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So there they were, trying to think up the most memorably stupid name for a band that they could manage. 'Hitlers Underpantz' won. Actually, it never really started out as a band. |
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John Rogers (known to most as "Toad") had a big brother called Alvin who had a variety of Hi-Fi equpment, multiple speed tape decks, big loudspeakers and all that good stuff. Adrian and Toad used to hang out together a lot during their teen years, going to parties, drinking at "The Albion" in New Brighton, and hanging around the Stadium in Liverpool to catch the bands that came to town. Toad also constructed home made sound generators that emitted unusual bleeps, bips and all sorts of weird and wonderful sounds. Many a strange afternoon was spent collectiung noises together on tapes, playing things backwards and at wrong speeds, sticking microphones in piano's, tuning in to odd sounds that short wave radio emitted, creating these strange sound collages that they would play at loud volumes in darkened rooms. |
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Not far away lived Chris Fagin, who was heavily into some of the German Experimental music of Can and Faust that was seeping across from Europe. He was also partial to a little bit of Schtockhaussen . From somewhere the idea came of doing a live "Hitlers Underpantz" gig, and a guitarist, Simon Catteral became involved. |
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Toad Dancing |
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The idea was to just do one long performance that incorporated sounds on tape, a few set pieces and the rest held together by improvising, either with what someone else was playing or something on the tape. Every now and then things came together and "The Riff" was played. (That's the piece midi filed in the background). Loudspeakers were set up at the back and the front of the hall. Whatever lights and effects they could lay their hands on were pressed into service. And so the first Hitlers Underpanz gig got underway. The order of things went something like…. Wind noise Clocks Space bit Riff Drum bit Folk bit Bleeps Cacophony and Toad solo Riff etc… (There was also somewhere along the line a song that proclaimed, "How unfortunate to have a name like Nigel".) |
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Whilst hardly a great success, the evening was certainly different! After that things drifted for a while until the idea of a second concert was mooted. At first Adrian was interested in the idea but life was changing. This was the time he was starting to get religion and he backed out of the band. |
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Chris Fagin |
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Taking his place were Andy Mcluskey and Paul Humphries who later went onto to have much success with the band 'Orchestral Manouveres in the Dark". One of their pre-OMD bands , The Id, used to include a couple of songs such as 'Riff' and 'Nigel' in their reportoire, so something of the underpantz legacy lived on to haunt another day! |
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¬ Andy and Paul ® With a Teac |
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Adrian says :- "Thinking back to those days, if I have any regrets, it's that I allowed some good friendships to float away just because I was getting into stuff other than music. If I could do things differently I would take far more care to keep in touch with people. Toad, Chris Fagan, all the others were great guys. Stupid to let stuff like that go!" |
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