EastSide Blues Band

Meet the Band

I was born in Singapore, sometime in the last century (20th, not 19th), obviously well ahead of my time. I think my mother, Millie, was there at the time. When I wasn't surrounded by water, I was surrounded by music: my Father, Reg, was a drummer and played at Raffles Night Club in Singapore. Later he played at Ronnie Scott's and many other venues, until he retired in 1998. I always wanted to be a musician but the drums were well "Off Limits". So, when I was fifteen, my Mom bought me a "Kat-Tel" guitar from the Woolworths Catalogue....remember Woolies ??? I was rubbish on it and often got banished into the kitchen, where my Mom would shove tissue paper in her ears and then encourage me to play some more.

At just past 17 years I left home and joined the Army. I was rubbish at that as well and often got banished into the kitchen, but that's another story. During "Basic Traning" I met a Bob Collard who was my very first guitar teacher and mentor. The first finger-pick I ever learnt was "Freight Train". Bob also taught me "Mississipi Blues" and 40 years later I've just about got it. In fact it was down to both, meeting Bob and being in Germany in the early 70's, that introduced me to the Blues. At that time I remember Big Bill Broonzy, and the Rev Gary Davies were still doing the Folk/Blues clubs and the Blues was being played everywhere. 

After I left the Army I found myself living in Southsea and it was during that time that I met up with a whole different bunch of musicians: Rickie Le Page, Bernie Fox and Mick Jones. I had a "reel to reel" 4 track and Mick and Rick put down many ideas on it. Sadly, my Mom binned the tapes during my "absent years". Mick went on to form "Foreigner" and I got married and had two lovely children. After I divorced I spent  many years in and out of relationships and trouble, until I fell into Gibraltar, about 9 years ago, where my life took on many, many radical changes. I got a proper job, got married and encountered the very vibrant Gib music scene, which encouraged me to pick up the guitar again ( in fact now I have several, my favourites being the Line 6 Variax 700 and my Gibson Les Paul Studio). I started to jam and I founded a Blues band "Off yer Trolley "with whom we played many gigs and appeared on Radio and local TV. Last September me, Iain, Melvyn and Clive formed a new band "EastSide Blues Band".

So, here I am again with my guitar in my hand (which is why the typing's so bad), looking back on down that road and happy to be where I am.    

My life started when I was born, Gibraltar was the place, born in to a Police family that goes back 5 generations. Moved to the UK when I was 7 years old.

Started playing guitar at an early age with the help of the most famous music book of them all  - Burt Weedon's "Play in a Day", hahahaha and thought I was doing quite well till friends wanted to start a group and said I would make a better Bass player as I had short fat fingers!!! ( thanks men ) So it began, asked Mom and Dad for cash, took my old guitar and came home with a Hofner Senator Bass (think it would be worth quite a lot now). The group started as the Sutherland's...boy was we bad (bad in the old sense!) so as you can guess it didn't last long, think we only did one gig. Dave Rumsey (drummer) and I went on to other groups, Information, Cry,  CrazyCats etc.,etc. and back to Information.

Then came Scarecrow,   ( Scarecrow link )  the most successful of 'em all. As Scarecrow we wrote all our own music, had 3 singles and 3 albums on the market. One of the albums "Scarecrow Live at the Marquee" was seen on eBay selling for £300. We toured Europe and the UK many times backing bands like Vinegar Joe with Elkie Brooks, Manfred Mann, The Tremolo's, Groundhogs,   Uriah Heep, Yes, Pink Floyd and the man himself, Jimmy Hendrix.   Did lots of TV and Radio shows - Top of the Pops, Friday Night Rock Club,The John Peel show. We even came to Gib and did a 2 night concert tour at St Michael's Cave and GBCTV. Playing the London clubs was great -  Marquee, Playboy Club, Ronnie Scott's, Tiffany's etc. etc. and the colleges... well, thats another story, but we toured them all. Often in London friends would turn up to jam - Gary Moore, Sam and Dave the Equals (maybe I should put some old pics on here just for a laugh). Anyway, we always seemed to be the Best Man, never the groom so, when my son was born I hung up my basses  to spend more time with my family, got into the casino game as a croupier, working my way up to Pit Boss - 12 years of my life watching people throw their money away, just like I did  in my early years in the music biz.

Scarecrow got together again after many years for the wedding of our old drummer Dave in 1999 and even did a few of our old numbers (what a giggle that was). Dave is now in Devon for the quiet life, John is still writing songs, Bill has a music shop and works for many famous musicians and me -  I'm on the road again....

(sounds like a good idea for a song!)

To cut a long story short, I came back to Gibraltar after a friend phoned asking if I would like to work in the casino there as Head of Security. Here I got back in to the music scene thanks to my cousin Stan and started jamming but could not commit to a band. 3 years ago I jammed with Lorry and we seemed to get on well, we jammed a few times as with Melvyn and Iain and last September Lorry asked if I would like to join their blues band. I did and here we are <<<<<<<EastSide Blues Band>>>>>>>the only real blues band in Gib.

 Links to Scarecrow:-           

 http://www.themarqueeclub.net/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=search&search=scarecrow

 http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/scarecrow/scarecrow/

 http://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/scarecrow/scarecrow/buy

                                                          I was born in Morpeth in Northumberland and spent my first 13 years living near Sunderland. My Dad was heavily into jazz and blues, and had a large collection of LPs, many 78s (remember those?). He also played a mean blues harp. Needless to say I totally ignored his music at the time, and only wish I'd paid a bit more attention! I started learning piano, but always wanted to play drums and always felt drawn towards the drummers - maybe due to the way that at a live gig at Newcastle City Hall the drummer could make a 3,000 seat auditorium shake with one beat of the bass drum - a real sense of physical power and rhythm. 

 I'm a banker (with a "B") by day, so I  find drumming a great way to  break free of the shackles of office life and it's great therapy - you have to concentrate all the time to carry the other band members along and keep them in time (or at least that's what I say !!!) and it's very therapeutic to bash the crap out of the drums in the louder numbers (and even better to watch the anguished expressions of the rest of the band when I "go off on one").

I started with a pair of drum sticks and an old bread-board around 13, but didn't actually play a real set of skins till I got to my mid-thirties and could afford to buy a real drum kit, and found some deluded people daft enough to let me play with them.

  I started playing with a Jazz/Blues band in the early 90's, when I was living in West Africa, led by an English trumpet player, who was the one who really encouraged me to "have a go" and not to be put off by my total lack of training, experience and talent - thank you, Mr David Cross! He got me up on stage and playing in front of a live audience with some very experienced musicians, who carried me along and from whom I learned a hell of a lot.

When I moved over to Gib in '98, I started playing regularly at the infamous Bourbon St. jam and got to play with lots of Gib's finest.

  Then, I played a couple of jams with Lorry....and the rest is history....I joined the "Off Yer Trolley" Blues Band and played with it for a while. And now, here I am, playing with "EastSide Blues Band" formed last year in September, and enjoying every second of it!

     I was born at Plaistow Hospital, London in 1974. This makes me the baby of the band!! I grew up from age of 11 y.o. in a town called Brightlingsea, near Colchester, Essex.

My first contact wth music....my Dad's stereo being played while I was in bed as a child. I first tried playing music at age 11 in the Church Lads and Church Girls Brigade, a youth organisation similar to the Boys Brigade. The Brightlingsea branch had a military style  marching band; I chose the most popular instrument, drums. I started on a not-so-big bass drum (I was only 11 after all!) and later moved onto various other drums. This lasted until I was about 19 and included membership of their national band - a massed band of over 100 members from all over the UK. With this band I performed across the country, also touring Germany and we even got the chance to play at the Royal Albert Hall - more than once !

Growing up with my Dad's stereo gave me a good  brainwashing of 60's pop/rock/blues and gave me a taste for guitar band-based music. As for playing harp, Howlin'Wolf was first to really inspire me. After leaving the marching band, I found that drums don't really lend themselves to being played or practised in an urban environment. I did buy a kit, but it was soon sold, leaving me with a hole to fill. I started playing didgeridoo, and, soon after, harp. I figured there were enough budding guitarists and, like millions before me, I found harmonica cheap....to start with.

My musical career - what career??!! Apart from normal youthful garage bands, I didn't do much when I was younger. The first band that I was a part of that really inspired me was a 3 piece Skiffle band called "Off Yer Trolley". The 3 pieces consisted of Lorry, myself and Barry Wallace,our drummer and kazoo player (sadly now passed away). None of us had transport: a motorbike, a pushike and a boat were not a lot of good to move even our tiny amount of gear. So, Barry volunteered the use of a pram that had been converted for the transport of gas bottles, as a means to move our stuff. Hence the name. We had one productive year together. We managed to play a few intimate gigs in the local plaza (which gave me a continuning taste  for free beer ), appearances on local television(which I hated, and made me want more beer), and recorded a CD (which 5 years later I'm still proud of, although it does sound better after beer!).

My hobbies include playing along while listening to the greats on CD, playing computer games, and DIY projects. I also have a growing microphone collection (mostly harp mics, but not entirely), that I enjoy tinkering with...oh, and I like beer!