meet the band

adrian hoffman on bass guitar guitar and b vox

a tall blond geezer of about 20

adrian is a very talented bloke actually

hes got his own bloody band, hasnt he…?

writes and sings his own bloody songs, doesnt he

he is a cool calm collected and wry humoured type

shaun hoffman on drums about fortyish i guess

hes in charge (a bit) i guess booking flights etc

he is reliable and amiable and a little on the wry side too

a very individual drummer and very good too

on the guitar is ricky maymi

talk about a mercurial character

one of the best musicians ive ever seen

absolute encyclopaedic knowledge of rock music

i dont mean rock trivia neither …..i mean the actual music

watching a video of him playing at notes in newton is a revelation

the way he plays the guitar and the way he moves with his music

ricky would be an asset to any rock band on any fucking axe you like

hes an amazing drummer too

hes got energy motivation verve and pizazz

he helped me put this david neil thing together

on 12 string occasional bass and vox is me

i need no introduction here i suppose

old sk you know

the guy from the crunch

anyway

i fly off to perth one day last week

our rehearsal is drowned out by the pounding rain

our first gig is a party

thats right i’ll play yer fucking party

or write you a fucking song or whatever

if you can but come up with the dosh

so yeah we played at this very nice blokes fortieth

it was at a gig in a hotel

the bloke came in and said ” can we get ya anything?”

ricky quick as a flash says the name of some drink

the bloke goes off and comes back with a bottle

we drink it with orange slices and much bonhomie is had

we play pretty good i guess

the crowd at the party like us dont they

more drinks more bonhomie

ricky even sings happy birthday in a dean martin voice

(how BJM is that??!!)

ricky and i stay at a beautiful house in fremantle with felicity and otis

on sunday afternoon i meet up with david kenworthy a sculptor

im gonna do some music for an installation

he gave me a fantastic piece

which is jelly babies set into black and lit from within

a real stunner it is

now i own 2 david kenworthy pieces

he also had a neat house in this strange suburb

i felt very relaxed there it was nice

that night we played in freo at a bar called mojos

we certainly rocked

they liked us

we did an impromptu gloria

and ricky turns it into a bit of a happening

he gets down on the floor and plays with the pedals

the guitar sits in its stand mildly feeding back

and ricky manipulates the sound twiddling the knobs

a series of telegraphic tremolo blips …its fantastic

the next gig in sydney is more problematic

its at the beach road in bondi

my neck of the woulds

its a free gig and i dont like it because of that

it actually wasnt as bad as i feared

but still……

i kept my head down n was glad when it was over

the next night at notes was different again

we had johnny z joining us in sydney on the double bass

he played on the DN record

notes was a good gig and left a nice taste in yer mouth

then melbourne at the cherry bar

this was a hip little venue in melby and very rocknroll

so we rocked and as a guest we have evil graham lee on pedal steel

he plays on the record too

seemed kinda crowded there and we went down well

the next night was ho-bart the capital of tas-mania

wow a bleak cold remote city reminding one of norway

a strange but good gig there

ricky and co stay at a house

where theyre filming a tasmanian macbeth

that was not a joke

the gig was cool i enjoyed it

ok …..next:

new zealand

ps i will be sending david neil albums to all subscribers

who have paid one hundred dollars in the last year

this is the beginning of sk premium…details soon!