Lukes
Biography According to Bootled Zeppelin : )
This is a quick description of how I got into the band back in the good 'ol dayz.
Biography / (History Luke's version) (to much happened before so I'll start from 199ish)
Here's my version of the Early days that saw me become Raf's right (left?) hand
man in the band known as Bootled Zeppelin.
It all started in 199ish in one of the bands I used to
play in in Brighton.The drummer lived on a farm so we used to practice in a
converted barn.
We would drink some wine, go into the barn and jam our socks off far into the
night.
Then, when we were absolutely knackered we would go back
to the farmhouse, stick on the jam we'd just recorded on the tape player, and
proceed to get rather more squiffy on some sloe berry gin or some such other
classy booze (his parents enjoyed all the finer things in life!), whilst listening
to all the gaffs on the recording and laughing at them, or enjoying really beautiful
moments where somehow it all came together.(they were great musicians,I wonder
where Simon is and Ollie Crowther today??, anyone know? :-/ ).
Anyway at the time we had a new keyboardist, a guy by the name of <Harry
Waters> who took a copy of one of these jam tapes back up to London where
he lived.
Harry played the tape to a friend of his in passing,
who happened to be none other than the guitarist Mr Rafik Asure.
Raf had formed Bootled Zeppelin (I) in its' earliest
stages, and was listening to the jam tape with Harry when all of a sudden the
band broke into some crazy jammed up version of Whole lotta love;
"Who is this guy?,I've got to get him on vocals"exclaimed Raf.
And therein I was invited by Raf to London to audition for their new vocalist.
I can't actually remember how our first rehearsals went(can
you Raf?), but we played a couple of crazy gigs around London.
Favoring the Half moon in Brixton where we did some great gigs, mayhem abounding.
Gigs were in fits and starts with no agent but we ended up playing at the Rio
in Bradford, where we had a truly excellent time,(and some very cheap and tasty
food!).
But doom was apon us.The hammer of the gods was literally about to fall.
Some band members were missing their home life and change
brought the second incarnation of Bootled Zeppelin crashing down in flames........
James Hogg the drummer(lovely bloke)went home to get married, and quit the band.
Neng the bassist(the quietest!),went home to his wife and daughter to get some
quality family time.
Raf disappeared into the wild yonder with his new german girlfriend Doris.
And all.....was........quiet..........................
Meanwhile I had moved to London, fallen out with the
previous singer Charlie(sorry mate)
at 4 in the morning, and promptly came completely apart at the seams.
Crying to my mum on the phone, I said I'd had enough of London and wanted to
come back home, Bootled Zeppelin was well and truly over.......
However;it wouldn't die.......
A year or two later Raf
called me on the phone to tell me he wanted to reform the band one last time
to make a recording that would last as a tombstone to the band we loved so much,
and were so sad to see come to an end.
I was up to London in a flash, absolutely, I was there with bells on, damn right
we should do this last final gesture to have a piece of the soul of the band
forever on recording to cherish for our own to remind us of all the love and
effort we put into the band.
Those recordings are what became the <"Winds
of thor" C.d.'s>.
It was a real labor of love for Raf as he poured in time
and money endlessly to get what became a lot more work than was previously realized
finished; but with sheer determination and endurance he got it done.
Some of the recordings were left pretty raw because it
became such a huge job to do so many tracks, (what took Led Zeppelin several
years, we tried to do in a few days work....crazy nutcases),
but I'm still proud of The Battle of Evermore (Luke does his famous schizophrenic
impression of both Robert Plant and Sandy Denny), Friends, and Going to California
to this day :-)
A friend of Raf's Mark Whigfield was called in for overdubs of some of the bass guitar parts that weren't quite finished, and therein he joined the band.
Enthused by the recording of the band, Raf decided to
give the C.d. as a demo to hopeful drummers and keyboardists who might be up
to the job of possibly, just possibly; re-forming the band,
(Although thinking that this would be an easy task was far from our minds, it
would be pure luck for the whole thing to come together again surely).
Raf auditioned endlessly with no luck, it seemed just to big a task to throw
together the necessary musicians with the right personality to make it all work
again; until he struck gold.
A drummer by the name of Matthew Martin called up and
spoke to Raf and sounding very enthusiastic indeed, and proved his love of Led
Zeppelin by talking to Raf extensively about bootlegs and all of Led Zeppelin's
music.
Raf was intrigued and invited Matt for an audition as soon as was possible to see if his enthusiastic love of Zeppelin strode across the drums as well.
His playing turned out to be awesome and completely right for the band, along
with that came a great sense of humor, and he was even sporting a four symbols
tattoo on his arm just to show how deeply serious he was about Zeppelin, but
with him came another incredible piece of luck....
Matt had known a friend of his for many years called
Steve ("fingers")Watts whom he met through the band <Archive>
who played the keyboards. Matt said he was an excellent player and a good friend.
Raf agreed to audition Steve to see if Matt's recommendation was truly up to
scratch.
We were not disappointed; far from it.
Steve turned out to be an incredible keyboard player and absolutely perfect
for the job.(I still regard him as the best keyboardist I have ever worked with).
(He also has a fantastic sense of humor as well so when him and Matt get going
it's absolutely hilarious, which gets you through it all at the end of the day
;-).
This was it. Like a phoenix from the ashes rose Bootled Zeppelin III; and my god, did it rock....
