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Well, I first got into playing music back in 1985. ( I had
sort of learnt at school but had lost interest coz i could'nt
afford a piano.) At that time A mate of mine had bought a
state of the art Yamaha keyboard, and I was amazed at how
professional they sounded with the rhythm and backing tracks
to play along to, so I simply had to have one.
I managed to pick up a cheapish keyboard and books on how
to play and read music, then I spent a good two years learning
the art and recording stuff on an old tape deck, but eventually
found this limiting as the machine had no memory functions,
and quite frankly it was begining to sound pretty sad...
I felt that I needed something more professional to continue
with, so I lashed out a large wad on a big Yamaha with multi
track recording and a disk drive to save it on.( Spending
£800 really got me in deep kaka with the missus! eek...)
From that point I became a lot more interested in musical
composition and orchestration techniques. I recorded my first
'Album ' using a tape deck, and some sound effects CD's borrowed
from the library. It was a sort of Pink Floyd meets Ozric
Tentacles album and I still have it to this day! (Although
listening to it today makes me wonder what the hell I was
smoking!!! )
It was then that I realised that I wanted to play with other
musicians, and started to scour the local papers for other
musicians that needed a keyboard player. Then one day an advert
appeared for a band with their own studio that needed a keyboard
player so I phoned up and spoke to some dude called ' Cliff
!' I was amazed to discover that Cliff used to go to the same
school as I did! I was invited to join the band that eventually
became known as 20 dead camels.
After nine months rehearsals, a stint in a recording studio
and a couple of local gigs the band split up and I went back
to doing my own stuff again. At that point I decided to learn
the guitar and picked up an acoustic and a couple of books
on playing chords and stuff, and (much to the neighbour's
annoyance) began the long hard road trying to master it!
Another mate of mine, Pat, asked me join his band, and I
was shocked to discover that the drummer was my old friend
Keith! (Ex camels drummer.) We rehearsed for about six months,
With me playing keyboards and guitar. Strangely enough, at
one time when we were after a lead singer, a guy called Simon
Magee turned up to audition! (what a small world!) Eventually
Cliff came along to play with us, but we were forced out of
our practice hall because we were too loud.
Not long after the band went their own way, but Cliff wanted
to get the camels back together so after a few weeks of waiting,
the phone call eventually came...The Camels were reforming,
With new bassist Mark, Keith on drums and, surprise, surprise,
lead singer Simon!
We started off playing a kind of rock, indie, dance, Ska
type of music, but soon discovered from audience reactions
at the first couple of gigs, that the stuff that went down
best was reggae and Ska....!
From then on the Camels went from strength to strength.....
- My Main musical influences over the decades have been:
Reggae..(From a very early age), Rock...(Floyd, purple, Zepplin
), Ska...(Madness, Specials), Various Jazz and Blues bands,
some classical stuff, The odd bit of Funk and dance, ( but
not that crappy rap shit that rips off other bands licks and
riffs!) Some Indie stuff, and of course nostalgic sixties
stuff ( when I'm pissed!).
I play a Yamaha psr600, Roland juno60, and every now and
then when I'm bored, my faithful old Hohner Acoustic.
Doug - 20 Dead Camels
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