Aardvark – 1970

934756_262789860576784_8507116494031513225_n backcover

supplied by Philip John Mott Road Crew Live

Philip John… As you probably know if you’ve ever been to one of our shows , Rich & I worked freelance for numerous bands before and after Mott the Hoople. One of the outfits we spent quite sometime with back in 1970 was Aardvark a prog rock band featuring Dave Skillin vocals, Stan Aldous bass, Frank Clark drums and Steve Milliner organ. If you check out the back cover there’s a tiny pic of us looking very Hairy ! We had some fun times with them and there’s a lot of stories to tell so here’s one of them.:- I got on pretty well with Dave the singer and he would often get me up to play tambourine (badly, if that’s at all possible) Well the band wanted to get the audience more involved and I came up with this great idea, or so I thought. After each gig I’d collect up all the empty drink cans lying around then take them home wash them out and seal them up with a handfull of dried peas inside them. I’d then paste labels on them with the immortal words ‘Shake Like Fuck’ scrawled on them.
At the next gig when it came time for me to join Dave on stage with my tambourine I came on dragging a sack of the SLK tins. i chucked 10 or more out to the front of the audience and they dutifully followed the directions on the labels of these make shift maraccas. Now filled with confidence I hurled the rest of the sack into the crowd . Within seconds a can came whizzing past my ear followed by a whole fusillade of them. Soon we were ducking and diving and throwing them back. The audience loved it but the music suffered and after a number of similar outings we dropped the idea. Mind you if you’re in a band and you need cheap maraccas…………..

Anthony Collins… Met one of the band members about 25yrs ago at my brothers (Mike collins) flat, and gave him my copy of their album(as he didn’t have one). I was given mine as one of college entertainments judges at the Lyceum ballroom London when they won a band contest. There were 13 students from all round uk colleges and two personality judges, Sandie Shaw and David Bowie. A great night with a great band.

1 thought on “Aardvark – 1970”

  1. Met one of the band members about 25yrs ago at my brothers (Mike collins) flat, and gave him my copy of their album(as he didn’t have one).
    I was given mine as one of college entertainments judges at the Lyceum ballroom London when they won a band contest. There were 13 students from all round uk colleges and two personality judges, Sandie Shaw and David Bowie. A great night with a great band.

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