Music Reviews and all that!

The History Of The Bands I was in......

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 22:55:48 +0200

Tyranny, Upheaval, Menagerie and everything

It all began sometime back in 1987, Tyranny were born out of the ashes of budding young rockers Driving Ambition. Driving Ambition had been practicing at Scalby School with older singer, Peter Roy Toole, guitarist Adam, other guitarist James, drummer Carl ( Bugs ), Andy, bass player and some other bloke on keyboards???, this hefty line up altered when Peter Roy Toole departed the venture and in came 17 yr old vocalist Simon Muir. The band lost the keyboardist and started constructing a whole new set of songs which incorporated touches if metal, rock and punk. Humorous and offensive came in the form of 'Fat Bastard', 'Grange Hill' was an odd dedication to the kid's TV drama, 'I want your Blood' was a concept by James and was every inch a tongue in cheek heavy rock parody. 'Lifeless' showed the band to be able to write some honest, decent tunes, it was a shame none of these tracks were ever recorded for poserity. The bands first gig was at Scalby Parish Hall, the gig embarrassingly engineered by none other than Bruce Dickinson of the Little Angels.

As time moved on Adam and Simon had started to get into the hardcore punk scene in Scarborough and had befriended other local bands where they then started to take their influences from, this meant the band were stretching in two different directions, hardcore punkon one side and a classic metal influence on the other. This push led to a support act at Scarborough's Salisbury Hotel with Weston Super Mare's thrash punk band Ripcord and Scarborough's hardcore trio, Satanic Malfunctions. Although this seemed quite an acheivement and the right direction for Adam and Simon, it wasn't for the others, the music had become thrashier and less melodic which displeased some members. On that fateful night, Andy, a wee lad at the time, as were most of the band was led away in disgrace by his parents!!!, a terrible ordeal for him, and for the band. It was after this that Tyranny disbanded.

James went on to form Young Blood, who inadvertantly looked and sounded like they had a song entitled 'Shes on top tonight' it says it all really!!. What happened to Andy who knows?, maybe banished from the world of rock forever by his Victorian parents!. I'm not sure what Carl did immediately after the split?, although he did play in a band called Tungsten Bear once!!!.

Adam and Simon decided to continue the Tyranny legacy, but changed their name to Rudiment. Rudiment were shortlived, playing a handful of gigs in Scarborough and not commnading a whole lot of attention. The group was a mismatch from the start, Adam and Simon were very much concerntrating on hardcore with a political slant, the other two members were a bassist called Chris, who always forgot the songs, and an ego mad drummer called Justin. The band rehearsed at the Salisbury Hotel but it was not enjoyable, the lyrics of the band were focusing on anti abortion, peace, vegetarianism and animal rights, with the music trying to sound more punk but with the other two members very much led by metal bands, the band called it a day.

Inspired by Active Minds, a two piece Hardcore punk band in the town, Adam and Simon decided that it was possible for just them to do it together and not bring on board anyone else, that meant there would be no musical differences and they could what they wanted. Upheaval were then formed, many tuneful and harder songs were written, 'American Succession' was a thrashy attack on the USA, 'Barbecue Humans' was a tuneful meat is murder type song, whilst 'Obey and Command' and the acoustic 'The End' focused on poverty and working class betrayal. Early in 1989, Adam and Simon recorded the demo 'Its No Laughing Matter', a bedroom demo affair of about 12 songs, some worked well and did so live, others bit the dust quickly as other tunes came in. Adam and Simon watched a lot of gigs in the forthcoming months in Leeds and in Bradford, taking snippets of influences all sorts of punk inspired bands.

What we really wanted was to release a single, Looney Tunes seemed interested but I don't think were convinced by us for one reason or another, we certainly woud have got good distribution had they have bit the bullet. We did play a few gigs during 1989, as a two piece we travelled all the way to Blackburn on the train with a drum kit in tow!!, we played at the town's Fusebox club, on the bill was Chumbawamba's Danbert Nobacon. We played a benefit gig in Leeds with a huge amount of other punk bands, at the height of the poll tax revolt we did a benefit gig in Scarborough with local bands and bands from afar, that was an interesting day.

As time went on we decided that we'd do our own single, self finance it, although we didn't realise that the dole money wouldn't stretch that far. On our travels we met anarcho punk character called Yan Tree in Leeds. We talked about the idea of doing a split single with Yan and over a period of a couple of months of talking about it we decided to do it. On reflection it did mean we reduced the costs by half, but on the other hand we blighted the sales of the single due to Yan's strange sounding folk music!. We didn't shift as many of these records as we wanted to our disapointment although making the single was a great idea and even now it can be seen been sold on the net as far as the USA and Poland!!!!!, how that happens I will never know!.

During the latter part of 1989, Adam and Simon grew weary of the two piece set up, it had been good but lacked any real depth and interest if the music was to diversify or change. Adam and Simon decided in 1990 to form Upheaval as a proper band, enlisting ex Tyranny drummer Carl ( Bugs ) and Jonny May on bass, for a time there was a second guitarist called Rich. The band practiced at Trinity Road for a while until it was obvious that Rich had to leave, a second guitarist was stifling the sound and thus Rich was duly dispatched. The four piece band continued and wrote some very good tunes, 'News' was left over from the 2 piece stuff, and new tracks like 'Relics Uphold The Past' and 'Furnished In The Secrets Of The Mind' saw the band depart the harsh punk sound in favour of a U2, goth pop rock style, although the politics within the lyrics were still been conveyed.

TBC

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