Today is the 40th anniversary of my first gig, which seems like a feat worth mentioning. It was a Sunday afternoon in sunny (hot and humid) Townsville, in Far North Queensland. The community radio station I volunteered for, 4TTT-FM, was supplying an afternoon of live music in a park by the beach, for the local Council. There were strict requirements for the event and they were 20 minutes short of meeting the time set for it, so they talked me into doing a short set of the 4-track Fostex cassette songs I'd been playing on the radio.
I had my old Ford Falcon stuffed to the gunwhales with my gear and it took me and two helpers around an hour-and-a-half to set up for the 20 minute set, which I think was five songs. After the set it was only about an hour to get it all packed into the car again.
There were a couple of hundred people there (not much to do in Townsville on a Sunday arvo) and it seemed to go down reasonably well. More importantly, I had an absolute f**king blast doing it - belting it all out at the top of my lungs - and I was pretty much instantly hooked.
At the time there were only a couple of bands playing original music, in a city of more than 100,000 people, so after that show I had no trouble finding places to play and for the next 18 months or so, I played pretty much every weekend, usually to 50+ people. A couple of times I got to play to over 1,000 people when the local Uni brought up acts from Brisbane.
I progressively upgraded my gear so that by the end of 1985 I had a proper MIDI sequencer (Yamaha QX5) and a multi-timbral digital synth (Casio CZ101) to replace the cumbersome CV+Gate set-up I'd been using, so set-up got down to around 30 minutes after that, including a bit of set decoration.
Here's a pic from that first show, with all the instruments labelled. The only thing I still have from that set-up is the yellow Korg foot pedal, which I used to start and stop the 2xTB303s I was using to sequence the SH101 and ARP Axxe. The QX5 and CZ101 replaced all that.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Anyway, to celebrate (or maybe commemorate) this incredible feat, I've made all the DEATHLY QUIET! stuff on Bandcamp free (pay what you want), so if you are even slightly curious, you can check it all out HERE.
I had my old Ford Falcon stuffed to the gunwhales with my gear and it took me and two helpers around an hour-and-a-half to set up for the 20 minute set, which I think was five songs. After the set it was only about an hour to get it all packed into the car again.
There were a couple of hundred people there (not much to do in Townsville on a Sunday arvo) and it seemed to go down reasonably well. More importantly, I had an absolute f**king blast doing it - belting it all out at the top of my lungs - and I was pretty much instantly hooked.
At the time there were only a couple of bands playing original music, in a city of more than 100,000 people, so after that show I had no trouble finding places to play and for the next 18 months or so, I played pretty much every weekend, usually to 50+ people. A couple of times I got to play to over 1,000 people when the local Uni brought up acts from Brisbane.
I progressively upgraded my gear so that by the end of 1985 I had a proper MIDI sequencer (Yamaha QX5) and a multi-timbral digital synth (Casio CZ101) to replace the cumbersome CV+Gate set-up I'd been using, so set-up got down to around 30 minutes after that, including a bit of set decoration.
Here's a pic from that first show, with all the instruments labelled. The only thing I still have from that set-up is the yellow Korg foot pedal, which I used to start and stop the 2xTB303s I was using to sequence the SH101 and ARP Axxe. The QX5 and CZ101 replaced all that.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Anyway, to celebrate (or maybe commemorate) this incredible feat, I've made all the DEATHLY QUIET! stuff on Bandcamp free (pay what you want), so if you are even slightly curious, you can check it all out HERE.
Statistics: Posted by BONES — Mon Mar 24, 2025 2:06 am
