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Eugene Carnan - Eugene Carnan 1972 (UK, Hard Blues Rock, Heavy Psychedelic Rock) The rock band “Eugene Carnan” was formed in the early 70s in Rhonda Valley (South Wales). The musicians were friends and decided to perform in a trio format. They were part of a movement that saw hard rock begin to metalize steadily. At first they played a typical set of cover versions of the songs “Black Sabbath”, “Wishbone Ash”, “Blue Cheer”. However, they quickly began to compose and perform their own songs, which could be described as melodic, based on riffs rock. These songs became the core of their live performances and the group acquired few but loyal fans. In September 1971, they took part in the “Best New Band” competition organized by the magazine “Melody Maker”. At the beginning of 1972, their demo was recorded in a small studio, and then in London they made four demonstration acetate discs at Eden Studios. Then a few months later, Mickey Williams decided to leave the band. Having auditioned several possible bassists, no replacement was found for him and they fell apart. In May 2011, when the German record company “Shadoks” discovered one of the demo discs, it released a vinyl record in limited edition...... In September 1971 Eugene Carnan entered a UK -wide competition for “Best New Band“ run by the famous Melody Maker magazine. The competition took place in regional venues all over the UK and the South Wales heat was held in a Club in Caerphilly - a town famous for it's ancient Castle, it's Cheese and later to be the home of the Manic Street Preachers. Each band was asked to play 3 numbers. We decided to perform our own compositions rather than covers and so we played : “I Found Out“, “Blues Thing“ and '“Mountain“. We took care in the choice of songs to balance the pace and feel to try to capture the essence of a Eugene Carnan live gig in a 12 minute slot. We had even written 'Blues Thing' especially to play at this competition because we hadn't up to then had any original slow numbers. When the results of the heat were announced we were very disappointed not to have been selected to go though to the final. However, as we were packing up we were approached by a guy who introduced himself as Wayne Williams and said he had a small recording studio and he was interested in recording us. Wayne's offer was to record a demo of the band for free then he said he would try to get some record companies interested. If he did we could discuss terms then. Of course our initial reaction was sceptical and wary because there were so many stories of bands getting ripped off. However, what made us change our mind was that Wayne mentioned that he was backed by a gentleman called Major Arthur Kenny. This name meant nothing to the other band members but it did to me. Major Kenny was the musical director of The Cory Band, one of the UK's top league brass bands, which was based in the Rhondda . My father played cornet in Cory Band for many years and I had also played a number of sessions with the band and had been a member of the Cory junior band. Because of this connection we agreed to go along with Waynes suggestion. However, it was many months later that Wayne contacted us again and we went over to his studio in Risca, Monmouth on Sunday 26th March and the following Friday 31st March which was Good Friday and Bank holiday. These few weeks in March were one of the busiest ever for the band. I have an accounts book that shows we had gigs in Teorchy on both the 24th and 25th and in Crumlin on the 30th March. Wayne's studio was in a converted stand-alone garage set away from any houses. Inside a small control room had been built in one corner and the rest of the space was the recording area. The walls were covered with cardboard egg boxes - a popular do-it-yourself form of sound proofing. Wayne's recording equipment consisted of a Sony Stereo 2-track tape recorder and a small mixer. The band set up and we had a two microphone to record the guitars - one for each amplifier and there were 3 mics for the drum kit - for the kick, snare and an overhead mic. Very simply we played the tracks live – exactly as we did in gigs with Adrian signing along as well but without microphone so that Wayne could recorded the instruments on one channel without any vocals. Then Adrian would 'overdub' the vocals onto the second track. Of course with this equipment there could be no post-production editing or effects added afterwards. So what you hear is what we really did play and sound like in that place in 1972. Tracks: All tracks written by Adrian Llewellyn, Michael Williams, Michael Evans except where noted. 01. Confusion - 0:00 02. I Found Out (Adrian Llewellyn) - 4:35 03. People In The City - 8:05 04. Black As Night (Adrian Llewellyn) - 13:19 05. Blues Thing - 16:44 06. On Your Mind - 20:54 07. Mountain - 25:12 Personnel: - Adrian Llewellyn - lead guitar, vocals - Michael Williams - bass - Michael Evans - drums
