I’d like to pay tribute to the various musicians I enjoyed playing with over these many years. Some were strictly amateur, others were completely professional but all were great fun.
Garage Plus – My first band was a folk duet with a guy I’ve long lost contact with by the name of John Mortimer. He played the acoustic nylon guitar because he could (I was most impressed) and I sang. We were very sophisticated and sported matching “skivvy” shirts…..sigh! We were at school together and the thing I most remember was us doing Irish-Australian folk songs during set changes of the school’s production of the play Ned Kelly. The Headmaster, who hated me with a passion, insisted we perform not only in a completely darkened auditorium but also crouched behind the grand piano. This was to ensure the parent audience could avoid laying eyes on the school reprobate! There was, soon after, the locally infamous Papa Skragg’s Patent Leather Nightmare which included Jamie McKinley. One of the guys had a friend, who had a friend in the US who sent him delta blues recordings, completely unavailable in Australia at the time. We became “blues boys” with a passion. This was well before the blues bubble in the UK that of course transferred itself to Australia. The ghost of Robert Johnson and friends must have been rather amused at this pimply bourgeois teen singing about “mucky ol’ woman” and “you got a dirty little machine.” I suspect parents of the “nice” girls in the audience would have been less amused if the PA had not been the bass amp and they could have actually heard what I was singing!
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There was Respect, a soul band, again before that style of music was well known in Australia but my first chance of co-singing. Danny Kramer was great and we slogged it out as builder’s laborers in school holidays to buy a PA. Brian Thompson (keyboards) had a great feel for this genre as did George Meek (drums). Nonetheless, due to the driving force of Ian Davidson (guitar) Respect actually earned some respect around the traps and only broke up when the “good-looking one” Tony Derkinderen (bass) left to join the Fleet Air Arm. (as musos do??)
Pro Going - After Respect I joined Daisy Roots. Australians will appreciate the name more than most but the legend was that it was chosen in all naivety by young lads long before I joined. That’s a legend I never believed and I soon became very tired of being asked “Who’s Daisy?” Despite the name and never recording, Daisy did well with residencies at top clubs and various interstate tours. Drummer Alan Sandow went on to drum for Sherbet. John Miller (guitar) changed his name and found considerable success as an artist. So did my co-singer James Willebrandt who never changed his name but left the band and found success as an artist anyway? I don’t know what became of Chris Harder (bass) and Craig Mannell (keyboards) but I wish them well. Daisy did quite a few of my songs but we never recorded.
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Pro – Being a professional musician in Australia at the time involved working various jobs. I was a professional muso / postman / cleaner / laborer / store-man etc for example. This was due to the many gigs one did that paid poorly or not at all and the number of times a band that was just starting to get recognition would break up. Daisy Roots lasted around a year as professionals and in those days I slept in, but after we split there was a certain need for day job until the solo career started to pay.
For a while during the solo days I had the joy of working again with Jamie McKinley. With one outstanding stroke of creative genius we came up with the name Nolan McKinley for our duet and secured both a record deal and gigs! Then Jamie went down with mononucleosis. I recorded “In Vain The Christian” and Jamie went straight from his sick-bed to the Jesus Christ Superstar production band, the beginning of a long successful career in music for an outstanding musician and true gentleman.
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Semi-Pro – It was a long time until I was in another band, and I’d never thought I would be, but I was asked to join by a group of local chaps not long after I moved to a country town. I have no picture of Scarecrow but I really enjoyed working with them. Kim Tucker (bass), Greg Wilson (guitar) and Rob Elliott (drums) were particularly close mates and I think they still gig together from time to time. We rehearsed in Michael Erikson’s (keyboards) father’s dairy on the family farm, the inspiration of cowpat, mud and old farm machinery rocked! Being the only “townie” in the band, and a fair bit older than they, I was never “one of the lads” but they tolerated me exceedingly well and if someone has a pic I’ll be sure to post it.
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I persuaded Rob Elliott to drum for the next band I put together. Trust Me was a project I was really proud of. Besides Rob, we had John Magee, all the way from Belfast on lead guitar. John and I were good friends and we co-wrote some songs that audiences really appreciated. I miss him. The band also introduced Gerry Murphy as the female vocalist, Mark Becker on bass and Denis Ferraro on keyboards. These latter three being in their late teens / early twenties at the time were a great foil to John, Rob and myself being up to twenty years older (me anyway – I think I had 5 years on John and 10 on Rob) but we all got along well and it was a band with a great work ethic. We did lots of respectable gigs and played a number of original songs but sadly never recorded.
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Finally, there was Beyond Madness. Strictly covers, we did Madness, Split Enz and Ian Dury songs and had a lot of fun at it. It was very much Mark Lacey’s (guitar) band with Greg Opie (bass), Dave Linwood (keyboards), Rob Norsworthy (trumpet), Mark Hudson (sax) and the young but brilliant Billy Warnock on drums. I remember nothing but a good time on and off stage with these guys. Every band break up is sad but this was particularly so as we had worked hard on the concept and the staging. Further, these guys were excellent musos and I had never had live brass on stage before. I was really upset by this one going west but travel was becoming a big part of my day job so I finally relinquished the joy of playing with a band. But thanks guys and girl – all of you. Thanks so much!
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