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In 1984 I asked a friend of mine whom I met in college in England to teach me how to play the guitar. Wayne Russell accepted the somewhat dubious challenge so I bought myself a cheapo electric guitar for about £15. Using Wayne's little 15 watt amplifier - the Little Giant - he taught me the basic chords and it wasn't long before we were blasting-out Dizzy Miss Lizzy and other rock n roll standards in my garage. |
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I eventually scraped together enough dough for a better guitar. I bought a Fender copy at Modern Music in Basingstoke for about £60 (hey, that's four times the price of the first one). Wayne and I spent weeks, possibly even months playing guitar and singing Beatles and Everly Brothers songs in my bedroom. It was probably months because I remember one occasion when my Pop burst in the room and insisted that we change the tune - literally. We couldn't help it, She Loves You was one of our favourites so we sang it a lot. |
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We were ambitious so after jamming a bunch with other musicians at college we decided to try and convince a friend, Martin Dunford to play bass with us. Martin agreed so now we had two lead/rhythm guitarists and a bass player. To round of the band we also needed a drummer. Now finding a drummer ain't easy. We actually ended-up talking to Dave Buckley who'd been hanging around and who played great guitar (far better than me). He said he always fancied trying the drums so he did. Well, after a few sessions Dave was playing like Ginger Baker (don't you just hate people like that). That was it - we had a band. |
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So, in the following weeks we jammed like crazy in our lunch breaks and music classes. Man it was fun. We actually had people stop and listen (probably to see what the racket was). Some folks would walk in the room and say that they had walked across campus and thought someone had a record on (it was 1984, if CDs were even out our college certainly couldn't afford them). Enough of blowing our own trumpet. My point is that we realized that what we were doing was worth keeping-up. Not only was it fun but others could actually stand to listen to us. |
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A band with no name is like a car with no petrol (gas for you USAers). Someone (I think Wayne) came up with the name FULL CIRCLE. Myself, Wayne and Martin are 60's music fans and that's what we played (I think Dave could take it or leave it). As we were playing 60's music in the 80's the name was meant to mean that we had circled back around to another music era. I know, it doesn't have the hipness of Smashing Pumpkins, Goo Goo Dolls or NIN but who cares. Now we were cruising - Full Circle was born. |
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| Playing in the music room at lunchtimes got boring. We needed some gigs. I think the first things we did were at music reviews held at the college at lunchtimes - College Hours as they were known. Appearing with other acts from college we usually played just a couple of numbers. One time the whole band couldn't get together so Wayne and I did a duet (Things We Said Today - The Beatles) and we called ourselves Semi Circle - bad huh! These gigs were our first real exposure to people other than those who hung around the music rooms all the time. | |
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I think one of our first 'big' gigs was playing in the main hall at college on the first day of term (semester for the USAers) of our second college year. So now we're talking September 1985. My memory of this event is a little foggy but I seem to remember that we played for a couple of hours on and off. We had a pretty bad PA system so things we're a bit shaky on the sound front (gotta blame it on something). Nevertheless, we seemed to intrigue many of the new students. |
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| I don't really remember the true order of things from this point on (I'm hoping the other band members will read this and contribute). What I do know is that we started to get a lot more gigs. I'll describe what I can remember. | |
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Snamproghetti's Social Club was a laugh. Someone knew this guy Wurzel that had a rocking PA so we hired him for this gig. We were the bee's Knees man. We turned up in our cars (think Mr. Bean in my case - I'll spare the others) and Wurzel turned-up in his Transit van full of equipment. The gig itself went really well music wise. Martin was a bit leary of the Mod crowd present. I had wanted to do a couple of numbers not on the play list but Martin advised us against it. He said it would drive the crowd crazy (because they were Mod anthems). I said it went well music wise because not everything was smooth that night. When it came to payment time the club manager tried to blame a broken urinal in the Mens room on us. Not saying we actually did it - just that our 'friends' in the crowd had. Good job there was four of us - we got our dosh in the end. |
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| Crooks Social Club was a great gig. Come to think of it, I think it was the first time we hired the PA guy. I remember Wayne's face when Wurzel was mixing at sound check and he mixed in a harmony when Wayne was singing. Wayne kept looking around for the other singers. My memory is really bad on this gig as a whole but I do remember it going VERY well. I know we were making plans at the end of it to play in the canteen of the same building (for more space) and Wurzel was telling how he could get some decent lighting for us. I even remember discussing how we could get the 400 volt circuits in that we would need. Nothing came of the canteen gig for reasons that escape me (maybe we were 180 volts short). | |
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Ah yes, MAFFRIA (or Musician's Appeal For Famine Relief In Africa). We played this concert held at Queen Mary's College in November of '85. There were many bands playing that night including one that some of the Full Circle folks guest appeared in. I'll be honest, some of the other acts had some great talent - more than we had. But, and it's a big but, no one got the reception that Full Circle did. Whether we were being humoured or they really loved us I don't care. We blew the roof off. The crowd went crazy - brings shivers to my spine thinking about it. This was what it was all about. |
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Valentines Day at the Crest Hotel was okay. We did this one as a charity deal for PHAB (Physically Handicapped and Abled Bodied). Wayne's dad, George was involved with the group. I don't think we had the PA guy so we were slumming it with our basic amps and probably some borrowed stuff. The gig went smoothly. We were even joined on mic by some of the guests... |
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One of the gigs that most sticks in my mind is not one where we performed well but where we were mis-billed (for want of a better word). I think possibly Dave had somehow got us a spot at a fair a local retirement home was giving in July of '86. We turned-up all excited to play our first outside concert. We were shocked, however, to see ourselves billed as the Full Circle Singers in the brochure. Barber Shop Quartet we were not. So, we made like the Blues Brothers in Bob's Country Bunker and adjusted our set to include the more mellow tunes in our repertoire. What was really great about this gig is that the folks loved all the 60's tunes we played. It really did go well in the end. |
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July of '86 also saw the four of us leave college (graduate that is - not drop out). We decided that this need not be the end of Full Circle so we played on. In fact we had one of the most prestigious gigs in December of '86 playing at the Swan Inn on New Years Eve. Prestigious for event only though. The Swan's manager told us to squeeze into this tiny corner by the Men's room as he needed all the space he could get for customers (understandably). However, every time a guy had to go and relieve himself he got to walk across the front of us. Even so, it was good fun and we got paid pretty good too. |
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After New Year 1986 we found it harder and harder to keep the band going and hold down new jobs. In fact, Martin moved out of town for his work and I was working in London. We therefore reluctantly went our own way. But, that was not the end of our music ventures...
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...now there's Full Circle |
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