Mad Gorilla used to do a song called Highway robbery and it was a true story, very freaky but true. The highway was The Highway Hotel at Wentworthville which is gone now. There’s a super market or something there now. It wasn’t a real big room but a decent size with a good stage. The back doors were right next to the stage on stage left (or house right for the punters, are you confused yet?) and about 8 steps down into the carpark.

Plenty of room on that side of the stage and the other side was against the wall. All in all it was a pretty good room to work in. It was the October long weekend so instead of finishing our week on Sunday we had this gig on the holiday Monday. It wasn’t a big crowd but it was a good friendly crowd and the gig itself was uneventful. From memory Frank Seckold (aka Franky Valentyn aka Percy Sludge aka Kate Bush) turned up for the show and after a chat with the band he left while we were starting to pack up. George was still playing keys at the time & Geoff was on drums.

We were tired and keen to get out of there so the pack up was going pretty quick. The truck was in place ready at the end of the gig so as soon as everything was unplugged it was going in the truck. I had room to put the road cases out ready to be loaded in order to go straight in the truck as they were packed, we were flying. The first of the PA was going in the truck while I was packing the drums. All was looking good. As I brought the kick drum down from the stage the boys went past behind me with another mid bin to the truck. As I was fiddling with the bloody stupid lid on the case ( Geoff still has that kit & cases) the boys came back in from the truck. I was cursing the thing when I heard the back doors closing. They were your usual double doors with the push bars on them, I’ve heard that sound so many times I can hear it now. The last thing I needed was someone playing silly buggers.

My head snapped up and I said “Hey mate open the doors we’re trying to fuckin’ load out” the guy had his back to me. He was about ten foot away (3metres kids) He had blue overalls on and a blue & yellow Parramatta beanie “Mate open the fuckin doors!” As he turned he pulled the beanie down like a balaclava and pointed a sawn off 12 gauge shotgun at me! Now for your sake I hope you have never looked down the barrel of a shottie being pointed at you by a man wearing a balaclava; believe me it looked about the size of a train tunnel. “Shut up,get your hands up & get over there with your mates!” In a calm but very firm voice as he pointed with the shottie. Of course I put my hands up & said “That’s cool mate, its cool” Only then I noticed his mates were already in the room and they were herding everyone over against the wall. Two were behind the bar and had the staff & manager. OH SHIT!!!!!

As I was moving over to the wall it looked like a couple of the girls were gonna crack up & I said nice and loud to them “Just stay calm OK?” “That’s right, don’t do anything stupid!” said our gun wielding Parramatta supporter. Everyone was backed against the wall. Me and Zac were the last herded in so we were right at the front about 10 foot from him. Zac as I later found out had just come out of the bosses’ office after picking up the money for the gig and had a wad of cash in his pocket. I’ll bet that for just this one time he wished it was a cheque! The shotgun kept panning back & forth along the line of us, slowly, deliberately, while he kept his eye on us. He didn’t sound nervous when he spoke just firm & confident; this guy was a pro he’d done this before. That was the only thing that kept me from shitting myself. I was thinking to myself if someone got shot it wouldn’t be by mistake they would have to do something stupid. His mate’s had taken the manager into the office to get the takings. This was a long weekend so there would have been takings from Friday to Monday & being a holiday weekend the bottleshop takings would be bigger than usual as well.

Everything is dead quiet and all of a sudden BOOM! from the office. The Parra supporter took a half step back and looked for a second at the office door as a ripple of nervous noises came from behind me. I took the chance to whisper to Zac “Have we been paid?” he gave me a glance that could kill and whispered “SHUT UP!” (I’m sorry Zac it was a really stupid thing to do) Our guard told us to shut up and stay still. Pretty soon his mates were back out of the office with the cash. The manager was told to get over with us and they headed for the door. The Parra supporter was backing away from us toward the door, still covering us with the shottie. He told us to stay where we were for 5 minutes, no phone calls & anyone who went out the back door would be shot. He left and slammed the doors shut behind him. There was a pause and then everyone was talking at once and all of a sudden two of the bouncers were running for the doors. Everyone was yelling at them not to as they burst out the door. I was expecting carnage but nothing happened, they were gone. We hadn’t heard a car, nothing. They just disappeared.

It didn’t take much to get the boss to pull some beers, the first round went down quick & we grabbed another one & got back into the pack up, pretty soon the cops arrived and they wanted to talk to all of us. We joined the others at the bar and by Christ those beers tasted good! Free beer always tastes good but after something like that they taste even better. We told the cops what we could but it wasn’t a lot really. More beers helped to get rid of the shakes and when the cops told us we could finish the load out we got it done double time. The car park was crawling with cops. It sloped down to a creek with a swampy flood plain area on either side and they had dogs looking for tracks etc, lights everywhere. We went back in and did an idiot check (to make sure nothing was left behind) & grabbed a six pack. We said our goodbyes to the staff and headed out the back. The night was still and the sky clear. It seemed particularly beautiful for some reason, funny about that. The cops had left. Engines were warming up and we piled into vehicles. I think we were in their car jumped in with Zac & Coby in the passenger seat. They were parked next to the truck facing the skip bin next to the stairs. As we rolled back from the parking spot and the headlights were turned on we all saw the scariest thing. The lid was up on the bin about 2 or 3 inches and a pair of eyes were staring at us!!! The lid dropped down & we got out of there as fast as we could!

They were in the fuckin’ bin the whole time! Holy shit!!! They must have realised we saw that guy looking at us. Do we go and tell the cops? NO FUCKIN’ WAY!! They would have been gone by the time the cops got there anyway. If them or their friends got wind of us talking to the cops they wouldn’t think twice about getting some revenge. We weren’t hard to find either as there were ads in the street press, local papers and posters up for our gigs all over the place.

The guys from the armed robbery squad had told us that that robbery fitted the pattern of a number of others they were investigating. And every time they just disappeared. Not long after they got caught and it was only then I relaxed. Skip bins had been making me nervous. The cops had also grilled us about the audience that night. Was there a group of blokes who didn’t socialise and left early? Was there anyone checking the back door or side of stage area? They were sure those guys had been there scoping the place out. We took more notice of the punters for a while after that.

The whole robbery part of thing had taken less than five minutes but it could have been hours. Very, very freaky.

Bombay Rock – October 81
During our residency we were having a ball. Spent the days hanging around surfers then a soundcheck in the arvo or if we were doing a support that night help the main band load in mid afternoon, soundcheck and come back for the show. It was pretty cruisy. In between doing supports when we were the main act they had the dreaded disco and the room was always full. It helped that the band did different sets but they loved the stage patter as well and sticko had ‘em in the palm of his hand.

One night everything was buzzing, everyone had “the vibe” and the band was cranking. I was at stage right and Peter George came running through the audience. I knew something was wrong but there wasn’t any fights or other trouble I could see. But he looked like his head was about to explode. He was heading straight for the 3 phase power & I headed him off “ What’s the matter mate” I asked in my most helpful voice. “The fucking Vice squad is here, From Brisbane!! Get out of my fucking way!!” He was going to pull the plug on us. We wrestled a bit while I tried to negotiate with him. It turned out they had heard the band had been talking on stage about things that they didn’t like in Joh’s Qld.

Things like sex & drugs & free speech wasn’t encouraged either back then. A couple of car loads of them had come down from Brissie and sure enough looking at the bar there was 3 blokes in bad suits drinking free piss. I s’pose the rest were in the room somewhere. I pleaded with Peter “Look mate i’ll go and talk to the band and make sure they behave themselves. But don’t turn the power off, we’ll have a fucking riot, OK?” He looked at the crowd. “It’ll be cool mate i’ll talk to the boys and explain. You take care of the cops,OK?”

The band were just finishing a song so he went to talk to the pigs. I raced around the front of the stage and got the attention of the band, Sticko & Zac came over and I told ‘em what was happening. In the little time I had I told them about the pigs & how the owner wanted to pull the plug. “OK cool, No worries” said Sticko. My thinking was if they can just be cool until the cops left we could go back to having fun.

Sticko had another plan altogether. I can’t remember the exact wording but it went something like: “Well ladies & gentlemen we have some special guests here tonight, they’ve come all the way from Brisbane let’s hear it folks for the Qld Vice squad, yeah that’s them up at the bar in the suits. Their mates are here too so say hi if you meet one, give ‘em a big hand folks. Glad you like the band fellas. Now listen up all of you, if you’ve got any drugs on you throw ‘em up here on the stage OK and we’ll get rid of ‘em for ya!” The crowd was going nuts by this stage, but Peter George hadn’t come back so that was good. Sticko went on “ So if you do happen to have any drugs on ya, or even if you don’t, this could happen to you” They launched into Framed which if you haven’t heard it is about getting set up by the cops! SHIT ! Visions of what they’d do to a hairy bunch of smartasses like us were flashing through my brain. The crowd loved it, they were going ballistic! Then after another rant it was into Cocaine and on they went. Thoughts of the infamous Bogga rd goal were going round in my head. And then I remembered the house we were staying in was covered in fingerprint dust! WE’RE FUCKED! He was sticking it right up ‘em! I was just about to have my 21st & I didn’t want to have it in a cell with a new friend Bluey.

“SHUT UP FOR FUCKS’ SAKE!” But he kept sticking it to ‘em , anything he could think of with a reference to sex, drugs, drink driving or corrupt cops was on the menu. The punters were loving it, no one stood up to the Qld coppers. It was certain if they tried to stop him there would definitely be a riot. They gig kept going and we finished the night. Unbelievable.
Peter George wasn’t happy but between the outing the cops got and whatever he did (publicans know how to handle this stuff, maybe a bag of snacks for the drive home ) they were gone. We had a chat & were all sure if they were going to hassle us it wouldn’t be at Bombay it’d be back at the house, where we didn’t have a few hundred drunken punters to back us up. There was always uniformed cops hanging around outside of the venue after that, but the house didn’t get raided.

What did happen was everyone in Surfers heard about it and even though we had good crowds before that, afterwards it was packed. And if we went to get lunch at a pub in town everyone wanted to buy us a beer they loved us. And it was all good from then on especially after Ned made Peter George a big jar of Gulab Jamun which he loved. He couldn’t believe that we could cook! But Ned was a special, he wasn’t long out of the Krishna’s but he could cook anything not just Indian. But that’s another story.

I think it was feb’80 when Mad Gorilla went to Adelaide for 2 weeks ( I’m sure someone has a better memory than me & will correct me ) Anyhow we were staying at a pub in a place called Paradise & whoever named it had a bloody good sense of humour. Don’t get me wrong the people were great , the pub staff were friendly and we had no major trouble at any of the gigs. But it was hot, February is normally our hottest month but this was nuts. A genuine heatwave. Then to top it off the air conditioning in the pub broke down from running flat out for days on end.

One of the first gigs we did was The Old Lion and it went off. A good crowd and the publican and staff were friendly & helpful. What was strange was when the punters started to come in & we were checking them out everyone of the females looked identical . They all had the Stevie Nicks hairdo almost identical clothes, Oroton handbag and matching high heels. They all looked like they were made in the same factory. But they were a good crowd and friendly which is a bonus. All up it was a good gig, with an easy load in and good dressing rooms plus air con.

One morning I went to make a cuppa and of course there was no milk. My demeanour was not good, tired, hot , no air con & no bloody milk ! I grabbed some change, threw on a shirt and headed off to the milk bar across the road from the pub. It was only about 8 o’clock but as I headed out of the pub the heat hit me & not a breath of breeze. The sun wasn’t high yet so the car park was still in shade as I ran across it. Wait on the nature strip for a gap in the traffic and then ran across the road. Oh shit ! My feet stuck to the tar but I kept going grabbed the milk, paid & raced back to the pub. I raced up the stairs & straight into the shower cursing all the way. The tar had picked up a whole pile of carpet on the way up the stairs and I looked like I had fluffy slippers on. Very uncomfortable slippers ! So the cold water was good but the asphalt set solid on my feet. Luckily I s’pose in those days I didn’t wear shoes much so my feet were pretty calloused.

But by the time I had finished scraping the crap off my feet they were very tender. Then the publican had a spit about the black footprints on the stairs. There was no use denying it was me as you didn’t need tracking skills to follow the prints all the way from the front door, up the stairs and into my room. He did have a chuckle in the end when he was told the story. It wasn’t just a matter of wiping my feet before I got inside after all.

After all that I finally got my morning cuppa’s & a smoke and started to plan the day. Upon checking the lie book we realised we were back at The Old Lion that night with a 2.30pm load in. Beauty ! But it was still going to be very hot. We had a guy working with us and I’m sorry man I can’t remember your surname but his name was Jimmy (Not Jimmy Bourke) and we were sharing a room. We had a chat & both agreed that the staff at the lion were pretty cool and maybe we could talk them into letting us into the room early. Maybe. It’d be nice in there once we got the gear in and closed the room back up. Then we could take our time setting up and grab a sleep on the tiles in the bathroom in the band room. It seemed like a plan. We went down to Zac & Coby’s room & ran the idea by them. They agreed it’d be good but doubted we’d talk them into it. We could only try. “OK if we’re not back in an hour you’ll know we got in.”

We arrived at the gig just before 11.30 and as luck would have it the publican was behind the bar when we walked in. We said g’day & he asked if something was wrong
“You’re bloody early did ya shit the bed?”

We explained that it was really hot and we wanted to get the gear in early. I explained that it wasn’t good for the instruments etc and even though he sympathised said no. I then tried the “Oh come on mate you know we aren’t going to be trouble, the other night was a beaut”

He agreed but still no, then he said “ya’s are good blokes but, tell ya what i’ll buy ya’s a coupla beers”

“Ta mate, but i’ve got some things in the truck I really shouldn’t leave in the heat, I’ll be back in a tick”

So I ducked out to the truck and grabbed my smokes, camera and the ½ pound of gunpowder we used for the flashpots. My trump card!

Back then even a bunch of loonies like us could just go & buy a pound of black powder and nobody batted an eyelid. Those were the days ! It was in a sealed container, taped shut , basically it was safe. I walked back into the bar and Jimmy was chatting with the boss and the locals about working with bands. But the conversation stopped pretty quick when I plonked myself down on the stool next to Jim and put down the camera & the container marked in big red letters EXPLOSIVES. I had a sip of my beer, lit a cigarette and put the lighter on the container.

“Thanks mate, that’s a bloody good beer” I said to the publican.

He had his mouth hanging open and had suddenly lost all colour. “What the fuck is that!!” said one of the locals “Gunpowder” I replied innocently, they all moved away

“How bloody much gunpowder” said someone else

“Oh about half a pound”

All of a sudden everyone was speaking at once. Jimmy played along and reached over the top of the black powder & ashed his ciggie in the ashtray next to it. One of the locals yelled from the other end of the bar “Ya can’t just put it on the bar, ya goose”

“Well I can’t leave it in the truck, hey boss can ya put it behind the bar for us?”

“Are you fucking kidding?” came the reply

“Nah mate look it’s all right” I said picking it up with the smoke in my mouth “ It’s all sealed and taped shut, don’t worry guys” and tossed it back onto the bar.

A couple of guys hit the floor, another couple ran out the door. And then everyone was yelling “These guys are fucking crazy” “Get ‘em out of here” We were both trying not to laugh as I explained to the publican that we wanted to get the powder and our equipment in out of the heat and once it was backstage it really wouldn’t be a problem. We had used the flashpots the last time we were there & the crowd loved it, no problem.

By this stage the 20 or so blokes who were in the bar were yelling at the publican to “Let ‘em into the room for fuck’s sake!” and other variations of that theme with lots of colourful expletives. Democracy is a wonderful thing and seeing that the vote was in our favour the publican agreed that letting us into the room rather than having the black powder sitting in his carpark in 40 plus heat WAS a good idea. He wouldn’t even let us have another beer before we loaded in, which was a bummer. We got the gear in as quick as we could and closed the room up it was glorious.

After about another hour there was someone banging on the door, “I wonder who that is?” I said to Jim & we both laughed, we knew it was the band looking for a cool spot. They were rapt until I think it was Zac asked how I talked the boss into letting us in. These days what ensued would be called counselling, back then I copped a bollocking but in the end we had a laugh. The rest of the set up & the gig went off although the publican was nervous. He came out to watch me do the flashpots in the 2nd set, he was sure we’d blow his pub up.

All was smiles in the end. But we didn’t get our kip on those nice cool tiles because by the time we set up the band was literally “Out on the tiles”

Have a quick look on Google earth and you’ll see that Cobar is a bloody long way from Sydney. So in his infinite wisdom the booking agent organised a gig out west the night before we were supposed to play Cobar golf club. Can’t remember which pub but it was out Windsor way, I think it was The Tropicana hotel at Wilberforce. Great, that meant driving overnight straight from the gig. Why not Dubbo? Not amused ! So the load out was pretty quick . I jumped into Geoff Hillier’s Transit van with from memory Dave Owens ( shovel), George and Sticks. I navigated till we were past Dubbo & crawled into the back for a kip. Shovel took over the co pilots’ seat & I drifted off to sleep. We all awoke just after dawn to Shovel & Geoff cheering “ What the fuck’s going on!” “ A corner!” says Geoff “ First one in ages” So we have a grumble & drift off to sleep again.

The next thing I know there is a huge BANG! and the van seems to jump. We’re wide awake in a split second and Geoff’s pissing himself laughing “ WHAT THE FUCK’S GOING ON !” We’re all screaming at Geoff. It turns out Geoff was getting the shits dodging around the dead ‘roos on the road and was wondering if he could just go over the small ones. (Yes folks Geoff was the drummer & a good one at that ) Shovel had drifted off so he was left to ruminate on this by himself. Then a somewhat smaller one loomed up and he thought he’d give it a go. Whether it was a small one is debatable but anyone who went near that van for the next couple of months will tell you it wasn’t fresh. It must have been extremely bloated because it exploded into a putrid smelling soup covered in ‘roo leather ( a sick aussie piniata ) all over the engine and underside of the van.

We pulled up to check for damage and in the still morning air the smell was even worse, at least when we were moving it was mostly blowing behind us. Shit, I thought it’s not even hot yet what’s it gonna smell like by midday!. No damage, so Sticko insists on driving and Geoff is banished to the back where there’s no windows and no other chances for experimental long distance driving. But every time we stopped we were swarmed by even more flies than usual. In the Mad Gorilla slideshow there’s a shot of Geoff getting out of the back of the van in a servo. His face is all screwed up and it’s not just because he’s just woken up and is stepping into the light. It’s because the smell had caught up to us when we pulled up. When that van stopped we couldn’t get out & away from it quick enough. Dogs were coming from everywhere to check it out. We hadn’t even got to the gig yet!

I also noticed in Rogers’ slideshow a shot of the crew at Cobar. That has got a story too, as they all have. Have a close look and you’ll notice a red tinge to the photo. It was at the CWA (or something similar) hall in Cobar for an all ages gig for the kids. Being a kids gig meant a revision of the set. Songs like Kinky nightmare ( about an erotic dream obviously ) & of course others like Cocaine had to be dropped from the set list. The stage patter was also a worry & those were the things everyone thought would be the problems. It was an easy load in, we had enough power, everything looked good. Everything was set up & we still had plenty of time, excellent!

The day is fine and still with a beautiful blue sky and I’m thinking about ducking out for a bit of a break now that everything looks all cool, maybe grab a hamburger somewhere in town once the soundcheck is done.

Zac fires up the PA and starts to put a rumble through the Bass speakers and all hell breaks loose. As the Bass starts to take over the all wooden building it starts to shake. Well it seems that the hall hasn’t had a good shake up for a while and no one had told us (probably because they hadn’t thought about it) that they’d had dust storms.

A fine red dust like talcum powder starts falling over everything! All over the PA, the backline, lights, FOH & us! Luckily no kids were there to hear what was said! We covered everything we could and had a quick meeting. OK we’ve got to do the gig, so cover everything up and crank the PA up until it stops raining dust. So that’s why there’s a red tinge to the shot. We all pitched in and cleaned up the gear after it stopped raining dust and the locals helped us to clean the rest of the place. The band went off and the kids loved it. No malfunctions, no scaring children, or leading anyone astray. We headed off back to Sydney & a good sleep.

G’day,

Well first up I should start with a disclaimer for all aspiring crew & the young & impressionable. My stories come from a time in the industry that was pretty wild & I was young and probably (well, yes I was) reckless. Today you couldn’t get away with some of the crazy stuff that went on, and that’s probably a good thing. In the music industry a lot of people have nicknames and that is pretty much all they are known by. I have been known as Reckless or Recko for ages. Very few people from the industry know my is Steve. Glen “Heffo” Heffernan (Guitarist : Meatballs show etc) had fun with it, sometimes I’d be Restless (when I said i was going home) Legless (On the piss) Harmless etc. Anyhow this is how I got my nickname:

In the early 80′s i was working for Mad Gorilla from their second or third gig onwards. One of the first road trips was up to Cobar (September 1980) and that drive has a funny story i’ll tell later. If you’ve never been out that way it is a long drive and a totally different landscape from the coast. It’s actually almost in another time zone it’s that far. The locals don’t get many live acts, they come out in force and have a bloody good time.
When we got there it was straight out of the vehicles and into the load in. A quick focus & sound check and it was almost time to start. I grabbed a beer & went outside to check the sunset and gather my thoughts.

It was my first full night on the lighting desk for Gorilla as Roger didn’t come away with us due to work and family committments. So I had a walk around the club and sat down to roll a cigarette.

A female voice says “Is that a joint?” and I looked up into the sun to see the silhouette of a very shapely lady. I blocked the sun with one hand to see she was just as pretty as her silhouette suggested, “No, I wish it was” I replied. She giggled and stuck her hand under my nose, there was a round piece of alfoil in her hand & the smell of hash was unmistakeable.

“Where will we go?, we can’t smoke it here” she giggled again. I suggested the back of the truck and off we went. Well one thing lead to another and not only did the evil temptress get me stoned but not long after we were having some great sex amongst the drapes in the back of the truck. We were totally lost in what we were doing and had lost track of time.

Next thing i hear a guitar and someone banging on the drums “OH SHIT! ! !” I suddenly remembered why I was there. “Quick get dressed, OH SHIT, OH FUCK!!!!”

We get out of the truck, pull the shutter down and I’m running for the door of the club. My shoelaces aren’t tied and I get my shirt caught in the zipper of my jeans, “SHIT”.

I burst into the club straight past the doorman who’s saying “They’re looking for you mate”

The stage is dark, the band’s all on stage ready to go. The room is chocka block full. As I ran into the room tripping over my gym boot laces Sticko ( the singer) is saying to the crowd “Has anyone seen our lighting guy, he’s a little hairy bloke,where is that reckless young lad ?” the whole room turned around, pointed at me and yelled “there he is” and they all cracked up laughing and clapping. Coby was on the sound desk and immediately (and deservedly) starts paying out on me, points at my shirt sticking out my fly “What the fuck were you doing!?”. She kept threatening to make me get all the drapes drycleaned after I told her. All through the night the locals were coming up, slapping me on the back and saying things like “So what were you up to, you reckless young lad ?” then cracking up laughing and handing me a beer. By the end of the night even the local police seargent was calling me the reckless young lad. And everytime they did Coby looked daggers at me.

After the first set I was called into the band room for what would now be called “counselling” I copped an absolute bollocking & then someone giggled and everyone (except Coby) had a laugh. By the end of the night the name Reckless had stuck. The crowd had a ball and we ended up sitting up drinking with the club staff and the local cop till dawn. I never saw her again, can’t remember her name but boy do I remember that night and the time we spent in the back of the truck.

Disclaimer:

G’day Gibbo,
Had a thought about my ” My nickname” post and would like to add this disclaimer.
To all wives and girlfriends: The incidents related in the my nickname story were not everyday occurences & in the time I worked in the entertainment industry (1977 – 2008) only happened twice in that time. The second time I got married to the lady & besides 2 beautiful daughters was in hindsight a disaster. Generally we were too bloody busy & then too tired or heading off to another gig. ….. Recko.

A decent truck can mean the difference between a great gig and a night full of grief. Back in the eighties I went back to work for Rick Doolan who was the original drummer in Bandanna. He had re-formed the band and had put together a nice little PA system. The “truck” he’d bought was a classic. It was actually an old bus that had been converted to carry a racing car. It had a big roller door in the back leading to a large storage area where the PA lived. In the front was plenty of seats and even a few beds which was bloody luxurious for those of us used to crappy old trucks that broke down regularly.

Tha band had picked up a gig at a biker show in Queensland one particular weekend and, as they didn’t need to take the whole crew or the PA system, it was decided that we’d pull all the uneeded gear out to lighten the load and help the old bus travel a bit faster. Rick had organised a friend to bring around another truck just to use as storage for the PA system. It was a beauty! I’m pretty sure it was an old International with a smallish pan on the back.

It was pretty beat up and was not registered but it would do. We managed to back the truck up to the bus and unloaded all the stuff the band didn’t need into it. That should have meant a weekend off for me as my Brother had drawn the short straw to drive the band in the bus to Queensland.

Not so fast Gibbo! Later that afternoon, just as the band was leaving, we got a call from a Heavy Metal band looking for a system for that night. After a short deliberation it was decided that myself and the lighting guy Wally would take the old truck and do the gig. Money is money after all!

The first challenge was getting it started. We didn’t have a key so you had to twist the ignition wires together and short the solenoid on the starter with the dipstick. Great! We eventually got the old thing going and made it to the gig, a Heavy Metal extravaganza at the Bayview Tavern in Gladesville. The gig actually went quite well. The bands were all happy with our gear and the job we did. They even offered to hang around and help us load the truck at the end of the night. All went well until we got to the last few cases… which now mysteriously didn’t fit back into the truck! Well we eventually had to pull half of the gear back out to repack it, several times. There is nothing worse than doing your work three or four times.

After what seemed like an eternity we managed to fit all of the pieces into the puzzle and we set off for an hour long drive home. Seeing as the truck wasn’t registered we had to keep an eye out for cops. The condition of the truck would have been a giveaway. About half way home we were starting to relax until the bonnet came loose and with a massive bang, flew up to cover the windscreen. Gee that makes it hard to drive! I managed to peer through a small gap under the bonnet in order to pull the truck over to the curb.

Wally and I then had to try and get the bonnet closed and latched but it was completely bent out of shape. Eventually we both climbed on it and jumped up and down until it managed to latch shut. The trouble was that we needed to get under the bonnet to get the thing started again. Shit! Well, we managed that and even got the bonnet to latch once more. Soon we were on our way again but just as we were starting to calm down a bit, the bloody truck ran out of fuel. This was starting to become a very long night indeed! Luckily for us a car soon stopped and offered help. I could have just about kissed the guy. He had his whole family with him but still insisted that I squeeze in so he could take me to a service station. He even waited around and gave me a lift back to the truck. What a legend!

By this stage the 1 hour drive home had turned into a 4 hour saga and I’d well and truly had enough. I said to Wally “if this thing stops again I’m leaving it on the side of the road” and I meant it. Just as I spoke the back of the truck started to wander from side to side, making it awful hard to steer. I couldn’t believe it. This thing had more tricks up its sleeve than David Copperfield. By now we were only a few kilometres from home so I decided to just keep driving. It didn’t really matter to me if the bloody wheels fell off by this time. As we turned the last corner the truck lurched sideways and we heard a loud sound like metal breaking. Oblivious to the self destructing truck I managed to actually get it all the way into the driveway. We were home! It was at this point that I discovered that there was only one wheel nut left on each of the back wheels and about 4 of the wheel studs had snapped off. We probably wouldn’t have made it if it had been 50 metres further.

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

The Wombat Switch.

I don’t even know if it is a term that is still used. Back about 20 years ago “Wombatting” was something you did to the support band to sabotage them. You know, turn the amps down a bit or pull down the master volume on the EQ or something. Sometimes it was because they were a threat to the main act, sometimes just because it was fun to watch their crew try to work out why the PA system is suddenly a lot quieter than it should be. A test if you will. A bit like sending the apprentice to the shop for a can of striped paint. I can honestly say that I have never done it and never been asked to do it by a band but I have been the victim once or twice when I was first starting out.

The first time was a beauty. We (Bandanna) had picked up a gig supporting Mad Gorilla at the Greenfield Tavern.

This was big for us as the Gorilla’s had been around for a while and were a bit of a name in those days. They had “show” which involved dressing up in whacky costumes, fancy lights, smoke machines, pyrotechnics, intro tapes etc.

The lads in costume in Sticko’s loungeroom.

It was a band I had been to see as a punter on quite a few occasions and they were always great. This was the first time I’d ever actually met the band and as it turns out, I made a couple of friendships that have lasted since that time. Langs the drummer is a great mate as is Sticko & Zack Flack, not to mention the amazing Jimmy Bourke, their lighting guy who I had the pleasure of working with many times since. Jimmy is a topic that deserves a web site all of its’ own! What a character. He can drink his own weight in bourbon and still work like a trojan. I’ve seen him do it many times. Jimmy’s classic line was “who wants to chuck in for a bottle of boubon for the load in? No-one? Oh well, I’ll get it”.

Anyways… the production itself was quite impressive for those days too. It was a double or triple three way system with lots of foldback & heaps of lights. Myself and the other crew couldn’t wait to get our hands on the system. Does anyone remember the JANDS JM8 mixing console? It was an impressive looking bit of gear and I couldn’t wait to get behind it.

The Gorillas didn’t do a soundcheck so it was up to us. It took me a little while to get my head around this massive system but with a bit of help from the ever helpful Gary, their sound guy, I got things sounding ok.

Well show time came around and off we went. Things did’t go quite according to plan though. The venue had a noise meter installed that would cut the power to the PA system if you went beyond a “reasonable” level of volume and the thing was cutting out on a fairly regular basis. This involved running backstage to turn all the amps down before the power came back on a few seconds later so the thump didn’t blow any speakers then running back through the crowd to the mixing desk. I was not having fun. The band was not having fun. We seemed to be very quiet yet were still tripping the sound meter.

Eventually we reached the end of our set and it was all over. I was in a bit of a lather and was hanging around the desk trying to figure out what had gone wrong since sound check. I felt like a bloody goose. Gary the Gorillas sound man was standing with his back to me when the publican came up and said words to the effect of “I’ve turned that meter back to where it was for your band OK?” The bastard had wombatted me!

Mad Gorilla came on and the sound was enormous. They played brilliantly as well which combined nicely to blow us off the stage completely. And guess what? The sound meter never tripped once during their set. I can laugh about it now but on the night I wanted to kill someone.

Big thanks to Sticko for the Mad Gorilla pictures.

Stage diving and crowd surfing is a phenomenon that has become popular over the last 10 or 15 years. The idea being that after diving from the stage, the crowd will catch you and you won’t end up on your arse on the floor. When the crowd is in good form you can stay aloft for quite awhile.

When it doesn’t work, it can occasionally lead to tears. I was having a bourbon with my Brother on the weekend when he told me a funny story I thought I’d share here.

He was working with the Hoodoo Gurus on their last ever tour and was doing a gig at Sawtell RSL on the NSW north coast. The club is typical of most. Stage, dancefloor then an area for tables & chairs all set up in nice long rows. Quite often you will set up the mixing position at the rear of the dancefloor in front of the tables. This is usually an unobtrusive spot but, depending on the act and venue, you still need to create a “bunker” out of roadcases to keep the punters and their drinks off the gear when they get rowdy.

This particular night the band and crowd were in great form and the stage diving was progressing well. Suddenly my brother noticed a guy at the back of the room. He had climbed onto the table and seemed to be trying to work out whether he could dive from the tables, over the mixing bunker, and into the crowd from the rear.

Off he went at blinding speed along the tables with drinks flying everywhere. After a few stumbles along the way, he hit the end of the row of tables at pace and launched himself into the air. Having underestimated both the distance and his ability to fly he ended up landing face first on the mixing console which knocked him out cold! Security was called and the guy was carried off for treatment. This all came as quite a surprise to the poor bugger standing there operating the sound gear that night. They normally don’t attack from the rear.

My brother says they spent quite a while on their hands and knees looking for knobs that the guy knocked off the mixer with his face. They didn’t find them all and he still suspects that the guy left that night with a mixer knob embedded in his forehead!

Round about 1990 we got a call from a Biker Club about doing a big gig for them. It was to be a three day festival of bikes, booze & music about halfway along the Putty Rd to Singleton. My boss at the time was a guy by the name of Rick Doolan who was no stranger to the wonderful world of the Biker. Rick was the original drummer in Bandanna and had lured me away from my comfy job at the bank to go full time with his PA company.

We took a drive up there and had a look at the site in order to do a quote. It was a beauty. Set back off the main road and in the middle of nowhere. There were going to be no noise complaints here! Rick was operating two PA systems in those days and we booked both systems and crew for this one. These type of events go until all hours of the morning so you have to have a few spare bodies to last the distance. A little while out from the gig came murmurs that there may be trouble getting the license to sell alcohol. This was a problem! The rumours came and went, mostly about a publican who had the shits about the bikers selling grog, until it was resolved.

Rick Doolan in the Bandanna days.

A catering company had gotten involved and they were licensed. They were then also contracted to operate all of the food stalls. This was getting bigger by the day. Wow, these guys were really moving in. They also managed to get the contract to supply the toilets! A couple of weeks before the gig I got a call from a guy by the name of Phil. He told me that he had been employed by the catering company to record the gig as the soundtrack to a video that was being shot. We chatted about the gear we were providing and organised to have a beer sometime over the weekend of the gig. This was a big deal for me as Phil was “a bit of a name” as he was the sound engineer for a reasonably big band. This industry is very much based on “who you know” so this was going to be a good guy to know. The actual setup went very well. The staging company had erected a nice control tower with a guy rope to the stage to attach our cables to.

Mission control after the first night. First mate “Gaf” at the helm.

The first night went well with a few good cover bands including one that I worked with regularly, The Last Stand Cold Chisel Show. The main problem was that there didn’t seem to be many people about. It was only Friday night though and we did expect that most of the crowd would roll in on Saturday morning.

The massive Friday night crowd in all its’ glory.

Saturday was a long day with bands starting about lunch time and going all the way through to about 3am from memory. the highlight of the night was the Phil Emmanuel Band. Coming on about midnight with a light fog rolling in, the atmosphere was perfect. If you’ve ever done sound for a band you will know that nothing sounds better than a great band through a big P.A. system outdoors with it cranked to 11. I still rate that set by Phil as one of the highlights of my mixing career. I once heard a classical conductor say that heaven was when the sound of the orchestra matched the sound he heard in his head. Mixing is a lot like that. You have a “perfect” sound in your head that you try to achieve with the mix. A couple of times in your life you will hit the bullseye. This was one of those nights. The only problem ws there still wasn’t much of a crowd. You could see a few of the catering company managers looking a little worried. they had brought massive amounts of food and grog in anticipation of a large crowd that never turned up. Maybe they would turn up for the Sunday?

Living in the back of the truck is tops. Not! This is Ziggy the lightingmeister.

Oh well, they didn’t turn up Sunday either. So far the bikers had come out very well with their deal to let the catering company promote just about everything. By midway through Sunday you could smell the tension. As the old saying goes “the smell of burning promoter hung heavily in the air”. For our part it was all going well. Well, most of it! You don’t sleep much at these type of events and the lack of sleep mixed with vast amounts of alcohol combined to almost spell disaster for one of our lighting chaps, Bicky. We had gathered in the back of the truck to have a few quiet beers with one of the bikers my brother and I knew through mutual friends. This guy was reasonably high up in the club and went on to become the president a few years later. All was calm until Bicky staggered in with a smoke machine in his hand that needed re-filling. This was one of the old “Mini Big Smoke” machines that were popular once. You filled them with “smoke oil” then put a CO2 cylinder into it to pressurise it. Bicky filled it with oil then let off the gas cylinder…without putting the lid back on the oil reservoir. High pressure oil went everywhere, covering our biker mates. You could see the look on Bickys face when he realised what he had done. “Near Death Experience” I think it’s called. We did some very fast talking and managed to get the lads to see the funny side of it and not kill him. I felt a bit more awake after that! Sunday progressed well from our point of view culminating in a performance by The Amazing Zarsoff Brothers. This was a band I used to see very regularly in their heyday in the early 80′s and once again they didn’t disappoint. I think they are still going around, get out & catch them if you can. I still have one of their albums which contains such classics as “Fucken’ beauty”, “Nose Pickin’ Boogie” and my all time favourite, “You’re a Prick(ya make me sick)”.

The amazing “Izzy Foreal”. He stopped the band because “some prick wanted to take his photo”.

After an eventful and tiring weekend we crashed in the back of the truck one last time ahead of Monday’s packup. We awoke to an empty paddock, covered in empty cans & bottles, and a few slow moving people. The vibe amongst the catering people was now at rock bottom. They were all wondering if they were going to get paid and the boss was wondering if he would lose his house. The sluggish silence was broken by an approaching ute. It was being driven by one of the catering staff and seemed to be chockablock full of ice. He pulled up near one of their portable bars and proceeded to unload the lot onto the ground. At this point the boss appeared and we could see that his head was now glowing bright red. The rant was absolutely priceless. “How dare you go into town and spend MORE fucking money on ice we don’t need! I’m gonna lose the lot… blah, blah” On and on he went. Whipping himself into an absolute frenzy as he went. The employee was just speechless. I thought the boss was going to spontaneously combust. As he built his rage into a fever pitch, the rest of the staff were gathering around, not believing the spectacle before them. At this point we noticed that the bikers were all retreating and some had actually locked themselves into one of the nearby buildings. This guy was scaring everybody! Finally, when I thought it couldn’t get any better, he launched himself into the air and came down smack bang in the middle of the ice pile. He then continued to scream incoherently as he ripped the ice bags to bits and spread it everywhere. Unbelievable! After a few minutes it all subsided and he lay there on top of the ice pile almost motionless, gasping for breath. There was just silence for a good 30 seconds then… the assembled crowd of catering staff erupted into spontaneous applause and cheering. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. The incident that came to be known as “The Ice Dance”. Believe it or not, the bikers weren’t detered by the apparent failure of YellaRock 1 and held YellaRock 2 the next year. But that’s another story…

I was blown away last night to see Stevie Wright on This Is Your Life. During the late Eighties I worked for a while as Stevies live sound engineer, alongside my brother Brett on monitors and My Pal Brian ™ on lights, and I have wonderful memories of some great gigs as well as some downright strange ones.

He was (I think) still on the needle in those days and was very definitley on the turps in a big way and was quite a handful. Even so, he was still very much a household name and drew decent crowds. The band, Hard Road, consisted of Peter Northcote (sax, keys, guitar), Bruno Renzella (guitar), Vic Young (bass) and Paul DeMarco (drums) and one or two others who slip my mind.
They were outstanding in both musical ability and counselling skills. It was a major effort sometimes just to get Stevie onto the stage in a reasonable condition to perform and the guys showed endless patience(usually!).

The guys started picking him up quite early in the day to get him to the gig before he got too blind. They would then keep him occupied and soberish backstage until show time. This worked for a while until the cunning bugger figured that he could just get the crowd to buy his drinks. “Who’s gunna buy Stevie a Southern Comfort then?” would be the cry. Half a dozen punters would then head to the bar and buy him drinks. The look on the faces of the band was simply priceless. What can you do to help someone who is determined to trash themselves?

Poor old Stevie didn’t have much of a voice left by this stage and it became increasingly difficult to get his voice to sit in the mix at a decent level. Brett had the worst of it as he looked after on-stage sound which was…loud! One night Stevie was having particular trouble hearing himself in the monitors so he decided he would kick them off the front of the stage, as you do. Classic rock ‘n roll tantrum! Anyway, being the professional he is, Brett wanders out from side stage nonchalantly and puts the speakers back on stage. Well, Stevie manages to kick them off again at which point Brett decides to unplug them & remove them. Picture the scene… Band wailing, punters dancing, singer fuming and Brett standing at the front of the stage giving Stevie a right bollocking. Common sense eventually prevailed and the rest of the show went well. During the packup I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one of the band members had Brett bailed up side stage and seemed to be giving him a gobfull. Thinking there could be ill feeling about the incident, I wandered a bit closer just in case and managed to hear words to the effect of: “Why didn’t you hit the bastard? If that had been my gear he kicked, I’d have floored him!” Brett explained that it wouldn’t look good on his resume that he had knocked out Stevie Wright.

One day I’ll tell you about the Stevie gig where I had to leave the mixing desk to punch on with some of the crowd! I’ve still got the scar where my tooth went through my mouth just below my bottom lip. I’ll bet the other bloke’s still peeing blood though!

Thanks for the fun times and classic memories Stevie. Stay straight. I hope you find the peace you are looking for.