*SCRATCH* Here´s a little story that must be told:
In 1995 Simon met Pieter in grammar school. After a while they became friends and pretty soon they began to record their brainshit with an old tape machine. At this time they did this without any instruments,- all they got were the mutating voices 15-year-old boys used to have.
In 1996, pissed about school and their small dicks, they decided to become musicians. So they went on to buy themselves some cheap electric guitars & some cheap amplifiers.
After they found out how to plug in everything correctly, something groundbreaking happened: Simon inducted Pieter into the secrets of the POWERCHORD: TA-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !
You surely can imagine that Pieter was very excited about what´s possible with just 2 of his fingers. And then everything started: They practiced (without teacher) and they practiced (without teacher) and they practiced (without teacher) and they got better and better (without teacher) and the time went by and after a while even the knocking of the neighbours was in-time (also without drum-teacher).
Around 1996/1997 they started to play with a former schoolmate, a self-educated drummer in the T-ON rehearsing rooms. Thanks to Dame Fortuna that they broke tie with this guy. I´d not say that he played lousy, he was just right for that time, but not more.
Around 1999 Simon met a drummer named Herbert (also called HRBRT), in whose garage were still rehearsing ever since. At that time Herbert played in the band Los Superstrings together with a girl named Sangam (guitar, voc) and they searched for a bass player. So Simon dabbled in playing the bass. Pieter also joined the band as a 2nd guitar player, but after 3-4 rehearsals he decided to leave the band and to spent time on writing & recording his first own songs on a tascam multitracker.
After a few months the Los Superstrings split up, or let´s say, Sangam left. So Pieter joined in again. They played together for about a year, recorded 3 or 4 songs on Pieter´s tascam-recorder and then split up in summer 2000, or lets say, Pieter left the band because of a ridiculous private issue with Simon.
After a few months of perplexity, Simon & Herbert began to search for a new guitarist/vocalist and so they found David in Autumn 2000. The band Tractorbeat was born.
Reconciled with Simon, Pieter joined the band for a few rehearsals in 2001, but it did not really fit, so Pieter again cut his own path. On the other hand, Tractorbeat developed their own sound more & more and in Autumn 2002 they did their first live-gig. They also did several live gigs in 2003 and one in January 2004 before they also broke up.
After that, without further ado Simon & Pieter began to play with Herbert again. But somehow there was not enough motivation and so they stopped to rehearse after a few months.
In Autumn 2004 Pieter met a drummer called Jacob and so he arranged a test-rehearsal together with Jacob on drums & Simon on bass. It seemed to work so they named themselves Thompson and glued a pretty cool track together which remained as an instrumental. The rest was just jamming around, and after a year or something they also broke up.
So the time was right for Tractorbeat to reunite again. And so it happened. They played again live in Spring 2006
In Autumn 2006, after years of being close soulmates, all their home jam´s and all the bands in which they´ve played together, Simon & Pieter finally decided to found the 2-man project Midges & Elephants where they just try to make some honest music.
Yep, mostly that´s it...at the moment Midges & Elephants are pausing cause both dudes are a bit too involved in other things. Pieter is concentrated on his solo-project 1981 and also he´s rehearsing with Tractorbeat as 2nd guitar player for their upcoming live gig. But that don´t mean that M&E broke up. They will never ! M&E forever !
Close friends of the band reported that they already got 4-5 tracks ready, they just need to be recorded...
On this note - Cheers !
