Damarge
existed as a functioning unit between late 1981 and 1984 and were based
in the Southend-on-Sea area and comprised: Bill 'Kirt Tempest' Bailey:
keys/tapes/electronic beats, Iain 'Oaf' Weir: bass, Cliff Gee: voice,
Mark 'Snowboy' Cotgrove: percussion. The band was originally formed by
Kirt, Oaf & Cliff who all attended Westcliff High School together. The
band was later complimented by the addition of Hadleigh's greatest musical
export - Snowboy - sometime in early 1983 after a chance meeting with
Kirt at Honky Tonk music store (in Hadleigh) earlier that year.
The original 3-piece
band practiced in Oaf's bedroom with pretty minimal equipment. The first
song to be written was 20,000 Souls - a chorus chant about West Ham United's
Upton Park football ground in East London (Kirt & Oaf both supported the
club).
The name of the band is subject
to some confusion - and rightly so as no-one in the band could actually
get it right. Originally the suggested band name was "Malicious Damage"
(Killing Joke's record label) but this seemed a bit cliched. As Kirt was
utterly (and famously) inept when comes to do with anything related to
foreign languages
his pathetic attempt at translating that name into French was (phonetically)
"Mal-shay-hers Dam-arge" (but in awfully heavily-accented pseudo-French).
The thing was no-one knew how to spell Kirt's pitiful (almost shameful)
attempts at the French for "Malicious". Although the word damarge
was quite easy, everyone agreed with that, the first word caused some
debate regarding how to spell it. Various (somewhat elaborate) variants
were tried such as Malcéeurse, Malschheeursse, Malshooheurrse, Malshéeurres,
Malsheeurse and so on (Malshoes was also tried but didn't last
long).
The problems with the first
word was a source of amusement (for a short while at least) so it remained
in the band's official name - although the spelling tended to vary significantly.
However, most people opted for the sensible approach and simply referred
to the band as "Damarge". The
band's output was marked by three relatively distinct phases.
Early
Period: 1981 to early 1982
A period of early exploration and experimentation - usually undertaken
in Oaf's bedroom-cum-studio or Kirt's lounge. Snowboy was not a member
at this time and no polished recordings were made and just one gig performed
(Zero 6 where all these songs were performed). Songs written at this time
included 20,000 Souls (the first song ever written by the band), The Awakening,
Are You Getting Enough (Sex In Your Life)?, In Remembrance of M.P. (about
our good friend Mark Paveley who tragically killed himself while only
18 years old) and Jazz-Funk - a concoction of self-indulgent solo Fender-Rhodes
improvised jazz riffs (in the vein of the jazz-funk style popular at the
time) and an eccentric cacophony of sounds and effects resulting from
feeding the Dr. Rhythm through a Big Muff distortion peddle and a Korg
x911 guitar synthesizer (not what it was meant for). Note: Are You Getting
Enough (Sex In Your Life)? was based on a Test Card tune Kirt heard while
off school one day.
Mid Period: 1982 to early
1984
This was the most productive era and was marked by Snowboy joining the
band (any connection anyone?). Bodyrock was written and Damarge played
at The Cliffs Pavilion band contest (one of the biggest venues in Essex).
This phase marked the use of more sophisticated equipment, notably - all
be it on day hire - the E-mu Drumulator sample drum machine and completion
of the main demo tape using some borrowed digital effects. Other songs
written/recorded here was Cold (a 5 minute instrumental that would be
described as Dark Ambient nowadays and of which only a couple minutes
survive), I Feel Love (the classic Donna Summer track from 1977 who some
say was the best thing the band did) and Break On Through (To The
Other Side) - a cover of the classic Doors song.
Late Period: 1984
This
period was marked by a more fragmented set of styles and a few songs that
were never recorded but performed live a few times. These songs include
Bostok & Chandler (the authors of an A-level mathematics text book), 'The
60's Sound' (never completed nor given a complete title), OBN (which stands
for Old Boy Network and was a reference to the real OBN Kirt encountered
on a daily basis while working in The City) and Heteroman - an outrageously
pumping gay-disco anthem with a catchy Eastern-style riff. The band also
wanted to perform a version of Hendrix's Purple Haze - but only a Simmons
syndrum track was recorded by Nigel Wilshire (now lost). Nigel - a great
drummer and neighbour - also recorded the drums for Heteroman and the
high-hats heard on the main recording of The Awakening. One of the catchiest
songs that was never recorded by the band itself was The Maceeursse Waltz,
a catchy little song that was later recorded (in demo form only) by Oaf
for his unreleased solo album Neuf Oaf beuf sur
la plat (that album title was given to the album by Kirt whose knowledge
of French was limited to the phrase "neuf Oaf beauf sur la plat" - which
is meaningless nonsense). Kirt played this tune to Oaf one day and it
also stuck in his head, so much so that he later crudely recorded it himself
using a casio VL Tone. This was during his brief (one afternoon) solo
excursion into keyboard orientated music that was a piss-take of Damarge.
This period was mainly marked
by more gigging and some loss of focus as band members started their working
lives and going to college (the usual stuff). The only surviving record
of these songs is on the pretty poor-quality live recording from The Pink
Toothbrush concert - however upon closer listening to these tracks one
hears some pretty good songs - shame they never got recorded properly.
Oh well.
The band never officially
broke-up, members just went on to do their own things and still keep in
touch. There is always talk (or should we say 'threats') of reforming
for a one-off gig - but current obligations and logistics may make this
worthy goal unrealistic. Well, at least for the time being ? but then
again ?
Profile by
Bill Bailey
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