I've been playing for over 20 years now
(where did it all go?). Chris Squire and
Geddy Lee were (and still are) my
inspirations for picking up the bass,
which is my main instrument. Other
bassists I admire include Tony Levin,
Mike Rutherford, Greg Lake, Roger
Glover, Klaus Peter Matziol (of Eloy)
and (more locally) Mark Hartley of
Funkpig and my old bass mentor Mark
“Happy” Wadsworth.
My main guitar heroes include Steve
Howe, Steve Hackett, Robert Fripp, Rik
Emmet, Alex Lifeson, Buck Dharma,
Ritchie Blackmore, Dave Gilmour, Brian
May, Neil Schon, Frank Zappa, Steve Vai,
although it’s fair to say that I
probably learnt most of my own style
from listening to Mike Oldfield as a
teenager.
With Omenopus, I mostly play electric
guitar, but also some bass, bouzouki,
mandolin, acoustic guitar, and even a
bit of piano.
I don’t sing. Believe me, you
don’t
want to hear me sing!
Lee and I share the bass duties: he goes
low, I go high (like Starsky & Hutch)!
Note that in the wacky world of Omenopus,
all is not always what it seems, so some
guitar parts you may hear are actually
Lee on a cunning keyboard guitar
simulation. Conversely, there are many
sounds that started life as me on guitar
or mandolin, but have been processed
beyond recognition to sound like
keyboards, string sections, bells (!)
and so on. I started dabbling with an
E-bow this year too, so right now my
guitar can sound like absolutely
anything!
My musical history is hardly
star-studded and earth-shaking. But it
makes good therapy for my shattered ego
to recount what little of interest there
is. If you were part of the Birmingham
music scene of the early 90s, some of
this may even be interesting!
Early years
With a reclusive, protected childhood, I
had almost nothing to do with music of
any type until I somehow got hooked on
ELO (don't snigger) in a major way
whilst still at school. At the time, I
didn't realise that what I liked best
about their music were the distant
echoes of the great Prog-Rock bands of
the seventies. So I jogged along
blissful in my ignorance, until I
started at 6th Form College, and
discovered all sorts of interesting
diversions. . .
Well, maybe I'd better draw a veil over
most of those interesting diversions,
but the important thing was that a new
set of friends introduced me to a
veritable motherlode of great Rock
music. In one rollercoaster year I
discovered Yes, Rush, Led Zeppelin, Pink
Floyd, King Crimson, Deep Purple, AC/DC,
Hawkwind, Triumph, Black Sabbath, Blue
Oyster Cult, Mike Oldfield, Sky and many
others (although I didn't get into the
other Prog-rock greats Genesis, Jethro
Tull or ELP until some years later). I
also started going to concerts for the
first time. This was about the time when
the NWOBHM (New Wave Of British Heavy
Metal) hit, and I lapped up all of that
too: Iron Maiden, Saxon, Samson, Quartz
and the rest. If it had distorted
guitars, it was for me! I went the whole
hog, bought a denim jacket and loads of
glitter patches, and became a complete
"nugget" (I've still got what's left of
the jacket - and it still fits!).
Like many people, I started playing at
college - just jamming with mates in the
music room at lunchtimes. As a complete
non-musician amongst friends who were
already accomplished players, I resorted
to just plucking the 4 low strings of an
acoustic guitar and joking that I was
the bass player. This made me wonder
what a bass guitar actually sounded
like, so I started listening for the
bassists's parts on records, and trying
to emulate what they were doing.
Luckily, my parents picked up on this,
and I was given my first bass - an
Epiphone - for my 18th birthday, and my
second - the mighty Rickenbacker - for
my 21st. By then I was heavily into Yes
and Rush, and reckoned that the Rick was
the best sounding - and coolest looking
- bass in the world. That's an opinion I
still hold to this day.
First group – “Zion Zone”, or whatever.
. .
My brother was the naturally-talented
musician in the family, so I never saw
it as a career for myself. I studied
electronic engineering at college, and
settled into a strangely niche day-job,
designing and building electronic
street-lamp controllers. On the music
front, I somehow managed to avoid
joining a group until 1987, when I was
invited to join a young Deep
Purple-influenced group of ever-changing
name and line-up. This eventually
stabilised as the Metal trio known
variously as “Zion Zone”, “Weird City”
and "Cold Flame" (yes I know this name
has been used by a more successful
group, but we didn’t know this at the
time). As well as the obligatory Deep
Purple covers, we had a nice little set
of original material. Guitarist/singer
Kev Reihill was the main creative force,
but I started to cut my own song-writing
teeth too. We had an amazing drummer who
was actually a guitarist first and
foremost - the multi-talented Tariq
Quattri.
We managed just one gig, at the Alum
Rock pub in Birmingham, before financial
pressures (i.e. we were skint!) forced
an end to things. Kev later formed a
tribute band called "Pete Durple" (great
name!).
Moving on up – “Dusk”
At this time, we were sharing a lock-up
rehearsal room at "Robanna's" in
Birmingham with friends Dave “Doug”
Sutheran, Andrea Rushton, Mark “Happy”
Wadsworth and Matt Phipps-Hunt, who
played together under the name "Dusk".
Real musos all, and seemingly destined
for greatness, they were my role models
and heroes. When Happy left, I offered
to fill in on bass and was accepted.
Joining their select ranks felt like a
real achievement.
Unfortunately though, it all turned
sour. Dusk managed to hide in a studio
for most of its short life: a victim of
sheer bad luck, illnesses, perfectionism
and emotional turmoil. We didn’t play
any concerts while I was in the group,
so I have very little to show for my
time with them.
Rescued from the doldrums – “The
Earthmovers”
Disillusioned, I dropped out of music
for a couple of years. Then: "Episode IV
- A New Hope"! A friend and fellow
ex-Dusk-er recommended me to a group
formed by some young Lucas engineers,
who shared digs in Sparkhill,
Birmingham. Initially influenced by The
Cult, they had a high-octane set -
penned mostly by the awesome team of
singer Alan Liddle and guitarist Pete
Jones.
I liked the feel-good atmosphere of the
group, and joined without hesitation -
contributing two songs of my own. I
think it was Alan who chose the name
"The Earthmovers". A daft name, but fun
- just like the group.
Soon we found ourselves in need of a new
drummer and rhythm guitarist. I
suggested my old Dusk colleagues Doug
and Happy, who agreed to join. Lo, it
came to pass that a seriously tight
rhythm section was created! This line-up
cut a 4-song demo tape "Enough", which
included the original twin-guitar
version of my own "The Gulf Between Us"
(still my favourite).
There is still a web site for The
Earthmovers (www.theearthmovers.co.uk).
Why not pop over there now and learn
more about this bunch of lunatics. I'll
wait here. . .
. . .OK, you're back! Now read on. . .
Due to daytime career changes, most of
the original members had departed when
Simon Atkins joined on drums about a
year later. By this time, we were down
to a tight 4-piece, and the group's
style had matured and diversified under
the guidance of new singer and beat poet
Paul Davies - bringing some genuinely
new and unique sounds to the tired old
pub-rock circuit.
The Earthmovers were fairly successful -
considering the stifling apathy that
then gripped the Birmingham scene. Paul
injected some theatre into the
proceedings, and we discovered a great
way to bring my Bouzouki into the set.
Try to imagine a deep, throaty (funny
how those two words happened to end up
next to each other. . .), repetitive
Tony Iommi-style guitar riff with a
quirky Bouzouki ditty over the top, then
punctuate it with some of Paul's most
potently powerful lyrics, and you might
get an inkling of the jaw-dropping
impact that "The Ghost & Serpent Syzygy"
made when first performed. Weird or
what?!
We soon had a semi-residency at The
Fallow & Firkin in Harborne. It became a
frequent feature of the show to invite
Kevin Reihill out of the audience to
play guest guitar on "The Gulf. . ." and
other songs.
We recorded some more demo tapes both
live at the Fallow and in Paul's
makeshift home studio. While the
recording technique wasn't as polished
as on the "Enough" demo, the material
shone through. With some digital
cleaning-up, these demos were
transferred to CD and re-released in May
2003 under their original titles of
"Jammin' For Quakes" and "Firkin Live &
Fallow".
The group lasted several years (and more
line-up changes) before reaching a
natural conclusion in 1997.
We had an Earthmovers reunion in October
2007. Check out
www.theearthmovers.co.uk for more info.
The “C” word – “Randolph Flagg”
At about the time we were winding up The
Earthmovers, Simon (who had left some
months before to try his hand as a
session muso) asked me to help out
temporarily on bass in a new Country
Rock group he'd joined, formed by
guitarist Rob Brunt.
The original musical style was
definitely not my "cup of tea", being a
collection of Country and Blues covers.
I used to get confused by the sheer
number of songs that had almost
identical chords and rhythms -
especially as the bass part was limited
to the traditional "dum-de-dum" plodding
along on roots and 5ths. To make it
worse, I was determined to learn
something new, so played everything on
my fretless Fender Jazz, which had been
gathering dust until then. Despite all
this, I found that I could last the
distance, when other - technically
superior - bassists had proved
unreliable. (That's me: boring, but
reliable).
The stay became a permanent one, as the
group metamorphosed into Randolph Flagg,
and left the musty but safe old Country
genre for greener and more interesting
pastures. The new sound was much closer
to the style I like to play: up-front,
in-yer-face bass, more emotion and
plenty of scope for interesting breaks
and fills. I've even started to bring in
the ol' Rick on some of the tunes. Rob
is a fan of the strange sound of my
Bouzouki (tuned like a mando, rather
than the traditional way), and was keen
to use it on more new tunes.
www.randolphflagg.co.uk
21st century projects –
“Dusk” revisited and “1912”
After Randolph Flagg went on ice in
2004, I teamed up again with Dave "Doug"
Sutheran to reform "Dusk". Initially, we
pooled our efforts to digitise, clean-up
and remix all the available recordings
from the old days and produce two CDs of
the best stuff.
We then got together with good friends
Gavin Saunders, Gary Sheridan and Alex
Theay to form a 21st Century incarnation
of the band with a plan to revisit the
original songs and also take the music
forward. After a few months, we decided
that the project had outgrown the old
band name, songs and associations, and
changed the name to “1912” to reflect
the new direction (why 1912? Long
story!). This is a very exciting
project, with lots of great music being
created. Check out
www.nineteentwelve.com
for more info on this band, and to
download our available demos. You can
also find a separate site for the
various Dusk incarnations (and more
downloads) at
www.dusk-music.co.uk.
Becoming an Omenant – “Omenopus”
The story took another twist last year
(2008),
when Lee (an old friend and band-mate of
Doug’s) got back in touch with Doug and
started checking out the music we were
putting up on the 1912 web site. He
found one of my little guitar demo tunes
amongst the 1912 demos and rehearsal
recordings and decided (as one does)
that a techno dance remix would be a
good thing to do. This was “State Of
Grace”. With some trepidation, Lee sent
me the remix and asked if it was OK to
use it. Even though I don’t like the
genre, I could hear some great things in
this remix, and was impressed by Lee’s
skill and artistry in taking my sow’s
ear and turning it into a silk purse. So
I said “No problem. Do you want to try
some more?”.
Over the next few months, I sent Lee the
multi-track masters of most of my demos
(some dating back to 1989!) and Lee sent
them back as reworked, polished works of
art. Lee has also of course been busy
remixing some 1912 tunes, with
spectacular results, notably the
magnificent “Attack” mix of 1912’s first
demo song “Give Me The Heart”, featuring
Andrea Rushton on guest vocals. You can
find all these and more goodies on Lee’s
own site
www.lmpotts.co.uk
– on the Downloads page.
So that brings us nearly up to date. The
rest of the story is described elsewhere
on this site: how Lee got in touch with
Bridget to ask her if she could
contribute lyrics and vocals to our
“Inferno Desire” epic;
how the tune metamorphosed into
“Snapshot”; the explosion of ideas for
new songs which led to a whole
album’s-worth of music – all done via
the Internet and the post!
So right now I’m in two groups. I’m
thoroughly enjoying playing with both
1912 and Omenopus. With Lee’s
involvement in both projects, there’s a
lot of cross-pollination, and the future
looks bright for both of them.
John.
