May I take this opportunity to succumb to the temptation and talk about my band, as if anyone really cares. We are:
Me, Fez: rythm guitar, vocals.
Paul: lead guitar, vocals.
Ben: bass guitar, occasional screams.
Gareth: drums, freaky background poetry.
We have been together as a band for about 4 years now, with various different roles for Ben and myself. The idea for the band was probably first formed when Ben and Gareth used to just jam, Ben playing "Wild Thing" on his Encore and stuff like that (power chords!). I then offered myself as a vocalist and Paul,( who was the man who could play Layla! ) said that he would willingly be a second guitarist. We practiced a few rubbish covers and eventually decided that we needed a bassist. The only guy we knew who could play bass was a lanky sixth-former called Duncan, and he would only play on the condition that we entered the school talent show with Pulp's "Disco 2000". None of us were particularly keen and eventually we just said sod it. We played in the talent show with no bassist and we sucked. However, we did play "Tourette's" from Nirvana's "In Utero" album, and so caused a bit of a stir, which was good, because otherwise people would have just forgotten about us straight away. As it was, they remembered us for all the wrong reasons.
The next year or so was a troubled time for "Weed" as we were then called. We decided to split up and Paul and I went off on a guitar-journey, searching for good songs and as I learnt the guitar more and more, I felt that it was I who should take the role of rythm guitarist but wasn't quite sure how to ask Ben about this, to see if he would mind being the bassist. To cut a long story short(er), Ben agreed and we started getting our riffs turned into proper songs for all the band to enjoy!!
Next year's talent show was quite a different affair. By now we had written songs and they were good. The best was one called "Jesus Loves You", and so when we played this talent show, it was to be our piece de resistance. The only song we played and we went to win the contest.
There followed a period of much prosperity. We managed to get lots of songs written and do much cool stuff. The time had come to get a gig. The obvious choice was to ask to do a gig in school because of the easy way that they would willingly let us put on a show. OUr only problem was that we didn't have a name as such. Our best attempt was "Nemo/Omen" which I personally hated. Having gone through a million and one names, Paul was looking through the list of out-takes played in "Pastichio Medley" by the Smashing Pumpkins and he found a song called "Camaro", decided it was quite a good name for a band and so it came to be (we later found out that it's the name of a car as well but that doesn't really matter),
Our first full-scale gig (13 songs) was on the 1st February 1998. We played 11 of our own songs and two covers (Lithium and Creep. Singalong stuff, I'm sure you appreciate). Apart from the fire alarm going after two songs, which was quite a disaster, the night went pretty well.
We played the '98 talent show and were quite brutally denied. However, we put it down to experience.
The next exciting episode in the Camaro saga is the York inter-schools Battle of the Bands. This takes place on the 25th June in the York Barbican, and it's going to be our biggest "gig" to date (1500 people). I say "gig" because it's not really a gig when you're only given enough time to play two songs. We are all looking forward very much to the battle of the bands and even if we don't win it will be cool playing in front of so many people.
I'm impressed you've got this far. Thanks for listening and have fun.