By the time of Mr Grumbold's first concert the band had over twelve members and was more of a collective than a group. If you hung out at Adrian's house, that was it - you were in the band. Their first ever concert, predictably, at the Moreton Presbyterian Church Hall was a concert for BanglaDesh. part of a fund raising effort for a Christian Aid appeal .A bizzare performance ensued that commenced with synthesised rumblings and a lone trumpeter walking through the crowd playing the Last Post, before breaking into a rock and roll song. It proved to be a shocking start in more ways than one. Nothing was well earthed and when Adrian went up to sing his first note, he touched the mike stand with his mouth and received a jolt that made his lip feel like it was being pulled over the back of his head! Undaunted, but a few bars out of sync, he carried on regardless. |
Mr Grumbold eventually evolved (or should that be devolved) into a four piece band, the notable addition being guitar virtuoso Rob Parry. Rob had previously been in a band called 'Standby' with drummer Mick (who played with Eric). Rob brought with him some neat songs such as "Winds" and "See no Evil", as well as his own version of classics such as The Who's 'Substitute' and 'Can't Explain' Members of the extended Grumbold family continued to play an active part - particularly John Rogers (Toad) with his homemade synthesisers, Chris Fagan with his poems and Malcom Green (Gron) creating frantic light shows |
A hairy Adrian writes a new song |
During a concert in Hoylake Adrian met Duncan Lewis (another budding rockstar) who eventually got him involved with playing in a band called "Pegasus". Adrian stayed with them for quite a while. In Mr Grumbold he played mainly Bass, but in Pegasus had a chance to do keyboards. Having had recently become the proud owner of a Roland SH1000 monophonic synthesiser here was a chance to see what it could do. (which by today's standards was not a lot). |
A Roland SH1000, "The first ever Japanese synth." Click the picture for more info! |
And then there was This bizzarely named group started out as just Toad and Adrian fooling with his big brother's recording gear, experimenting with overdubs and tape loops alongside homemade synthesisers. They even got as far as doing some gigs - which were well - different. Maybe their greatest claim to fame was that they at one point had Andy McLuskey in the band - who went on to chart success with the band |
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Click the pic to find out who these peope are! |