After my brush with Stone Circles, Leylines and other such arcane mysteries of the "Coltsfoot way of life", I wanted to play a much more upbeat sort of music. And I wanted to test out some of the bathroom mirror choreography in front of an audience slightly more animated that my pile of laundry. So, in the absence of any other name, Tribune was born.

And a more motley bunch of lads it would be more difficult to imagine :-) Our first incarnation featured a drummer whose playing experience was measured in weeks (but he still sounded better than most of his contemporaries), my childhood mate Chris Allen on Vox Jaguar organ, resplendent in bright pink fur (the organ, rather than Chris), and a phlegmatic Yorkshireman on bass, who managed to play the same part to everything, thus exhibiting our affinity with the avant-garde. And our singer was classically trained. Which is fine if you're Rick Wakeman, less fine if you dress like the man from the Gas Board and sing like Pavarotti. 

In time-honoured fashion, off we went to record a demo tape, with a man who ran an 8-track recording studio as an interesting adjunct to his main trade - used car dealer. And it's fair to say, as a recording engineer, he made a great used car dealer. Mind you, he was used to recording indie guitar music. So when we marched a string quartet up the stairs above the hairdressers to the studio he was, to put it politely, somewhat fazed. Listen to the less than sonically top results here:

                                    Epilogue (snippet 1) (snippet 2)

We decided early on that the people of Hull needed our music. In their face. And to be honest - we survived. Just don't ask me how.

(me playing a meaty chord, Simon "Che" Wheatley behind the drums)

 We would, at this point, have played the opening of a jar of jam. And, given our meagre income from gigs, probably made off with the jam while no-one was looking. However, the experience was a great educator, bags of fun, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. What it did teach me, is that even the most apathetic audiences react positively to a band who put effort into trying to entertain. So that's what we did.

However, what we also proved to be very good at, was losing band members. Mainly because playing a strange amalgam of prog-laced rock numbers was not good either for urban street credibility in the mid-1980's, or enhancing one's appeal to members of the opposing gender group. And in the bass player's case, for booking us the least appropriate gig in the history of modern music - the Swillington Miner's Association Country & Western Club Christmas Dinner Dance. With added bingo. (the sly gent had described it as an office party. Strange office) The embarrassment of playing Neil Young songs (look -it was a close as we got to country music, OK?),whilst small children pulled faces and blew those squeaky party things with feathers on the end, is a cherished memory, but not entirely in a good way.

Paradoxically, when we decided (in the pub over the road - no-one dared go to the club's bar on their own for fear of their lives) "stuff it, we'll play our own songs", and Simon hit a straight four beat, the place rose as one, and bopped like a community possessed. We discovered that anything with a "four on the floor" beat, would be our key to a) getting paid, but more importantly, b) getting out alive. Which we did. After being told that if we smiled more, and wore better clothes, we'd have a future on the club circuit. 

Thus ended Tribune part one. However, the wee beastie was not dead, just resting......

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