Here's a shot of a gang of us hanging around outside the Queen's Elms Halls of Residence. Although you can't see it very well, Davey is sporting a fine Afro hairstyle. The shadowy images in the background are the result of a double-exposed negative, but give the picture an appropriately eerie, trippy feeling. Interestingly, there are three catholics, three protestants and three English people in this group - how evenly balanced!
Meanwhile, back in Armagh, Paul and Desy Kerr (whom you will remember from chapter 1) had teamed up with old-hand Kevin Kearney to form an early Gothic-style band, Taboo. I joined them for a while on bass, as Paul was now playing guitar. Long black coats, candles on stage and Black Sabbath cover versions were very much de rigeur, and we had some great gigs. However, travelling from Belfast to Armagh for performances without a car was impractical. Belfast student life, and the promise of newly forming band, Brock, seemed like more attractive options to me at the time. My replacement in Taboo on bass was (ex Prester John) Harry Irwin's precocious younger brother, Philip. Taboo went on to greater things, touring Ireland, etc. However, that's not the end of my connections with Paul Kerr, who will make a reappearance in chapter 5.
Just in case you're beginning to think that this all a bit too Laddish, here's a picture of me with girlfriend Rosie Kirkpatrick, taken when we were on a horse-drawn caravan holiday around Cork. That was an amusing episode worthy of recounting, although it is a bit of a digression. Rosie and I stopped off in Dublin on our way to Cork, and headed for a pub that someone had recommended. Sure enough who was there in the pub but Phil Lynott (r.i.p.) and Eric Bell of Thin Lizzie fame. We got quite friendly, and I wish we'd been able to stay there longer. However, we had already arranged to stay overnight with another friend's cousin, who turned out to be a nun. Some contrast! Eventually we got to Cork and found the right caravan company (there seemed to be several with almost identical names). The proprietor was an avuncular gent, who had a portrait of himself on the wall alongside those of the Pope and J.F.K. He decided, since we were the first caravan of the season, that it would be a good advertising scoop to get some photographs of us in the local paper, and we happily obliged. However, at the end of our holiday, he told us that the paper had declined to publish the photographs as soon as they realised that we were two couples, but with four different names (i.e., not married!). That was Ireland in 1971 - no trace of the Celtic Tiger back then.
Later that year, when I moved into a student house in Dunluce Avenue, things looked up on the musical front.
A friend of a friend moved in with us, Jimmy Simmons, who had numerous musical connections with the Derry musical scene.
These included drummer/singer Lowry Wasson at the Art College, and that most-valued possession for a band, a van! Together we were the first Brock, a three-piece, doing covers of songs by Cream, Santana, etc. I was always amazed how Lowry could sing and play the drums so well at the same time. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any proper photographs of this line-up, apart from this strange poster.
This recording of , from the Beatles' Abbey Road, gives a flavour of what Brock I were like. Listening to this again now, I realise that we were indeed a heavy band! We played various gigs at the University and other places, perhaps most notably several at American naval communications base near Derry. Here we could eat and drink as much as we wanted, and we got paid quite well too. The only catch was that the gigs lasted for a very long time. We would go through our repertoire at least twice during the evening. As time wore on, and the booze flowed, there were requests from the floor and guest singers would join us, so it was very much a matter of playing it by ear. All very lively, but great fun.
On that marvellous live album Four Way Street, Neil Young introduces the next song by drawling: "This is usually a really long song, folks, and tonight we're gonna play it real slow!" Although we don't manage the 15 minutes that CSNY achieve, Brock's version of does last for six minutes, complete with mandatory extended guitar solo.
Jimmy was only at Queen's for a one-year MSc course, after which he moved to enjoy the rural hippy life in Donegal with Helen Crawford. Meanwhile, Lowry and I recruited two new members for the band, novice John Wain on bass, and old-hand Glen Atcheson on guitar. I also moved back onto guitar.
This is a photo of Brock II on stage in the Students' Union. Unfortunately you can only just see Glen's elbow.
Here's another of me at the same venue, looking very thin indeed (compared with now!).
I remember getting a mild electric shock through my moustache that night from the microphone The P.A. couldn't have been earthed properly. I ended up inelegantly trying a handkerchief around the mike to insulate it.
Our ever cheerful friend Trevor Hanna filled the dual roles of manager and roadie, and being a mechanic by trade, was able to get us a van for the princely sum of £35, if I remember correctly. (Helping to replace the clutch on same van was a baptism of fire in D.I.Y. car mechanics for me, but it has stood me in good stead ever since. I've now hung up my oily rags, though!)
Brock II aspired to more complex material and a few original compositions, but I think it lacked the energy lent to Brock I by Jimmy. Nevertheless we played quite a few gigs, which Trevor obtained for us, by sending mailshots anywhere and everywhere.
The next two recordings were made during an acoustic rehearsal in my room at No. 10 Sandymount Street. I can visualise the scene as if it was yesterday, with us all sitting around a coal fire, drinking cider. The drums in these "unplugged" recordings are just Lowry tapping on a piece of wood. The first song is , written by the late Tim Buckley, who lives on in spirit (see www.timbuckley.com). The next one is our version of Joni Mitchell's classic, . When my daughter Roisin was a toddler, she used to ask me to play the song with "Daddy singing in a high voice." If you listen to this you'll hear why!
Next up is one of our own compositions, enigmatically entitled , which features 5/4 time in the verses. Finally you can hear another of our own efforts, and something of a protest song, , with lyrics courtesy of aspiring poet, Tom Gray. Obviously, obtuse titles and lyrics were very much in fashion in the eary seventies.
Somehow while all this was going on, I also managed to pick up a BSc 2.1 degree in Psychology. Carrying on in Academia seemed more atractive than working for a living, so in September 1973 I caught the ferry to Scotland in my newly acquired Mini Clubman Estate, and headed for the University of Stirling.