The Wooshka Cover Band Story: Vol.2
Firstly….If you haven't seen Vol 1, click on this below link to go to it now!
The Wooshka Cover Band Story: Vol.2, through the eyes & memories of me………..Dan
Getting A Group Of Guys Together To Start A Band.
Ok, so coming straight off the back of Vol.1 were i had finally been given the nod by Jade & Nate to join the band (which wasn’t actually a band yet), we got on the front foot and organised a meet and greet so we could all get to know each other, and really just talk about what we planned on doing to start this (soon to be) cover band. At the time i really had no clue, and was more than happy to be led by Jade who had a bit of experience (not a huge amount, but certainly more than the rest of us).
The venue we chose was one of Jade and myself’s faves at that time…..It was Kitchen Works @ Crown Casino. The place was awesome (& only something like $24 per head), it was an all you could eat joint with a bit of everything (even prawns) which Nate was the champion of smashing down plate after plate.
There sat 5 of us around a table in the middle of the restaurant.
The 5 guys were:
Jade (guitarist) - My friend, work colleague and initial band inventor/organiser.
Nate (singer) - Also my friend and work colleague.
Mark (drummer) - A friend of Jade’s that he had talked into drumming, even though his fiancé was not entirely keen on the idea.
Kingy (bass) - A friend of Jade’s he had talked into playing bass, he was also playing in an originals band.
Myself (guitarist) -and i’d never met Mark or Kingy until this very moment.
Everyone was pretty keen to get something going, which was exciting.
I remember we decided to all chose 2 songs each to go home and learn.
Then a few weeks later we would book a room @ Pony Music in Hallam & have our first rehearsal as a band. I actually was so naive and green to the music scene at the time, that i didn’t even know that rehearsal rooms existed.
For anyone that doesn’t know what they are, i will enlighten you now.
There are places/business’ around that have sound proof rooms with speakers and some microphones setup - that bands hire out for an evening so they can play pretty much as loud as they would like without having the police come around to shut you down or drag you away.
The rooms vary in size but for the most part, they are probably about the size of 2 average size bedrooms joined together.
The hire cost was around $60 at the time and meant you had the room from around 6pm to 11pm, so you had plenty of time to practice and improve anything you needed.
Anyway, I've surprised myself here and i think i have remembered all the 10 songs that we came up with to learn for our first rehearsal (I stand to be corrected if 1 or 2 is wrong….but i don’t think so).
So, these were the first 10 songs we considered playing (some shockers in there).
Dancing in the storm - Boom Crash Opera
Run to paradise - The Choir Boys
Sex on fire - Kings Of Leon
Better - Screaming Jets
On my mind - Powderfinger
Broken leg - Bluejuice
99 luft/red balloons - Punk Goldfinger Version
Livin’ on a prayer - Bon Jovi
New sensation - INXS
Dance with me - Justin Timberlake
So we had our songs, we had met, eaten and talked, and it was time to go home and start getting serious for our first rehearsal in a few weeks times.
I actually didn’t even have all the guitar gear required to play at the time, so I did a bit of shopping for a new amp and guitar before it was too late.
Before the rehearsal date arrived Jade, Nate and I would see each other at work and all we got talking on what this so called bands name should be. I really can’t remember the options we were initially throwing up but Jade was pretty keen on the name “White Line Fever”.
Nate & I thought it was a pretty shithouse name (actually we knew it was shithouse), but Jade was the man organising everything and we mustn’t have cared to much because we agreed to it and moved onto concentrating on the 10 songs we had to perfect.
A few days later, us boys were working with a guy by the name of Dale Doyle, and this guy Doyle (whilst being a mate) is seriously one of the biggest and funniest bogans you would ever know.
All day he was working around saying the word Wooshka for no reason at all.
Wooshka this, Wooshka that……”hey Dale, What’s the time?”……”ahhhh yeah shit it’s 10 o’clock bud, WOOSHKA!”. So Nate and I, who was working with Dale at the time thought “let’s see if we can sub in Wooshka as the band name for White Line Fever.”
We took Wooshka to Jade and there really wasn’t any convincing to be done, Jade was a fan of Wooshka, and from that day forward the band that hadn’t even made single sound together yet would be known as Wooshka.
Rehearsal day/night arrives and i’m super ,super, super pumped but nervous for it.
Well not only me, but everyone involved is very excited to finally make some noise together.
It’s weird because it’s just a practice session, but for me, I had never been involved in one before and i can only compare it to being a child and counting down to Christmas Day.
The other fellas had all been involved with bands in the past, one way or another, so I was the musical virgin of the group.
We set our gear up, chose a song to kick off with and started playing.
I honestly can’t remember much at all from that night but one thing that clearly stands out in my memory was that when we were playing “New Sensation” we kept stuffing up the outro of the song and instead of going all the way back to start of the song every time, we would keep on going from the part where the lyrics were “love baby love”.
Over and over again we done it until we got the ending to a somewhat satisfactory level, i actually was never happy with the way we played that song.
I can’t even remember what the issue was that was stumping us, but I damn sure remember “love baby love is written all over your face” haha. Jade actually made it his FB password at the time (it stood out that much).
Before i knew it, the rehearsal time was up and to be brutally honest, we were nothing special.
We were probably happy with a few of the songs and how they came together but we also understood that it was only our first hit put and we had a lot of improving to do, but It was bloody fun though, and we all couldn't wait to get back in there to do it all again.
Hope you have enjoyed Vol.2 of my trip down Wooshka memory lane.
Standby for Vol.3 and click the below link now to see this weeks Wooshka gigs :)
