The Storms

Some random The STORMS pics from way back to a few years ago ( 1962 - 2008 ) 

Can cardigans ever be cool ?  On the seafront at Southsea with hair rooted more in  the USA ( Elvis ) or 'Teddyboys' than Merseyside mop-top...well before The Pirates were seen live.  Half of the original Storms line-up, with ALAN ORDISH, bass-player, on the right.  The parrots were the only birds we put our hands on that day.

 On a large school-stage i think, at Havant, Portsmouth, around 1963.   ROB TALL, a terrific vocalist , in a collar-less Beatle-style jacket, and both of us with the then normal ties.  To everyone's loss, Rob died    this year (2011) in Germany. In my opinion he had a real strong rock 'n' roll voice , as can be heard on the tracks over on the Storms Live page. The pic below is from the same gig.

Compared to today's bands (we were a 'beat-group') stages then look practically 'empty' and devoid of fire-power ! Where are the stacks and the rigs for the light-shows ?  The good thing - all the gear and 4 or 5 blokes (we weren't called 'guys' then) - and maybe even a couple of female 'fans' - could squeeze into one Transit van for the burn-up home.  BERNIE MORLEY closest to camera on a then highly-prized new Stratocaster slung unusually high. I just about remember that due to the full-on chord playing style needed to cover Johnny Kidd & The Pirates numbers, that pristine white paintwork was sometimes splattered with red drops of the lad's own blood - that's real dedication !

On yet another 'Star Club' stage in Germany, 1966 i think - and Kiel or Lubeck - way up North anyway.  The stage backdrop was used in the chain of  'Star Clubs' as the reputation and fame of the legendary Hamburg Star-Club spread across the country and beyond.  From left to right - BERNIE MORLEY, myself, MICK EVELEIGH, and CHRIS DENNIS on keyboards - a great ivories man who has played and lived mostly in Italy in the intervening years.

Mmmmm - what to say about this ?  Apparently she was a Ski-Instructor who was available for other gigs, luckily including getting stripped off for a photo-shoot !  Some promoter's idea of a good image for 5 clean-cut English lads from nice homes...haha....rumour has it that one of the Storms did get some 1-to-1 tuition from the beautiful lady - but my lips are sealed...sadly i definitely remember it wasn't me !

Everyone's head is down - my foot up on the bass-drum for a rest - so i know this is around 2 am. in Garmisch-Partenkirschen (1965) after playing since 8pm - probably something restful like Buddy Holly's 'Words Of Love'. ROB TALL with the Pirates nautical-shirt, ties still on show, leather waistcoats, Beatle hair-cuts.  We played 8pm to 3am seven nights a week and a 4pm to 6pm matinee on Sunday afternoon just to warm up !  How to get hands like a builder's labourer. 

No idea what this was about.

Lads out on the town in Germany, 1966. Mick Eveleigh, Bernie Morley, Paul Acourt, Rob Tall. (left > right )

Publicity pic made in Germany so we could be sold to the lowest bidder !

Pic taken by a fan who was at the Star Club, Kiel show, and given it to me with the 'Pauly The Storms' sticker across the corner.

Stranded on a German highway - i think the old bus ( BMC or Austin J2 ? ) overheated - from memory, it had cost about £200 to buy from the local Co-operative Society Funeral Service - yep, it was an ex - Hearse !  The rails on top were for placing the flowers, and inside there were chrome rails on the floor for sliding-in the coffin.  When the driver feel asleep in a snow-storm while driving through Belgium in December '65 to get the boat back home for Xmas, the van smashed onto its side removing the windows down that side - closer than anyone wanted to it becoming a hearse again !   A helpful gang of Belgian blokes gathered from nowhere and with a 1,2,3, shoved it straight back up onto its wheels while we shivered with a combination of shock and cold.  The drive to the coast with the miniature heater in wagons back then was absolutely freezing, and everyone but the driver had to huddle under coats down in the back to avoid the sleet flying in through the spaces where the windows used to be.  This fine peice of British engineering couldn't really cope with the weight of 5 guys and all the gear and suitcases at the speeds already being reached on German 'autobahns', so it had to be given a rest and a Volkswagen Transporter-type van hired.  A sad sign of things to come in the UK motor-industry in the years ahead.

The lid of my old leather suitcase donated by parents - it weighed a ton before it was packed!  The  battered poster is from the first month-long residency in 1965 - at the ski-resort in Bavaria - Garmisch-Partenkirschen, where The Storms arrived in the August of that year.  The club was the 'Tanzclub 1900' - which i can't translate or explain except for knowing that 'tanz' means 'dance'.  Across the top it says (translating): 'What is new in Garmisch-Partenkirschen ?'...'from England...The Storms.'   This town was so un-used to seeing long-haired yobs in black-leather jackets with cuban-heel boots, that they shouted  'Bee-attles!' out loud in the street when they saw us for the first time.  If only...

This little area of text had great significance as it turned out - the hours our contract required us to work - from  '20 Uhr bis 3 Uhr nachts' - i.e., 8pm to 3am every night...and: 'von 16 Uhr bis 18 Uhr' - i.e., from 4pm to 6 pm on Sunday ( maybe also Saturdays, can't remember ) for 'matinee' customers.  In some ways, the groups exported to mainland Europe in numbers from 1960 onwards were a poorly-paid 'commodity', but when you're young...it's all about the chance to play and play and play...it is also why groups were so 'tight' and professional when they got back to the UK from these tours.

Oh the sheer glamour of life on the road - ablutions in a disused restaurant ktichen where  we were billeted for a month - clubs often included 'Accommodation' in the contract, but when we arrived, we sometimes wished they hadn't bothered - one place was just a room with bunk-beds for all 5 of us - group-members got to know each other very well back then.  The above example consisted of camping-beds placed in booths where the tables used to be in an abandoned restaurant - i think it was in a cellar - after-the-show activities could be funny, as the sound of tubular-steel camping beds springing shut due to one body too many jumping about on them caused general mirth.  The one plus i remember about this place was the opportunity to avoid washing-up for a whole month by  just going again and again to the crockery-cupboard for clean plates !  There is a photo somewhere of this sink with a 1 metre-high tower of un-washed dishes.  But we never threw a TV out of a hotel window, damn it.

I think my snare-drum is on the rear-end of a naked ski-instructor, but i have no idea why...nor why i seem to be practicing sign-language...

Nice action-shot of Mick Eveleigh with the Gibson EB - a fine bass-player who has never stopped gigging in the Portsmouth area, either as bassist, rhythm-guitarist, or blues-vocalist.  Chris Dennis on keys in the background, who later played for The Plebs and Dennis Brown.

Not a posed pic, but by chance it sums up so much of what we cared about, and who we were, and how we looked back then.

Why those working-hours and modest-pay were bearable - FUN !

Ditto, Pure fun. ( For drummers - the kit was a Rogers, a quality, solid set that stood up to daily abuse. )

German barmaids could be extremely friendly !

Being an idiot - all part of the job.  Drummers will spot the strange '60s hand-grip with the back of the hand trying to get parallel to the ceiling and the stick hovering like a preying-mantis - Keith Moon did it brilliantly. Technically all wrong for those who learned to play in music-lessons or music-college.

After 3 am, truly knackered...but Mick looks ridiculously chirpy !

Probably 2 am., and a drummer who is clearly one of those who doesn't believe in cleaning cymbals.

Mick Eveleigh, Rob Tall, Bernie Morley, some close-harmony work in Garmisch, 1965.

Very strange pic - nobody quite ready for the flash!  Rob still looking like a Pirate, Bernie with the Telecaster to get closer to the Mick Green sound than the Stratocaster could.

Bernie Morley, Mick Eveleigh, Paul Acourt, Rob Tall, Alan Ordish.  A re-union gig in Havant, Portsmouth, 2008.

Three horses and three old rockers.  Mick, me, Rob.  Havant, 2008.  For drummers - the kit  was a 1970s Premier 6-drum set-up with a 'Golden Sun' wrap - solid, loud kit that looked great under lights.  For the first time ever, i stomped on the bass-pedal so hard that the beater went right through the batter-head ( should have taken off the Roland hard-plastic beater! ) - in the pic above the hole can be see after the drum was reversed and the pedal fitted on the logo-side. Show must go on......The kit was sold to a huge Premier collector in Holland.  The full complement of shells was 3 times the size of this set-up, all in the same wrap, bought over a few years from garages and barns across England.