Job Done, Tick......Tick (part 7)

All over, no shouting

Next up in the drum chair was Morgan Duffy who lived in the outskirts of Stockton.  He was previously drummer in our friend, Lee Gibson’s band, The The And.  We’d heard him drum and he wasn’t bad.  Happily, he also had a car and lived in a big house where we could practice (a trend I don't think we saw at the time).  And my brother Russ joined the band so we were back up to a 5 piece.  Russ was into pop music and loved the Jam, he was also an excellent guitarist having the ability to come up with great tunes and hooklines.  As mentioned earlier he actually co-wrote Mythical Bedsprings. 

He was only 16, quite a bit younger than the rest of us but he played his part.  He brought  freshness and melodies back to Tick Tick that we hadn’t had since Richard left.  One particular great tune he came up with was for lyrics written by Ste called Timpani which became a live favourite.  Russ also played an acoustic 12 string guitar which sounded great.  He played it through a normal amp which gave it a great harsh electric sound.  We talked about it later and Russ said he never liked how it sounded but I loved it. 

Morgan was a different kettle of fish to our previous passive drummers, he had attitude and always had plenty to say.  Along with Ste they argued we should introduce a few covers into our set and by now I’d lost the will to fight it.  Thankfully it never came off, we were never good enough musicians to work out the chords anyway, it wasn’t like today when you can just download the tab and off you go.  I started to get marginalised again.  Morgan suggested Ste tried to play the bass while singing leaving my keyboard basslines surplus to requirements.

I still loved performing live but the practices had become really shit, I was starting to dread them. We’d started practicing at the North Ormesby Pavillion which was great for me and Russ, it was near to where we lived and even closer to the pubs I’d started to go to with my other brother, Ian and his friends.  I just spent most of the time lying on my back day thinking let me out of here so I could go to the pub.  There was no way back,  I had little left to offer.  I could have knew gone through the motions for a bit longer but there were no gigs on the horizon and to be honest my pride had just taken one beating too many.  I told  Russ I was going to leave, he was shocked and said they would turf him out of the band if I left.  I said I didn’t think they would, he’d become too important to Tick Tick.

So I just told them I was leaving Tick Tick in the middle of band practice.  Gary looked shocked and bit bothered and obviously Russ knew about it.  Ste and Morgan didn’t really react, it was no big deal to them.  I wasn’t going to “make it”.  I told them they could still use the synth for as long as they wanted, they needed it because Russ used to play some of the songs through the synth and I just walked out and off to the Jack and Jill pub, leaving them to finish their practice.

Gary and Ste came to the pub and it was a little bit sad.  I told Gary about my unhappiness, we shook hands, that was that.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

We still remained friends and Russ kept me up to speed what was happening.  I wanted them to do well.  I heard some tapes and the songs sounded really good. Properly crafted songs and I thought the best since Richard had left.  Timpani sounded even better and they had a new song  “It’s A Shame” sung by Gary.  Russ described it as a country and western song.  It had a great melody and went something like (once again relying totally on memory)

“It’s a shame, it’s a shame, shame shame, shame.
People I care about, I care about too much
And when I’m sober, I write these songs”

The Gazette ran an interview with photograph of the band.  They had become indignant and angry about the lack of venues to play.  Not sure where that come from but I was just glad I wasn’t part of it.  It looked a bit contrived, maybe just an angle just to get them into the Gazette.  I’d only left the band a couple of weeks and their consternation was news to me.  If I was still in the band and we were really bothered about not playing live I’d like to think we’d have just blagged our way onto a bill somewhere or asked a pub if we could play for free.  They also published a photo, I’ve got it somewhere, if I find it I’ll slip it in.  I know some of them are a bit embarrassed by the article but I don’t know why.  They were just young and probably went into the interview naively.  Looking back, maybe none of us were quite as cool as we like to think we were. 

A couple of weeks after that Gary and Ste threw Russ and Morgan out of the band so Russ was right after all.  Gary telephoned Russ to tell them and then asked to speak to me to explain.  Musical differences were cited but I wasn’t really interested in listening what he had to say.  Russ was distraught and I was gutted for him, he was my 16 year old brother and I was always very protective of him.  Furthermore nobody had ever been thrown out of Tick Tick before.  I’ve no idea how Morgan got the bullet and in truth I'm not really interested, it wasn’t the same. Russ had been indirectly and later directly involved with Tick Tick since the start and it was a shabby way to treat him and I felt it was disrespectful towards me.  It caused a lot of problems at home.  Our house was a tough environment to grow up in,  it was obligatory to give each other a hard time but when one of us hurt we all hurt.

Obviously, lots of water under the bridge and all that but it took some time before I forgave Gary and Ste.  Musically it looked a bad decision too. Russ was good, he was genuinely innovative and he was only young, he could have adapted and would have got better as well.  I think his downfall was ironically what he was brought into Tick Tick for, his pop sensibility, Gary and Ste just didn’t want to go down that route and fair do's.

End of the Road

Gary and Ste had already lined up our friends Jeff Luke and Ronnie Burr when they threw Russ and Morgan out of the band. They also brought in Ronnie’s then girlfriend Kate O’Neill to do backing vocals and maybe keyboard.  Just as an aside girlfriends and bands?  No!!

 I never saw Gary or Ste for sometime so my knowledge of this version of the band was zilch.  The only reason I remembered them at all was because I saw a photo of them in Lee Gibson’s book “A Punk Rock Flashback” looking very eighties.  Things had moved on.  I’m not sure whether they played live and never heard any of their songs.  I don’t even know how long they lasted. 

Update – spoke to Gary and they played a concert at a nightclub in Stockton.  They had a dressing room which was a first for Tick Tick. 

Sometime after that Gary told me they had split up.  Ronnie and Ste left to join other bands.  Ironically Ste asked Russ and Morgan back.  I’d have told him to take a running jump but in fairness I don’t know how the conversation went.  I think they even adapted Timpani to go with yet another song (that makes 3). 

Update – Gary left and the band and continued on without him for a bit.  He said they had a song where they put the words of Jean  Paul Sartre to music.  Not sure whether they still called themselves Tick Tick but I’m not going back to put them in the family tree thing I did at the start.

So that’s it, all done, but that last bit's a bit of a downer isn't it?  So I've purposely saved one last batch of live show memories to finish off , just don't call it an encore.  I'll try and post them tomorrow.