Rob Lloyd

ROB LLOYD

From Electric to Eclectic

Table Talk written by Paul Broadhurst ( www.mythospress.co.uk )

The Early Years

The first time I saw Rob with a guitar in his hand I knew that here was a man obsessed with perfection. His appetite for fine instruments, gourmet food and the best malt whisky in town was only surpassed by his wit, so sharp it could perform a lobotomy all on its own. These prodigious appetites had obviously begun at a very early age – when he was 3 years old his parents had given him a ukulele which he immediately tried to eat.

His taste for music underwent a further transformation at the age of 12 when he was presented with an electric guitar which he expertly wired into the wall socket, electrocuting himself. From then on, Rob never looked back. He couldn’t, as his eyes emitted sparks whenever he turned his head.

Surviving these early musical initiations, by the time he was 13 ½ he had formed his first band, The Footprints, with his schoolmates. A short while later this had morphed into ‘Me and Three of Them’, and the schoolboy band recorded a single penned by Rob which was played on Radio Luxembourg.

At 15 he met a guy called John Crump who had spent years performing in the Liverpool venues. Together they formed a band called The Microline, which built up a large local following.

6 months later, at 15 ½, the choice between chemistry homework, together with the invention of various explosive devices, or the life of a Rock musician, beckoned. It must have been a difficult choice. Rock chicks or studying hamsters in the Biology lab? Amazingly, Rob decided to go for it and joined a well-known professional band called Parchment People, who had originality written all over them.

At 16 he met Bill Bonham ( www.billbonham.com ), an amazing musician, and they created Hari Kari ( www.brumbeat.net ) with other members Hutch Hutchinson and Barry Sergeant. This band wowed audiences wherever they played and became something of a legend.

At 18 Rob, ever inventive and intent on breaking down musical barriers, decided on a complete change of direction when he entered the acoustic world, and has since played on various albums and singles (more on this later).

These days Rob entertains his mates, along with any other waifs, wastrels or wanderers, around his legendary kitchen table, playing his favourite guitars and generally inspiring hysteria with his own particular brand of wicked wit. In between he devotes a lot of his spare time to repairing and setting up guitars for other musicians with his close friend Kevin ( www.thehorseband.co.uk ).

Nights of the Square Table

If you imagine a kitchen table that is completely suffused, impregnated and soaked with countless, endless, nights of music and irrepressible banter as guitars are passed around from person to person, with a perpetual flow of visitors dropping in, dropping out, and shaking it all about, then you will get the general picture. The stories that emanate from this maelstrom of hospitality are both legion and legendary. Most of them you simply wouldn’t believe, but here is one just to give you a flavour.

Rob, with eyes and brain bleary from a wild session the evening before, awakes with the hangover from hell, only worse, after partying late into the night with his fellow revellers. His memory can’t remember anything, except that he must have had a great time, judging by the resemblance of the kitchen to a bomb site after the universe had imploded. ‘Hmmmm’, he thinks. ‘Wonder where my favourite Martin guitar is?’ Stumbling over to its case, he gingerly opens it, unsure of what might greet his eyes. Would it still be in one piece? Or would he spend the rest of the day doing a jigsaw?

He needn’t have worried. It was intact. But hang on, it was smothered in some unmentionable greasy substance that had congealed on the fretboard like rancid Dodo fat. As he carefully picked it up he noticed that there was something nasty in the sound hole – a dull thud accompanied any movement of the guitar, and a noxious aroma issued forth. He feared the worst, that his precious instrument had undergone some hideous transformation and would never be the same again. He turned it over, and out fell a piece of extremely battered fried fish.

‘Whaaaat!!’ ‘Fish in my guitar?’ Dumbfounded he phoned a friend who had been there the night before. ‘Don’t you remember, Rob?’ came the response. ‘You sent out for Fish and Chips and then invented a totally new guitar style, playing Mississippi Blues Slide with a piece of cod.’ ‘Was it any good?’ said he jokingly. ‘Absolutely incredible’ came the reply.

Just one of the true stories to emanate from Rob’s Kitchen. That kitchen table sits at the centre of a tardis-like space that has direct connections with dimensions so weird that even the most grotesque alien would feel alienated. Just as well that old table can’t talk.