Pacific Eardrum

Rip It Up, Issue 7, 1 December 1977, Page 2

Pacific Eardrum

Ken Weir

Pacific Eardrum are six very excellent musicians. Four New Zealanders Dave Macßae (keyboards), Billy Kristian (bass),, Brian Smith (saxophone), and Joy Yates (vocals.) The line-up is completed by Isaac Guillory (an American and a superb guitarist) and Jeff Seopardie (drums,) and the only Briton in the band. At the moment, they are based in Britain, where they have recorded an album for Charisma. The New Zealanders in the band (except for Billy Kristian ) have mostly been working out of their country of origin for 10

years or more, and the experience they have gained in that time is impressive indeed. In fact, although Pacific Eardrum are not very well-known as yet, their combined pedigree speaks for itself. As well as the band members being involved with all manner of session work, the official Charisma biography given to me lists one or more of the band as having played with the likes of the Everly Brothers, Small Faces, Alan Price, Alexis Korner, Del Shannon, Chuck Bery, B. B. King, John Mayall, Buddy Rich, Matching Mole, Cat Stevens, Billy Preston, Cleo Lane, and Neil Sedaka. Currently, they are playing support to the Brothers Johnston around Britain, I asked Dave Macßae how the tour had gone. The tour as such, well the major part has finished. It was about 10 days, couple of weeks, and a lot of consistent night after night work. Now we re doing about three gigs a week, colleges etc, and that's going to go ahead until Christmas, and then we re going to Europe next year. We try as much as possible to get into the concert area. We re sort of designed as a concert band, not so much as a dancing band. "It wasn't till about a year ago that I myself started clicking to the fact that there was an actual New Zealand sound' coming out, almost regardless of style, and I can actually feel this ..." With a good album on the market, good promotional back-up from their record company and a European tour planned for next year, things look very promising for Pacific Eardrum.