Page 2. New musical directions…and the Loose Scratch String Band 1972-6
Band music was on hold for me while at Uni 1966-69. However, these were still formative years in that my tastes changed from pop to folk, blues and country. I was influenced by living with Noycey and, through him, meeting Jack Harvey, a great singer/guitarist and, later, songwriter. I didn’t have a bass but I had a 12-string guitar, and Pud and I would sometimes improvise guitar and empty beer box blues (after we had emptied the beer box of course!).
When I returned to Mildura to teach in 1970 I didn’t get back into a band but stayed in touch with Noycey and Jack. We were listening to people like Bob Dylan, Fred Neil, Jerry Jeff Walker, Tom Rush, Gordon Lightfoot, Arlo Guthrie and groups like the Band and the Byrds. Momentum was building to do something ourselves!
We had met Glen Tucker. Glen was in Teacher’s College in Ballarat, but occasionally we could all get together and jammed. Noycey had found me a double bass, so I was able to return to bass and play acoustically with the others. Glen was a singer/guitarist with a similar taste in music to us. From time to time, Glen, Jack, Noycey and I would get together and play.
Buronga Pop Festival, 1972
Noycey’s building business was asked to build toilets for a pop festival at Buronga, across the river from Mildura. He spoke to the organisers and got us a gig. Jack suggested the name of the band: “The Loose Scratch String Band”. Loose Scratch is a Damon Runyan term for idle money. We put together an acoustic set and took to the stage. It was just coming on dark after a hot dusty day for the punters, and we just seemed to create a mood for them to respond to. We went down well, and that was all the encouragement we needed to say “hey, can we keep this going somehow?”
I moved from Mildura to teach in Beechworth in 1973, but we all stayed in touch. I would visit Jack in Numurkah before he moved to Ballarat, Noycey in Mildura and they came to Beechworth once or twice. I bought a small Tandberg reel-to-reel recorder and amused myself by recording 12-string guitar, bass and vocal tracks. The start of an interest in recording!
We had couple of gigs playing at jails (Bendigo and Beechworth)–a captive audience as they say.
Noycey moved to Ballarat where Jack was living, I resigned from teaching to join them and Glen got a transfer to Bacchus Marsh. The Loose Scratch were coalescing!
1974–the year of the Loose Scratch
We aimed to be an acoustic band with acoustic guitars, bass, mandolin, banjo, harmonica, even a wash board! Jack stuck to guitar, later adding dobro, and I played bass while Noycey and Glen shared various other instruments and guitars. Jack and Glen were the lead singers, I sang harmony and Noycey grunted! We bought a PA system and a trailer to cart it all in, and started to rehearse seriously. At gigs, we would mike the instruments through the PA (and battled the frequent feedback problems associated!).
1974 was our prime year. We played around Ballarat, Bendigo and Melbourne. It probably culminated in a concert at Mildura Arts Centre.
We also played some lively New Year’s Eve shows at a pub in Marong and a memorable concert in Parkville with the Last Gasp Bluegrass Band. The Loose Scratch was more of a concert or listening band than a dance band. Our main appeal was vocal harmonies and choice of repertoire. We liked to have fun, and included some of Jack’s songs along with the folky/country/jug band covers from the people we were listening to. An added dimension was doo-wop versions of “Blue Moon” and “In the Still of the Night”, and some Elvis classics. Ian Huxley, a fiddle and mandolin player from near Castlemaine joined us a couple of times to give an extra instrumental dimension, but we would gravitate back to the core original Loose Scratchers pretty quickly.
Towards the end of 1974 it was crunch time for the Loose Scratch. I had decided to travel to Europe with my girlfriend (Bernadette) in 1975, Glen’s marriage had broken up and he moved to Melbourne, and Noycey’s guitar-making business was really taking off as he established himself as one of Australia’s foremost luthiers. The Loose Scratch did not finish so much as go “on-hold” for 1975. We tried to resurrect when I returned from overseas late in the year. Glen and I were living in Melbourne, Noycey and Jack in Ballarat, but distance and I suppose the realisation that we were not going to commit to music as serious careers resulted in us playing our last gig early in 1976 in Hepburn Springs. It was great fun while it lasted!
Greenshed Music 