The Surgical Wars Story

Stooges noise obsession, haphazard stage presence, tendency to throw guitars and drumsticks around. 

They came, they saw, they split up after six gigs. Ah well, for all you 80's nostalgia fans here are the Surgical Wars:

The Surgical Wars were: Stephen Simpson - The singer, Ian Cargill - the guitar player, Bill Gimmix- the Drummer and Tom Reid - the bass player.

Special Note: The more observant amongst you will have noticed that it's Bill holding the bass on the pic on the other page. This is due to the fact that we only have these pics of the band and have to use what we have!

The Surgical Wars were formed as a result of the disintegration of the Cassette Tape Trees. Guitarist Ian, occasional vocalist Stephen and bass player Tom were determined to do something completely different. The very beginnings of the band were in December 1985 in Sang Place, Kirkcaldy. Ian, Stephen and Tom got together in Tom's house to plan and look for a drummer. Quickly a drummer emerged in the form of Gavin from the drama students course at the Tech. They had one practice and things seemed to go OK. The band then planned their set list and tried to figure out what sort of noise they were going to make. 

Then the strangest thing happened. Stephen announced that Bill Gimmix, bass player of the legendary Gimmix, was a drummer as well as a bass player and he was looking for a band to play drums in. Tom and Ian being only 19 always looked up to the Gimmix (Bill was in his mid 20's a huge age gap at the time) and could not believe that; a. Bill could play drums, and b. he really wanted to be in a band with them. A crisis meeting was held as Tom still wanted Gavin to play in the band, but Stephen persuaded the others that, as Bill was a famous local figure on the scene, and ran loads of alternative discos, he could get us gigs and it didn't really matter if he could play drums or not, as Tom couldn't really play bass. 

This seemed to have a certain logic and Bill joined the band. The band first practiced in January 1986 at the old haunt of the Crucified Brains and Cassette Tape Trees , the St Clair Halls. Tom had borrowed for the day Chez's (the bass player of the Crucified Brains) bass amp and that made even him sound OK. Bill turned out to be an excellent drummer (apart from his habit of dropping drumsticks) and the line up was settled. 

Stephen and Tom then really hit the big time in an interview with the Tech's "rag mag" "Private Parts" (see page 1 of the image archive). This interview annoyed Cameron no end as they referred to Cassette Tape Trees as the "Cameron Campbell Experience", Cameron was not amused. 

The band had another four practices and reckoned, not unreasonably, that they were ready to play a gig. One quickly appeared in the form of the 1986 Kirkcaldy College of Technology Charities concert (see page 1 of the image archive for the poster). This year it was not held at Bentleys where the Crucified Brains had played (probably too much for the bouncers) but was held at the Tech itself. 

There are a million stories of this day (Friday the 21st of February 1986), it was an eventful experience. The bands advertised on the poster largely didn't turn up and, as it was supposed to go on in the afternoon as well as the evening, there was a lot of time to fill. It was really the afternoon that was badly hit, with the great exception of Political Asylum  who played a brilliant set to about 10 people. I remember a band from somewhere like Windygates playing twice in the afternoon, they were awful enough to only want to hear once and did a truly dreadful version of "Paranoid" which I can remember to this day. 

Tom had a few beers in the Wheatchief in the afternoon (never a good idea) and was persuaded to form an impromptu band with Mark Nichol the one of the guitarists of the Ghost Train on drums and Davie Brown another guitarist in the Ghost Train and ex Crucified Brains on guitar with Tom on bass. Tom decided to do the Crucified Brains fav "Wipe Out" and then realised half way through that he couldn't play all of it. Amasingly enough Davie then wanted to do another and it was Souxie and the Banshee's "Spellbound" which Tom had even less idea how to play. I don't think there were any monitors and it was a large hall, so probably no one on stage could hear what they were playing anyway. Good thing there was hardly anyone there. 

The evening session was not uneventful either. Other MP3's made from recordings that day are one this site from Blue Vega (including ex Crucified Brains guitarist Rob Jackson), The Ghost Train and Domestos. There will be other stories from the day on these pages. 

The Surgical Wars played in the evening and were pretty rotten really. Four practices wasn't really enough before doing a gig. Stephen looked good though, Penny (ex Crucified Brains) did some great scary make up for him, very gothic. The guitar amp that came with the borrowed backline was broken and stuck on a strange flange effect, that kinda spoilt the bands overall sound. Stephen was away on the wrong part of the song in the opener "I Wanna Be your Dog" which confused the hell out of Tom and Ian. Tom got a two note bass line in TV Eye the wrong way round at  and Stephen didn't realise that the lack of monitors meant that the audience could hear him fine but he couldnt hear himself. This then led to him screaming every song out at the top of his voice, which must have been very disturbing for the everyone in the hall. Someone listening from outside (probably the best place to be) thought he sounded like Tom Waits. There is a tape of the gig, but I think it will remain hidden. Curiously enough the band got a lot applause that night, what were the audience thinking? The evening finished with someone stealing the bottle of whiskey that was supposed to be the prize in the "battle of the bands" part of the day. I don't think The Surgical Wars would have won somehow.

There was a picture taken that day by Angela McCourt, who organised the event, it's the only known picture of the band on stage and I would love to get a copy of it to scan (are you in cyberspace anywhere Angela?).   

Bill Gimmix used to organise these great things at the St Clair Tavern (known locally as "the Skittle") that were supposed to be workshops for new local bands. Bill did the disco and sometimes appeared in up to three bands on the same night (The Surgical Wars, Sphincter Control and The Gimmix). The Surgical Wars played two workshops in March 1986 (a slightly dodgy tape survives of the second, no MP3's are taken from this gig as all the songs the band played were played better at other gigs). On the first workshop that the Surgical wars played Tom turned up without a bass and borrowed Bill's. Unfortunately he didn't realise that Bill has left it tuned up to use with the Gimmix later on. Tom buggered around with the tuning no end which left Bill sounding rather funny at the beginning of the Gimmix set that night. 

The band continued to practice through the summer, mostly in an old garage at the Langtoun Coachworks. The photo's on the main page were taken there and as are the MP3's of Sick Things and Big Mince Pies which were recorded there on the 6th of May 1986. 

The Surgical Wars next gig was at the Abbotshall Hotel on the 27th of June 1896, at the birthday party of Jamsie, the singer from the Gimmix girlfriend. The Surgical Wars played quite well that night, apart from Tom and Ian trying to play Diane in two different keys.  Sphincter Control also played that night and Domestos turned out to shout for themselves. 

As if one charity gig wasn't enough, another was arranged that year at the WMCA on the 5th of July, this time I think all the bands turned up (see page 1 of the image archive for the poster). It quickly got dubbed Kirkcaldy's version of Live Aid (well we are generous people). This was one of the stranger gigs of the bands world tour of Kirkcaldy. There was no backline arranged so some had to scraped together on the day, Davie from the Ghost Train supplied a guitar amp at short notice. Bill seemed to get lost until the last minute, causing some concern. It happened on the same day as "the Punks Picnic" which I don't suppose you have anymore, however loads of punks from places like Kennoway turned up. Problem was that they were so stoned that they hardly knew where they were, let alone to appreciate the high-energy performance the band were trying to give them. So every time they finished a song, the whole room lapsed into an indifferent silence. This then caused the Surgical Wars to play even louder and try to get the audience to react. This then caused the audience to get even more lethargic. It all ended with Tom trying to play a version of "the Death March" on the bass and then trying to brighten it up with a version of "Rock Lobster" at the beginning of TV Eye. Ian cut his hand so badly on his guitar that he has to stop playing, leaving just Tom and Bill playing at the end of All to Hell; I think it sounded better that way anyway, drum and bass - ahead of their time. The dialogue with the audience and Stephen in the intro to take it Easy Baby was probably one from the heart from Stephen, also one of the audience seems to be ranting in the background. Chez's (ex-Crucified Brains) then girlfriend was the biggest Door's fan in the world and told Stephen never to cover a Door's song again. My fondest memory of the whole evening was Ian giving away all the leads that kept the PA working to a drunk man. The PA belonged to some awful heavy metal band who wore tight trousers and grinned at each other on stage. Sorry about your leads, but really........The MP3's of I Wanna Be Your Dog, Take it Easy Baby, TV Eye and All to Hell (WMCA) are taken from that day. The tape deck was in a bizarre place, on the floor next to Tom's feet and near the drums. Therefore the sound is a little bit odd. You can also hear Tom kicking the tape deck (listen for it before Stephen sings the lyric; "Lose your heart on the burning sands"). The huge crash at the end of All to Hell (WMCA), which was also the end of the set, was Tom, in the huff about the lack of audience reaction, slamming his bass into the stage, at which point one of the stoned punks in the audience woke up and said "watch your bass, man".      

I can't remember why there was such a big gap until the Surgical wars played another gig. There was certainly loads of practicing and some of the tapes from the practices are really quite good and loads of new songs were written. 

The Surgical Wars hit the big time with a headline gig of their own on the 11th of October 1986. This would be the longest set the band had ever played. The band also needed a support act and gave Cameron (ex-Crucified Brains and Cassette Tape Trees) his first gig with his new band All Days Fade. The Skittle was booked and posters made    (see page 1 of the image archive for the poster). The Skittle was having terrible problems with the Environmental Health at the time and had been made to install a gadget that cut the power to the stage if the band went over a certain amount of decibels. The Surgical Wars had tried to work with the thing at a practice and had found that they couldn't really play at any volume at all without it bleeping a warning message and cutting them off, so a way round had to be found. The gadget's Achilles heel was that it only effected the power going to the stage, so it was simple enough to take an extension lead from another part of the room. If you listen carefully to the MP3's made from that night, which are Diane, One Way or Another, Fall, That Man, Instrumental and All to Hell (Skittle), you can hear the gadget giving off warning bleeps to no avail at the beginnings of songs even at the volume of the band tuning up. Unfortunately the band didn't bother to tell the support act about this and they connected their vocal pa through the gadget's power supply. I can still picture Cameron getting halfway through each song and losing his vocal. I don't think he figured out what was going on as he gamely went right through his set with this problem (if problem it was) unresolved. 

For my money (and what would I know) the tape made at the Skittle that night is The Surgical Wars that their very best. They had been together for 10 months and now had no excuse for being under-rehearsed, which in truth, had been a problem at earlier gigs. The set was still loud, anarchic and unpredictable. The new songs and improved old songs sounded good too. More than that, the atmosphere in the gig was brilliant and that comes across well on the MP3's. 

The tape deck was positioned in the middle of the audience, so it picks up some classic comments. You can hear Cameron going through the "crashing of the fags" (that'll confuse the Americans!) ceremony with Chez at the beginning of One Way or Another. I love the shouts of "get the singer off" at the end of the Instrumental. Stephen wore a great red shirt, which led to all the shouts of "love the shirt". Bill was trying to get the other members of the band to say something to the audience at the beginning of Fall, but no one could understand what Bill was talking about, but Stephen announced "What's happened to Bill's drum roll?" anyway. What he was actually trying to say was "What's happened to Bill's drum rodie?" as he was chucking a away sticks at a fair rate and Bruce had agreed to pick them up for him. I'll translate "ghan yersel Stevie" when I find out what it means myself. Being from Forfar, I couldn't always understand what these Fifers were talking about.    

The gig as a whole was eventful. Ian broke a string on the second song (Diane) and played the rest of the set on his ancient Kay guitar. Tom decided to walk into the audience during Diane and half disconnected himself. Chez threw Stephen backwards over a table in the middle of the set (for why I can' remember). Tom chucked his bass on the stage at the end of All to Hell, bending to bits the plug on the lead he had borrowed from Clarke, the bass player of All Days Fade. We smelt burning at the end of the set and realised that one of the atmospheric red bulbs had fallen over and was burning a hole in the stage. Bill's drum stool collapsed right on cue at the end of the set, leaving him on the ground. 

Well, if you're gonna go out, go out on a high note. That was the end of the Surgical Wars. Why exactly, I can't really remember. It was maybe a feeling that there was nowhere else to go, and that the band could only repeat itself now. Full time work was beckoning. Certainly the band (with the exception of Bill, nothing seemed to upset him) had begun to get on each other's nerves and the band never played again after that night. 

A small coda to this is that Ian and Stephen formed a Surgical Wars mark two in the Spring of 1987. They were joined by Bill (this time on bass) and Chill (the drummer from the Gimmix). I believe this line up only lasted two or three practices. Bill had decided to move to London and couldn't continue with the band. In the event Bill never moved, but Ian thought that the new line up wasn't the same and no one continued it. There are some tapes of this line up, and I may get round to putting some MP3's of them into Cyberspace one day.  

There is miles and miles of tape existing of The Surgical Wars, mainly doing the same songs! Almost every practice and every gig bar one was taped. 

I'm sure, apart from those involved, the rest of the world (including Kirkcaldy) has completely forgotten this band. Or it's just a hazy, beer fuelled and smoky memory of a band amongst so many other bands, of a guy in a red shirt or a terrible version of an old Blondie song. However I hope I've been able to resurrect the memory of the band by giving it's final resting place in the wonderweb and that there are some people out there in cyberspace that remember them and are re-living past times, that are now too many years ago.        

Well, where are they now........

Stephen is, and has been for a few years, a happy husband and father to many children and lives to the North of Kirkcaldy. I hope Bill is still out there somewhere having fun in KDY, he must be around 40 now! Ian went on to be in many bands, including Who Cares? and the Schoolhouse and is now in the Cylinders who can be found at: www.mp3.com/cylinders. Tom, after a very brief spell with The Uppermost (who met with a similar fate to the Cassette tape Trees due to lack of drummer) decided that he wasn't very musical anyway and formed The Pooheads with Ian in 1991, where not being very musical was a bonus, really......