Er …
I wasn't going to post any of this stuff but I've been having such fun this weekend transferring tapes of myself that must be getting on for forty years old onto CD.
This is probably the earliest piece of Dive that exists on tape.
It is myself as a kid, playing a cheapo electric guitar through a borrowed 15W bass amp and my friend Mike Igoe playing my acoustic guitar.
Picture two spotty, snotty kids in glasses, barely into our teens, sitting on my crappy little bed in a room that measured eight by six feet, playing into a primitive and very early cassette player.
Mike and I went on to form my first sanity band (I was already a seasoned dinner/dance band player, though we couldn't play in pubs because we were too young to go in them).
Our sanity band didn't play dance music, we played Yes and Focus and Mahavishnu Orchestra numbers; all widdly guitar and mad drums.
We got fuck-all work but we had a great time.
Even before that, back when we were about thirteen - as you're about to hear - we were precocious little bastards.
In those benighted days of prehistory, guitars were not allowed in school. They were "not a proper instrument".
Nobody gave guitar lessons, you had to sit and figure the thing out for yourself.
Bert Weedon's "Play In A Day" book taught you how to pick out the tune to Good King Wenceslas, but if you wanted to play "flash" you had to play along to records until your fingers bled.
It's different these days. Kids get taught this crap in school. They can even get a sodding qualification! Jeez!
Where's the rebellion in playing guitar these days? Where's the cool?
Sadly long gone …
Sigh …
Anyhoo … Here's two snotty little kids learning the hard way, just sitting and jamming and trying to figure out what sounds good.
I have no idea which of us makes the stupid noise at the end.
This is the first couple of minutes of a whole hour of this crap.
Sorry about the quality - and indeed the playing - but this is the prehistory of Dive.
And sorry about the photo. It's the only one I have of the two of us, taken when we were eighteen, long after this recording.
Yes, I confess; that's my Afghan coat.
10 comments:
You had an Afghan coat! he he so did my boyfriend at the time. I love the photo.
I keep walking by my computer and more weekend postings appear(Oh, I guess it is Monday but Memorial Day weekend still).
You alone Dive are keeping us very busy in blogland :). I keep expecting to hear some mediocre music the further back you go but even the teen you was incredibly good. Precocious indeed. I really need to get my 10 year old started on his lessons.
What an artsy picture too-how great.
Wow....and you were just a kid. That just floors me. I have heard bands of grown ups who couldn't touch that.
Thirteen! Are you serious? I'm really looking forward to that CD, Dive.
Afghan coats were so cool back then weren't they? And warm too.
Hee hee, Lynn.
I loved that coat but boy, did it stink of dope when it got damp!
Shan: I dearly wish I had recordings of Phil and me as tiny little kiddies playing Beatles and Chuck Berry tunes. It's fun to listen back to all that crap. I've had a nostalgia-soaked weekend.
As for the "artsy" photo (hee hee), that was taken in one of those stupid little train station passport photo machines.
Maria: These days kids learn from tuition DVDs and they have TAB (simple to read guitar music) to learn from so they don't have to try any more.
You get kids coming out of college these days who can outplay me, which pisses me off a little as we never had the benefit of that stuff.
Plus, back then, being a guitar player really meant something; now it means nothing; anybody can do it.
Hey ho.
Mme: People will tell you Afghan coats were NEVER cool, but they were. Hee hee.
So was I, once …
Sigh …
that was grand, sugar! xoxox
Thank you, Savannah.
It certainly brought back some weird memories. That's such a long distance in the past I get vertigo looking back that far.
Get out! You were NOT 13 when you recorded this. Sheesh, if I were half this good on my trumpet when I was 13, I would have grown up to be Maynard Ferguson. Very cool, and a cool coat.
Hee hee, Robyn.
I'd already been gigging for years by the time this crap was recorded.
I've been scouring my brain to try to remember the first gig I ever played.
I think it was in the big back room (the function room) of the Bear and Bells pub in Beccles. We weren't allowed in the pub itself because we were kids.
I seem to remember they only had old pre-war round pin plugs in that room so we ended up borrowing lots of extension cords and trailing them across the car park.
Sheesh! It's a wonder we weren't electrocuted.
Sigh … Crappy days.
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