Yes, the 'garfo' bit of the URL is a rather stupid piss take of some indie band I don't even like, which makes the pun unredeemable etc.
I'd better get started with the profiles, eh? Garfield Location: Inverness, Culloden and Garmouth. Era: December 2002 to present day. Auditions? Practises? Gigs? At this moment in time, while I've been in the band, 1/0/0. But they had 2 gigs earlier in 2002. Influences: "Jimmy Eat World, The*Ataris, Get Up Kids, Foo Fighters, Millencolin, Bad Religion, Weezer and Alkaline Trio." And my own influences influence me, naturally! Bored. Alienated. Depressed. Hacked off. These are the feelings that ran through my brain one December morning when I was sitting around doing fuck all at my dad's house (the one where I can get the internet!). So I went on the Internet, had a look through PunkInScotland.co.uk to see if any new Scottish bands had formed, and there it was! A new entry, advertising "Garfield: Inverness Punk Rock"! I looked on it, and what do I see but an advertisement for a singer! Naturally I use my instincts and e-mail David, 3 or 4 e-mails later and we arrange for me to visit Inverness and try out for the band, as they had another dude in the running! Of course, my great mum 'conveniently' arranged for the 100-mile round trip to be made on the 31st of December, a matter of hours before I get majorly pissed up. Hey, it's a national tradition - the only one I respect! (Except wearing kilts - jeez, you gotta have balls for that!) I was a bit nervous of seeming too: a) much of a punk rocker ... too underground, too DIY, too sure of my own beliefs; b) kooky and eccentric; c) bad a singer to be in any type of non-thrash band; d) much of a chip-on-shoulder grudge-holding depressive type (which, to be fair, I am). No such problems. In as much punk-pop gear as I could muster (no DMs, NOFX hoodie, jeans) I waited in the Eastgate Centre for someone to turn up. Ever tried spotting someone that you have no description of? In a mall full of "play-acting anarchists and Mommy's-little-skinheads, rebels bloated on korn, eminems and bizkits"? It's fuckin' hard I tell ya. But I struck up the courage to approach someone and ask if they were in Garfield, and I guessed right, and Kris is. We waited for Ryan to turn up, which he did, with the message that David is too 'wasted' to get out of bed, so we had to go to his house. A 10-mins walk through the centre of the most northernly city in Britain (bit of trivia for ya there!), discussing 80s comics, hepatitis D and the predicament the lads found themselves in with their old vox/bassist Dave R, and we came to David's house. He looked tired and wasted! (Sorry, but ye did, David!) I only had 30 mins to show my, ahem, talent off before my mum's parking was up! Up in his room, all of the instruments were set up and ready, so after conferring what songs to play, we began to play NOFX's 'Bob', which I had forgotten the words to! We tore through songs like Jimmyeatworld's 'A Praise Chorus', The Ataris' 'The Radio Still Sucks', AFI's 'Days of the Phoenix' amongst others. I was aware that I had forgotten all but a few lines to each of those songs, yet somehow overcame my 'butterflies' to sing, in my eyes, really well! I was surprised. Time was running out, so David gave me a copy of their 3-track demo that they recorded and now hated, and they walked me to my imminently-leaving lift home, with a promise to have a practise soon. Twelve days later, I've kept in touch, and I'm trying to arrange a practise for the 18th of Jan. But for accurate news, you'd better go to their website, which is linked to below! If you are as cynical as Welly from Artcore zine, or if you are Welly from Artcore zine, I bet you are thinking "now what the fuck is a punk rock kid like Bry doing making a 100-mile round trip to 'jam' with a band whose influences are all within the pages of Kerrang?" As you have been told, this particular region of 'taint' (like: 'taint [between] the ass, taint the genitals' ... aka a notcher or a tinky string ... that's what Moray is, taint Inverness, taint Aberdeen!) is almost punk-less and interesting-occurance-less, so I must go further afield for 'unfailing' bands. Apart from freak occurances, I can rarely speak to anyone at school about feeling the way I do, discuss non-major-label bands and 80s comic books - I thought that maybe I should try to make friends in other cities! I mean, through RTB and the Fracture Forum, I have friends all over the UK, but I mean friends that I have met more than 0 times! Y'know? True, the set-list of songs we played above might be accused of being a bit...well, popular...but to play a cover you need to get the tabs AND the lyrics, so there was only a limited number of songs I could sing and THEY could play at that time. Besides, their own songs from the demo they recorded are better than the aforementioned bands (well, I love some AFI and most NOFX songs!), plus any songs I'm invited to write will have either a mosh part / breakdown / stoner bit / guitar solo / drum solo / scat singing / bit where we don lederhosen und beginnen gesingen im Deutsch! Uh, or something. Add to that the fact that we will probably play gigs in Scotland and maybe tour England, Wales and perhaps Ireland and Northern Ireland this year --- DIY STYLE OF COURSE!!! --- and, if I'm still involved, NOT SUCK CORPORATE COCK or BE SINGLE OF THE WEEK IN KERRANG, and you have a very bright prospect for 4 'dashing strong boys', well, 3 dashing, strong boys and a non-dashing, weak boy, from the cruel cruel north. DISCLAIMER: Maybe I've worded this so as it seems that it is my band and I write the songs. It's not and I don't. The head honcho that you should contact primarily is David dicklips_182_@hotmail.com, and maybe Ryan ryan_eat_world@yahoo.co.uk as well. In fact, there might actually be another guy doing lead vox for Garfield, dropping me to backing vocals and bass, which I might feel more comfortable with, so I don't even know what instruments I'm doing fer sure yet. OK? As far as I can make out: There'll be a gig on March the 6th with Garfield (and Silver Plated Goldfish as well) playing, at 'Millburn' in Inverness, I think. More info when I get it! Right, fuck off to the official page cuz they'll be able to tell the story better! See ya!
Back to the bands page.
The OFFICIAL Garfield page. Go here now.