This is a list of questions that I get asked a lot through emails and my guestbook. If you have any questions that you would like answered, or that you get asked often, please email me with the question (and answer if you like!) and I'll post it here for others to use, because, chances are, others want to know the answer too!
Thanks to Jenny, Nyssa, David and Stepha for their contributions.
When and how did they form?
Where did their name come from?
Who is Doug Anthony?
Where did their name come from?
When and why did they split?
When are DAAS' birthdays?
Are they married?
What is Paul's middle name?
What songs they sing?
What merchandise they have?
Where are they now?
Where can I find DAAS guitar tabs/chords?
Where can I find DAAS MP3s?
What is MOSH?
What is Blue?
What is The Edinburgh Years?
What is Tangawarra?
Who is P.F. McDermott?
When and how did they form?
According the one of the original DAAS sites (http://jake.chem.unsw.edu.au/~michaels/Daas - no longer exists), these are some of the stories told by the guys about how they met:
Where did their name come from?
Who was Doug Anthony?
When and why did they split?
When are DAAS' birthdays?
Are they married?
What is Paul's middle name?
What songs they sing?
What merchandise they have?
Where can I find DAAS guitar tabs/chords?
Where can I find DAAS MP3s?
What is MOSH?
What is Blue?
What is The Edinburgh Years?
The Doug Anthony Allstars was a group of three university students, Tim Ferguson, Richard Fidler and Robert Piper, who busked in the streets of Canberra in the early-mid 1980s. Robert left the group, either because he was going overseas or because he had exams (both versions have been reported in the media), so Paul McDermott, who was performing with a group called "Gigantic Fly", was asked to join.
Once again, DAAS have never committed to a reason for their name, giving many different stories as to it's origins. The following list of stories came from http://jake.chem.unsw.edu.au/~michaels/Daas.
Doug Anthony was the leader of the National (Country) Party in Australia from February 1971 to January 1984. He was also the Deputy Prime Minister for much of this term. He was the member for Richmond (NSW), which he inherited from his father, and now his son holds the seat.
The Doug Anthony Allstars decided to break up in 1994, but went on a last tour that lead into 1995. Some of their last shows were recorded by ABC Radio and broadcast on The Box Seat on Friday nights. Once again, there are many reasons that have been given for their split, some coming from the boys, some from other sources, but the main reason seems to be that Tim wanted to return to Australia to be with his young family, while Paul and Richard wanted to pursue work in Britain. Many rumours arose from the fact that following the split, none of the boys seemed to be on speaking terms, however this is probably more from the fact that they were all living in different cities and that they had basically been living out of each others pockets for the better part of a decade and needed a break.
Paul's birthday is May 13, 1962. Richard's birthday is November 13, 1962 and Tim's is November 16, 1965(?).
Paul is not married, but he has a long time girlfriend whom he lives with in Sydney. Richard is married to Khym Lam (from DAAS Kapital), and they have a baby son, Joseph. Tim is married to Victoria, and they have three children.
This has been the subject of a lot of conjecture. The most probable answer is his full name is Paul Anthony Michael McDermott. He has also mentioned on radio that his confirmation name was Xavier (thanks Spoofy!
DAAS mainly sang original comedy songs, penned by Paul on the most part. They sang the occasional cover version, most famously, I Heard It Through The Grapevine and Throw Your Arms Around Me.
DAAS sold a lot of merchandise, mainly through their live shows. This included t-shirts, stickers, posters, comic books, badges, books, CDs and videos. The following is a list of the CDs, videos and books that were commercially available.
Where are they now?
Since DAAS broke up...
Tim has hosted Don't Forget Your Toothbrush (1996) for Channel Nine, appeared as Frank'N'Furter in a stage production of the Rocky Horror Show (1997) at Star City in Sydney and is currently hosting Channel Ten's Unreal TV (1999-2000).
Richard has hosted thecomedychannel's Mouthing Off (1996-1998), Arena's The Hub (1999) and ABC's Race Around The World (1997-1998). He is currently the co-host of Cosmopolitan radio on Sunday nights with Libby Gore.
Paul wrote and starred in a stage show, MOSH (1996), which appeared at the Adelaide Fringe Festival and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, then he went on to host Good News Week for the ABC (1996-1998) and Channel Ten (1999-2000), as well as it's spin-off programs, Good News Weekend and Good News Weeknight Lite.
Try these sites:
There are many sites on the internet that have DAAS and DAAS-related MP3s. Try these:
MOSH was a stage show that Paul wrote and starred in in 1996. It was about life, drugs, sex, etc. It was mainly songs written by Paul, interspersed with monologues. He performed it alongside six dancers. MOSH is also a messageboard (http://mosh.server101.com which is dedicated to the Allstars.
Blue is a CD that DAAS made prior to the split, which was made up of "nice" songs, mainly covers of old songs. It was never commercially released, with the most popular reason being that DAAS weren't entirely happy with it, and/or they were having difficulties with copyright. It was never commercially released, but it is fairly readily available on the internet, as many bootlegged copies were made.
The Edinburgh Years (A Cameron P. Mellor film) was a documentary/movie that DAAS made in the early 1990s. It is about Paul's quest to find out who killed his ancestor Jose Phillipe McDermott, but Tim and Richard, who are meant to be helping him, keep getting distracted by the Edinburgh Festival, which is going on at the same time. To quote from http://jake.chem.unsw.edu.au/~michaels/Daas's description of the film, "the truth is finally learned but it is not one that is easily put to rest. Tensions arise between old foes which comes to a head. Three shots are fired. Only one is fatal." The Edinburgh Years is not available in stores, but bootlegged copies are fairly easy to come by online.