Eep Of The Gra

Around late '82 or early '83, Eep Of The Gra came into existence out of Exercise One, although exactly where one ended and the other began is a bit fuzzy. They started life as a three-piece before recruiting Kate Bent as a vocalist after seeing an ad she had put in the window of a clothing shop.

Kate was a recent immigrant from a small town in the Lakes District of England, and had never seen a live band, let alone been in one. She provided the band's lyrical content from her poetry, which was heavily influenced by Joy Division at the time, and hence contained many references to darkness and death ("Death and roses, liquid light it shines down on me"), as well as scattered references to "little children playing" "the streets of Berlin" and "days we spent in Russia". The musical content of the band was provided by the other three, who cited their influence as being "early Wah". Most songs revolved around a bass line or a simple two-chord pattern. The combined effect was a little like Siouxie And The Banshees meets the Birthday Party, with shades of The Chuch and Echo And The Bunnymen.

Eep Of The Gra were not extremely prolific in live appearances, partly through choice, and partly in order to work around the school commitments of their singer, who was 15 when she joined the band (the average age of the boys in the band was about 18). Kate had quite an impressively large voice for someone of such a tender age, and the band played with such an intensity that one journalist described them as "menacing". It was not unknown for Craig the drummer to kick his drum kit off the stage for a finale. They played at venues such as the Shaftsbury and the Apollo room, often sharing the bill with a group called Adventure Stories. They supported bands such as Hunters And Collectors and the Models when they came to Perth. In the latter era of the band, Kate Bent contibuted a little bit of trumpet to their sound.

They scored a picture and a good mention in Ram magazine in early 1984, but sadly the group had disbanded by this time following an incident after a gig where Craig and Don were beaten up by skinheads, Don breaking his collarbone.

Don, Dan and Craig moved on and formed Glue Factory virtually straight away, while Kate joined Scante Regarde for a while before being recruited by Just Add Water later in the year.

A two song demo tape was recorded in late 1982 when the band was still a three piece: a song called "Colours All Gone" and an instrumental entitled "Adventure Playground".

A mixing desk tape of a ten song set from one of their Hunters And Collectors support gigs (17/9/83) has survived with the following songs: The Inner Circle / Instrumental / Death And Roses / Quiet Whisper / Fields Of Rye / Adventure Playground / Son Et Lumiere / Follow Me / My Day For Dying / Papa Moses Killed A Skunk