BASSLINE

When the music started

I entered my teenage years just as popular music was starting to explode. Bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, The Searchers and Manfred Mann were everywhere. For a lot of young blokes at the time, they were more than just bands—they were heroes—and everyone wants to be a hero.

Around that time a few guys in Lithgow began forming bands of their own. One of them offered to teach me bass guitar. To this day I’m not entirely sure why I chose the bass. I suspect it looked easier than guitar, and someone had to play it.

What I discovered fairly quickly was that I could listen to a record and pick out the bass line without too much trouble. Once I heard it, it seemed to stick in my head, and I could usually reproduce it.

That was enough to get me started.

40% of Four More at practice in 1965 - Jeff Brown and Barry Dean

The Gilt Edge 1966 (from left) Bruce Gavin, David Ray, Billy Coleman, Ross Speirs and Barry Dean.

first bands

In 1965 I joined my first band, a Sydney outfit called Four More. We even entered the first Battle of the Sounds. I don’t remember how I came to be involved in this, but I vividly remember travelling to Sydney, by train, lugging a bass and amplifier.

Living in Lithgow while trying to play in Sydney wasn’t ideal, especially when I wasn’t old enough to have a driver’s licence. That particular musical adventure didn’t last long. It’s fair to say we made absolutely no impact on the world of music.

My second band, Gilt Edge, formed in 1966. We only stayed together for a couple of years, but the friendships have remained ever since.

During that period a friend of mine, drummer Bob Lounder, picked up some work at the Hydro Majestic in Medlow Bath. The job involved filling in for Tony Doyle’s band when they had other gigs. (Tony, incidentally, is the brother of John Doyle of Roy and HG fame.)

Bob put together a scratch band for the job, bringing in Darcy Rosser and me. We needed a name and FairyMudhole was drawn from a hat.

Sydney and The Truth

The Truth 1969 (from left) Jimmy Squadrito, Russell Bayne, Bob Lounder, Barry Dean and George Kent.

By 1968 I was playing in several bands covering different styles—rock and roll, jazz and blues. Around that time Bob suggested we try our luck in Sydney and see if we could make something of it. It seemed like a reasonable idea, so we headed down the mountains.

Bob had a mate named Russell Bayne who had just left his Newcastle band (Velvet Underground, which was the basis of the Ted Mulry Gang and led to both the Easybeats and AC/DC) and was looking to start something new. Russell needed a drummer and bass player, so Bob and I joined him, along with Hugh (George) Kent and Jimmy Squadrito.

That was how The Truth came together.

We worked in the Sydney dance circuit and managed to headline a few shows. The scene at the time was lively and there were plenty of good bands around. We often shared bills with artists like Doug Parkinson in Focus, Johnny Farnham, Axiom and Flying Circus.

We toured with Clapham Junction and played the infamous Orange Riot alongside The Easybeats.

For a while things went pretty well.

Eventually, however, new management came along, and the band’s direction changed. At that point I decided to move on.

The band carried on, later changing its name to Pyramid and scoring a Top 40 hit with “Can’t Wait for September”.

Life Moves On

Around that time my professional career started moving me around the country. Wherever I happened to be living, I usually managed to find a band and kept playing on the licensed club circuit.

That continued until about 1986.

By then I had moved into senior management with a company and the late nights and rehearsals were becoming harder to juggle with work responsibilities. Eventually the music had to take a back seat.

In 1991 I went into business for myself and life moved along in a different direction.

Music Finds Its Way Back

Music has a habit of returning when you least expect it.

The Gilt Edge 2016 (from left) Barry Dean, Dave Ray, Ross Speirs, Bruce Gavin and Billy Coleman.

In 2012 Bob Lounder, my old bandmate from The Truth, was terminally ill. David Ray, who had played with me in Gilt Edge and has been a lifelong friend, contacted me to see if I wanted to visit Bob and help ease him out of the world.

We spent time with him until he eventually shed his mortal coil.

Afterwards Dave mentioned that he would like to play again with his original band. That surprised me because he had played with plenty of very good bands over the years, but I was happy to go along with the idea.

While the original band never quite re-formed, the idea helped spark the Lithgow Musicians Reunions.

At the time Dave was living on the Central Coast and I was in Newcastle, so we began getting together every couple of weeks for a jam session. That arrangement lasted until 2015 when Dave moved to Portland.

In 2016 we finally managed to get Gilt Edge together again for a jam. It happened in Billy Coleman’s smash repair shop. It showed that after many years, you can move on from being a garage band.

Theresa and I moved to Tasmania in 2017. On New Year’s Eve in 2018 we went to the local golf club, and I met a few musicians who clearly hadn’t given the game away either. Before long they invited me to join them for the occasional jam.

The last time we played together, the combined age of five band members was somewhere around 338. The five Gilt Edge members combined age was 84.

Hydro Majestic 1968 (from left) Barry Dean, Bob Lounder and Darcy Rosser. The only gig played and only photo for FairyMudhole.

1965 Burns Vibraslim.