One Fat Antelope
O.F.A. was formed Michael “Drummer” Getty and Stephen Bloomer in Coalisland around 1979/80. The original lineup was Drummer (drms), Jim Lewis (bass) and Stephen Bloomer (gtr). They were soon joined by Michael’s brother Jonathan (JJ) on vocals plus David Jones on guitar. They started out doing original material from the start but also included a few covers: The Kinks’ “All Day And All of The Night”, The Clash’s “Garageband” and The Jam’s “A Bomb in Wardour Street”. Whereas punk definitely was the catalyst for the feeling of ‘we can do this as well’ I think you’d be hard pressed to really call OFA a punk band. JJ was as much enamoured of The Beatles than he was of the Sex Pistols and as he became the primary songwriter that really informed OFA’s aesthetic. The punkiness of approach in the beginning was more to do with the musical limitations of the band more than anything else. I think we were maybe a lot more garage/psych oriented than the mainstream punk bands around us at that time.
Jim Lewis and David Jones left and, if I recall correctly, I began subbing with the band at rehearsals in Coalisland when I was still playing with The Nimnules, a Dungannon band. Stephen Bloomer took over bass duties and I played guitar. There were a few local gigs but my memory is very ill served as to where exactly! All of us moved to Belfast in 1981, JJ a couple of years earlier I think. We fucked around with the lineup for a while (I recall playing bass for a bit myself), recorded a demo tape that has long passed into oblivion but then got settled a bit when Paul Delany (Dil) joined us on bass. We’d gotten introduced to him via Mickey Cassidy and Big Tommy who lived in the same street as Drummer. The lineup then became JJ (vcls), Drummer (drms), Stephen Bloomer (gtr), Dil (bass), myself (gtr/vcls). We then started gigging. We played a bunch of gigs in Belfast with this lineup – Jules nightclub a few times (once on a bill with Doomed Youth, once with someone else I can’t remember), The Orpheus, Queens Speakeasy. Dil left after a while, I can’t recall why exactly, and then Paul Tohill joined on bass and we continued to gig.
I remembered being well impressed by Paul as he had real musicality and could really play – something the rest of us were still struggling with at the time. We developed a pretty solid set, again with JJ being the main writer. The Clash, Jam and Kinks covers had long been dropped but we started doing two other covers pretty regularly – The Door’s “Break on Through” that we reduced to a 2 chord fuzz/thrash nightmare and The Cramps’ “New Kind of Kick”. We veered closer to psychedelia than punk in my mind – I was certainly in love with my Big Muff fuzz pedal and freeform noise/feedback. If I recall correctly Stuart Balie interviewed us in the stairwell after a gig in Jules’ but because we’d had a few pints we could only tell him that our main influence was The Bay City Rollers. I could be dead wrong about that!!
At a certain point, for some nonsense reason, we decided that Stephen would have to go as we didn’t think he could play well enough. None of us could play well enough! We did not handle this at all well. Another band, The SpoonFed Sofa, had a gig at The Orpheus and all of us, minus Stephen, got up and played a support set with him sitting there. It’s something I regret still as it was just a shitty, shitty, shitty way to treat a friend. We gigged around a bit more with the reduced lineup but I really can’t remember how many gigs we did. We seemed to run out of steam and I stopped in the summer of 1985 – I THINK because I was getting ready to move to Leeds but maybe we were just done. The group continued on a bit after that but you’d need to get that from one of the others. I have very fond memories of OFA in that period –JJ had some real songwriting talent (that we tended to drown with noise) and Paul Tohill added a great musical spine to the band.
In November 2013, JJ, Drummer, Stephen, Paul T and myself all got together again for a day in Rinky Dink rehearsal studios in Belfast – our first time together in a room for over 27 years. We blew off a few cobwebs, realised we were better than we thought we would be, decided that we should do it again and are now looking to play more/create more together in 2014. Life’s too damn short to not do the things you love with real mates.
Paul Kerr 04/01/14
Jim Lewis and David Jones left and, if I recall correctly, I began subbing with the band at rehearsals in Coalisland when I was still playing with The Nimnules, a Dungannon band. Stephen Bloomer took over bass duties and I played guitar. There were a few local gigs but my memory is very ill served as to where exactly! All of us moved to Belfast in 1981, JJ a couple of years earlier I think. We fucked around with the lineup for a while (I recall playing bass for a bit myself), recorded a demo tape that has long passed into oblivion but then got settled a bit when Paul Delany (Dil) joined us on bass. We’d gotten introduced to him via Mickey Cassidy and Big Tommy who lived in the same street as Drummer. The lineup then became JJ (vcls), Drummer (drms), Stephen Bloomer (gtr), Dil (bass), myself (gtr/vcls). We then started gigging. We played a bunch of gigs in Belfast with this lineup – Jules nightclub a few times (once on a bill with Doomed Youth, once with someone else I can’t remember), The Orpheus, Queens Speakeasy. Dil left after a while, I can’t recall why exactly, and then Paul Tohill joined on bass and we continued to gig.
I remembered being well impressed by Paul as he had real musicality and could really play – something the rest of us were still struggling with at the time. We developed a pretty solid set, again with JJ being the main writer. The Clash, Jam and Kinks covers had long been dropped but we started doing two other covers pretty regularly – The Door’s “Break on Through” that we reduced to a 2 chord fuzz/thrash nightmare and The Cramps’ “New Kind of Kick”. We veered closer to psychedelia than punk in my mind – I was certainly in love with my Big Muff fuzz pedal and freeform noise/feedback. If I recall correctly Stuart Balie interviewed us in the stairwell after a gig in Jules’ but because we’d had a few pints we could only tell him that our main influence was The Bay City Rollers. I could be dead wrong about that!!
At a certain point, for some nonsense reason, we decided that Stephen would have to go as we didn’t think he could play well enough. None of us could play well enough! We did not handle this at all well. Another band, The SpoonFed Sofa, had a gig at The Orpheus and all of us, minus Stephen, got up and played a support set with him sitting there. It’s something I regret still as it was just a shitty, shitty, shitty way to treat a friend. We gigged around a bit more with the reduced lineup but I really can’t remember how many gigs we did. We seemed to run out of steam and I stopped in the summer of 1985 – I THINK because I was getting ready to move to Leeds but maybe we were just done. The group continued on a bit after that but you’d need to get that from one of the others. I have very fond memories of OFA in that period –JJ had some real songwriting talent (that we tended to drown with noise) and Paul Tohill added a great musical spine to the band.
In November 2013, JJ, Drummer, Stephen, Paul T and myself all got together again for a day in Rinky Dink rehearsal studios in Belfast – our first time together in a room for over 27 years. We blew off a few cobwebs, realised we were better than we thought we would be, decided that we should do it again and are now looking to play more/create more together in 2014. Life’s too damn short to not do the things you love with real mates.
Paul Kerr 04/01/14