Geof Holmes

In 2007, Evil Roomers has been "reVibed".

Evil Roomers and Geof Holmes are launching their new double CD - THEN AGAIN reVibe - with a free gig at the Excelsior, Foveaux St Surry Hills (Sydney) on the 28th Sept. Hope to see you there!

Also, coming soon to this space, Arthur McKellar and His Fifty Guitars....

About the Evil Roomers double CD
THEN AGAIN reVibe

We were 13 in 1970 when Ian Krahe and I started catching the same trains. Apart from friendship we didn’t have a lot in common until 1972 when we began learning guitar by playing together. A creative rapport developed over the next five years as we bashed out our own riffs and songs on old Fender guitars.

In June 1977 looking for a drummer I met Ed Fisher in a record shop, before too long he introduced Ian Rilen, it then became apparent something was going to happen. In the months that followed Ed recorded some Evil Roomers rehearsals on a dodgy old mono cassette player. 16 of our set of about 25 songs survived, the historical significance compensating for dubious sound quality.

Sadly by the end of October the band had disintegrated - musical affinity overwhelmed by conflicting aims. The music though had it’s own life and carried on - ’X’ played its first gigs 2 months later.

So here in all its glory is the only record of the vibe and potential of the short lived but no less influential ’Evil Roomers’.

Revibe - Again
This recording is a reconstruction, an attempt to release the music buried in the murky depth of the Evil Roomers tapes. I’ve reproduced the bass and guitars as faithfully and authentically as I could to demonstrate how the songs sounded in 1977. With this in mind it was recorded quickly and with minimal production. I made some arrangement changes and used informed speculation or invention in place of inaudible or forgotten parts. I’ve included 2 missing songs; ’One More Chance’ and ’London New York’ , and completed a third - ’Air Boy’. The vocals were quite difficult to replicate and are mostly first takes to prevent me changing them too much, the lyrics [except ’Air Boy’] are the originals. The drums were added last on 24 hours notice thanks to Dave. Why did I bother? - Well for one this was potentially the best rock’n’roll band I got lucky enough to find myself in. Secondly the songs were never realised, but third and most importantly they were the result of my collaboration with Ian Krahe which I felt priviledged to be a part of.

’London New York’ from earlier in 1977 was quite similar to Ian Rilens’ ’Revolution’ so we decided to go with his song.

’One More Chance’ was written early in 1976, and was our first complete song, essentially a love song it set the ’musical template’ and defined our style.

’Air Boy’ is a long story and will doubtless sound familiar to many reading this so it needs some explanation. The music in this song we wrote in 1975, probably the first strong riffs we came out with, that’s why they survived I guess. The ’A’ phrasing at the start I pretty much channelled from Townshend on ’Who’s next’. The guitar line in ’D’ that follows was Ian Krahe inspired by Bowie’s Rebel, Rebel and the third set of chords in ’G’ was me influenced by the Who album ’Live at Leeds’. [We ’jammed’ this around for years without arriving at a song, on the Evil Roomers tapes you hear me trying a set of lyrics for it that ended up in ’Wasn’t Meant To Be Nice’]. The guitar lines Ian Krahe played over the main riff have stayed in my memory ever since. The ’E’ changes in the later part of the solo are more of our mid ’70’s ramblings.The lyrics though took me 30 years to complete, they tell the story of Evil Roomers and my musical partnership with Ian Krahe, perfect material for this particular song. To me its a bit of a ’prodigal’ song - it’s been around, so it’s cathartic to ’bring it home’ with it’s original intent. I’ve left this one alone for obvious reasons till now, this project gives the song context and opportunity and would not have been complete without it.

These recordings are dedicated to the memory of Ian Krahe 25.9.57 - 20.5.78. A truly gifted, innovative guitarist who had a unique style. Ian was a lefthander but played righthanded with an emotional intensity and commitment and a rare talent for melodic syncopation. From our first jam sessions in 1974 Ian played repeated down strokes on his low-slung ’Esquire’ long before I saw anyone else do it with such ferocity and passion he would bleed - long before that was fashionable. Ian was charismatic, intelligent, witty and often funny, I don’t think he really believed in rockstardom though had he lived I have no doubt he would have become a respected and revered musician the world over. Though relatively unknown Ian’s brief career had an enormous influence on Australian rock’n’roll.