daniel thomas guitar
andy lepki bass/rhythm
andy baines drums
paul hagin bass/cello
mark rimmer rhythm guitar/vocals
alex vocals

It was quite ridiculous really.
Tallgroove. For tall men, seven meters fifty when it bothered to get up.

The Fates noted this devoted apathy to the collective genius and put a black mark in the Lazy column, and may have contributed slightly to the reality that there were no 'access all areas' passes necessary at the call centres and sitar restringers of this wirelessy uninformed universe.

But these Fates had a sense of the absurd, and booked them at a 'benefit gig'. The helicopter would be turning up at 7 and after a featherlight touchdown and some light canapes Tallgroove would make their way to their opulent dressing room where they could tune guitars and smoke cigarettes, Dan jamming out wah wah with a ton of reverb, Baines watching cartoons, Mark smoking a bong in his pyjamas and Lepki taking a Super 8 film, trying to not making a look like some bullshit Motley Crue's Crue dicking about in a trailer video.

After their hot demo had landed on Gurpal's friend's desk, there was a resounding " Yeah, I suppose " to the concept of a live performance at last from el Tallito, at a cultural diversity promoting community centre.

The rehearsal in the afternoon was sharp, Tall had recently added a chord to their mixed esoteric *beat* metaphor; Lepki and Baines discovered that they could slack off a little bit and drop beats. Sometimes just the one Andy would take an opportunist blast, and at other times, other Andy joined in too, so there was a double absence of Andy! Which meant when you came back in, it was honestly like four Andy's in there!
Daniel and Mark had a curious peek coming form the Northern section of the band and they looked to angle in.
Come in, the more the merrier, and Tall managed to have notes where *nobody* played. Then everybody would come back in, bang on the right note, absolutley no unnecessary vocals or widdle. Verboten.
And then there could be noise, sheets of wah wah and phase and everything with a ton of reverb, and Baines twatting the fuck out of some crazily cobbled together Mad Max drum kit.

And next door all the dealers would be watching Porridge.

The last thing any of Tall contemplated in the slightest was that the music being rehearshed for the evening's gig may not be a ratings winner at Chapeltown Community College. Bums on seats.
That thought evaporated with the news that the helicopter got delayed, and at the last minute, it was a 'pile as many irregular shaped objects into a brown estate car in Leeds 6 as you could' competition.

Lepki had the lowest maintenance piece of kit; one Peavey amp, slightly not portable enough, slightly too small for gigs, but a genius piece of kit, and aria pro ii bass, on loan from big brother, Paul as he went through his slap bass acid jazz 5 string days. He could plug in and play hogging the primest location of power sockets, hurrah, then twiddling along some one and a half dimensional chord progression until Dante, making slight adjustments with his ubiquitous wah wah pedal slammed in with a wierd chord then sneakilyweavily riff happening. God knows what Mark would be doing, finding some glaring reverb effect, or singing " I think we're alone now, " by Tiffany in between subtley crafted nuances of pure luck concocted by Lepki/Thomas partnership. Bless them all, glorious and valiant men, but the man who was the tallest must have been Baines, though he didn't always get the points for aristic impression, and despite vowing to only play alternative semibreves every 2nd prime number succesion, really did split the atom.

hollowmen mp3