40 YEARS OF LIVE PERFORMANCE!

[BONES]

Today is the 40th anniversary of my first gig, which seems like a feat worth mentioning. It was a Sunday afternoon in sunny (hot and humid) Townsville, in Far North Queensland. The community radio station I volunteered for, 4TTT-FM, was supplying an afternoon of live music in a park by the beach, for the local Council. There were strict requirements for the event and they were 20 minutes short of meeting the time set for it, so they talked me into doing a short set of the 4-track Fostex cassette songs I'd been playing on the radio.

I had my old Ford Falcon stuffed to the gunwhales with my gear and it took me and two helpers around an hour-and-a-half to set up for the 20 minute set, which I think was five songs. After the set it was only about an hour to get it all packed into the car again.

There were a couple of hundred people there (not much to do in Townsville on a Sunday arvo) and it seemed to go down reasonably well. More importantly, I had an absolute f**king blast doing it - belting it all out at the top of my lungs - and I was pretty much instantly hooked.

At the time there were only a couple of bands playing original music, in a city of more than 100,000 people, so after that show I had no trouble finding places to play and for the next 18 months or so, I played pretty much every weekend, usually to 50+ people. A couple of times I got to play to over 1,000 people when the local Uni brought up acts from Brisbane.

I progressively upgraded my gear so that by the end of 1985 I had a proper MIDI sequencer (Yamaha QX5) and a multi-timbral digital synth (Casio CZ101) to replace the cumbersome CV+Gate set-up I'd been using, so set-up got down to around 30 minutes after that, including a bit of set decoration.

Here's a pic from that first show, with all the instruments labelled. The only thing I still have from that set-up is the yellow Korg foot pedal, which I used to start and stop the 2xTB303s I was using to sequence the SH101 and ARP Axxe. The QX5 and CZ101 replaced all that.



Anyway, to celebrate (or maybe commemorate) this incredible feat, I've made all the DEATHLY QUIET! stuff on Bandcamp free (pay what you want), so if you are even slightly curious, you can check it all out HERE.

[Shabdahbriah]

Congratulations. Cool background story.

[ROTMetro]

Sounds like a fun ride. Did you load the QX5 from tape? That seems sketchy to trust in for shows.

[bmanic]

Very cool bit of history there BONES. Thanks for sharing!

Here's to another 40 years!

Cheers!
bM

[pekbro]

Awesome congratulations!

[BONES]

Sounds like a fun ride. Did you load the QX5 from tape? That seems sketchy to trust in for shows.

The QX5 couldn't hold a whole set so I used the Fostex - Tracks 1 & 2 would be uploading the rest of the set into the QX5 while Tracks 3 & 4 were playing the backing for one of the covers I used to throw into the set, so there wasn't a huge gap while I reloaded the sequencer. I didn't really have too many technical issues once I got it all working, the cassette back-up never failed.

I think half the fun was in working out how the f**k I could pull it off.

[Old Joad]

Congratulations

[vurt]

so about 20 b o. (before oakleys)?

[VOODOO U]

It's too bad you're in the way of checking out that acoustic-electric drum kit.

[banjobounce]

Congrats.

[raiderpdog]

time flies, congrats on keeping it going.

[BONES]

so about 20 b o. (before oakleys)?

More like about 5bo. I bought my first pair of Factory Pilots in 1990 or thereabouts. I bought the OTTs in Seoul in about 2007, I think. f**k knows what's happened to them, I haven't been able to find them in years. I must have left them at a gig or something because they are just gone. Pity, they are worth a f**king fortune these days - there's only one pair on eBay for less than two grand!

[BONES]

I'd been thinking about it for a while but yesterday afternoon I sat down to re-make the first single, The Next Step, a song I probably haven't performed or worked on since the late 1990s. I thought it might be a bit of a chore but I soon realised I still knew how to play it. I had to think a bit about the bassline but the three other synth parts just fell out of my head and I could play them straight in without any practise, probably because I used to play all three of them live, back when I had to. I did the bassline and drums in the piano roll but I played the rest of it in, which I never normally do. It was quite a surreal experience, realising it was all still locked up in there somewhere. I just had to tap the memory and it just fell out. I had it all down in well under an hour and then spent the rest of the afternoon finding sounds for it.

I've always struggled to recall lyrics when I'm "singing" but, again, these were right there when I needed them. I'll probably record vox at band practise next week, when we'll be recording stuff for the new album anyway, and see how it goes. Who knows, it might be worth putting up on Bandcamp when it's done? If not, it will at least get stuck into my 80s side-project and get played live now and then. Bizarre stuff, really.