So, have you ever heard of 'Galanti' keyboards ?
Ah, I thought not. Well, I had some when I was 17, and, surely, it was only a matter of time until rockstardom would beckon.
It wasn't my first foray into keyboards. Luckily, I had a friend who worked for Wm. Thompson & Sons, in Glasgow - a huge music shop at the time. He sneakily, ermm, 'borrowed' a few items on Saturday nights, and returned them early Monday mornings (the Shop didn't open on Sundays). On a few occasions, he even got me a Mini Korg synthesiser out for a weekend, so I would play around with this thing late into a Saturday night. I thought I was Brian Eno. The whole thing was brilliant.
Back to the plot - Galanti keyboards. I bought them around this time. First of all, I had to learn how to play them, how to read music, things like that. Thing was, it seemed a dreadfully tedious waste of time, doing all that. Why couldn't I just play ?
The obvious thing to do, was form a Band. So, me and Kutchy - a great friend of mine who was a former schoolmate, set about doing this. After all, he had a guitar. He couldn't really play it, but who cares ? We were a Band. We needed a drummer, and who better than our mate Raymy, who had dabbled in playing Drums for the school a few years earlier.
One drawback though - Raymy didn't actually own any drums, but he became our drummer anyway. Such small matters didn't bother us.
Next up, came the decision about a Band name. For some reason, I liked the name 'Tarantula' (it sounded a very heavy metal type name - though I hated metal) but the others seemed to like it too. I stole the name. I saw a book on the windowsill at home that my brother owned, by Bob Dylan, called 'Tarantula'. I hadn't read the book or anything, but we liked the name. So, we were all set. Sort of.
One thing that no Band wants to occur, especially in an embryonic stage, is 'musical differences'.
This could have reared it's ugly head very early on, as I naturally thought I would be the singer. Thing was, it seemed Kutchy thought he was too. We quite maturely left this aside for the moment, for the sake of the Band, and sat down together to write some lyrics.
Not music (we couldn't do that), just lyrics. We wrote a few songs in an hour or two, and I distinctly remember one, called 'Jive Drive'. It was all 'take me down to the Jive Drive baby' type of action - this is what happens when the two main protagonists are T.Rex fans, of course.
Tragically, the song was never completed. Ahem.
Nevertheless, I set out one sunny Sunday afternoon, keyboards in tow, to our recording studio.
Well, Kutchy's Dad's garage.
We had electricity, and a microphone. So, we decided to 'jam', and tape the proceedings.
Unfortunately, our drummer Raymy was not at our debut recording session.
He had no drums, remember ?, so he doesn't appear on the Album.
Some would say this was a trifle unfair, or unlucky. Or unfortunate. Or something.
After a few minutes, we claimed we had some sort of tune going, so we switched on the tape recorder. The track, I thought, should be called 'Insight'.
As this was a great word, we decided this should be the title track of the Album. I can only describe, in hazy memory, of it being a cross somewhere between Tangerine Dream and T.Rex. With no lyrics. And a few bum notes.
It was about 10 minutes long.
This was inspiring, so we set about recording a second track immediately.
This was a slightly more frenzied affair, which Kutchy called 'Anno Domini 75'.
It was a cross between Tangerine Dream and T.Rex, with no lyrics. And maybe the odd bum note. It was 8 minutes long.
We were on a roll, frankly.
Finally, we set about our most avante-garde piece, complete freeform, which I decided would be called 'Stagecrazed'. This would cover the entire second side of the Album.
It was a cross between Tangerine Dream and T.Rex, with no lyrics. It may have contained the odd bum note, and it was 21 minutes long.
I was especially proud of the ending of the track, as it seemed to swish and swirl suddenly into nothing, as if disappearing into space.
This was because I unplugged the keyboards. It sounded great.
I vaguely remember Kutchy being unsure of ending it at that point, as he was preparing 'another solo', but you can't have everything. All in all, we were very proud.
We had just completed our first Album.
Well, our only Album.
A concept Album, though we never actually discussed what the concept was.
One solitary cassette tape existed of this masterpiece of non-musicianship.
I have no idea what happened to it.
I often think about it, and wonder if I'd really like to hear it now.
Probably not, but it would certainly bring back a few memories.
I don't know what happened after that. There was no second Album, and, as far as I know, Raymy never actually got any drums anyway.
Kutchy went off to work in the fisheries in the Shetland Islands, and I didn't.
I sold my keyboards some time later.
Insight, by Tarantula.
The great lost Album.
Raymy being a drummer without drums sounds unfair. Because there would be plenty of things to drum on. Just set up a mic and you guys would have at it. He could drum on the walls if nothing else. Or maybe buy a tamborine to be drums. That way there could be two for the price of one. Put it on a table it's drums, pick it up and shake it it's a tamborine. Anyway, it was good you couldn't read music. That way the songs would sound different every single time. If any audience wanted to hear the songs the same way you had it on therecord that would be their problem. You guys were ARTISTS and shouldn't have had to be concered with playing the same song the same way twice.
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