David McCormack played guitar, Cathy Atthow played the drums, Glen Donald play keyboards, Paul Medew played guitar initially, then went onto bass, Christian Dahl played the bass. Later on Scott Younger joined and played bass.
I know it is frightening to think this way my friends, but it was actually 20 years ago this year that me and Paul Medew and Glen Donald started our first band together called Whos Gerald. Us three met at school in Ipswich, a stinking hot mining town about 125 years west of Brisbane.
After high school, Paul went off to Townsville to attend James Cook University. Glen and I headed off to Queensland University. There we met Cathy Atthow. Shed never played drums before, but I think her brother had a drum kit, so she was our drummer. If Id known about the Velvet Underground back then, I would have thought we were really cool. At the time I thought we were cool cuz the Gobetweens had a girl on drums, and so do we.
We put up adverts all around Uni for a bass player and got one response. It was a journalism student called Christian Dahl. Christian was a bit older than us, drunk spirits and had a song called Ive got the no coffee, caffeine deficiency blues which we used to play at parties. Looking back now, Christian was to my life sort of a Matthew Strong Beta version. More on that later.
Wed rehearse at Christians house in Indooroopilly. Sometimes wed rehearse out at Queensland University, under the Activities office. They had a small Roland PA that we could hire. One night, the PA was doubled booked, and we used to get so excited about practice that we just had to play. So we drove around the Uni grounds and stumbled upon some sort of hockey training club house thing. There was a power outlet on the wall. We plugged in and played. Wed always travel in a convoy of 3 or four cars and have everything we needed to play right there with us. Thered be a couple of guitar amps, normally with multiple inputs so we could run mikes and stuff through there as well, a bass amp, a drum kit, obviously instruments and what have you, a couple of mike stands and a few shitty old mikes. Afterwards, we go to Hungry Jacks at Taringa, where Cathy worked, and shed get us free food. They used to have a burger called a Yumbo. It was a microwaved ham and cheese thing. I loved em.
Our first real gig was at a place called The Outpost in the Valley. It is where the Red Garter strip bar is now. Or is it called Bad Girls now? Not sure.
Our second gig was at The Love Inn, just up the road a bit. Our third was back at the Outpost. Things continued on like this for a while.
We recorded one 7inch single called Wrestle/Wrestle. A label from Sydney called rooArt called us up and asked us to contribute a track to their Youngblood compilation. We went to QTQ Channel 9s studios up at Mt Cootha and recorded Pins & Needles. We played 4ZZZ Market Day once or twice. We never toured interstate. Our two biggest gigs were support Sonic Youth at The Patch at Tweed Heads and INXS at Brisbane Entertainment Centre. Around 1989 somewhere we split up. It seems so long ago, and yet just like yesterday.
OMG this has brought back so many memories - some party at a hall in Graceville somewhere, nights at the Outpost (I'm sorry you hated the way I mixed you guys, I thought it sounded great :P ), Who's Gerald painted on a road in Toowong/Indooroopilly somewhere. Thanks for the flood of memories. It's inspired me to create a myspace page for our band at the time too - Ash In October.
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