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First published in July 2011
John can be contacted at john.bilderbeck@gmail.com
Tiny and I started playing together in a band called “The Playdates” in
Wanganui. We used to wear pink shirts, black ties and brocade waistcoats.
We had a blast playing lots of gigs 3-4 night a week. Sometimes doing 3
gigs in one day.
Mal Logan was in the band.
Tiny left for
Auckland and we replaced him with Doug Bonner, who had never played guitar or
bass. He bought some gear and I taught him our repertoire in two weeks and
we were into it.
We played in a club called the Copacabana. Friday
nights was for the oldies... waltzes, foxtrots, gay gordans. Sat was for
the “teen scene”. We had some great after-hours parties there. The
place had two stages and as resident band we had the best stage with a ‘band’
room above it. Visiting bands played on the other stage. Bands
visiting were Strange Brew, Underdogs,
Fourmyula,
Dizzy Limits, Avengers and many
more. Hank and Eddie were funny as and used to hold séances at the
parties. The La De Da’s and the
Rebels would play at the Memorial Hall
over the road and come to our parties afterwards. I think our club was
probably the best in NZ at the time.
Graham Beamsly did the “Dance of
the Flaming Arseholes” where he’d drop his dacks and roll up a newspaper and put
it between his legs and set fire to both ends. Tiny and he were great
mates.
Along the way the club name changed to “the Cauldron”. Heaps of
bands came through.
The Playdates broke up. So we started another
band called Velvet Morning. Tiny was back in town so Rob Davis (drums) and
I started up with him and were later joined by Gavin Hall on vocals.
While we had started playing Clapton’s Mayall stuff in the Playdates, we carried
that on with VM. Psychedelic was the word. We built our own light
shows and had ultra-violet lights and all that, too. We have 3 go-go
dancers from Palmy that used to stand out front with Gavin. We used
dry-ice to create a smokey stage for our entrance.
We did lots of gigs
in P.N., with Billy and Maurice at Frank’s club and the Orange Ballroom where
you had to put money in the power meter otherwise the power would go off.
I think it was called that. Long time ago.
One night we did a gig
for McDonald whats-his-name from Wgtn. Slow payer. So next time he
was in town Tiny, Gav and I found his nice new Valiant and tied his aerial in a
knot and put sugar in his petrol tank. Not a nice thing to do. He
had his Mum running the show because he didn’t want to meet up with us looking
for our money, I’ll bet.
Velvet Morning decided to go live in Auck and
turn pro. Went for the Battle of The Bands. Rob backed out on
coming. So we had to find another drummer.
Anyway, that all fell
apart. I came back to Wanganui. Stayed in touch with Tiny for a
while but lost contact until we decided we’d have a Velvet Morning band reunion
in 98.
Tiny and I stayed fairly close after that and he came down and
stayed with us regularly. His visits became less frequent because of
health.
I missed his 60th, damn it. But we visited him a couple of
weeks before he passed.
Tiny was a great friend and one of those “good
sorts”. He is missed muchly.
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