Artist description Gas ..or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the drum-machine.. Gas began in 1995 in an upstairs room in Columbo St. Three multi-instrumentalists , Gene-Pool Belmondo , Ian Blenkinsop , and Mick Elborado began to melt down a number of influences in Belmondo’s living room. Among the early precepts was a staunch dictum that no ‘live’ drums be used. This meant finding different methods for establishing rhythms, including cassette samples (provided by Belmondo’s Peavey delay pedal and Blenkinsop’s Casio SK-1) and manual analogue keyboard ‘drums’. Many of Elborado’s tended towards an all-guitar lineup. During this fertile period many songs were written. One of their first was Blenkinsop’s "Do The Cobain", a piece of black-humoured punk-pop set to a sped-up Joy Division drum-sample. Songs came quickly; for instance "Cubicle" (immortalised on the Peculiar Atmospheres cassette and on television’s CATV) was put together by Blenkinsop and Elborado in the time it took Belmondo to make some coffee. There were many which didn’t make it much past this era, including Belmondo’s lengthy drone-out "The World’s A Balloon". Gas’ first live appearance was in a bedroom at a friend’s party. In a strong prefiguring of the problems the band would face with their ‘low-tech’ approach, at the crucial hour the tape recorder didn’t work and the cassette rhythms Gas were working heavily with at the time were abandoned perforce. From the first, Gas recorded their music on four-track machines. Despite many recording sessions over the years, the band’s recorded output remains slim. In 1996, Gas released a 10-song cassette entitled Peculiar Atmospheres . The next project was a contribution to a mooted but unrealised local tribute album to Australian punk pioneers the Saints. A long-time favourite band of Scollay’s, the song chosen was "Erotic Neurotic". Rather than try to ‘out-punk’ the original, Gas’ interpretation kept the brutal buzzsaw guitars (played by Belmondo and Elborado) and Ramone-bass (Scollay) but deviated wildly with a theremin-like sci-fi synth (Blenkinsop), half-serious Wagnerian vocals (by the whole band) and in place of guitar solos, Elborado filled the sound-space with wild squalls of free-synth rasp, hiss, rumble and squiggle. All of the above was anchored to a steady, massive heavy-industrial ‘clamping’ sound provided by a Swans sample. The album was never compiled, and so Gas’ unique translation of "Erotic Neurotic" was shelved. Another shelved project was a one-sided ‘Geraldine’ single. This was to have featured some of the band’s shortest songs and in a packed five minutes offered Scollay’s "League Of The Golden Maidens", a sound-collage by Belmondo, Elborado’s "Town Called Anger" and Blenkinsop’s minimalist masterpiece, "Fearhide" with its infectious ‘bicycle-pump’ rhythm The single was never released and again, the contents were shelved. Scollay amicably departed the band a few months later. Gas’ only other actual release was 1998’s Gas , a seven-song 10-inch ‘Geraldine’ EP recorded early in the year and engineered by Dave Khan of the experimental KkrrKK label. While never exactly frequent, Gas’ live appearances continued to be entertaining if problematic in terms of equipment, particularly in the rhythm department. Although not a ‘new’ development (the concept was first unveiled at the short-lived His Lordships’ hotel venue back in December 1996) increasingly, ‘real’ drums featured in live appearances. While Gas had plenty of original material, many cover versions were performed live, including "Ambivalence" (the Pin Group)"Are "Friends" Electric?" (Tubeway Army), "Fraulein Love" (Space Waltz), "Let It All Hang Out" (The Hombres), "The Green Manalishi" (Fleetwood Mac), "Thanks To You" (Mr. Lee Grant) and "Trash" (both Robin Hitchcock and Suede). A curious interlude in Gas’ history was the band’s temporary mutation into the Masons. For much of 1998 Belmondo, Blenkinsop and Elborado were joined again by Guy Scollay, this time to play an entirely-original set composed exclusively of Scollay’s songs, and in a fixed two-guitars (Elborado and Scollay), bass (Blenkinsop) and drums (Belmondo) ‘beat-group’ lineup. Despite Belmondo’s initially-uncertain drums, the band had power and songs ("Augury", "The Human Torch", "My Example") to burn. Unfortunately, the Masons concept was abandoned when the mercurial Scollay lost interest in music altogether. There were a few live appearances but aside from two-track cassette practice-room and live tapes, no recording was attempted. Gas continued to record and play live, gradually assimilating new forms of technology in the course of their work. In 2000, live audiences were treated to a new version of "Hinged And Unhinged" which did away with all the ‘tactile’ instruments entirely and instead utilised the band’s acapella vocals (and bad dancing) over a midi simulation. The effect was a parody of the plethora of ‘boy-’ and ‘girl bands’ which made the pop-charts an adult-free zone at the time. Audiences were also faced with an odd situation when the growing section of the set featuring traditional ‘live’ drums eventually separated late in the year and on the 4 th of November Gas performed an entire hour-long ‘foot-on-the-monitors’ rock’n’roll set. In late 2000, Gas recorded for the first time with computer technology. The results were Blenkinsop’s "Peculiar Atmospheres" a long-time live favourite (and no relation to the tape cassette) and "We Have Nothing". The latter was a spontaneous three-way collaborative effort in which a simple rhythm-track was concocted out of two beats sampled from a 1960s Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch song ("Hold Tight!") and a wash of white synth-noise, with a long litany ( We have nothing to fear but fear itself/We have nothing to humour but humour itself… ) chanted over it. A layer of synth and harmonica-texturing later it was finished. And for 2001? No dumb puns. More Gas and better at it.

Music Style Semi-industrial electric folk punk

Musical Influences Laibach, Devo, Julian Cope, Beatles, Suede, Tall Dwarfs, Echo and the Bunnymen,Gary Numan, Joy Division, AllPurpose.com,Wire

Similar Artists Laibach, Joy Division, Tall Dwarfs, Julian Cope, Echo and the Bunnymen, Gary Numan,Wire

Group Members Ian Blenkinsop - vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums. Mick ElBorrado - vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards. George Churton - vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, drums. Various other appliances and apparatus.

Instruments Voices, guitars, bass, keyboards, drums

Location Christchurch, Canterbury - New Zealand

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