One
of the crop of great bands to surface for 1992's Operation
Music Storm Competition 147Swordfish made
the finals coming second and impressing judges and audience
with their well-crafted sound and strongly melodic undercurrent.
Songs like "Love" are upliftingly pop while
other tracks such as "Hang" drive solidly with
it's distorted bass backbone and deep ringing guitars.
147Swordfish are melodic and smooth or poundingly tough
depending on where in the song you catch them - definitely
dynamic.
The band consisted of
David Wernham - Guitar / Vocals
Mark Tyler - Bass
Dave Deacons - Drums
The band cut an unusual shape live with the wiry frame
of Tyler standing motionless to the right, Deacons animatedly
enjoying playing drums and the hulking figure of Wernham
looming over his guitar, usually extruding rivers of
sweat.
The band recorded 7 songs with Rob Mayes and Failsafe
Records for the Avalanche and Good
Things project. Two
songs were left unfinished and one track remains unreleased.
The band were recorded live which included a version
of sublime new song "Freeze", also unreleased.
Dave Wernham was at times a difficult character to deal
with, but there was no denying his deft hang with a cool
melody and driving song. The band were performing a number
of excellent songs before they gave up 147Swordfish for
other projects, Tyler and Deacons to Salmonella Dub and
Wernham to his Sound Engineering, eventually touring
with bands like Shihad. As good a live engineer as Dave
Wernham is it's a loss to the pop world that he hasn't
pursued his songwriting any further. The band's last
performances were in 1994.
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"Love"
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