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Action Baby
In April 1981 I (Tony Elliott) answered an ad placed by Steve Roberts
on the notice board in Frank Hessey's, off Whitechapel, Liverpool. Steve
was looking for a band, stating his influences as the Jam, the Kinks,
60's etc... After a couple of acoustic jams we decided to call ourselves
'Total Action' and put an ad in the Liverpool Echo, "Band Total
Action, music, fun and politics" not many people replied, so
we went our separate ways. I went on to join the band 'Sebastian's Men'
and Stephen joined 'In Dangerous Rhythm'.
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This
photo was taken
in St Johns Gardens in
1985, we wanted the
shots to look
European! This
appeared in The Echo
and I got stick for
weeks - rightfully so!
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Towards
the end of 1984 I once again ran into Steve, both our bands had fizzled
out so we got together and started rehearsing again, this time in The
Ministry (off Dale Street) as the '16 Tambourines' (the name came from
the 3 o'clock album 16 Tambourines). I had purchased a drum machine, which
neither of us could program properly so every song had the same 4/4 rumba/salsa
beat! Enter Tony McGuigan, drummer extraordinaire with legendary brown
leather coat.
The
Ministry at the time was the epicentre of the Liverpool music scene, we
got to know all the various musos, places to blag into and all the best
boozers to fall out of. Gradually weeks poured into months, months blurred
into a year, we played for nothing but steadily gained confidence. Whilst
Thatcher kept busy ripping the heart out of Merseyside the 16 Tambourines
kept busy headlining benefit gigs for the miners etc..
In
Autumn 1985 we recorded our first demo “And now to further your
education” recorded at the Station House, New Brighton. It featured
3 tracks, 'Hope (a man for all seasons)', 'Jumpin' in the fire', and 'I
wouldn't want to stop'. Con McConville was one of the first to pick up
on our vibe. Con
worked as a DJ for Radio Merseyside, he had a Sunday evening radio show
- 'Street Life'. I knew Con from Sebastian's Men, his show featured local
up and coming bands and gave us our first radio exposure.
From '85 to '86 we played over 100 gigs and in early '86 we added two
new members enter, Vicki who played alto sax and Brian Smithers who played
keyboards.
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Dr
Pineapple (1989)
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Gradually
we stopped throwing our guitars around and bought some tuning machines.
1987 brought another demo recorded at the Pink Studio off lark lane, it
featured 3 tracks, 'April is the cruelest month', 'When lovers walk' and
'The wrong age'. Enter Dr Perry Pineapple (left). Perry played percussion,
he knew/knows just about everybody in the North West, through Perry we
met a wide variety of interesting characters, one being Mr Phantasy (left)
our future lighting tech/ambient coordinator.
1987
was a very colour full year, record companies where sniffing around the
city centre, The Christians and Black where enjoying chart success and
Liverpool FC where tonking everybody in sight! The 16 Tambs where gaining
more and more recognition as an exciting live band and we secured a residency
at Rudi’s bar. Rudi's was situated on Cumberland Street off Dale
Street, it attracted Musicians, Artists, Scallies, and off duty coppers.
After rehearsing we often gravitated towards Rudi's to catch last orders.
Between
87-early 88, we wrote our best songs, we slowed down 'England', and out
popped our first soon to be single 'If i should stay' - exciting times.
We knew we had something special, we just had to capture it in a good
recording studio, sadly towards the end of '87 Brian decided to leave
the band and focus on his new project Candy Opera. Enter Mike Moran -
guitar, Stuart - keyboards and Susan Elleni - session singer.
After
a period of intense rehearsing, the new line up finally emerged early
88' and once again we hammered the local gig circuit. Enter MCM management,
we played, they took care of business (!!?). MCM knew the relevant contacts
to help navigate us towards a record deal and in Sept 88 we finally put
pen to paper and signed to ARISTA/BMG. However 'Panic stations!' a week
before signing our record contract, Stewart decided to leave the band,
we had one week to frantically audition for another keyboard player. Enter
David Oliver. David was chilled out and laid back, he constantly had a
set of head phones on listening to either Hendrix or the Who. David
was the final integral piece to be added to the 16 Tambourine jigsaw.
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