Band Biography
The Story Begins. During a friends 21st birthday party, in a drunken stupor, Vlado suggested to some friends that several of them should get together and try to play a heavy metal version of "500 Mile" by The Proclaimers at the RMIT Campus Band Competition. He had several fellow fool that agreed that may be fun and there began "The Happy Sumo". The Happy Sumo was RPN's first incarnation. It's name inspired by the classoc Simpsons episode where the family go to a Sushi resteraunt called, you guessed it "The Happy Sumo". The band comprised of Russell Muetzelfelst on Lead Vocals, Vlado Kekoc and Anthony Harper on Guitar, and Andrew Gregory on Bass Guitar. On August 14th 1994, The Happy Sumo made its debut/farewell performance at the Punters Club on Melbourne's trendy Brunswick St. After their 15 minute set, that included no less than twelve songs, including the now classics, "Building 8 (Parts 4, 5 & 6), "C is for Cookie", "Under the Thumb", "Serial Killer", "Evil Homer", the band broke up. Several days later "The Happy Sumo Live Album: Volume One" came out with staggering success amongst the bands fans. With this success came talk of a reformation of the band, but not all the members were keen. Andrew Hamilton "The Hamster" Gregory, the bands Bass Guitarist was jealous of the attention Russ recieved as Lead Vocalist, and he longed for the opportunity to take his place, but he couldn't betray a friend so he left the band and found other musicians that appreciated his vocal abilities (he now sings for Playtime). The Happy Sumo was no more.
With the passing of The Happy Sumo, the remaining members, Russ, Anthony & Vlado decided to go it alone when the RMIT Band Competition came around in 1995. This time as "The Frying Dutchman" (TFD) (from the all you can eat seafood resteraunt in the Simpsons episode where Homer takes the resteraunt to court because he didn't get all he could eat) they played a new set, but dissaster was to strike TFD on the big night. During the "Tweedle Beetle" song, one of Vlado's strings went out of tune, which was quite significant considering the song only called for two string to be played. This debacle led to a set reshuffle as Vlado went and retuned but all was lost, and there was no recovery. This moment would go down in history as "The Frying Dutchman on stage debacle of '95".
In 1996, a new direction was taken. After '95's dissaster, it was decided that the more instruments there were in the band, the less reliant it was on one string. Hence the aid of Andrew "Wal" Walliker as Bass Guitarist (version 2.0) and Simon Whitehead on Drums. With the new additions, another name change was on the cards. This time it was "Two Guys From Kabul" (from the Simpsons episode where Bart falls in love with his babysitter, "Two Guys From Kabul" is the Afganian resteraunt that they get take-away from). Much fun was had by all, and the band made a decent showing in its heat (not that it place or anything). Contraversy and conflict arose as Playtime (Andrew Gregory's band. (You remember Andrew Gregory. Bass Guitarist version 1.0)) played in the same Heat as TGFK
For the first time, in 1997, there was no line-up changes (well none that we knew of until it was too late), and we had a name that wasn't shared by a restraunt in a Simpsons episode. We were "RPN". This inspired by a joke found on the internet, titled "You're an Engineer if...". At the 11th hour, Simon pulled out because of Army commitments that could not be changed, so we went on without him. A song or two into the set a friend of the band heard how much Simon was missed and jumped up on stage to fill-in on the drums (he did an exeptional job). Also, is circumstanced similar to "The Frying Dutchman on stage debacle of '95" Vlado's guitar went horribly out of tune during the last song, and he went for the back-up guitar, only to find that he hadn't tuned that guitar because of the lack of time or effort before the gig. So he left the stage, put away his faulty equipment ("a poor tradesman always blames his tools") and return to provide backing vocal for the remainder of the song.
THE END (for now)