The Tyger Band and The Press Recalled.

In which a RESERVE recalls a day at a notorious Richmond BBQ and reviews his subsequent actions.

Once upon a time there was a band. It held four young men. Was this in the time when I played for THE RESERVES on the rhythm section behind The Scoob or Mr Hogan. I can't say. I know it was early in the piece. Some would say that even at this stage of THE RESERVES short career, they had already eclipsed their more experienced partners on this bill of two. Kim had got the ball rolling with "Hey Little Girl" and we never looked back. Our debut gig was out of the way at this stage of our history but we we're still rusty and as error prone as gnats on Mandrax. We were armed with a set of nugget like covers and our original numbers.

"Who are these men?", you ask. That's for me to know and you to find out.

One day the band played at a BBQ in Richmond, Tasmania, in the heat of the summer in the dry sheep fields.

At this stage in the The Hobart Music Scene The Tyger Band had disbanded and then reincarnated as The Press Studs. They had aspirations to become the towns premier original band in the vien of a world weary but urbane and witty millue.

I quess people kind of missed The Tiger band and that scene held a certain attraction for the punters at this gig. We've all seen better days, or so Dead Moon say. At one stage in The Hobart Music Scene, The Tyger Band held a place in the town's Top Bands and paved the way for the later emergence of The Press Studs. I should know. I was there and I'm not even Max The 10,000 Year Old Mouse.

This was basically a pub crowd plus blow ins. Plus there were social connections, as there always are in a small town. They have even just been The Press by now, as the longer name was soon abbreviated, no doubt to lend the combo some extra credability. There was a generation gap.

"Don't worry, one day you'll be as good as us" he said leaning against the wall in a sexaully provocative rock god pose. It is sad but true, the young man is a delicate thing and as Mr Chilton said "you gotta have a lotta nerve".

A Cartoon appeared shortly in Togartus in which the resident wise guy, Peter Penrose, lampooned the offenders. The use of a psuedonem proved to be a wise move as the guilty party were baying for his blood. Rightly so : The comic was an act of pure revenge.

At the risk of getting schnozzed I ask my tormentors,

"Where are you now rock god?
In a pretend artists fog
or armchairs soft as gold.
Seems the dreams you dreamt
were stolen - raped - resold."

Things have turned out well in the end. Hey Mook have snaffled the services of their ex-bass player in the capacity of a keyboardist. May god bless his soul. This man was ever the mentor and never the jealous mocker.

When my dear friend, Guy Lucas was near the end of his days he took me aside and revealed a bit of himself. Despite the facade of smalltime stardom achieved with his band projects (of which I must say I stood in awe of somewhat) he said he wished he'd been 'nutured' in his early days of music, that some one had shown the way. "I can't go on like this, I gotta get real, A thirty plus man must do better than this" Maybe he had seen the mediocrity you could become. I already had.

As a latter day RESERVE once wrote, "I remember all my friends, but I don't remember you".

Don't cry no tears, I'm not sorry for what I done.

Peter Penrose
January 2003.