The Way They Were: Gary Stewart Smith and Nick “The Drum Doctor” Lauro. Could it be that we were oh so simple then (back in 1984)?
An assortment of Liquorice Allstars gathered at Deva Road Studios last Saturday to rehearse for the upcoming Hilbre Court gig. Nick “The Drum Doctor” Lauro; Gaz “Funkmeister” Hill; Andy “Kitch” Kitchinson”; and yours truly, Gary Stewart “It’s My House So I Get To Sing The Songs I Want To Sing” Smith.
The guys all arrived at 6pm, guitars in one hand, bottles of wine in the other. We left Nick to set up his kit while we adjourned to the kitchen and cracked open a bottle of Malbec. A short while later, we cracked open a second and moved up to the studio, gave Nick a top-up, gave the guitars a tune-up, and set about the task of working our way through the two dozen possible candidates for the set list (Hendrix, Dylan, Bowie, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Dire Straits, if you must know).
It was all jolly cordial: we sat round the dining table with a home delivery curry (4 popadoms, 3 mains, 3 sides, 2 plain naan, 1 pilau rice, if you must know), drank several bottles of wine, and talked about the good old days. We breezed through the twenty odd songs without a hitch or a harsh word, and all left feeling happy and confident in our abilities and looking forward to the forthcoming gig.
If all band rehearsals were as easy and enjoyable as this, I’d be in a band.
A rare sighting of Gaz “Funkmeister” Hill (centre), when he was just plain old Gareth Hill (with Andy “Kitch” Kitchinson on the left and Paul “P Doddy” Dodd on the right, circa 1984)
What do you mean by only ordering two plain naan????? Weirdos.
In all seriousness Leo me old mucker: me, Kitch and Gaz have had curries together so many times over the years that we know our limitations. Only Nick Lauro’s capacity for naan waas unknoown. In the final analysis, two plain naan was sufficient.
HOLY F@^%!*> $@!#
It’s me on my Mark Brzezicki wannabe Maxwin (by Pearl) drum kit with the stripped & varnished shells! I thought this was some sort of photo mock-up – but it’s real! How did this get taken? I don’t remember – was I really that young once?!!??!
One thing’s for sure, when you get older you lose the hang-ups about playing music because the game plan changes. The need to prove ones-self goes out of the window. Yeah, I can produce a number of (unsuccessful) albums I’ve been recorded on, so what? It doesn’t matter any more. The only important thing is playing the music for the moment and if it’s good, loking forward to the next moment you do it again.
Saag Aloooooooooooo!!!!
The ability to play music is wasted on the young. All those talents that died at the age of 27 – Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Winehouse et al – too young to discover the real beauty of the music.
Naan…well I’m shocked, frankly. Over here I have to travel some distance to get a half decent curry and naan is one of my all time favourite stodgy things. I thought that this was a basic human need…
On the ‘too young’ side of things – I must admit that the adoration of Joplin is one of those things (like Bowie’s popularity) which I don’t understand at all. Maybe I’m just weird.
Maybe you just ARE plain weird. Though actually yes, I think Janis Joplin is well overrated. Terrible sound. Shouting and screeching is not emotion, it’s just shouting and screeching. Loads of overrated artists from those days. Bowie, however, deserves the high regard.
I was quite surprised at the lack of enthusiasm for rice. My consumption of a fine tray of Byriani more than compensated for the lost-in-a-sea-of-mains raft of lonesome Pilau stranded adrift on the table.
Perhaps naans and Pilau are wasted upon The Allsorts…
…it’s all very subjective…
Honestly, we had sufficient accompaniments! Remember, we had more rehearsals to do, and it’s hard to sing on an overfull stomach.
Drummers drum best on a full stomach, energy spent, calories burned. Singing is for lasses, not real blokes who work down t’pit.
So I guess I’m just a lass that’s never worked down t’pit…
Why aye man!