Thelma and Me Summer of 65 part 2
- 2 years ago
- 236
- 0
The Big Break Part 1. Quimble free porn video
The Big Break.
Part 1, Quimble
My friends and I had been to school in Brisbane together, dropped out
of university together, got drunk and all lost our virginity on the
same night at an exceptionally memorable party. Much of that party did
not feature in my own memory but I was told I was no longer a child.
We all worked as shelf stackers at one of the big supermarkets in
Brisbane, Australia. In the evenings before we went to work, we
practised our music in a genuine garage on the small farm where Terry,
our lead guitarist, lived. We did covers of hard rock songs and a bit
of Goth music and had already played at a few parties and birthdays
around the area.
Our biggest problem originally was that we did not have a name for the
band and had endless arguments about this. We had invented stupid
names for our few gigs but none had stuck. How could something so
simple be so hard? Then, one day, we were having our usual heated
discussion when Bruce, the rhythm guitarist shouted, "Why the hell do
we quimble all the time over this! Sorry. I meant quibble." We all
looked at each other and Terry told him he was a genius and so, the
band was now to be known as Quimble. We worked hard at our playing and
started to get some regular gigs along the Gold Coast tourist strip,
playing five nights a week in different venues. We did well enough to
leave our employment and concentrate on being stars.
After a couple of nights when a couple of the band were less than
professional and the venue owners complained, we made a solemn pact to
stay off the booze on working nights and things went well for a few
months. We started getting gigs in Brisbane itself which was good as
we didn't have such a long drive to get home in the early hours. We
found that our repertoire of hard rock with a little bit of goth rock
did well but it was our good list of sixties to eighties songs and a
solid section of twelve bar blues usually got everyone dancing. We
started getting attention from the promoters, the newspapers and the
girls. I, for one was having the time of my life.
I suppose I had better introduce us at this point. I am Stuart Simpson
and I play bass. We have Terry Jenkins on lead guitar, Bruce Anderson
on rhythm and vocals, and our drummer was Steve Franks. Although we
did some of the Goth music, we could not replace Steve and his drum kit
for an electronic version that was not as annoying as he owned our band
transport, an aging Transit that was well past its use by date.
One night, at a gig on the Gold Coast, a particularly noteworthy girl
was out front and dancing by herself. She was noteworthy because she
was a full blown Goth girl, not a common sight among the tourists. At
the end of our set she came up to us and asked us if we did more Goth
songs and we told her we did but they did not go down well in these
venues.
She told us that she was called Lesley Craven and not only played
keyboards but sang as well. She wanted to join us at one of our
practise sessions and try out her singing. We had got our own list
down pat so readily agreed to let her try out her voice with us the
following Friday afternoon. We gave her the garage address and she was
smiling as she left us.
On that Friday afternoon she brought her keyboard and amplifier and we
worked through our Goth list, most of which she knew. We stayed in the
gentle Goth vein; a bit of Siouxsie and the Banshees, some Cure for the
old stuff and some Evanescence, Velvet Underground and Alice Cooper for
the more modern to hard rock. We did love Nick Cave songs, especially
his Birthday Party era of the early eighties. As the afternoon
progressed we came to realise that she was really good and made a
significant difference to our sound. As we packed up we talked to her
about joining us and told her that she would have to fit in with the
rock and cover stuff as that was where the money was at the moment.
She thought about it for a while and said she would try to lower
herself to our musical level but warned us that she would try to get us
playing more Goth.
A few weeks passed by and she worked really hard to pick up the rest of
our repertoire and, when she finally joined us on stage, we became a
very successful band in the local area. Bruce had been busy writing
new songs and we gave him the opportunity to try a couple out. We were
all surprised at how good they sounded so we started to put them into
our set. One night a promoter took us aside after the gig and told us
that a friend of his had a studio and wanted us to record two tracks
for a single. We did the recording session and, a few weeks later,
heard ourselves on the radio. It was an amazing experience and we had
a little celebratory drink.
After a few weeks we heard that our record had been picked up by radio
stations interstate and we were told that we now needed to have our own
agent. We chose a local guy, Adrian Southcliffe, who managed a few
other bands and he got us a good regular gig in Ipswich, a town a bit
out of Brisbane. We were signed for every Friday and Saturday evening
for three months and it was interesting as we needed to make sure we
mixed up our playlist so we didn't sound the same every night. For a
bit of fun we put in more of the tuneful Goth songs. It is no good
doing the hard-core ones as revellers do not like it when you hit them
with a dirge about death and disaster when they are out clubbing. We
knew that there are places where this sort of music was played but knew
of no places in Australia at this turn of the century.
At the end of the engagement he got us into a two month gig in Brisbane
city and one thing I noticed was that he was bringing Lesley to the
venue and taking her home. Six weeks into this gig he announced that
we were booked to do a tour around the country. He showed us a poster
he had produced with a picture of Lesley to the left and the rest of us
with our instruments on the right. Above us were the words: 'Goth Rock
Chick Lesley and her Band Quimble.' The last two words were under the
rest and there was a blank space for a sticker showing the place and
date of the show. When we complained that we were the original band
members and she was an extra person he told us that we had only got
ahead because of her in the band and to suck it up. Also, at this
time, we went back into the studio and recorded an EP called "Goth
Quimble" with the four songs being 'Black Lipped Lovely', 'Pale Face',
'She Wears my Ring (In her Nose)' and 'What Chu Lookin' At?'
We were mollified by the news of the country tour. The route was down
to Sydney for a week, on to Canberra for a week and then down to
Melbourne for two weeks. There was an option to go to Adelaide but the
promoter did not think the extra five hundred miles each way would be
worth it. The return trip was up to Bendigo and then to Wagga Wagga
before finishing in Tamworth. He had organised a van that would do the
journey and arranged cheap lodgings for us all. We had two weeks off
after the Brisbane gig and then got ourselves ready to leave on the
Wednesday to drive to Sydney.
The gigs went well; our having a new record out helped in getting fans
through the doors. The distances we travelled were daunting, having
never been outside of Queensland before, unless you call going across
the border at the bottom of the Gold Coast; something we did every year
to get two new years in an hour apart, due to daylight saving in one
state and no daylight saving in the other. We played to pretty big
crowds everywhere and the general rock songs went well. Melbourne was
happy with the Goth songs and we did play our singles and the EP tracks
at every gig.
When we finished the tour and handed the truck back we were at a loose
end for a couple of weeks and Adrian finally got us a month at a pub in
Toowoomba. During this period he hit us with a bombshell. He had been
in touch with a promoter in England and we would be going to the UK for
a tour of the Goth festivals and other venues in the English summer.
Goth was still very strong in the UK and they thought we would be able
to draw some crowds being a bit of a novelty. I did not think we would
be a novelty as there had been lots of Aussie bands in the UK who did
well, but who was I to question their ideas if it meant a trip to the
Old Country.
Marianne G 2020
Vicky
- 30.06.2021
- 23
- 0
The Night of the Bigfoot Part 1
- 3 years ago
- 53
- 0
Catherine s Big Day Part 1
- 1 year ago
- 46
- 0
