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order to fully understand the reasons behind this disintegration,
and indeed the
reasons for the inevitability of this consequence, it
is necessary to hark back, for a brief moment, to the beginning, the
very genesis of the group (The Axemen, that is, not Genesis - don't
get me started about the genesis of Genesis - that's a circular argument
I don't wish to enter into).
In the
beginning, god created Bob (he actually worked on a beta version,
Stu, ten
years earlier, but after some serious re-thinking, Bob was released
as an Alpha candidate in 1965). 10 months later, Steve was created,
and god finally rested, satisfied at last that the masterplan could
now be commenced.
In 1981,
Steve brewed his first batches of fruit, carrot and coffee wines.
Shortly after this, he began expeimenting with songwriting techniques,
which he honed in high school bands The Dents, Pete &
his Pigeons, and his first 'serious' band, the legendary two-piece
The Gorillas. Tapes still survive from these early incarnations,
and the Gorillas even played a few live gigs and produced a 4-song
video shot on Cashmere High school premises, "We are not abused".
At this
time, Bob was, unbeknownst to Steve, undertaking a seperate but
eerily similar development path in Dunedin, 500 km due South (see
fig. 1). Early incarnations of Bob's bands The Pastry Cooks
can be directly traced back to this period.
The
first meeting of the minds took place late in 1981, and a 'band'
(the Whining Plums) was formed almost instantaneously, in
a seedy dive in Dunedin. Through a mutual friend, Bob and Steve
were introduced, and the first reactions took place. At this time,
Bob was living in Dunedin and Steve was living in Christchurch (see
fig.1).
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First
Collaboration
(Fig.
1)
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The
earliest evidence of Brannigan/McCabe song collaborations
can be traced directly to this first meeting.
With
cassette- dating technology only recently refined enough to
produce reliable results, early cassettes which have been
positively identified as The Whining Plums have been
definitively dated to this period.
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The
concept of a permanent band-name had not yet entered into
Bob & Steve's collective consciousness, and a series of
meeting ensued, each of which produced collections of songs
and low-fidelity recordings of varying artistic merit, each
under a new name.
At
this time, Stu Kawowski was believed to be living in Christchurch,
under an assumed name.
A
series of collaborations took place in both Dunedin and Christchurch,
under a variety of names. During this point, the concept of
taking on a drummer had not entered into the minds of either
Steve or Bob.
It
was at the Empire Tavern, in late 1981, that the third piece
of the jigsaw (this has become known to historians as the
missing link or the Empire episode, depending on
the historical tract consulted)fell in to place.
Bob
and Steve, now writing and performing under the name The
Twins, had landed a gig at the Empire with Bill Direen's
current ensemble, Above Ground. Pounding skins in this
outfit was none other than Stu Kawowski, who, after hearing
one song performed by The Twins, was moved to rise
from his seat (as if by a kind of spiritual magnetism) and
commence playing drums.
At
later interviews, Kawowski was quoted as saying "At that
moment, I had no concept of free will - I simply had to play!
Bill was disgusted at what he could see was developing before
his very eyes, and even a little fearful, I think, but he
was powerless to stop it. Within two weeks, I resigned from
Above Ground and committed myself full time to playing with
these two crazy songwriters who didn't even live in the same
town!".
It
was at this point that the name The Axemen was first posited
by Bob, in one of his regular letters to Steve, and it is
here that the first positive proof of Siegal's
Axemen Chaos Theory was evidenced. Siegal's Theory,
although flawed (he got the names wrong) had long been accepted
as true but had previously not been proven. The unmeasurable
(at that time) massive amounts of energy released at the moment
Kawowski put stick to skin that night caused repercussions
in the scientific community that resounded all the way to
Berlin. Siegal himself, in later interviews, admitted to weeping
openly at the news; the tears shed were tears of joy tinged
with sadness - the second part of his theory (which, despite
not being a god-fearing man, he prayed he had miscalculated)
predicted with equal certainty the demise of this all-powerful
unit within an all-too-short ten years, give or take a year.
As history now tells us, Siegal's theory was later proven
to be right on the money.
2:
Cohesion
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