It was a dark and stormy night way out on the moor of Uggerslev Mose.
The crows had given in and returned to civilization, the night-owl was already asleep, and people had taken their houses in for the night. Only the dim light from a train-oil lamp revealed the presence of three men playing music in the infamous "Falkereden" (The Falcon´s Nest). Suddenly the guy with the whistle stopped playing, and yelled "GALLYWAMPUS!!!"
This is how we got the name for our newly founded band - it´s all true - but people often ask us what Gallywampus actually means? That night in Uggerslev Mose we thought Gallywampus was a new and unique word, invented and patented by us, but oh no, we only reinvented Gallywampus. We initiated a thorough philological investigation, and learned that Gallywampus is the name of an anomalous felid, "felis wampusus felis", that mainly lives in rivers, bogs and streams in the state of Missouri, USA.
We quote: "Gallywampus (felis wampusus felis). Amphibious felid that swims like a colossal mink, and occasionally attacks terrestrial livestock. Origin and genealogy unknown, but G is maybe related to the Whistling Wampus, living in Arkansas. According to Indian tradition the Wampus is a woman disguised as a cat (the socalled Wampussy) in order to spy on men´s secret meetings at night. (so what´s new?) A.A."
(T.P. Turnpike´s American Dictionary, 1957)
The Danish Gallywampus, bless us all, is not so bloodthirsty, but some people swear on their life they have seen it sneak around at the wee hours of night.
It all began the day Søren contacted Ole, whom he didn´t know, and suggested they should meet and play a bit of music. That was fine with Ole, and he contacted Niels, whom he had only met once on a ship somewhere (!), and invited him to join our informal jam-session. The three of us had quite different musical backgrounds; Ole´s roots were in Jazz and Danish ballads, Niels had been fiddling with Cajun and other frisky dance-music, and Søren had been messing with bluegrass and contry music. We found common ground in Irish Traditional Music, which we all loved and had been playing on and off down all the years. The idea of forming a band was obvious, and we just had to call that band GALLYWAMPUS.
Later Arne joined us, but that´s another story.
