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DRUMS,
GEAR and GIZMO’Z 
Craig’s current drum kits.
Drum Heads.
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GUITARZ, GEAR and GIZMO’Z 
Micky’s current guitars.
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GUITARZ, GEAR and GIZMO’Z 
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GUITARZ, GEAR and GIZMO’Z 
Gav’s current bass
guitars.
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GUITARZ, GEAR and GIZMO’Z 
Robb’s current guitars.
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ROBB'S BLOG 
SINGLES
ALBUMS
For those that remember, there were several music programmes on TV throughout the fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties, we all had our favourites..... It’s only recently that we appear to have NO dedicated music programmes on TV. Ok the odd screening of a corporate summer festival but no Top of the Pops, the Tube or The Power Hour, type programmes. And yes we have music video channels on cable TV but it’s not quite the same. It’s just video after video after video. I think TV is crying out for a good well balanced rock / hard rock music show. In fact a few years ago I wrote the script and suggested a full pilot hard rock show and put it to the BBC but they said, “No one would be interested!” Well history repeats it’s self so they say, so I guess it’s just a matter of time before someone has a bright idea of making and screening a new rock music show, with live performing bands, that people actually want to watch! We live in hope!!
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STORIES FROM THE ROAD 3rd March 2014 Here is a small collection of wonderful stories, (More to come,) from touring around the world, ’78 to present! All witnessed by ‘These Eyes.’ In 1980, at the Park hotel in Amsterdam, while smoking some fantastic Dutch stuff John Sykes and I had been handed in a bar some hours before, we persuaded our driver/minder, Phil Binns to try some. We were in our hotel room, up some 7 floors overlooking the canal. Phil had a few puffs and said it did nothing for him. The next minute he starts laughing uncontrollably! John and I open the window and as Phil was in hysterics, we man handled him out the window, only holding him by his feet! He was still laughing when we dropped him! No we didn’t, only kidding! But when John and I pulled him back into the room, we all collapsed on the bedroom floor and thought it was hilarious! We could have killed him!
Or the time on tour with the Ian
Gillan band in Germany. We were
playing a giant Hofbrauhaus in
Munich in 1981, and while the bass
player John McCoy, (Big Lad!) was
bouncing up and down on the spot,
(As he did every night in their
opening number,) all of a sudden the
stage gave way and John disappeared
up to his waist in floorboards!
Or the time on the Wildcat tour,
after playing Ayr pavilion, Jess our
singer at the time was trying to get
friendly with two girls. He clicked
his fingers in a gesture of showing
off, and said he wanted food brought
to him. ‘Ok,’ we said and after
asking directions we set off to the
local Chinese. Rocky, Brian, John
and I went. On our way back it was
suggested his plastic fork should be
‘rubbed’ in something ‘special.’
When we got back to the hotel and
gave Jess his food, while he was
‘entertaining,’ he said it tasted
funny! (I’m not surprised!) We said
ours did as well! I remember he was
quite ill the next day!
Or the time….no I can’t tell you
that one, |
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And to greet us when we arrive,
‘Frank,’ the chef and stage manager
with fresh tea, coffee, juice, beer
and cheese and ham sarnies! The
venue looked fantastic, decent size
stage, P.A and lights!
The tour went from strength to strength, Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Beerse, Geest, and Tilburg. Here’s a selection of shots….
There’s sooo many more pictures, keep watching…….x |
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Band Profiles........Craig 6th December 2013
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Band Profiles........Gav 6th December 2013
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Band Profiles........Micky 8th November 2013
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Band Profiles........Jack 17th October 2013
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Band Profiles........Robb 11th October 2013
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17th July 2013
I digress, as I do! Rocky
sounded too good to be true, in
as much as he was into the same
music as I was and really wanted
to play as much original
material as possible live. In
the same telephone conversation
Rocky also told me on his course
was a lad called Brian who was a
drummer and he was also
interested, and could he come
along and ‘Jam,’ as well. Well
that was the start and from some
25 initial shows played in the
Newcastle-upon-Tyne area, we
played a gig at Whitley Bay High
School where, in the audience
was Dave Woods.
We recorded, “Don’t Touch Me
There,” our first single at the
Impulse Recording Studios, in
the spring of ’79. The release
number was Neat 003. With a huge
buzz around at the time about us
and the New Wave Of British
Heavy Metal, (NWOBHM) movement
just taking off and our single
was selling by the thousands. Do
you know what? I’m proud to have
been there at the beginning of
Neat and help launch the label.
Many acts followed us, my great
friends, John and Mark Gallagher
of Raven, Fist, White Spirit,
Dedringer, Tysondog and of
course Venom. Let me share a
little secret with you. When we
were recording ‘Don’t Touch Me
There,’ a certain young studio
‘tea’ boy called Conrad was at
our beck and call, making pots
of tea and going out to the
shops on the chocky biscuit run!
Conrad later became ‘Cronos,’
the bass player in Venom! And a
nicer lad you could not meet. On
the back of the success of our
single on Neat records, MCA
record company contacted Tom
with an offer to sign us. Tom
recollects…
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R-MINE METALFEST, BELGIUM
A rainy day ahead greeted us in
France as we drove up the coast to
Oostende and then down into the
heart of Belgium where the fantastic
R-Mine Metalfest was being staged.
We arrived at the Metalfest at 1
o’clock in the afternoon, and then
headed off to the hotel. We checked
out a couple of Belgium’s finest
bottles of ‘Ops-Ale’ at 5.5% before
heads down for a well-earned nap!
• We have a new live set (songs)
• We have new guitar strings, (courtesy of Hell Guitars)
• There’s a new guitar (courtesy of WARMAN Guitars)! Below is Robb’s new “Ambush” guitar, part of the Dirty Dozen series by Josi Warman.
• and of course, our new guitar player, Micky Crystal.
So quite a lot to prove to our
new European agent and all the
press who were there as well …
no pressure then! It was Micky’s
first gig with the Tygers and I
think he was feeling it a bit as
well. Then, 10 to 10 on the
button and the intro blasts out
from the PA. It’s showtime! Into
the first number ‘Keeping Me
Alive’ and from then on in, it
was business as usual.
If the rest of the year is going
to be like this … bring it on! |
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For this blog Robb thought he would
let the boys do the work with their
storytelling! (Oh, and throw one in for good measure!) 7th June 2013 Well, well, well, number 6 and still going strong! Ok, for this blog I thought I would let the boys do the work with their storytelling! (Oh and I might throw one in for good measure!)
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For this blog, I thought I would
give you an insight into some of our
favorite Tygers’ songs. I’ve
included art work for each song, see
what you think?
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Stories from the road! |
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Robb's Blog - 19th March 2013 This is my third blog! Things are very busy at Tygers HQ at the moment, with this year’s shows and tour arrangements currently being finalised.
Craig, Gav and Jack are all good. They’re busy writing, rehearsing and busy with their own projects. ‘Stories from the road.’
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Robb's Blog - 1st March 2013
So onto our next blog!
Little Monster Management (Tygers' management company) in conjunction with R-Mine (our European agent) are busy booking shows. Now that we have Micky Crystal on board we can’t wait to get out there and ROAR! Brofest is rapidly approaching. "What’s Brofest?" I hear you ask! It’s a NWOBHM indoor festival taking place at the Northumbria Students Union, Newcastle upon Tyne on the 1st and 2nd of March. Robb has been asked to ‘Guest,’ with a band called Scarab on their last number, ‘Prisoners.’ In the middle of this song they are going to play, ‘Suzie Smiled' as a tribute to the Tygers and the NWOBHM movement. The whole event is going to be filmed by German Street TV to be released on DVD later this year. If you are attending this event make sure you come and say ‘Hi,’ to Robb. Craig, our ‘Sonic Thumper,’ has recently undergone a small operation and is now on the road to recovery. We wish him well as I'm sure his students do. Thinny manages the website content, to which Craig contributes significantly, and they go a lot of the time as our unsung heroes. They do a fantastic job and the rest of us want to say a MASSIVE “Yee dee a canny job like" to you both! Gav, our four-string twanger, has his own side project called ‘ METRODRONE’. Gav is putting the finishing touches to an album’s worth of original material he has written with Bettie Rogers, the singer on the album. As things progress we will keep you informed. We’ve heard it, and it rocks! Jack is hard at work in Florence working on new ideas for the Tygers' next album as well as for his own original Italian band, Mantra. He has several other side projects and is also a music journalist. A busy boy (as ever)! Micky, our new six stringer, is perfecting all the songs in the new Tygers' live set. Don’t worry, you will all get to see him soon enough! Now for the…..Stories from the road! Back in 2004, we were recording ‘Noises from the Cat House’ at the Soundstation Studios. Near the end of one of the sessions, we cracked open a bottle or two of wine to relax and listen back to our day's creations! Well that was it, no more work that day. In fact Mark, our studio engineer, was ‘persuaded’ to go out and purchase more ‘refreshments’! And that was the start! The studio was located on a small industrial site at that time (well a single lane really with a few businesses on either side who all shared one outside bog). Now the plumbing for this said water closet led outside, and we discovered if you stood on one of the pipes when the toilet was flushed you got back pressure and the flush reversed and came back up the bog! Not a good discovery when you’re on the road to getting inebriated and ever so slightly evil! On this particular occasion a young lad (look at me I’m a love god!) was off to the toilet for what we hoped was to be more than a number one if you get our drift! One of us slipped out and stood on the pipe, pretending to have a fag (although none of us smoked). It seemed to take ages, but then the toilet was flushed. A split second and the lad came bursting out through the door screaming like a banshee! He ran like a penguin, overalls and underpants round his ankles back to the workshop down the lane. As he passed us we could see his arse and back were covered! No wet wipes available in those days!…….Ah, we laughed, now who’s next! Robb |
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Robb's Blog - 19th February 2013
Time for an update from me and a few
stories from the road.....!
As you may or may not be aware, Deano left the band late last year and we have been finding a worthy replacement for him. Fantastic news, we’re there! After many auditions we have our new star, so please give it up for…..Micky Crystal (drum roll and crash from Craig)!! Now let me tell you, this guy can PLAY! Shows are currently being lined up as we speak and we are planning a British tour later on this year. I have been asked to guest with a band called Scarab, from the early 80s at BROFEST. This is a two-day NWOBHM event at Northumbria Students’ Union in Newcastle upon Tyne on the 1st and 2nd of March. Scarab are playing on the Saturday night and at the end of their set I will be joining them for a version of Suzie Smiled so come and join us. Tickets are available from www.brofest.co.uk. So, what else is new? Micky and I are doing an interview with ‘Guitar World’ online magazine next week and we’ll let you know when that will be posted. I’m doing some filming for some new guitar effects from China (I’m also designing a multi-effects unit for them) so we’ll see how that pans out! The company is called JOYO, (nice stuff). We will also let you know when the footage can be viewed. Watch this space for a TYGERS TV channel, and some fun stuff to do on our website to win prizes! We are also planning to run a pictorial guitar workshop, to show you how to make the ultimate Birdseye maple guitar neck. This will be done by the master guitar luthier, Alan Brasson. Now the serious stuff......! Stories from the road. Now Viagra has not been around for that long, invented by scientists for poor souls with problems in the ‘plumbing’ department! Well, when we played Japan in 1982, on the last eve of our stay in Tokyo, the local Japanese crew gave Mick (our crew boss) this special liquid. A kind of ‘Love Potion #9,’ if you will. Instructions were to ‘paint’ it onto the erect part and enjoy hours of ‘hard’ participation! Mick followed the instructions to the letter. Unfortunately, I think they gave him a stronger than normal dose and his ‘little soldier,’ was upright for 3 days ... On the trip to the airport, the 18-hour flight home and all the next day in Newcastle! The poor bugger could hardly pee! Now before you all email the site asking where you can get this, it’s all gone! We used every single last drop of it! You know the saying, ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’ Well, if you could buy this at the chemist, women everywhere would be very afraid, probably even some sheep!! Then there was the time last year when we were flying out to a European festival. After check-in, the band were all sat in the departure lounge, beer in hand, surveying the scene when the little man in my head starts playing, ‘where’s the nearest toilet and have you got enough time to use it’ trick. If you’ve have ever suffered from this you’ll know what I mean! So with 10 minutes before departure off I went in search of the toilets. The little man in my head saying, ‘Quick, quick, don’t delay, run for the toilet or I’ll have my way!’ And yer bugger he nearly did! I’m sat on grandma’s doughnut sounding like the noise from a cross-channel ferry foghorn, when I heard hysterical laughter coming from the next cubical. Then I heard more bottom noises (not from me) from where the laughter came from. The guy was obviously amused at my air biscuits, and then he produced some of his own anal audio, and it must have amused him all over again. For minutes we laughed at each other’s bum notes! Then it all came crashing down when I heard them announce the last call for my flight! Trousers round ankles and the little man in man head saying, ‘No, no I don’t think we’re quite finished yet Mr Weir!’ When I got to the gate I was the last one through, not a soul in the departure lounge! Toilet humour….you gotta love it! Robb |
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