And Then, Just as We Got Good...
The creation of
WA3
led to a slow revamp of the set, with old songs being dropped and new ones
written. Most of the band had also spent, or were also in the process of
spending, hard-earned money on new equipment. Gasp, 70s amateur musos, as you
contemplate: Dave has a CSL double-neck and H/H 100 watt amplifier; Martin has
an Ibanez Rickenbacker-style bass and Tuac amplification; Crad sings through a
Peavey 100 watt PA. And Steve's drum-kit is falling to pieces.
Butch, Tucks, Dews and Crad - yes, they all really did have nicknames – at The Lamb in Edington.
Given the absence of both audience
and Martin, this looks like a pre-gig soundcheck. Given that
a microphone is in front of Steve's vissog
and that Crad is singing, it appears that they are
doing a run-through of Jeremy
. Note Butch's sexy new double-neck!
Note Dews' crappy old drum-kit! Note Tucks twiddling with his knob!
The motion is so fast his hand is blurred.
One of the last gigs WA played was in June 1976, again at
Salisbury Tech. There was no stage, so WA were on the same level as the crowd.
At one point, Crad started dancing – although "falling around" would be a
better description – with a pissed folkie who had been singing earlier. At
this point, the bouncers, totally misconstruing the situation, tried to throw
Crad out – microphone and all. As the WA set promised to stretch into the
night, they were told to play their last song, as the "headline" band still had
to play. So WA collectively shrugged and started playing Jeremy, which
could last up to 20 minutes. In the end, they were ordered to cut it
short…
Soon afterwards – around July '76 –
WA fell apart. Dave, Crad and Chris joined a general exodus of Warminster
youth to Swansea,
of all places. Martin and Steve tried to keep WA going, by recruiting one of
the fantasy Gandalf members, Dave MacIntosh, but it didn't work, and so
WA came to an end.
It was a common belief in some quarters that
Dave was the best thing
about Whyte August. But while he might have been the most proficient,
it is interesting to note that Dave, Martin and Crad were
never in bands again. Steve did jam and record some music with
other people – some of it interesting, some so-so. But it seems true what
they say about chemistry – the old John/Dave/Steve/Martin band was the
axis around which their musical world revolved. Nothing has replaced WA for
them since. Sad, isn't it?
Steve only ever sang two things for the band: Lunatic Hotel, and
a section of Jeremy ("Send him to an instution, synthesise his brain, we
can't afford his destitution, make him just like us, make him sane again. And
if he still will not reform, lock him, forget him jail"). Dave had been the
lead singer for Gandalf and WA1, but by the time of WA3, Dave sang only
a mere fragment of Jeremy ("You bastards, you hypocrites, how I hate
you, how I hate you all, you never cared, you never cared at all, you never
really cared at all.") It's the only part of the song in which Jeremy speaks,
so, by extension, Dave is Jeremy. Except Dave isn't Jeremy - Jeremy is an
obscure hippie from South Brent.
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Although, as alluded to, the eventual demise of WA was precipitated by a
general move by band members to Swansea, there was, perhaps, more to it.
Dave always felt that he had to carry the band –
both instrumentally, and in songwriting. The main sound of WA was Dave's
guitar. Unfortunately, Dave had no confidence in his guitar playing.
Another problem was that the band members developed in, and were influenced by,
the era of prog-rock. They felt they had to become, as quickly as possible, the
equivalent of the Bruford/Barre/Plant and...err... Martin band. Dave felt
frustrated both by the band's limitations, and by the weight of expectation on his
shoulders.
Post-punk, Steve realised that what WA should have done was to have
played within their limitations. John could have been taught, note by note,
simple flute lines. Not every song needed a flute, so WA could have got a a
cheap keyboard for John, and worked out simple chord sequences, to give Dave
more sound to work around. When Crad joined, WA should have encouraged him to
play guitar - he could already bang out a few chords (and looked like Andy
Partridge), and the band had guitars to spare.
Similarly, WA could have
obtained another cheap keyboard, and taught him a few simple chords. WA could
have used both Mary and Crad for vocalists - Mary to sing the lighter, folkier
songs, and Crad to bellow out the rockers. Finally, WA should have got Mac to
join - he was quite willing to join the post-split WA, why didn't anybody
approach him pre-split? A version of WA similar to this:
- Mary - Vocals/rattly things/good and bad vibes
- Crad - Vocals/kybd/guitar
- Dave - Guitars/vocals
- Mac - Guitar/vocals
- Martin - Bass/guitars
- John - Flute/kybds/Davoli synth/oscillator (and anything else WA could
have made him buy)
- Steve - Drums/Vocals
would, Steve feels, have provided ample soundspace to keep Dave
happy.
Meanwhile, John remembers discussions about evolving Whyte August into a
trance-type band long before the term was ever coined. He notes: "we talked
about spin-off Tangerine Dream, Can-type thingies. And this was before we'd
actually written anything! There was a
concept piece which we never tried which
involved a riff similar to Train Blues, and a recitation of the various
Golden Dawn orders... This was supposed to involve synthy-type whizzes, bleats
and farts. And preferably a mellotron playing ever-ascending block chords.
Well, at least until the end of the keyboard."
John also recalls that "the day after Can went on OGWT, we went 'Wow!'
and started improvising. Given the musicianship of Can, I can't help think that
was a bit ambitious. Now, The Shaggs, maybe."Of course, at least one of the limits placed on the band was the
difficulty in obtaining electronic instruments. In Steve's fantasy WA above,
note that John is given a Davoli synth. At the time, this was the cheapest
synth available – £199.99, in 1976. An amount almost beyond our
comprehension, although, just before WA's untimely demise, Crad - the biggest
earner in the band - was thinking of buying one.
Did the band die through lack of ambition? Or too much ambition? Or
through not being able to settle in a niche in the almost infinite sound-space
available to them?
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But is this migration to Swansea so surprising? As Steve's surname
hints, there might well be connections between Wales and the West Country, and
the gang might just have been following ancestral trails already well-trodden.
But that is the subject of something much more serious and interesting...
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