| Biography | 
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| Riot City - The Early Days |
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Market Research time is bored shitless time. You talk about anything to keep yourself entertained. What me and Ruffy were talking about was the need for some non skapunk in the Sydney ska scene. All these new bands were popping up that were heavily influenced by ska punk and we were just talking shit about how we should start up our own band and do something new (by doing something old). Ruffy already had the name and we drew dodgy logos to pass the time (check out www.riotcity.de for a completely unrelated logo very similar to the one we came up with).
We talked vaguely about who we could get to make up the rest of the band. One of ruffys ideas was to nick an oiska track and just dub stuff over the top of it. We tried out the idea of using some members of kamikaze harry but the distance factor was too difficult. I think there was a practice organized at one stage with Emily and Val or something but it never happened. Some guy on the last hemeroids egroups list was gonna be our bass player and an old mate of mine Pete was gonna play guitar. Anyway it all sort of disappeared for a while but every now and then we’d talk about how it was needed. I forget who the next person was that joined. But I think Torrin was next and that I asked him whether he’d be interested but I don’t remember talking to him at all before the punks picnic where we asked martin about it and he was keen and he said mark would be too. But if it was only ruffy and me then why we became so keen to get it going all of a sudden I don’t know. I was rehearsing with the Mad Dash at that stage and that looked like it was gonna happen but there you go. After the January punks picnic all we needed was a guitar and a drummer. Torrin told us that this was no problem but we went through a few before the initial practice. At one stage we weren’t even gonna bother with a guitarist. Anyway it was February 2001 before the first practice. Present at the Enmore Speakeasy were Martin, Mark, Ruffy, myself, Torrin (eventually) and Dyani Hearts, who brought us pizza. Next practice I think we had a left handed drummer that Torrin dug up somewhere. Practices here went on for about a month, before we started getting noise complaints (It was. handy on a Wednesday night cos we could watch the simpsons beforehand!) Also about this time entered Marco, who didn’t seem all that keen at first, I think it wasn’t too long after the Moondoggies break-up, but he kept coming and is definitely here to stay and is now keenest of all of us! We came up with other names in a bad attempt to cover up our identities from the closely knit ska scene. We were doing Al Capone and Johnny Too Bad and Guns of Navarone and maybe One Step Beyond. Mr Gorman turned up after the apparent vapourisation of the Fat Bastards and then it was Lindsay, the final piece in the puzzle, the mystery man of the band. Mark burnt us copies of all the songs we were gonna learn and we were off!
Crappy |