid schizophrenic. Of course as 16 year olds we did not understand this and we just thought that Richie was a weirdo. Richie became very difficult to be around and you couldn't even hold a simple conversation with him at times. I personally started to think of Richie as our own Syd Barrett type character but Rob Holden was really freaked out by him and said he was leaving. Rob Merino then decided that Space Rock music was 'B*ll*cks' and left to join a Joy Division influenced band. That left just me and Richie and it got to the point where Richie would come round to my house and sit in my bedroom for hours saying absolutely nothing. I have not seen Richie in 25 years.
In 1982 I formed a synth pop duo with an old school friend called Pete Stiles. This will shock alot of people who know me because I now detest synth pop. What you have to remember is that in 1982 Gary Numan, Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark, The Human League, Flock of Seagulls were all huge. I totally transformed myself by getting my long centre part rock hair cut into the then trendy wedge style and I started wearing big round red coloured glasses. We called our duo The Spastic Robots. I added a drum machine to my synth noises and Pete sang and played 1 finger tunes on a Casio keyboard. Sample lyric from our song Suburban Nightmare
The Autonoms slowly wander
While society heads squander
Money, health and wealth
Through undue sneaky stealth
Again we rehearsed alot, this time in Pete's garage. The split this time came when Pete announced he was gay. I did not have a problem with that but his macho Father did. His Dad came home drunk one night and gave him a right hiding for being 'Queer'. For his own safety Pete immediately moved to Manchester to live with his elder brother and that was the end of The Spastic Robots.
It was also the end of my music making career for about 20 years. I lent my synth to someone back in the 90s and never got it back so I bought a new synth, a Nova in 2002. I have recorded hours of stuff on my own under the name of Gus but I have not done anything on my own for awhile now. I just seem to be repeating myself and I miss working with other people. In 2004 I joined up with my then girlfriend's brother Charlie and we called ourselves Strange Angels. Charlie's Mum has an Apple Mac and we used a couple of music making programmes along with my synth and Charlie providing vocals. Sample lyric from Blah Blah Blah Muthaf*cka
Blah Blah Blah
Blah Muthaf*cka
Blah Blah Blah
Muthaf*cka Blah Blah
It actually works really well in the context of the song! Unfortunately Strange Angels are no more. Charlie is a drug addict and I recently learnt he is currently in prison in London. This is an incredible shame as Charlie is one of the most gifted people I know. He writes fantastic poetry, is an excellent artist, his drawings are great and in Strange Angels he was the 'Beat Master'. I just hope he sorts himself out one day.
In 1979 when I was 15, I bought a Roland SH-09 synthesizer for £180. In today's money that would be about £600 which is alot for a 15 year old. I joined up with 3 friends who lived close to mine, Rob Holden Guitar, Rob Merino Drums and Richie Davies Bass to form a punk band called The Castrators. The only song we ever wrote was called 'Snot Is Green' Sample lyric -
I went to the park the other day
Where I met my local DJ
And he said
Snot aint red
Snot is green, snot is green, snot is green!
We then decided that as this was 1979 we had perhaps missed the punk boat and none of us were really into punk music anyway. Plus we were all middle class kids (I could afford a £180 synth) from Childwall one of the posher parts of Liverpool. We decided to mutate into a Space Rock band because we were all into Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. This suited me fine as all I ever did with the synth was make weird, spacey, electronic noises. We played a combination of covers Astronomy Domine, Floyd, Master of The Universe, Hawkwind and some originals about time travel and space flight. Sample lyric from a song I wrote called The Depths of Space -
We Have flown past planets
We have flown past stars
We have flown past Venus
Now we are flying past Mars
We rechristened ourselves The Richie Davies Band because we rehearsed in Richie's bedroom and we thought it would be cool if we were named after the Bassist which is quite unusual. We rehearsed alot but soon problems started to emerge. Richie had mental health problems and is a paranoid schizophrenic. Of course as 16 year olds we did not understand this and we just thought that Richie was a weirdo. Richie became very difficult to be around and you couldn't even hold a simple conversation with him at times. I personally started to think of Richie as our own Syd Barrett type character but Rob Holden was really freaked out by him and said he was leaving. Rob Merino then decided that Space Rock music was 'B*ll*cks' and left to join a Joy Division influenced band. That left just me and Richie and it got to the point where Richie would come round to my house and sit in my bedroom for hours saying absolutely nothing. I have not seen Richie in 25 years.
In 1982 I formed a synth pop duo with an old school friend called Pete Stiles. This will shock alot of people who know me because I now detest synth pop. What you have to remember is that in 1982 Gary Numan, Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark, The Human League, Flock of Seagulls were all huge. I totally transformed myself by getting my long centre part rock hair cut into the then trendy wedge style and I started wearing big round red coloured glasses. We called our duo The Spastic Robots. I added a drum machine to my synth noises and Pete sang and played 1 finger tunes on a Casio keyboard. Sample lyric from our song Suburban Nightmare
The Autonoms slowly wander
While society heads squander
Money, health and wealth
Through undue sneaky stealth
Again we rehearsed alot, this time in Pete's garage. The split this time came when Pete announced he was gay. I did not have a problem with that but his macho Father did. His Dad came home drunk one night and gave him a right hiding for being 'Queer'. For his own safety Pete immediately moved to Manchester to live with his elder brother and that was the end of The Spastic Robots.
It was also the end of my music making career for about 20 years. I lent my synth to someone back in the 90s and never got it back so I bought a new synth, a Nova in 2002. I have recorded hours of stuff on my own under the name of Gus but I have not done anything on my own for awhile now. I just seem to be repeating myself and I miss working with other people. In 2004 I joined up with my then girlfriend's brother Charlie and we called ourselves Strange Angels. Charlie's Mum has an Apple Mac and we used a couple of music making programmes along with my synth and Charlie providing vocals. Sample lyric from Blah Blah Blah Muthaf*cka
Blah Blah Blah
Blah Muthaf*cka
Blah Blah Blah
Muthaf*cka Blah Blah
It actually works really well in the context of the song! Unfortunately Strange Angels are no more. Charlie is a drug addict and I recently learnt he is currently in prison in London. This is an incredible shame as Charlie is one of the most gifted people I know. He writes fantastic poetry, is an excellent artist, his drawings are great and in Strange Angels he was the 'Beat Master'. I just hope he sorts himself out one day.
posted by GUS at 2:41 AM
2 Comments:
why can't I leave a comment on the post above this one? Who broke it? lol!
I don't know! I must have done something wrong when I poated it. You know more about Blogs than me so if you don't know what's wrong with it, I certainly won't.
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