Who are Loob?
We are Richard and Simon, a couple of guys who used to be in a band a long while ago and are now a pair of old duffers who like to get together once a week to play and record cover versions of some of our favourite songs.
One of our aims, apart from having a good laugh, is to try to vary the style of songs we cover because we feel this keeps us fresh and also can take us in directions we wouldn't normally go and this in turn pushes us to better ourselves as musicians. When you listen to the tracks we have posted on this site I think you will agree that they are very varied, ranging form Slipknot to The Shadows, Green Day to Gangnam Style and quite a lot in between.
One of our aims, apart from having a good laugh, is to try to vary the style of songs we cover because we feel this keeps us fresh and also can take us in directions we wouldn't normally go and this in turn pushes us to better ourselves as musicians. When you listen to the tracks we have posted on this site I think you will agree that they are very varied, ranging form Slipknot to The Shadows, Green Day to Gangnam Style and quite a lot in between.
Why Loob?
Well you may be sorry you asked!
When we first started doing this, some 25 years ago now, we felt we needed to call ourselves something other than just Rich and Si. So we set about trying to find a name for ourselves. After many attempts we were no closer to a solution. The problem was that we felt any name we should have should capture the true essence of what we were about, which is basically, to put it bluntly, two blokes messing about having a good laugh creating a load of old bollocks, and that is when we hit on it... Load Of Old Bollocks, use those initials and you get L.O.O.B. and that sums us up perfectly! So that's how we came to settle on the name Loob!
When we first started doing this, some 25 years ago now, we felt we needed to call ourselves something other than just Rich and Si. So we set about trying to find a name for ourselves. After many attempts we were no closer to a solution. The problem was that we felt any name we should have should capture the true essence of what we were about, which is basically, to put it bluntly, two blokes messing about having a good laugh creating a load of old bollocks, and that is when we hit on it... Load Of Old Bollocks, use those initials and you get L.O.O.B. and that sums us up perfectly! So that's how we came to settle on the name Loob!
Simon Fowler - Drums, Percussion, Keys, Vocals, Production & Exasperated Sighs!
Still to come...
Richard Thorne - Guitars, Bass, Keys, Vocals, Burps & FArts
Well where to start?...
I only started playing guitar, some 30 years ago now, when a group us decided that we wanted to form a band, before that I didn't really have any interest in playing an instrument. We already had someone who said they could sing, someone who had a six string and one guy had an electronic drum pad so that left me to play the bass! I was 16 at the time and still in school and working part time in Sainsbury's. I had no money , but I managed to buy a small amp and some crummy second-hand, three-quarter sized bass. The thing was useless, with a super high action and no sustain at all, but it made a noise and that was good enough for me. The rest, as they say, is history!
I have been lucky enough over the years to increase my guitar collection and I am now the proud owner of a couple of vintage Guild basses, a new Ibanez Premium SR1200 bass and, my pride and joy, a Gibson Les Paul 2008 Standard in Heritage Cherry Sunburst. Some people when they turn 40 go out and buy a motorbike or have a tattoo, me.. I bought myself a Les Paul!
I love playing my guitars and I spend as much time doing so as I possibly can, probably much to my neighbours annoyance!
I have never really had a burning desire to write and perform my own pieces (probably because I am not that creative), but I get a huge amount of satisfaction from recording cover versions and trying to see how close I can come to sounding like the original version. I would not class myself as having a great amount of musical skill, so trying to emulate the sounds made by those that do is a great challenge for me. It never fails to amaze me when we have finished recording a song and it sounds half decent that it is actually me playing, I suppose that is the wonder of modern recording techniques! My aim at the moment is to try to improve my guitar playing technique because I think that, although the end results often sound passable, getting there can be more good luck than skill.
Recording vocals is another challenge for me as we tend to cover a wide range of musical styles and I am not the world's greatest singer. I have a terrible habit of recording a song I like only to find that I can't sing it as it is out of my range!! You would think that after 25 years I would know better by now! My voice tends to suit jazz and blues, so you can imagine the fun we had when it came to singing Psychosocial by Slipknot! Talking of fun, that is probably the best reason for doing what we do, more often than not we laugh so much we end up in tears, we don't take ourselves too seriously and our weekly sessions often collapse into huge giggling fits. I think you get a sense of what our sessions are like if you listen to the end of 'Play That Funky Music' on 'Fingers Crossed' or 'Me and My Shadow' on 'Resurrection'
Who are my greatest influences? Well musically they are the late, great Gary Moore and Slash. Gary Moore was able to cross over from heavy metal/rock to blues and back again. He had such amazing tone and passion in his playing you can't help but be moved by it. Check out Parisienne Walkways (especially live), Still got the Blues, Empty Rooms, The Messiah will Come Again to see what I mean. What a truly monster guitarist. Check out the clip below to see him in action.
I only started playing guitar, some 30 years ago now, when a group us decided that we wanted to form a band, before that I didn't really have any interest in playing an instrument. We already had someone who said they could sing, someone who had a six string and one guy had an electronic drum pad so that left me to play the bass! I was 16 at the time and still in school and working part time in Sainsbury's. I had no money , but I managed to buy a small amp and some crummy second-hand, three-quarter sized bass. The thing was useless, with a super high action and no sustain at all, but it made a noise and that was good enough for me. The rest, as they say, is history!
I have been lucky enough over the years to increase my guitar collection and I am now the proud owner of a couple of vintage Guild basses, a new Ibanez Premium SR1200 bass and, my pride and joy, a Gibson Les Paul 2008 Standard in Heritage Cherry Sunburst. Some people when they turn 40 go out and buy a motorbike or have a tattoo, me.. I bought myself a Les Paul!
I love playing my guitars and I spend as much time doing so as I possibly can, probably much to my neighbours annoyance!
I have never really had a burning desire to write and perform my own pieces (probably because I am not that creative), but I get a huge amount of satisfaction from recording cover versions and trying to see how close I can come to sounding like the original version. I would not class myself as having a great amount of musical skill, so trying to emulate the sounds made by those that do is a great challenge for me. It never fails to amaze me when we have finished recording a song and it sounds half decent that it is actually me playing, I suppose that is the wonder of modern recording techniques! My aim at the moment is to try to improve my guitar playing technique because I think that, although the end results often sound passable, getting there can be more good luck than skill.
Recording vocals is another challenge for me as we tend to cover a wide range of musical styles and I am not the world's greatest singer. I have a terrible habit of recording a song I like only to find that I can't sing it as it is out of my range!! You would think that after 25 years I would know better by now! My voice tends to suit jazz and blues, so you can imagine the fun we had when it came to singing Psychosocial by Slipknot! Talking of fun, that is probably the best reason for doing what we do, more often than not we laugh so much we end up in tears, we don't take ourselves too seriously and our weekly sessions often collapse into huge giggling fits. I think you get a sense of what our sessions are like if you listen to the end of 'Play That Funky Music' on 'Fingers Crossed' or 'Me and My Shadow' on 'Resurrection'
Who are my greatest influences? Well musically they are the late, great Gary Moore and Slash. Gary Moore was able to cross over from heavy metal/rock to blues and back again. He had such amazing tone and passion in his playing you can't help but be moved by it. Check out Parisienne Walkways (especially live), Still got the Blues, Empty Rooms, The Messiah will Come Again to see what I mean. What a truly monster guitarist. Check out the clip below to see him in action.
And then you have Slash.. have you heard 'Appetite for Destruction'? Every track on there is awesome. Paradise City, Mr Brownstone, Welcome to the Jungle to name but a few and of course there is 'Sweet Child of Mine' the greatest riff ever written. How can you not admire someone who can create all of these great songs. Of course it is not just with Guns and Roses that Slash was inspirational, he continues to churn out great songs, first with Velvet Revolver and then on his solo projects and his collaboration with Miles Kennedy recently. Check out the video below to see them in action.
There are a couple of bands which have influenced me, for pretty much the same reasons. Both create really catchy songs which are pretty simple. In the early days this helped me a lot as I was actually able to play these songs and sound somewhat like the original records. This in turn encouraged me to keep practising and demonstrated that you don't have to be a Gary Moore or Slash to be able to play great tunes. The bands in question are Twisted Sister (probably the best act ever live) and Green Day (probably the second best act live). Two bands playing simple songs, very well. Check out a couple of vids below.
|
|
Vocally I have many different people I admire. For pure silky smooth baritone wonderfulness you can go wrong with Johnny Hartman (July 3, 1923 - September 15, 1983)
Karen Carpenter (March 2, 1950 – February 4, 1983) also has that same quality in her voice with a wonderful mellow vibrato
On the complete other end of the spectrum I really admire Corey Taylor's pure aggression and raw power. I wish I could sing like this.
But to wrap this all up, if I was to find a magic lamp and be given one wish I think it would be to have the ability and an opportunity to perform like the two videos below, both of which send shivers up my spine every time I see them but for very different reasons. Firstly Helloween from 1988. Check out this clip when it gets to 3:50, singer Micheal Kiske singing to the packed stadium, one foot up on the monitor leaning out into the crowd, just holding that high note on and on and on... Wow!
And then Eva Cassidy singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow'. Just one person, one guitar and that's it, spellbinding.
This was filmed by an audience member at the Blues Alley, Washington in January 1996. Only 10 months later Eva died, aged 33, from cancer. Eva's performance is a stunning combination of musical perfection and human emotion and it is so sad to think that someone with so much talent has gone so soon and died in obscurity without the recognition they deserved. The beauty of this song, it's delivery and the emotional knowledge that we know this was one of her last performances, it makes me cry every time.
This was filmed by an audience member at the Blues Alley, Washington in January 1996. Only 10 months later Eva died, aged 33, from cancer. Eva's performance is a stunning combination of musical perfection and human emotion and it is so sad to think that someone with so much talent has gone so soon and died in obscurity without the recognition they deserved. The beauty of this song, it's delivery and the emotional knowledge that we know this was one of her last performances, it makes me cry every time.
How did we get to Loob?
In 1983 Richard and a group of his mates, who were working in the meat department of Sainsburys, decided to form a band. The singer was a big Marillion fan and decided to name the band Jaded Jester. Unfortunately at this stage no one could play any instruments so Richard elected to play the bass as this seemed easier than a normal guitar as it only had four strings! At the same time Simon was forming a band with a group of friends who were all in the 6th form together. The band was called Extravagant Staircase and, with Simon as the drummer, created songs broadly in the style of Depeche Mode who were very big at the time.
In 1984 Jaded Jester morphed into Richter, a name chosen as they were now a heavy metal band and so loud that they would register on the Richter Scale, or so they thought!
1985 saw Simon and Richard brought together for the first time as they joined company with a couple of teachers at their school to form a group for a one-off gig at the 6th form leavers party. Following this Richard then left Richter to join Extravagant Staircase as a bass player and fledgling guitarist.
In 1986 Extravagant Staircase folded and Rich and Si joined a newly formed band called Reflections. Reflections were a cover band performing songs from the 50's and 60's. Reflections played together for a year, but eventually broke up.
Following this break up the majority of the band reformed to create The 4th Alternative. They added additional members and became a six piece (drums, bass, 2 x guitars, keyboard and saxophone). Again a cover band, but this time covering songs from all eras. The band practised hard and really started to get their chops together, they had some really good times, but like all good things, eventually this came to an end in 1987 when the band members decided to call it a day as they were finding it increasingly hard to get together as work commitments started to take their toll.
Si and Rich were enjoying themselves far too much to stop and decided that they would meet up once a week to play with each other (Ooo errr missus!!) and work on recording these songs buy setting up a home studio. 25 years later and they are still going strong. With just the two of them now having to play all the instruments and do all the singing this has lead to many challenges over the years, but they feel that being forced to undertake the roles of drummer, bassist, rhythm and lead guitarist, keyboard player, singer, backing vocalist and anything else which needs doing has pushed them to become better musicians. In addition to learning the instruments they have also had to rise to the challenge of becoming their own sound engineers and producers. Starting out by recording on an old four track tape deck with minimal equipment and, it has to be said little knowledge, to now working in a fully integrated digital audio workstation (DAW) which is a complete multi-track audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment. The technical challenges have sometimes been as great as the musical ones, but they persevered and are now fairly proficient working in this media.
In 2012 they decided to open up their music to a wider audience and create this website which will allow them to showcase their best tracks.
So that was the story of the first 25 years of Loob, who knows where the next 25 will take them......?
In 1984 Jaded Jester morphed into Richter, a name chosen as they were now a heavy metal band and so loud that they would register on the Richter Scale, or so they thought!
1985 saw Simon and Richard brought together for the first time as they joined company with a couple of teachers at their school to form a group for a one-off gig at the 6th form leavers party. Following this Richard then left Richter to join Extravagant Staircase as a bass player and fledgling guitarist.
In 1986 Extravagant Staircase folded and Rich and Si joined a newly formed band called Reflections. Reflections were a cover band performing songs from the 50's and 60's. Reflections played together for a year, but eventually broke up.
Following this break up the majority of the band reformed to create The 4th Alternative. They added additional members and became a six piece (drums, bass, 2 x guitars, keyboard and saxophone). Again a cover band, but this time covering songs from all eras. The band practised hard and really started to get their chops together, they had some really good times, but like all good things, eventually this came to an end in 1987 when the band members decided to call it a day as they were finding it increasingly hard to get together as work commitments started to take their toll.
Si and Rich were enjoying themselves far too much to stop and decided that they would meet up once a week to play with each other (Ooo errr missus!!) and work on recording these songs buy setting up a home studio. 25 years later and they are still going strong. With just the two of them now having to play all the instruments and do all the singing this has lead to many challenges over the years, but they feel that being forced to undertake the roles of drummer, bassist, rhythm and lead guitarist, keyboard player, singer, backing vocalist and anything else which needs doing has pushed them to become better musicians. In addition to learning the instruments they have also had to rise to the challenge of becoming their own sound engineers and producers. Starting out by recording on an old four track tape deck with minimal equipment and, it has to be said little knowledge, to now working in a fully integrated digital audio workstation (DAW) which is a complete multi-track audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering environment. The technical challenges have sometimes been as great as the musical ones, but they persevered and are now fairly proficient working in this media.
In 2012 they decided to open up their music to a wider audience and create this website which will allow them to showcase their best tracks.
So that was the story of the first 25 years of Loob, who knows where the next 25 will take them......?