Having acquired my first guitar (the Rosetti 'Lucky Seven') in 1963 as the "Beat Boom" was gathering pace I looked around for fellow players among my classmates. One such was (UNKNOWN - possibly Anthony) a very small boy who suffered from asthma and wind. The latter could be summoned at will and was used to great effect to embarrass fellow bus passengers. He had a cello acoustic guitar with a fearsome action and a friend (UNKNOWN) who was a "drummer". Despite only having a snare drum and a hi-hat this person was capable of emitting the ear-splitting scream at the start of "WipeOut" and playing the furious drum beat. Thus this became the one and only number we were capable of playing and we attempted to record it at (UNKNOWN)'s house in Acocks Green on a reel to reel tape recorder.
My classmate, Richard Jones, had acquired a round-hole acoustic guitar at about the same time as myself and we worked on Beatles numbers including "Money" actually performing at a church social in Balsall Heath. I was the lead guitarist and (terrible) vocalist while Richard played rhythm guitar. We experimented with amplification, plugging my guitar into his parent's radiogram, with exciting but unusable results. This band was possibly called "The Screaming Zombies".
Richard and I got together with a friend, Denis Hayes, Robin Brown and a drummer whose name we cannot recall. The name "Screaming Zombies" became unusable with the advent of the chart band "The Zombies" and their hit record "She's Not There". We rehearsed in the basement coffee bar of St. Paul's Church Hall in Balsall Heath. Transport was Robin's mini-van.
Outside St. Paul's Church Hall, B'ham
Left to Right :
- Stuart Scott - Lead Guitar
- Richard Jones - Bass Guitar
- Denis Hayes - Vocals / Guitar
- (Unknown) - Drums
- Robin Brown - Rhythm Guitar / Vocals
Outside St. Paul's Church Hall, B'ham
In this picture Robin can clearly be seen with one of the Italian all-plastic guitars imported by Clay's Music on Broad Street where I was working at the time. This one has quite an unusual body shape - later Denis bought an even more exotic-looking one with an orange sparkle finish, pear-drop shape and a 3" diameter hole through the body. They were probably completely crap as guitars but I'd love to have one now as a collectible.
Thanks to Richard for the pictures.
Around this time I acquired my first real amplifier - Bird 'Talisman 6'.
