August 28th, 2008 by Ed
I was just going through some old hard disks and thumb drives when I came across a WAV file of a Chocolate gig at The Square in Harlow from god knows when. The first couple of songs were a bit ropey and on 2 or 3 others my guitar is so loud you can’t actually hear the vocals, but the othe 5 are reasonably listenable to, so I thought I’d upload ‘em here. Hope you likee. This was the short-lived and final Chocolate line-up (in fact it may even be the final gig) and we never played enough to really get into our stride so the songs aren’t 100% solid, but I’m not sure if there is any other record of Chocolate playing live so these songs are interesting - to me at least - for that reason.
- Clive Watling - Vocals & guitar
- Ed Wenn - Guitar & vocals
- Andrew Ruscoe - Bass
- Pete Walkden - Drums
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August 27th, 2008 by Ed
It looks like John Ruscoe and I will be doing another acoustic gig on Sept 20th somewhere in London. Details will be added as and when I get them.
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August 27th, 2008 by Ed
This one’s a bit of a curiosity. I found it a couple of months ago when I was burning old demos from cassette to CDR. At first I couldn’t remember doing it even, but it’s slowly coming back to me now. It’s interesting for me to hear where I was mentally with regard to the band and music in general from the way I answer the questions. Anyway, not sure how much value there is in this for Sink ‘fans’ (cough!) as I don’t say a lot, but since I’m a big podcast person these days it seems fitting to air this in 2008.
The interview is about 14 minutes long and includes 2 full songs (Cut The Mustard and On The Tracks) which I left in simply because it would have taken too long to chop ‘em out. I love the way I refer to On The Tracks as a ‘thrash’ song. Hah! By 1990 I probably wasn’t listening to any punk rock at all anymore, but that’s not really an excuse.
Sink live in Bielefeld, Germany. Photo by Alfred Bradford.
Sink Radio Interview 1990 [14:21m]:
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August 24th, 2008 by Ed
In 1993 (?) Chocolate headed over to Europe to play some gigs with US band, The Dambuilders. We were friends with the same agent, Wieland Kramer from Powerline in Berlin and he set it up, but apart from that the only connection between the 2 bands was that in 1990 they had been touring at the same time as Sink and caught our gig at the AJZ in Bielefeld. We were introduced briefly by another mutual friend, the mighty Alfred Bradford (who I do so wish I was still in touch with). Anyway, suffice it to say that they’d never heard us and we’d not really heard them so we had no clue what to expect. As it so often turns out we had one of the best tours of our lives and the Dambuilders were all wonderful people. Joan’s now famous as a Police Woman, Kevin is a legend via his time with GBV (and the fact that he’s pretty much the best drummer in North America) and frontman Dave Derby is still a good friend and someone I keep very much in touch with to this day (he even sang on Mefloquine Dreams by Big Ray). Guitarist, Eric, I have totally lost sight of, but I’m sure he’s up to something interesting.
Anyway…..too many stories to tell, but the two bands got on like a house on fire and we were gutted to have to head home after a couple of weeks (despite the fact that John had knackered his wrist and wasn’t really able to carry on drumming anyway) while The Dambuilders carried on without us. Some brief memories: both bands playing Cheap Trick’s “Surrender” as an encore in Dresden, the pistol in Sascha’s briefcase at the same gig, joining forces with the Yanks for a game of ’soccer’ against the Germans, meeting Micha Meisterling, hearing too much Funky Metal, getting told off by the PA guy for showering the Dambuilders with beer one night during their set….the usual irrelevant tour stuff.
After going our separate ways, The Dambuilders got signed to some major and things were good for a few years. Their awesome song, “Shrine” did well for them on MTV - whatever that means - they recorded 2 or 3 more albums and eventually they split up. Completely by chance I saw them live in Vancouver a few years after our tour together and they were still great fun to watch. I don’t think any of their recordings more than hinted at how amazing they were live. Bumbling around on YouTube for videos to go on my new Musicsnob site I found this track from one of their later albums and thought I’d post it here in tribute of one of the finest and funnest bands I’ve ever had the pleasure to tour with.
The Dambuilders - Teenage Loser Anthem:
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August 4th, 2008 by Ed
Videos:
Photos:
Slideshow of Damion Rice’s photos from the gig.
Slideshow of my photos from the gig.
Reviews:
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