| debaser, the life and times of |
| debaser was formed in August 1999 by Michael Lambert, Ross Thorburn , Euan Douglas and Andy Macleod. We started recording a lot of 4-track stuff around Christmas and by March we had about a dozen original songs recorded. We picked what we (wrongly) thought were the four best (�Dream 29�, �She Died From Cigarettes�, �Killing Time� and �Coffee and Cocaine�) and released our first EP, entitled �moodswingsandroundaboutsep� on peoplesound.com. We received our first radio play in May when Peter Easton played �Dream 29� on the Beat Patrol (Radio Scotland). We continued rehearsing and recording throughout the summer and eventually had enough songs to release an album. �Another Weekend Indoors� was released in September 2000 (only 20 copies were pressed) and in the same month the band had its first �proper� gig with Magnetic North Pole and Speeder at Drouthie Neebours in Dundee. After this, we all went off to university (Euan to Strathclyde, Andy and Mikee to Heriot Watt and Ross to Edinburgh) and debaser was forgotten about, save one rehersal that Christmas, which was the last time the original line up played together. Ross and Mikee tried to start a band in Edinburgh but this never really came to much and by the time we were home for Easter 2001 we were getting restless. Unfortunately, Euan was still at Strathclyde so we asked Jason Blyth to take his place. 6 songs were grouped together on the mini album �it�s far too easy to get things right� and we sent a few copies away to people, not expecting much to happen. We picked up a couple of good reviews and Marsha Shandur and Jim Gellatly played a couple of our songs on Forth One and beat 106 respectively. |
| By summer 2001 we started practising again with the idea of releasing another mini album with 7 or 8 tracks. Unfortunately, due to holiday and work commitments we had to turn down a couple of gigs (with Halle in Dundee and Aereogramme and Degrassi in Perth). Problems with writing and recording hampered production so we decided to just release a 3 track single with �This Is� and �Slow Suicide� as a double A side and "She" as the B side. 50 copies were pressed but were destroyed when Mikee left the band in October. We then played a gig as a 3 piece in Dundee (Nov 2001) with Loki and mylifeinpictures after only one rehearsal and we were encouraged by how well we sounded without the extra guitar. In November we got a last minute gig at the Bongo club in Edinburgh with 2 local bands (Chimera and The Rushes) which was a total disaster but the following week we redeamed ourselves when, we played with Glasgow band The Grim Northern Social at the Twa Tams in Perth. |
| By Christmas 2001, the new plan was to record 3 new songs and release them along with those that were going to be on the destroyed single as another 6 track mini album. �Swing�, �I�m Sorry� and �Scarlet Fever� (Jason�s first debaser composition) were recorded although many more were rehearsed. �Thirty Fingers� was released in January 2002 when we played a gig a Heriott Watt Union with the Edinburgh band Endorphin. Four of the six songs on Thirty Fingers have since recieved airplay and debaser have played several gigs in Dundee, Edinburgh, Perth and Glasgow. By the summer of 2002, Jason had decided to emmigrate to Australia and a replacement was found in fellow Perthshire Brass drummer Grant Roper. Andy's sister Helen also joined the band and debaser played several gigs over the summer with almost every possible line up permutation. Ross, Jason and Andy recorded 4 new songs in Dundee with Alex Botten which would form part of the follow up to 'Thirty Fingers', 'Sketches in Sound'. We played at the Jockrock Awards (where we didn't win 'Best Newcomer') and Ross and Jason recorded a song in Jason's shed called 'End Again', which was also part of 'Sketches in Sound', released in January 2003. |
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