My earliest memories of music are of lying in my parents bed. I don't remember how old I was, but I must have been three or four. Every morning, I would wake up, run and jump into my parent's bed. I would lie there and listen to their clock radio which was always tuned to 2CH ( a Sydney radio station that in the late 70's played easy listening music - it was my mother's favourite station!)
Each morning, while my parents were having their showers and getting ready for the day, I would lie there listening to the strains of Elvis, Roger Whittaker, Tom Jones and Dean Martin. All the while imagining how they could fit all these musicians into a radio studio and pack them up and move the next lot in within the space of 30 seconds while the smooth tones of the announcer rolled through my head naming the artist and the song. I don't know how much that experience of listening to 2CH affected me, but now, in my late 20's, I am quite partial to all of the abovementioned performers.
As for me performing music, well it goes back to probably the age of 3 or four. Probably at the same time as these other memories of listening to music on the radio, I can remember putting on performances for my family at my grandmother's house. One of her favourite songs was a song called "A Daisy A Day". This was sung by an artist called Kamahl, who I would, some tweny four years later, perform with on an album and a video!!
My Gran would ask me to sing this song, "A Daisy A Day" for her. I can't remember if I knew all the words - I think I only knew "I'll give you a daisy a day dear, I'll give you a daisy a day". The words go on to say, "I'll love you until the rivers run still, I'll give you a daisy a day.". Kamahl reminded me of these lyrics when I subsequently met him and told him of this story.
I could not remember the words, so it makes me think that I must have, at the age of three, bored everybody senseless with "I'll give you a daisy a day, dear", and made them all wish that I would learn the rest of the song.
Like all children (or nearly all children - I shouldn't make generalisations), my sister and I used to love dressing up. Cowboys and Batman were my favourite dress-up characters. Although at the age of 7 or 8, I did go through a "KISS" stage, where I thought I was Paul Stanley or Ace Frehley (I think at one stage I even wanted to change my name to Ace). The Ace phase was partly influenced by a cousin of my mother's whose name was "Ace Gregory", hence the desire to change my name!! Weird huh?
I grew up in Northmead, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, with my family, which consists of my Dad, Terry; mother, Janette; and my sister, Belinda, who is two years older than me. Dad and Mum met at their work in the mid 60's. They were both working at the Maritime Services Board in Sydney. The MSB looked after the Sydney Waterways, administering boat licenses, ports, ship movements and general boating and waterways affairs. I think that when they met, Mum was working there as a temp, and Dad was a junior office clerk.
THE EARLY YEARS
Chapter 2
You know, I can't complain about my childhood - my parents were very fair and loving. It's very important for children to have parents that are fair (but still have discipline) and that give you love and make you feel that you are important to them and the world.
I guess I was lucky in that regard. I don't remember any "scarring" events of my childhood, so I guess they did a good job in raising me. I used to love Christmas time as a kid - who doesn't!!
The thing that I loved was the anticipation of Christmas Day. We would spend Christmas Eve at my Gran and Pop's place. This is my mother's parents. Dad's parent's were Nanna and Pa. On Christmas Eve, my family would go to Gran and Pop's with my Uncle. We would give our presents to each other on this night, rather than Christmas Day. One Christmas Eve I can remember getting my first magic trick. I was probably four or five years old.
This was probably what got me interested in magic. From then on, I've had an interest in magic. From close up magic tricks to big illusions. The first trick I got was the "Spirit Bottle" - a bottle with a ball in it, and a string that you put in the neck of the bottle. You wave your hands over the bottle and the bottle becomes suspended on the string!! Magic!!
I can also remember standing on Gran and Pop's front verandah as we were about to leave looking for Santa's sleigh in the sky. Every year we would see what were aeroplanes but my sister and I were convinced the light of the plane was Rudolph's shiny red nose.
My first memories of musical instruments were gifts that my sister and I received as Christmas presents. One year I got a piano accordian toy of some sort. Actually, I think it was more of a squeeze box that you just pushed and pulled and it huffed and puffed and made a sort of musical sound. The more realistic piano accordian that I can remember getting was probably a year or two after that one.
I can't remember whether my parents noticed somehow at an early age that I was interested in music, or whether the fact that they kept buying me musical instruments as gifts (albeit toy instruments), kind of pushed me in that musical direction. If that is the case, it's funny how later when the Wiggles were starting out how they weren't so keen for me to be following a musical career!! I think that I must have shown some interest in music to prompt them to buy these things for me, because I can remember very vividly my preschool teacher playing the guitar and singing for us. I can remember her long hair and her glasses - but I can't remember her name. I can remember though, thinking how talented she was to be able to play the guitar and sing at the same time. Something that I still marvel at when people can do that without making any mistakes!!
Other musical toys that I got for Christmas and birthdays included a piano, a ukelele, a trumpet and a saxophone. I sometimes wonder, thinking back on the noise that my sister and I must have made, whether Mum and Dad ever regretted getting us those things!!
Chapter 3
My first "real" guitar was a gift for Christmas when I was five years old, turning six. I can remember that Mum and Dad had said that if I wanted to learn the guitar next year, then Santa would have to bring me one for Christmas and he would not be able to bring anything else. Well, actually, Santa brought the guitar plus a few other little things, which was a really nice surprise because I really only expected to get the guitar!!
I went to school at Baulkham Hills Public School which was quite a large school in terms of actual land size - which was fantastic - there was also lots of places to play. There were three large grassed areas that were referred to as "ovals" even though in retrospect they really weren't all that large, but at the time seemed huge. There were fantastic play areas that the school, or the parent group had built for the children to play on. There was always something for us to do or play on at lunch times. I can remember that I loved going out to play at school. This was the case all through my years at Baulkham Hills P.S.
I started guitar lessons when I was in year one. My teacher was Miss Groves, who later got married and became Mrs Haskins. I think we also had another teacher whose name was Miss Boyd. One of these teachers played the guitar, (I can't remember which one it was) but I can remember watching them play - how their fingers moved to form the chords on the fretboard, and how they strummed with their other hand. It all seemed very difficult to me. However, with my lessons came practice. Half an hour a day each day of the week. It may sound kind of harsh for a six year old, but I think I enjoyed it overall. Of course there were times when I didn't really feel like practicing, and Mum would force me to go upstairs to my room and practice, but looking back, I'm glad that I did.
Belinda learned the piano. She was two years older than me, and I think that she practiced a little more diligently than me,and interestingly enough, she went on to do exams on the piano, but stopped playing after about 4 years of playing. I don't think that she's played ever since! She did have a brief stint of self-taught guitar though. I may have shown her a few chords here and there, but I do recall forming a band with her and some other people in high school - it didn't last though.
My earliest recollection of performing was also during my early school years. It was in my first year at "big" school. I think our class was acting out the song "Miss Polly" who called for the doctor to fix her dolly who was sick, sick, sick. I was the doctor - my first starring role!! But unfortunately I did not want to do it because I can remember crying and not wanting my Mum to leave when she dropped me off for school that day.
The reason why I didn't want to do it was because as the doctor, I had to wear an upside-down ice-cream container on my head!! Don't ask me why a doctor would wear an ice-cream container on their head, but for some reason, my teacher thought that it would automatically indicate to the audience that I was a doctor. Well, even at the age of five I must have thought it was a bit of a crazy idea because I did not want to get up on stage in front of the whole school and be seen wearing an ice-cream container on my head! I did it though, and Mum came along to see the performance, and you know, I don't know if she remembers this incident or not, but it probably contributed to the fact that I am a little self conscious when I'm in front of large groups of people.
When I started playing the guitar, I loved to experiment with melodies on the guitar. However, after a few years, I started just using chords, and singing the melodies myself. This is when my ability to play the guitar really became the ability to play only chords. You know, after having played the guitar for 22 years now, it is sometimes a little embarrassing that I can only play chords and not even really improvise a melody. I suppose that's a result of my love of singing and the need to accompany myself on the guitar. I always did find it strange to have the full sound of the chords ringing out and then suddenly drop away to the solitude of single, empty notes when playing a "solo".
GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS, WOW!!
Chapter 4
I can remember many occasions where I would take my guitar to school for news, and play songs that I had learned, or to accompany the class singing songs for assembly items. Looking back, I think it was great that the teachers encouraged me to do this, it sort of gave me a purpose for learning the guitar - a reason to justify all those hours spent in my room practicing. In hindsight, the school years were fantastic - I mean, if we all knew then what we knew now, we probably would have loved our youth even more.
Time at school was fantastic. Where else could you hang out with your friends and pretend that you have a shoe phone just like Maxwell Smart's and not be held up for ridicule?!!
It was in year 3 that I can remember that I noticed girls for the first time in a serious way. There was a new girl in our class, Marni Jenkins. For some reason, at the age of 8, I found myself drawn to her. She actually ended up going right through high school with me, but my attraction to her seemed to fade after year 5.
Year Three also found me in "love" with a girl by the name of Vanessa Reid. Coincidentally, Reid is my mother's maiden name, so I felt at that time that we were a perfect match and destined to be together forever. Wow!! But of course the mix of our two surnames provided class mates with much amusement - "Turn the Page and Reid it" I seem to recall being said to me many times when people wanted to tease me for my young love. Oh well - que sera sera (is that how it's spelled?).
I should probably point out that my love for Miss Reid was unrequited - she was in love with one of my friends, Nigel Hodgson. I think in year 5 they actually "went" together, much to my disappointment. Vanessa also went right through High School with me too, and it was only last year (1999) at our 10 year school reunion that we spoke about our primary school years. I seem to recall her saying to me that she at some stage felt the same way toward me, but for some reason never said or did anything about it. Oh well - que sera sera again, if that's how it's spelled!!
After that, I fell in love with a girl from Belgium, in year 6. Her name was Daphne Delcambre. She was only going to be at our school for about 6 months, but for some reason I fell in love with her. Now, it may seem strange to some for someone to be talking about falling in love with someone at the age of 11, but I can remember the feelings so well. I also remember the day that she had to go back to Belgium. December 5, 1983. I think you'll find that it was a Thursday from memory. I remember going to tennis training that afternoon, and looking for a plane in the sky that might have been hers.
Daphne was yet another case of unrequited love for me, but at least she was a good friend. We got on well together, and spent quite a bit of time with her and two of her other friends, Nicole Mason and Tracey Varga. We all hung out together, and I did actually worked up the courage to invite Daphne over one day after school. Mum was not impressed from memory. "Too young to be having girls as friends" I seem to recall being said at some stage! Well, luckily she allowed me to have Daphne come over - I don't recall what we spent the afternoon doing, but I'm sure we had a good time, and I am really thankful that she agreed to come over. As I said, we were friends, and looking back now, that friendship was better to have than nothing!!
Chapter 5
Year Six was also the year that I started playing cricket. The passion finally overcame me for some reason - I'm not sure why it did, but I'm glad it did.
I remember as a younger child, probably eight or nine, I got a cricket bat for Christmas. It was Christmas Eve at my Gran and Pop's. My Uncle took me out into their backyard and threw the ball to me, trying to teach me how to play the forward defensive "block". Now, if anyone doesn't know anything about what I'm talking about here, they can go to my website
www.cricketcoach.com and find out a little bit more about cricket and what it's all about! Uncle John threw the ball over and over again, but still I couldn't master the "block".
Boxing Day was always the traditional Test Match, and it would be on the TV with my Dad, Pop and Uncle John sitting watching it. I would walk past and try and work out what was going on but it was all too hard - or so it seemed for an 8 or 9 year old. Then finally when I was 11 or 12, something inside me clicked and I understood what it was all about. That's when I decided I wanted to play cricket. Luckily my parents didn't mind taking me to matches at 8.30 every Saturday morning and waiting 3 hours for the game to finish.
Over the next three years, I became quite a good bowler. Some good coaching from one of the dads helped me master swing bowling (the ability to move the ball in the air from side to side).
Mr. Greentree was my mentor in these years. He was not the coach, but he had played quite a bit of cricket, and said he had played with Dave Gilbert who played for Australia and was one of my idols in terms of swing bowling. Mr Greentree taught me the proper grip to get the ball to not only swing, but also land on the wicket and cut off the seam. This made the ball virtually unplayable, especially by young players who had to watch the ball swing through the air one way, and then move the other way at the last second off the wicket.
This training, and a lot of practise, lead to a "career highlight" in 1987 of taking 52 wickets in a season at an average of 11.52 per wicket. That year I was presented the award for best bowling in the team by a player who had just been selected to play state representative cricket.
I knew who he was because I used to go down to the SCG and watch the Sheffield Shield games. His name was Mark Taylor, and he later became the captain of the Australian Team!! On that presentation night when Mark Taylor was there as a young 22 year old recruit for the NSW State Team, I sang and played a song on the guitar for the teams. It was a song called "Some Kind of Girl", a song that sailed the top 40 charts in Australia, by a band that I would later meet, work for, and then go on to form another group with two of it's members!!
SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING SOONER
Chapter 6
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Well, this is not really going to be a story as such - more of an apology for not having written anything for such a long time, and a bit of an explanation (or excuse) for why I haven't.
Most of you that come to this site regularly probably are aware that while we were on the UK tour, my grandmother, or Gran as I fondly knew her, passed away. She was 87 years old, and had suffered a fairly major stroke 6 years ago. I will never forget this event, as it happened at a Wiggles show.
It was an outdoor show at Liverpool Mall in Sydney. My parents had brought Gran down to watch the show, and they had arrived early to get her a good seat so she could have a good view.
I was at the side of the stage preparing with the lads, as this was Leeanne Ashley's first day working with us. Mum and Dad asked me to keep a bit of an eye on Gran, as it was starting to warm up a little. I said I would try, as I was also trying to work out what show we were going to do, and also inform Leeanne of what moves etc. she needed to learn.
By this stage, the guys had headed off somewhere to have a coffee and run Leeanne through the show. As I was walking around the mall trying to find them, an SES (State Emergency Services) worker came running past me talking on his walkie talkie, in the general direction of the stage.
I immediately thought that something must have been wrong down at the performance area. Then I remembered that mum and dad had asked me to keep an eye on Gran.
I raced back down there to find SES workers around Gran, plus mum and dad there too, trying to comfort her.
I don't think anyone really knew what was wrong with her at that stage, but I felt awful that I wasn't there when the stroke happened. An ambulance came and took Gran to the hospital which was only about 5 minutes away luckily.
We did the show, the whole time I was wondering what was wrong with Gran. It was very difficult. After the show I went to the hospital to see Gran. She couldn't talk, or move her right arm or leg.
I remember there was some talk that she would get her speech back again, and therapists were brought in to help her regain the use of her limbs, but unfortunately, Gran never spoke again or walked again.
This was so tragic for her, as even at the age of 80 odd, she would walk from her home down to the shops (a good 2 kilometres there and back), buy her food, come back home and cook for herself and whoever else might have been there.
She also loved her rose garden (much like Dorothy), and would be out in her garden pruning roses and taking the time to smell their fresh fragrances.
So, for Gran to go from being so independent, to having to rely on others for everything from bathing, feeding and even the smaller things of picking up things that she couldn't, it must have been so hard.
She spent the last 6 years of her life in a nursing home, with constant visits from my mother, sister, uncle and other friends to try and brighten up her days. My only regret is that due to my heavy touring schedule and other commitments, I did not visit her as often as I should have.
At the funeral, my Mum's cousin told a story of the last time I visited Gran. He said that on the day that I last visited Gran before leaving for England, she was very down, and not in a good mood. When I came into the room, he said, her eyes lit up and she was a different person.
"She was very proud of her grandson, and you could just see in her eyes whenever he came into the room."
So, even though I didn't see her as much as I probably should have, nor did I get to say a "last goodbye" as such, to hear this recount of my last visit, and the change in mood that it brought her on that day, it did give me some peace of mind to know that on that day, I did brighten up her day a little, and that was my going away present.
So, anyway, when I got back from England we had the funeral, and then about 6 weeks off, which was great. Some time to get to know the family, again, and then I started working on my next album, which I will tell you about next week.
THE SCHOOL ROCK BAND!
Chapter 7
After having learned to play the guitar for 7 years, at the age of thirteen, upon reaching High School, I joined the school "Rock Band". It's funny that that's what the band was always called too - "The School Rock Band".
At the time, there was one other person who played guitar, a guy named Tony Douglass. He was the same age as me, and was in year seven too. (For my American friends, just in case your system of Education is a little different, year 7 is the first year of junior high school).
In the band were two year 11 girls, who were the singers, Indra Subramanium, and Nicki Patrick. The drummer was a year 11 guy named Scott Grice. We had no bass player, but we had a keyboard player, Karen Cumming, who was also in year 11. All of these people studied music as an elective subject, and had been part of the school band for a couple of years.
I can remember rehearsing with the band every Tuesday afternoon. Trying to decide what songs to play, and then, trying to play them! I'm not sure which of the two was more difficult.
Tony was, and still is, quite a good guitarist. Yours truly though, never quite got past strumming a few chords - which was okay for the situation as Tony was fairly competant, and I was really just making up the numbers.
I remember our first performance. It was a school performance night where a number of different performers would get up and do a variety of things. There were solo singers, solo guitarists, pianists, trumpet players and so on. We were, however, the official "School Rock Band", so we had to ROCK!!
We did a rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark", a great song back in 1984. I think it came out the year before - I think my chronology is correct here, it was nearly twenty years ago now!
Anyway, we did the song, and got a great reception. The School Rock Band had never had such a good reception we were told my our music Teacher, whose name was Anne Jennings. She looked after us, encouraged us to play, nurtured our growth and development as musicians. Still, as young teenagers, Tony and I soon found ourselves "swept up" in the euphoria of thunderous applause to our first performance.
We continued to meet weekly to perform. Learning more songs, and finally writing our first "original" composition. I can't remember the name of the song, but I remember the lyrics that Indra wrote. I wrote the melody, and I still have a version of the song that we recorded somewhere on tape. I'll endeavour to dig it out and put it on the site int he next week or so.
I was quite pleased with the song really, given that it was my first attempt at 'writing" with another person. Indra gave me the lyrics on a sheet of paper, and I took them home, sat down with a guitar and came up with the tune. Judge for yourself, but for a thirteen year old, not bad I think!!!
AND SO BEGINS A LIFE IN MUSIC
Chapter 8
Well, I've just dug out that old cassette tape of that song, which I have since remembered is called "For You". It is now sitting on the page which you can get to by clicking on the Demos and New Audio Samples button on the left. Hopefully you'll enjoy it!!
The next year, we played at the same School performance night, and did a version of Phil Collins' "You Can't Hurry Love". (Don't worry, I do know that it was out earlier, but Phil's was the version we were working from at the time). Again, we got a warm reception from the crowd, so young Tony and I were spurred on to keep going with the band.
After practising up about 12 songs, we got our first gig with the band. It was a gig for a Netball team's presentation night, so lots of girls is all I can remember!
Actually I do remember breaking a guitar string that night. And being the young, inexperienced guitarist that I was, I didn't have a spare guitar, or a spare string for that matter! The guitar went out of tune quite a bit, which made it hard for Nicki and Indra to sing to, but hey, we all had a good time nontheless!
At the end of that year, 1985, Indra and Nicki left school, having completed their HSC (Higher School Certificate). So the next year, when we met for band rehearsal, there was no-one to sing for the band. We had also lost our keyboard player Karen, but we still had Scott on drums.
Someone had to be found to sing for the band or else there was no band! After a little coaxing from Miss Jennings, I decided to volunteer for the job, with no experience at all.
We practised harder than we had before, and I started to sing in the shower more than I did before. Later that year, at the school performance night, the band played, and I sang for the first time ever in public. We did a version of Talking Heads', "And She Was".
I can still remember the nerves I had, looking out into the crowd, full of faces, some of them familiar, and some not familiar at all. As we got further into the song, I could tell that the crowd were enjoying what we were doing, and being the singer, an integral part of the overall sound, I assumed that I must have been doing okay.
At the end of the night, we all were glad it was over, particularly me, and based on how well we did juding by the crowd reaction, we decided that I would stay on as the lead singer of the group.
I was kind of shocked that I landed that role somehow, without really being a singer, but people were telling me, "You've got a natural voice", so I guess I just sort of stuck with it for that reason, but mainly, I stuck with it because I enjoy singing.
AUBURN GIRLS HIGH STICKS IN MY MEMORY!
WOW - what a place to play!! After not wanting to play there initially, that was THE gig to play!!
Our first show there was only 35 mintues long, but it was crazy. 600 teenage girls screaming at 4 teenage guys playing music. It was the first time I had ever experienced something like that. At first I thought the girls were all doing it just as a bit of a joke, but pretty soon, as they kept it up for the whole 35 mintues, I realised that something was really striking a chord with them - pardon the pun.
Pretty soon, I realised that it was our bass player, Dean Hawkins that had all the girls in such a swoon. Dean was always the heart-throb of the group, and this pretty much sealed it. The scenes were remeniscent of footage of the Beatles concerts or Elvis Presley concerts that I had seen. As I said in my last story, I soon found why they had the benches there.
There were girls 5 and six deep surrounding the area that we were playing in. It certainly made us all feel pretty special, and after our first show there I signed my first autographs for some of the girls - needless to say that Dean seemed to be signing for much longer than any of us other guys though!!
I think that we played Auburn Girls High School about two more times after that, and each time was just as wild as the first. A most memorable experience!
Tapan decided to leave the group and focus on his school work - so we were without a drummer for a little while - until we decided to enter some local RSL Club Talent Competitions.
When we auditioned for the competition we were told that we would be able to pick up a drummer at the show as there would be a "house" band that we could their drummer. The first one we did went pretty well, and we were only 16 years old at the time, so it was a bit of an eye-opening experience for me. THe host of the show (female) was apparently making sexual jokes to me on stage which just went straight over my head and my sister and her boyfriend had to explain to me later!!
Anyway, on our way to our next competition (some weeks later), we were travelling in Dean's father's campervan (Dean was a year older than Tony and me, and so was allowed to drive his father's car), Tony and I had our guitars out in the back, strumming away and singing as we travelled along Sydney's famous Parramatta Road.
We were stopped at a set of traffic lights when someone in the car next to us yelled out - "Hey, are you guys a band?", Tony and I both said, "Yeah". The guy said, "You don't need a drummer do you?", we both looked at each other and said, yeah we do actually". He said, "Where are you going?".
We told him we were going to Bondi Diggers Club to play in a talent competition. He quickly said something to his father who was driving the car and then said to us, "I'll see you there.".
Tony and I both thought that he must have been joking, but he turned up with his father with enough time for us to let him know which songs we'd be doing, and roughly how our versions went. We played three songs, didn't win, but we had found ourselves a new drummer, Richard Coleman.
BAND COMPETITIONS AND OTHER FUN THINGS!
After Richard joined the band, we had a pretty good run of rehearsals and gigs. We played at a "Dance Party" one night that was organised in the local area. I was on a committee at the time that was created for the purpose of providing entertainment in the local are for the youth. We had planned a "dance party" with a D.J., and tickets for the night had sold out, about 1400 people would be attending. On the day of the party, I learned that one of the other guys in the committee had organised that we should pay a friend's band to perform. They were a band that had very little recognition, but nonetheless had performed in some pubs for a few years and were a semi-well-known cover band.
Upon learning this, I asked the rest of the committee if our band could perform for free if all the guys were willing and able. They gave us the go ahead, so I quickly rang around the other band members who jumped at the chance to play to 1400 people!! The other band played first, and then we set up and played without a sound-check, and the local audience really appreciated our music. It was great to play to such a large, enthusiastic crowd, and it felt strange that it all just seemed to come together on the day - perhaps that is fate!!
We had the opportunity to play in some band competitions that were advertised in the newspapers. These competitions were held at night clubs, and we made it to the finals. We played a mixture of original songs and cover versions. I will try and find some of the originals and put them onto CD - some of them are good, some less good, but nonetheless, they show a progession!!
We got to the finals of the band competition, and did not hold much hope of winning, my sister and her boyfriend at the time (who is now her husband) came along also and supported us. That is one thing that I must say about Belinda and Dominic is that whenever they can they come along to support whatever musical endeavours I try. They were there at some of the early talent shows that I spoke about in an earlier chapter, and they have been to a few of my shows with Geoff Harvey as well. It is nice to know that my sister is there to lend her moral support - thankyou both for that!
The other bands in the competition were different to us - more heavy sounding and vocalists that seemed to be straining every time they sang. I knew that the sound we had was not the sound "of the future" and that some of these bands would be more favoured than us. However, there can be only one winner, and it wasn't us - we did come third though, out of eight bands that night, and however many other bands had competed in the qualifying rounds of the competition, so we couldn't get too disheartened.
We played other band competitions and weren't so successful though. But during high school, one of the incarnations of the shcool band "Pink Chair" made it to the State Finals of the School Bands Battle of the Bands. We were the pride of the school for a while there, and it felt good that a "geek" could be a little popular, and be noticed for something other than being a geek! We played a mixture of covers and originals, including a Santana song - Oye Como Va, which Tony loved playing because it featured him on gutiar, and he was very good!! It was great fun playing at these competitions, not really caring if we won or not, but just having the opportunity to play them was enough for me. It was a great experience in performing and singing, something which has probably aided me as a performer today.
MORE GIGS AND BAND COMPETITIONS
That year, and into the year after, at the age of 14 and 15, we played many more gigs, mainly parties for people at school. The band finally had a name - "Dead Giveaway", which I can't remember who thought of that name, but at the time, we all thought it was pretty cool.
The parties that we played at were mainly for some of the older kids at school. There was one for a guy in Year 12, who was a friend of our drummer. We even played a party for my sister's birthday which was a surprise party and she did not know about. There's a photo which will be posted in the photo gallery which is soon to come to the site.
Also, we played quite a few gigs for my local youth group's "Disco". But, at then of that year, we lost our drummer, after he too completed the HSC. He moved on to do other things. We tried to keep the band going with him in it, but it just didn't work out.
We needed a new drummer, and we had to find one quick. There was a guy in our year, named Jonathan, who had been having some lessons from Scott for about a year before Scott finished school.
We gave Jonathan the position in the band. For some reason though, Jon didn't stick with it for too long. So, we had a couple of drummers after that, Tapan Sharma, and Darren McMahon.
This is where the story gets a little murky now, for me, because we ended up having two bands going. The school band kept on going, but then "Dead Giveaway" kind of broke off onto a tangent and had some other members in it. For instance, we had a keyboard player from school, Jenny Laughton, and we needed a bass player. Her boyfriend at the time was an older guy, about 18, whose name was Paul Mullens if I remember correctly.
He didn't stick with the band too long either, and it was at one of the youth group Disco's that we picked up another bass player, Dean Hawkins, who I had known for a couple of years through the youth group.
At this stage, I think Tapan was still drumming with us, and we got a couple gigs playing at an all girls school in Auburn. Tony's mum was a teacher there, and we were the lunch time entertainment.
Now, when I heard about this, I thought it was a crazy idea. I dould not imagine anyone wanting to listen to a band in their lunch time. So, reluctantly, I went along with the other guys, and we set up in their main outdoor area. The teachers had set up an area for us which was surrounded by park benches, kind of like a security fence, and I immediately thought that this was just crazy, and over the top. However, once the gig started, I could see why they had the benches there!
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