Essential Feature
Diary of a Rock Band
Black Thursday’s Bass guitarist is Lee,
who also doubles as the band’s sound
guy with a few vocal tracks thrown in to
keep him happy. Lee joined the band in
Jan 2009.
Lee’s introduction to music was a set of
drums purchased for Christmas when he
was about 9 and which provided ‘great
exploratory music sessions’ although
others referred to them as noise. When
the family moved to a new house there
was no room for the drums and sadly
they were sold. The following years were
all about listening to music and singing in
the bath (no one had showers then!); the
music selection was heavily influenced
by his Mum’s love of 60’s and 70’s and
the constant playing of singles on an old
record deck that had seen better days.
Listening to the likes of Elvis, Bill Haley,
Bobby Vee, Three Degrees, Billy Ocean,
Platters with Rolling Stones and Little
Richard thrown in provided a good
mix of sounds that continued with the
emergence of Punk and Heavy Rock,
listening to the likes of Sex Pistols, Clash,
Sham 69, Ramones, AC/DC, Rainbow,
Rush and visiting the local Thursday
night ‘Disco’ in the community centre
to headbang and jump high in the
air to land on your knees (was all the
rage apparently but suffering now!) all
provided for the urge to play another
instrument.
In 1989 at the ripe old age of 21, Lee
moved to Australia and the endless
nights sitting in his flat on his own with
74
no TV drove him to
the local music store
where he purchased
his first acoustic guitar along with Easy
to Play Rock and Tracey Chapman song
books (no Youtube then unfortunately).
The first tracks he learned were Mull of
Kintyre and Talking About a Revolution
as they were the easiest chords and he
already knew the words….finally, he
could sing and play at the same time and
discovered that he actually sounded ok.
In 1990, Lee moved to Brussels and
purchased his pride and joy Fender
Acoustic and spent many nights
practising tracks, playing at parties and
generally jamming into the wee small
hours. Primarily self taught, he did try a
few guitar courses but everything seemed
to be about theory and not just general
playing and learning songs and chords so
never really stuck at any of them.
Over the next 20 years, he spent many
nights working through different songs,
having Jam sessions with friends, writing
a few tracks as well as becoming totally
disillusioned with playing and letting
the guitar gather dust in the corner for
months at a time, which funnily enough
seemed to improve his playing when he
picked it up again….a rest is a good as a
change.
Lee had always harboured visions of
playing on stage in a band or even solo
as and as he reached forty it was time to
bite the bullet. In the preceding couple
of years he had started jamming regularly
Nine issues in Culcheth Lymm Great Sankey & Penketh Chapelford Stockton Heath & Appleton
Thewlwall, Grappenhall & Latchford Birchwood Lowton & Golborne Newton-le-Willows