| Recently, I was delighted to
receive a long email from Urge guitarist Bernie Torme and here is his
fascinating story: I just wanted to say
how much I enjoyed your beat group site, it transported me back all
those years to Dublin in the late sixties and early seventies: seeing
it I remembered things I've tried hard to forget, but was actually
very pleased to remember, utterly fantastic!
Most importantly (for me at any rate) the guy on
the top left with the Afghan coat (hippie!) is me, Bernie Torme,
guitarist, though I was a bit less pretentious then and was known as
Bernard Tormey! The picture was taken in 1971 I think, I left shortly
afterwards for England. I subsequently became a punk, released a few
singles, joined a band called Gillan with Ian Gillan from Deep Purple
as singer, we had three top ten albums and four or five hit singles in
the '79 to '82 period in Britain and parts of Europe.
I then played with Ozzy Osbourne following the
death of his guitarist Randy Rhoads in an air crash (I was asked to
stand in, in the course of which we headlined at Madison Square
Gardens). After that I formed my own band, Electric Gypsies, which
toured the UK (and also included Dublin's SFX and Belfast's Ulster
Hall as special guests to Budgie) a lot and released three solo albums
(Turn Out The Lights, Electric Gypsies and Live), played and recorded
with Atomic Rooster. I then formed a band with ex Girl and future LA
Guns singer Phil Lewis, humbly enough called Torme. I think I played
the Marquee more often than any other person on the planet, it paid
the bills!
After that I formed a band called Desperado with
ex Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider and ex Iron Maiden drummer Clive
Burr: that came unstuck due to the record company having a problem
with the guy who signed us, and the album got shelved and only saw the
light of day for the first time on 3rd July this year. Also released
three further solo albums, Wild Irish, White Trash Guitar and Scorched
Earth.
I'm currently working in a three piece with ex-Gillan, ex-Mammoth bass
player John McCoy and ex-Bruce Dickinson drummer Robin Guy, we're
playing a festival in Sussex in a few weeks supporting Gary Moore,
I've never met him and he was a huge hero of mine from my teenage
years in Dublin, so I'm looking forward to that! All in all not too
bad for a kid from Albany Road in Ranelagh! I must've been lucky!
The guy in the picture on top right is Carl Geraghty (sax and flute),
who also played with The Victors, and is a brother of Tony Geraghty
who was killed in the north with the Miami Showband. Tony is the only
guy I ever lent my guitar to (we both played Strats), when he had his
stolen when he was with Adolf J Rag and they had a gig at the Osibisa
Club on Stephen's Green. Carl was fantastically talented and musically
educated and taught me lots.
Bottom left is the hugely talented Don Harris, subsequently with
Peggy's Leg. Don was a great drummer and keyboard player, and we
played together in our first band when I was 16 and he was 14, called
by the very uninspiring name of Wormwood. Wormwood supported Lizzy and
Portrait/Elmer Fudd among others at the Countdown Club near Roche's
Stores and did various other shitty little gigs around Dublin. I saw
on the Peggy's Leg section that Don is dead? That's very upsetting.
The man in the front middle is Joe O'Keefe, aka Jodi Keefe and/or Jodi
O' Keefe. Joe was the Urge's original bass player/singer (they had
originally been a three piece, original guitarist was called Andy who
emigrated to Australia which was how I got the job, and I think the
original drummer was a guy called Blue O'Brien). The Urge as a three
piece had recorded and released a single called "Listen", which was a
big thing to have done in that scene in Dublin at that time. At the
time of this picture Joe no longer played bass, he just sang.
incidentally, the band was managed by Joe's brother, Shay. Bottom
right is Noel Cullen from Bluebell who played bass and was a lovely
guy and as solid as a rock as a bass player.
We quite often had a complete horn section (reminiscent of Rob
Strong's Platterman) at clubs like the Osibisa which would be
organised and arranged by Carl. Carl left the band soon after this
picture and we carried on as a four piece for about a year and then
Don left or got sacked (I don't remember), we did a couple of
semi-abysmal gigs with Blue O'Brien and then I left (or was sacked, I
don't remember!) and went to England. I don't know what happened The
Urge after that.
Connect with Bernie at
http://www.gmtrocks.com or
http://www.myspace.com/gmtrocks |
