Dave Sparks
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Many moons ago I was in a band, we started sometime around ’98 – ’99 in school and played throughout our college lives. Mostly in Widnes but also made our way to the city lights of Liverpool and Manchester. Sadly heading off to uni was the the slow end for what had been a great experience and taken in various stages, pub basements, lofts, recording studios and audiences big and small (mostly small). The last incarnation of any kind from the band was me and two others doing a product launch gig in Preston.
If you’d happened to be around Widnes and in to music at the time you’d have heard various names such as Kamikaze (my lot), Red Shift (brilliant Ghostbusters cover), Big Mouse, Heaven Stereo, The Pondwellers, Greg Oldfield just to name a very small few that spring to mind. Above all others though there was always a buzz when people talked about The Blind Lemons, whispers of them making it big and being a bit more successful than just the local gigs. We supported them a few times and I watched them on many many occasions and enjoyed some great gigs, the Liverpool academy when someone tried to nick my car outside is particularly memorable for having to borrow gaffa tape from the band to tape up the doors and drive home. I spent a week getting in and out via the boot, but anyway that’s a different story all together.
The Blind Lemons were a local group that everyone had heard of at some point, I haven’t seen much of any of them in theย interveningย years, I think I last bumped into guitarist Stu Moneith in Ikea, drummer Danny Hall went on to play with one of the members in Busted in Son of Dork, I think I last saw him on Saturday morning TV, although I possibly spotted him outside the Disney shop in Chester not so long ago.
Lead singer Chris McIntosh (incidentally still the only man I’ve heard described as having really sexy arms!) went off to perform with 28 Costumes, a band I actually quite enjoyed. He’s now back with a project called Silent Sleep (shameless plug: go and back it on pledge – http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/silentsleepliverpool)
Back to the track in question though – I have a few tracks from the Blind Lemons still in my collection. I managed to pick up a few tracks on a CD from Stu at one point and also picked up a limited edition 5 track they did that they sold at gigs. My favourite track at the time I know I haven’t got, and I can’t even remember what it’s called now. All of those I do have though bring back great memories of the gigs we played at and the gigs we didn’t play and just enjoyed. I can still sit and play my way through the chords of “Turkish Tea” or the intro riff from “Feedback”, a track about the local music rag. School girls though was always a show finisher, a long established track for the band that had a sing along ending and closed out many a great evening. You can check it out the Sound Cloud link –ย http://soundcloud.com/dsparks83/school-girls – hopefully none of the band will mind me posting it.
