Post 636 - Quincy Conserve - Epitaph LP

The Quincy Conserve was formed in Wellington New Zealand in late 1967 by Malcolm Hayman. Malcolm was an extremely talented musician who had already been on the music scene for twelve years by that stage. Hayman was only 15 years old when he arrived in Wellington in 1955 as a member of the Maori Hi Fives show band. The following year the singer-guitarist formed the Trademarks, long-time residents at the Mexicali, a popular nightspot owned by American expatriate Harry Booth. The Trademarks were very popular, and after four years of constant playing, queues formed to see them every time they played. Over the years, 30-odd musicians passed through the ranks of the Trademarks, before Malcolm disbanded the group in 1961. The Trademarks owed more than a little to the Maori show band tradition, where Hayman had learnt his licks, but the group gave Wellingtonians their first taste of rock'n'roll. One member of the Trademarks was Rodney "Dody" Potter, who was later a member of the Keil Isles and Dallas Four. Releasing on the HMV label, their first single "I'm So Proud"/"I've Been Loving You Baby" came out in June 1968. This was followed in 1969 with "Hallelujah" and "Lovin' Look". These records got very good revues, but that wasn't reflected in the sales. Unless you were from Wellington, no-one really knew anything about the group. This was rectified slightly when in December 1968; the group backed Allison Durbin on a national tour. This was the first time they had played outside their Downtown Club residency. Kevin Furey, who had previously played with Top Shelf, joined the group on both guitar and trumpet in 1970. Two months after Kevin joined, Raice McLeod left and he was replaced by Bruno Lawrence, who had been playing drums in Sydney with Electric Heap. The true story of Bruno's introduction to Quincy Conserve was explained to me by Raice McLeod himself. Raice had put a couple of feelers out to some friends in Australia to see if there was a gig available over there. While he really enjoyed playing with Malcolm and the guys, he was intrigued at the opportunity to travel. He had also mentioned this to some of the musos in Auckland, and it was a bass player from Auckland, John Coker, who called one night from Sydney. He had just accepted a gig with Ricky May to play a residency at a hotel in Surfers Paradise, and they needed a drummer.  Ricky, who Raice had never met, wanted a Kiwi if possible. Within a day or two, Bruno called and said that Ricky had offered him the job, but he wanted to get back to NZ, and did Raice think Bruno could have the Quincy Conserve gig if he took the Ricky job. It sounded like an "OK" arrangement to Raice, but when he laid this all out to Malcolm, he was not happy. He never wanted to hold Raice back from new opportunities, considering that Raice was fairly new to the music industry, but he felt that  Quincy Conserve was good the way it was, and he knew that Bruno, though brilliant, could be trouble. Raice always got on very well with Malcolm and didn’t want to do anything that might damage the group, so they agreed that Bruno would have to audition. If everybody, including Roy Young, who owned the Downtown Club and thus controlled the band's residency, was happy with the way Bruno played the audition, the deal could go down. Bruno had an immediate impact on the group. He wrote a song that was included on the group's first album, and the song became their biggest hit. The album released in 1970 was "Listen To The Band" and the single was "Ride The Rain". The single was also released in Australia. Bruno's "Ride The Rain" became a finalist in the 1970 Loxene Golden Disc Awards. The second single from the album was "Everybody Has Their Way". A second album "Epitaph" (SREG 30152) released on Regal Records was released in 1971. It contained a number of excellent songs and from it came three singles, "Aire Of Good Feeling", "Alright In The City” and "Going Back To The Garden". Thanks to Tony with the help on this postFlac