In September, Gavin moved to Wales to study arboriculture and we
were fortunate to find a replacement in Alan Burton, playing
percussion, rhythm guitar, doing backing vocals and even playing
his uillean pipes on a version of Lyonesse played at the Greenpeace
gig we did in December 1986.
At this time, Tessa Weaver joined us as second backing vocalist and
by 1987 the band was reaching its peak in sound and energy.
Lyonesse
In March we did a charity gig at the St Just Town Hall to raise the
initial funds to start off the Nancherrow Project - a local
committee with the purpose of purchasing and setting up an arts and
music workshop in St |
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Just. It worked. One of the local bands of the late 90s, Blew, began
at the Nancherrow Centre, then following a move to Manchester they
changed the name to Haven and became a local success story.
website link
Haven
Throughout the summer of 1987, Fred Quale stood in for me on bass
guitar at the gigs I couldn't make, while I was away doing long
distance trucking. This was a necessary ploy to earn extra money
for a new instrument and amplifier and speaker set-up.
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The last big gig Tom's Island did was another charity fund-raiser,
this time for Green-peace at St Just's Town Hall.
I was now playing fretless bass guitar, which I continued to do
with Steve Dyer's Wyan band for some time.
1989 saw a new band with Ian Payne and Seth Marshall, this time
with a sax player known simply as Stefan. However its future was
short-lived due to conflicting ideas of musical direction. We did
two gigs under the name of Storm Dogs. Very wild and funky in its
early stages of development, Seth and I believed it had great
potential, but the general consensus was not inspired in this
direction. It could have been excellent . . .
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