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| The True History of Pants According to Moose - Part One. |
This was written about a year ago, just after we decided to get off our collective arses and do something again.. hence it's slightly out of date at the end.
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| The Story Begins... |
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paul davis.
earlier today. |
Pants were formed in haste in November of 1996, if I remember correctly. A friend, local musician and music store proprietor, Paul Davis, was organising a charity Christmas concert for the 28th of December. The plan was to see if I could get a band together for a one off show to raise a bit of money.
I probably couldn't, 'cos I'm lazy, but after a bit of badgering, things began to take shape. A very old friend of mine, called Fal, was keen to do a band with me. We used to attempt to bash out tunes when we were in our teens. He was a bass player, and I was a hack guitarist. New Model Army changed all that. I needed to become a bass player to join NMA, but didn't have a bass. Not a problem. Just turn up for the audition without one, there was bound to be one kicking around...the rest is mystery. So now the roles were reversed, Fal had become a pretty mean guitarist. ( He never bought anything) . I could hit four strings and a noise would come out...half a band already. |
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| Drummer Required... |
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| the house of tozer. earlier today. |
Next stop, the House of Tozer... Dan Tozer ( of the Lurkers, 999, The Vibrators and various other stalwarts of the British Punk Movement) This was also, quite conveniently, the home of my future wife. We had a foot in the door, as it were. Dan was bald, and had some drums. Dan could play those drums. Phew, lucky break. Dan wanted to play those drums with Fal and me. This was looking good, 75% complete, and only the most difficult bit to go.
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| Singer (not) Required... |
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the pub.
earlier today. |
Now all that was needed was to ego massage someone with great vocal talent to join our little combo. Obviously, we would need to advertise and audition a long string of no-hopers before we found that certain, special someone.
We went to the pub to consider our options, and ran into Sean Wratten, a friend who sang with another local band, Deezel Cheeze Weezel. Fuck it...he'll do. So, that was that. Line up complete in about two hours. Better carry on drinking then, there's ages 'til closing time.
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| What to Play?... |
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gary glitter.
earlier today. |
I couldn't be arsed to write loads of songs for one gig. Covers then. What to cover? Well DCW already did contemporary rocking tunes from popular culture, and as they were on the bill too, there was no point in doing that. Ok then, how about complete crap? Excellent choice sir !... and will you be taking the piss too? You betcha. So began 4 to 6 weeks of figuring out and rehearsing the songs of Abba, Gary Glitter, Slade, The Sweet, Boney M, The Monkees, The Bay City Rollers, Sparks, The Spice Girls and TV themes like the Sweeney, Minder and Crossroads. You get the picture...
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| Recipe For a Pants Cover... |
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some kazoos.
earlier today. |
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1: Take any well-arranged song.
2: Break it down to its bare bones.
3: Adapt those bones for guitar, bass and drums.
4: Insert pointless musical interludes, key changes, discords and thuggish backing vocals to cover the lack of a string or brass section.
5: Play most of the instrumental solos on Kazoos instead of bothering to learn them.
6: Above all, take the piss out of the song, the band and most importantly the audience.
7: Leave them to stew on it for a while, and then start telling bad jokes and insulting people.
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| We Get Round to Playing... |
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half a dozen.
earlier today. |
So we did the gig. I was wrong. The place was packed. They loved us. We got half a dozen firm bookings that night, and decided to carry on. We played quite a bit for about 2 years, Dan's time with the Lurkers finished mid tour, leaving him more readily available, and then things with Sean got a bit sketchy.
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Ta ta then...
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ta ta then.
earlier today. |
The band hit a nadir when we were falsely accused of sabotaging a T-Rex gig by refusing to leave the stage. It wasn't us it was the Glitter Band, who overran by an hour.
Never mind, we got paid, but some of the audience objected to Sean referring to them as "a bunch of total cunts." So did the organisers. Ah, a new low.
Sean eventually decided to pack it all in and move to London, saving us the job of sacking him for not turning up at gigs. He is now back in Marlborough, dreams of stardom shattered after little more than a year, and has refused to have anything to do with the band. He runs a mountain bike shop, bless him, he's alright really. Cunt.
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| The Story Continues>>> |
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