Post 571 - Diamond Cutter - Wild Colonial Woman - There You Go

Fraternity’s  John Bisset’s love of London women, pubs and beer slowed him down somewhat, but he eventually returned to Sydney in 1981. He managed to score a programming gig with LaPorte Chemicals in Banksmeadow and a flat share over the road from the Robin Hood pub in Waverley with two lovely young women. John Eyers from “Fraternity” came visiting and wrought havoc in John’s life by taking him on a tour of his regular hangouts, meeting some very extraordinary people and experiencing new heights of alienation and paranoia by sampling the substances they offered. John’s erratic drunken personality swings became too much for my young flatmates and he moved to a flat near Bondi Beach. He drank at the Bondi and the Astra and at a late night watering hole called the Fondu . Through another ex-Fraternity member John Freeman he met Billy McMahon who had played bass with John Swann's band “Swanee”. He eventually recruited a guitarist Brett Hamlyn, vocalist Terry Barker and drummer John Affleck and Mal Logan and rehearsed in a Darlinghurst studio for a few months late in 1982. They called the band “Diamond Cutter” and started playing around Sydney and the Gold Coast in 1983. In mid-1983 they attracted the offer of a recording contract from CBS records on the strength of demo tapes they made of their   original material. His day gig later was with Ajax Chemicals in Auburn as a freelancer with a Kiwi boss called John Rolley. With the help of a young girlfriend John stayed off the booze for about 6 months during Diamond Cutter's rise. She encouraged him to attend several sessions with a psychologist who first suggested to him that he may be an alcoholic. He actually attended one meeting for alcoholics in West Sydney but he wasn't totally ego-deflated enough to get on board at that time. A strange sequence of seemingly supernatural events got John back onto the booze in a big way and he managed to destroy his credibility and ultimately Diamond Cutter as well. It’s a pity that only one single was released by Diamond Cutter “ Wild Colonial Woman” b/w “There You Go” (BA 223156) in 1984 for CBS. John penned both sides of the single, the single was produced by the band with Guy Gray & Steve Bywaters engineering and Chris Gilbey mixing the record at Studio 301, Sydney.  mp3