Stevie

Stevie Gillies was born in the city of Stirling, Scotland on 19th June 1967 - it was a Monday and a lovely sunny day for drying washing.Stevie's musical journey started at the tender age of 5 when he took up bagpipes along with his best pal - well actually they played the practice chanter for 5 years before they even got to touch a set of bagpipes. That was the only way to learn bagpipes back in those days. Nowadays tutors will have pupils on the goose (bagpipes with no drones) very early on and then bagpipes possibly within two years. What about the rudiments though folks?In the summer of 1982 Stevie travelled with the Forth Valley Pipe band to Edegem in Belgium to play at an International Folk Festival. It was at this Festival that Stevie met Gregor Lowrey and Ian MacKenzie - two fantastic accordion players. These guys worked extremely well together as Gregor was the perfect 1st box player and Ian was the perfect 2nd box player - they made quite a team. Stevie had only been noodling and battering out a few chords on the guitar for a short period of time (it all started with a bet you know - read Stevies book "On The Road....Again!" and find out the rest) meaning that Stevie was thrown right in at the deep end. To be honest - and he says this himself - he was rubbish although the accordion brothers liked the sound and rhythm of this new stringed instrument and within a few weeks after returning from the Belgium they started the band "Rusty Nail" and chocked up the diary with gigs all over Scotland and beyond. Rusty Nail were tipped to be the first band to play on the moon. I wonder if Sir Richard Branson would like to take them up on that offer? The Nails busiest year was possibly 1988.After leaving school in 1984, Stevie attained a job with the Ministry of Defence as a trainee mechanic however, the job was really not for him. He was seriously into his piping at that time of his life and he was playing in the solos and taking home prizes on a regular basis however, the mechanics life was taking its toll on his hands and affecting his performance - time to go. In fact the decision was already made for him as the job came to an end later that year. After leaving the MOD, Stevie took to busking and he secured himself two pitches - one in Glasgow and one in Edinburgh. He made a pretty good living out of busking for around 2 years but he says that it was a lot of early rises, a lot of hard work but in all it was a lot of fun and his piping was well polished at the end of it all. Stevie went back to the MOD for 2 months this time as a General Labourer - it was April and the MOD needed to get rid of a bit of money at the end of the financial year. Stevie actually ended up doing the same job which he had left in 1985 although the pay was three times as much. He saved up his pay and bought his first good Marshall amplifier. In 1987 he took up work with the Forestry Commision and found himself building footpaths deep within the Trossachs. Stevie says that it was a great job, very enjoyable, very hard work but it kept him fit and busy. The job was only commisioned for a year so in 1988 he decided to jump on the music bandwagon and headed to Perth College where he studied Music. In 1988, the Perth Music College was based in Nelson Street, Perth. This annexe has since been knocked down and turned into flats.Stevie has played with and performed music with many bands over the years. Here are just a few in no particular order - The Humpff Family. Bohinta featuring Martin and Anya Furey. The Jess King Band. The Mars Boys. Slam. Robbie Shepherds Nightmare. Rerr Terr. Follow that Camel. Keeping up with the Jones's. Simon Bains Band. The Davey Arthur Band. Ted Christophers Bannockburn. The Elmer Fudd Affair. Rusty Nail. The Edible Berries featuring Lee Agnew and Jimmy Murison from the band Nazareth. Tonto. Texas Home Cake. The Attic Jacks. Crossroads. The Hugh Trowsers Band. Ceilidh Minogue. Bahookie. The Rain Kings. The Last Tram Tae Auchenshuggle. George Wesley. The Stevie Agnew Band. Coloured Dreams. The Shoes. Box O' Bananas.The busiest band that Stevie played with was Box O' Bananas. It was Gregor Lowrey who introduced Stevie to Jock the Box and together they formed the Banana band. The Bananas are an up tempo Ceilidh / Rock type band but when asked what they do it was extremely difficult to label their band as they played a mountain of material and can perform at weddings, ceilidhs, parties, festivals, bar mitzvahs and pub gigs. The Bananas travelled about this globe and played at all sorts of events. They got as far East as New Zealand and in the summer of 2007 they travelled West to California to play a string of gigs. There were too many Banana gigs over the years to remember or to talk about on this short page.Unfortunately the Bananas are no longer performing together although they are all involved in other projects. guys layout @ HOT FreeLayouts.com MyHotComments