Shaver

The birth of Shaver can be blamed totally on one Robert Pedder, currently of Lancaster. After the prolonged death of various former projects, such as the stupendous VEAL (featuring the recurring story line that is Mark Salisbury), our all singing, all dancing, all programming Mr. Pedder decided that what the world needed was melody and a synthetic beat to wash the last of the post-grunge chaff from our collective conscience. He promptly set to work with an Alesis SR16 drum machine, his trusty Kramer bass and his post-ironic rock axe and began crafting many a sadly overlooked pop gem that culminated in a collection of fine songs that the the world just didn't want to hear. After a handful of well received one-man and his sequencer type shows, Roberts fortunes took a turn for the better, with the reintroduction on the drum stool of the mythical beast Mark Salisbury. A former member of Veal and Roberts childhood friend, Mark instantly injected the songs with his boundless overgrown puppy enthusiasm, while his 'drum machine on steroids' style forced Robert to start winding up the volume. As all this was happening, your humble scribe had arrived in Kendal from Canterbury, and had started work at the same bookshop as Marks good lady. During the 2002 Christmas party, drunken arrangements were made for me to hear the current Shaver (as Rob had christened the project) set list. A week later we ran through a near perfect version of Deerstalker and Shaver as we know it had begun in earnest. After several weeks rehearsals we landed at the Lancaster Music Co-op and recorded our first 4 tracks as a band, including the aforementioned Deerstalker and 2nd in the live set stalwart Papa Kilo. Two weeks later we made our live debut and two days later Mark moved to the other end of the country. Bugger! Now this obviously presented somewhat of a problem, and while we tried our hardest to continue with the original line-up, it became clear that it was not going to be a long term plan. There was, however, another recording session (punctuated by a two day hospital stay for the stricken Mr.Salisbury. The results, we were told, of a dodgy pastie!) which yielded some of the best Shaver songs so far. Including Lord Jones Dead, Bravo814 and Genius From Heaven, as well as the first version of Golden Bullet (more of which later). Mark returned to Truro, later to surface in the wonderfully monickered KNEEBOY (now ckerama!), but remains a member of SHAVER to this day. Meanwhile, Robert and I were left to ponder a drummerless and possibly bandless future. None of this stopped Rob from writing several of his finest tunes to date and it was not hard to decide that there was life left in the project yet. All that was needed was a talented and funky drummer, with a great voice and the right sense of humour. Too much to ask you might think? In the next installment we shall meet Mr. Tom Stroud and explain how we managed to lose him as well..........Word first reached us of the hugely talented Mr.Stroud when he started working with Rob and over several coffee/cigarette type breaks it became apparent that the musical powers that be had sent us another gift. The first outing for our new lineup was a somewhat comical semi-acoustic slot supporting laugh-a-minute Lancaster act Floored Peter under the name Bad Penny. The set highlight was undoubtedly the crowd silence after the final note of The Dukes of Hazzard Theme! We quickly retreated to the warm confines of the LMC and electricity! It was immediately clear that we had a new sound with Tom, whose innate funkiness is coupled to the fact that, as a large unit, he hits with considerable force. Add in his annoyingly good singing voice, a prolific period for Rob and a truckload of rehearsals and we were beginning simmer nicely. New songs came in (one of them is the sadly unrecorded Feral Robot), some old songs stayed and others left, and before you could say "half hour support slot with Seven Seals", we had a half hour support slot with Seven Seals as well as a brace of gigs at Dickie Doodles and a succesful slot at the first Nine Standards Festival. The next step was some studio time and a visit to the Shire for two days at Stonegate Studios yielded the songs you can enjoy here. With Tom's input Golden Bullet had become our mini-epic and for my money stands as the pinnacle of our output thus far, while the other tracks captured the feel of the band live and life was looking peachy. However, this IS Shaver and nothing runs as smoothly as that, so to the suprise of exactly nobody, Tom chose to pursue his life long dream of attacking people with medical implements and began the daunting task of becoming a doctor. Our final act as a cohesive trio was a barnstorming support slot, once again at the invitation of Seven Seals, at the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal. This event was captured on film and may yet make its way onto youtube if we can track down the footage (rumour has it that it currently resides with Mark Salisbury). So where does this leave SHAVER now. Well, after one of our trademark periods of inactivity and Roberts announcement that we were dead, it appears that we are starting to stir once again. His Royal Pedgeness is writing new songs and we have made some interesting musical friends in recent months.This bio is dedicated with much love and respect to Mark and Tom, who despite not being dead, are still sadly missed.