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Formed around
1966 by brothers, Ken and Alan Tubbert with Reg Walker, John Mulcahy
and Stan Briggs, The Others were the band who almost exclusively
played the Church of Ireland youth group's "Guild of Youth" parish
clubs and built up a huge following in most of South Co. Dublin. A
residency in Mount Merrion's "Stella House" ensured that the band got
maximum exposure to the trendy young things of the day.
John and Stan
decided to resign in early1968 and concentrate on their careers and
they were replaced by Pat Whelan and Mick Carwood. The band continued
to play the parishes and at this time the night clubs were becoming
interested in them and there were plenty of gigs in the diary.
Drummer Reg left the band in 1969
and was replaced briefly by Pat Freeney who later joined the Freshmen.
A recording
session in the Eamonn Andrews Studio, then based in the Television
Club in Harcourt Street was booked and from that came the band's first
single, "Chirpy, Chirpy, Cheep, Cheep" which had been a huge hit in
Britain for Middle Of The Road. A few TV appearances put the band into
the lower reaches of the charts. The next single "Up On An Aeroplane
Ride" was released a few months later but this didn't make much of an
impression. Another TV appearance for the band was in the RTE soap
"The Riordans", playing at a dance in the village.
A
new drummer was then needed and Roger Burke was poached from an other
band in Stella House and stayed until he decided to take up flying as
a career. Ronan Collins was friendly with the band as a DJ in the beat
clubs in Dublin and he was recruited then as the drummer.
A recording deal
was done with EMI and another session was booked and this produced a
fine version of Abba's "Ring Ring". This was just after the Eurovision
and this was the single which had been released in Sweden before they
won the contest with "Waterloo".
Delays in releasing the Other's version meant that very soon after it
was finally released, the song was named as Abba's next release.
This was a small help to
The Others and lifted their version to No. 6 for a week or two in the
Irish charts although Abba's went to No. 1 immediately.
The band continued to play clubs and private functions until late 1975
and they then called it a day. The sad death of Mick Carwood was a
shock to everybody and the turnout at his funeral was a fine tribute
to his talent. Most of the former members continue to play to this
day.
Memories of The Others
by Ken Tubbert
The original lineup of the band was:
Alan Tubbert (guitar), John McEvoy (bass guitar and founder), John
Mulcahy (guitar), Pat Cox (drums) and Michael Carwood (vocals).
Michael Carwood was asked to join a rival band called “ The Gnumphs”
who had a lot of gigs doing the protestant parish hall circuit. He
accepted and that meant that a vacancy for a lead vocalist became
vacant. My brother suggested to the rest of the band that I could fill
his shoes as I knew their programme inside out. I was given a chance
and our first gig was in support of The Greenbeats in Stella House,
Mount Merrion, Dublin on the August bank holiday Saturday in 1964.
Incidently we were …….. rubbish!
Soon after Pat Cox told us that he
had to leave the band as he was at University and had to study. His
replacement was Paddy Freeney. We began to also pick up the odd parish
hall gig and soon there was a “friendly war” on gigs between the
Gnumphs and ourselves. Soon after it was suggested that John McEvoy
should be replaced by an "Image Man". Stan Briggs who had just left
The Gnumphs was brought on board. Soon we became bigger than The
Gnumphs. As a young band you can understand how we felt.
However just as we were at our best
as we thought, John Mulcahy announced that he was about to go due to
his studies. And a double blow was around the corner as Stan, who
worked for Bank of Ireland was transferred to Donegal. We had two
members to replace. We contacted Michael Carwood and asked him to
rejoin as keyboardist and second vocalist as he had just left The
Gnumphs. As we all were still extremely good friends, he agreed. We
still had to find a bass player. Our cousin suggested that we try out
a friend of his called Pat Whelan. So at this point the new lineup
was: Ken Tubbert (vocals), Alan Tubbert (guitar), Michael Carwood,
(keyboards/vocals), Pat Whelan (bass) and Paddy Freeney (drums).
We were beginning to go somewhere at this point and decided to record
a couple of songs for a single. These songs being “Lovely Loretta”/
“Seasons In The Sun” which were released on Pye Records in October
1969. The follow up was "Aeroplane Ride" / "Mr. Dyingly Sad". Soon
after Paddy Freeney was replaced on drums by Reg Walker, a friend we
had made some years earlier. He in turn was soon replaced by Roger
Bourke from a band called “Big Yobbo”, We went on to record “Chirpy
Chirpy Cheep Cheep” and then “Happy Am I”.
At this point we were gigging all
over Ireland and also the Dublin Circuit. Roger Bourke was
hospitalised with appendicites and Ronan Collins, a DJ friend from the
Dublin club circuit helped us out. However as Roger was out longer
than we thought, Ronan became a permanent member. Soon after Ronan
Collins joined, Pat Whelan was replaced by a close friend of the band
who had just left a band called “Jason”. His name was Pat Carey. At
this point we recorded our most successful single to date, “Ring Ring”
which was an ABBA cover version. However this was a year before ABBA
won the Eurovision Song Contest. This was followed up by a Michael
Carwood song called “She Is Mine” with a Ronan Collins song on the B
side called “I Love Nearly Everybody”. A later release of “She Is
Mine” had an extra track added, “Why Must They Die?” another Michael
Carwood song. Eventually Pat Carey who had been asked to join The
Strangers was replaced by Terry Merrick, a very fine musician who was
also part of the gigging scene at the time.
The Others broke up in 1976/77 due
to the demise of the club circuit that we were part of as well as the
constant pressure of the revenue commissioners on our dwindling
resources. However we continued to do the odd reunion gig for the fun
of it until the very untimely death of our best friend Michael Carwood.
My brother and myself went on to be part of “Sing Street”, Rikki and
the Rikkiticks” and now "The Hipstars”
I would like to say that I have enjoyed every second of the The Others
experience and that I would like to thank every musician friend that
we met along the way. It was a pleasure.
This page is totally in memory of a true friend . Rest in peace
Michael.
Ken Tubbert / May 2005. |
