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Alphastone
Bassman
Fan Tan Jack
Überfuzz
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Acid Ray Summer/Autumn Newz 2008
Hello fellow Acid Heads,
I know things in Acid Ray land have appeared to have ground to a halt again but anyway I will fill you all in on the trials and tribulations of life in the mudlands.
ACID RAY
For the past couple of years I have been trying to kick start the Acid Ray site.
There are many difficult reasons why the site became neglected, initially we had some great feedback but very quickly it ebbed away as input became sporadic.
Mutal support from the contributing musicians disappeared as soon as myspace became established, this was the first disappointment which totally undermined the communal aspect of the site and prevented it progressing.
I wanted to expand the site and introduce a subscription fee to cover basic running costs, this way I hoped the site may progress.
At present I am not sure if Acid Ray could be rejuvenated, as always I try to remain optimistic.
THE URGZ
Last year I crawled along until I fell in the ditch of despair when our three piece garage band imploded around xmas time when Crow the drummer left, the phoenix that rose from the ashes was The Urgz.
We put together an album ‘‘Love The Urgz, Hate The Urgz’’ and created a myspace page, I used analogue drums for the rhythm, the original album material recorded during 07 was rejected as the live drum tracks were just not up to scratch.
What I was aiming to achieve was a resurrection of the psychedelic garage band sound that emerged from Rugby during the 80’s, in the end I did what I could with what I had.
The Urgz album was not well received and I was forced to scrap the whole thing wiping out another years worth of work.
There was a brief opportunity to get on board Tim Morris’s [ex Spacemen] who had previously played with Uberfuzz but unfortunately Tim was too busy to commit to the band.
I decided to put The Urgz on hold since it seemed an uphill task to establish a new project with no support.
We still have a myspace page which unfortunately has been very problematic to use, I still would like to create more music as The Urgz if we find a suitable live drummer.
ALPHASTONE
Resurrecting Alphastone seemed a sensible thing to do, in retrospect I know I should have not tried to launch a new project every year, the reason I wanted to change the name was because at the time I thought that there was literally nobody who was interested in my music any more, name changes and new projects did nothing to gain a wider audience.
The first post Alphastone lineup featuring Andy on Bass and Gareth on percussion was excellent and my best opportunity to make a come back of sorts, unfortunately like everything in that happens in this town the moment evaporated, picking a dumb ass name like The Spacejunk Cowboys was a mistake, when Andy left to join AAMC I had to start from scratch with Gareth taking on the bass duties.
Fast forward through several years and I am still working with Gareth, as I may of said before the live band we put together last year blew everybody away and was only gonna get better until the drummer inexplicably left the band creating a massive low point in my life.
The 3 piece band would have became The Urgz, instead I carried it on as a duo using electronics which was not what I wanted, ultimately I came to the conclusion that I should revert back to Alphastone.
A very kind offer from Enraptured Jack has helped motivate me to write a new collection of material and to do some live shows.
AAMC
Sadly Steve Janes has retired from the live scene, Steve has made a big contribution to the local scene, over the years his tight drumming has kept The Wildcards, The Crime Scene Cleaners, Alphastone, Kerpunk and AAMC going as well assisting many musicians with their myspace pages.
Steve created the best remix of Alphastone’s Life is a Motorway and won a lot of critical acclaim,he will be continuing his remix and solo work as Regal 3/ 30 and working with Scott aka ElfwoodPratali and Paul Uberfuzz Leceux on a project called The Grosvenor Suite.
The Alfies recently recorded some new material recorded by myself and produced by Sgt. Milko and Captain Zen, which they have released as an ep titled ‘‘The Right As Ninepence EP’’ , three great tracks which I hope they follow up with an album.
The band are currently still looking for a new drummer for up coming gigs, so anyone out there fancy joining the Cabinet should aim their attention to the bands myspace page.
UBERFUZZ
Also MIA are Uberfuzz, Paul decided to wind up the band earlier in the year Uberfuzz had developed a long way since the Pam and Paul period in to a really superb band that in my opinion should have gained a wider audience, I hope Paul will return with something new once the smoke has cleared.
THE STRIP CLUB
The Strip club has evolved quite nicely into the best live music venue in town. This year we had a sell out gig with Wonderstuff mainman Miles Hunt who returned to headline the outdoor mini festival at The St Thomas Cross, which raised over £600 quid for charity.
We are always looking for new bands so please contact the Strip Club myspace page.
THE DARKSIDE
It became immensely frustrating trying to find a way to legitimately re-release the recordings I have of The Darkside, but I feel over the past year that some advances have been made, in that I now can talk to most of the ex members, maybe something positive will still happen in time, negotiations are still in progress to some extent.
This may be a premature announcement but I have nearly finished compiling the first in the Darkdaze series.
The first issue is two cds, one comprising the unfinished 3rd lp session recorded in Walsall early 93, and the other a live concert recorded in Frankfurt.
Although this is the latter end of The Darkside it is in my opinion a good documentation of this band which had evolved into a hard rocking three piece garage band, I still need approval from ex band members, as regards Universal I doubt if they will ever cooperate or show any interest unless it is to issue an injunction on me.
I am very grateful for the patience and understanding I get from Gareth, he has enabled me to keep my music alive and as the tired old saying goes we hope to get out there and do some shows, our music is uncompromising and unorthodox, individual and unique and has been during the past six years or so, whatever the chosen name at the time and there has been at least four we have always tried to push our sound to the limits but confined within a decaying town well past it’s prime has had an extreme isolating effect on myself, I appreciate any contact and apologise for my inconsistency.
I refuse to disappear into the ether neither to be beaten down by apathy, I was a founder member of the Rugby Psychedelic scene and despite the long lasting legacy of negativity that emanates from those times I try to remain upbeat .
Thanks to Jack Trevillion I have one last chance to record an lp, I appreciate Jack’s offer and I sincerely hope that what I come up with will be of sufficient quality to be released. I hope to be able to play gigs with the new Alphastone set, in previous years we did as many as we could afford to do, with the impending recession I think it will be especially hard for me to fund future gigs outside our locality but I remain hopeful. Thanks for all the support from myspace friends, I really appreciate it.
Bassman Autumn/Winter 2008
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