going, he was rushing to the front of the stage doing the Pete Townshend windmilling arm and being The Great Rock Guitarist. I used to think, “This is not the same person.” I think Brian’s outward character changed when he was in Queen, but his inward character stayed the same.’
‘Brian was always serious-minded,’ agrees Dave Dilloway. ‘He was never the life and soul. In 1984, Tim and Richard were the loosest characters and the biggest personalities. John was just in it for fun, and I was the bass player …’ He laughs. ‘And we don’t have personalities.’
As Hampton’s other musos passed their exams and headed off to universities, others stepped in to take their place. ‘People started slotting into other groups just to keep things going,’ explains Garnham, whose pre-1984 sparring partner Pete ‘Wooly’ Hammerton would later find himself in The Others. In the meantime, Hammerton and Brian May circled each other on the local youth-cub scene; two hotshot guitarists eager to outplay each other. ‘I wouldn’t like to say who was better but both were well above average skills and speed,’ says Dave Dilloway.
‘There was a competition to see who could play new stuffquickest,’ said Brian. ‘So when the new records came out we would all feverishly study them at home.’ A Swedish instrumental group The Spotnicks offered the ultimate challenge with their 1963 cover of the bluegrass standard ‘Orange Blossom Special’ and another, later, single, ‘Happy Hendrick’s Polka’. ‘We really killed ourselves, trying to play it. We’d make our fingers bleed.’ Only later did they discover that The Spotnicks sped up their tapes in the studio.
This revolving-door policy would find Brian occasionally guesting with The Others, and brought May and Hammerton together for a one-off gig at Shepperton Rowing Club in 1965. ‘Wooly’ handled lead vocals and guitar, with Brian switching to bass and Richard Thompson playing drums. Among The Beatles and Martha and The Vandellas covers and The Others’ ‘I’m Taking Her Home’, the trio tried their hand at a game version of The Who’s ‘My Generation’; a song that, among others by The Yardbirds, would signal a shift in direction for 1984 over the next twelve months.
But in autumn 1965, it was time for 1984, and its star pupil, to move on. Brian May left Hampton Grammar with ten O-levels and four A-levels, in Physics, Applied Mathematics, Pure Mathematics and Additional Mathematics. As being a full-time guitarist was not yet an option, May set his sights set on astrophysics, and was accepted for a three-year degree course in Physics and Infra-Red Astronomy at London’s Imperial College of Science and Technology. Richard had already been working for some time, but John took a job at the BBC, Dave headed off to study electronics at Southampton University, and Tim enrolled on a graphics course at Ealing Technical College and School of Art.
Before Imperial College, though, Brian paid for a new amp by taking a summer-holiday job at the Guided Weapons Research Centre in Feltham. It was a position more suited to his scientific bent than his previous holiday jobs: making windscreen wipers and doling out the wages at a fire extinguisher factory.
For 1984, there began a period of, in Dave Dilloway’s words, ‘rehearsing by letter’. Still, they managed to play most other weekends around the West London suburbs, plugging in at Putney’s Thames Rowing Club, Twickenham’s All Saints ChurchHall, Feltham R&B Club … A gig at Southall’s White Hart tavern gave them their first taste of boozy violence, when a fracas broke out in the audience and the police were called; another found them playing behind a barely-clothed female dancer with a snake. Later, they’d break up their three-hour sets by cracking jokes and fooling around onstage with plastic bricks and shaving foam; anything to stand out from the other teenage bands playing the same songs on the same
‘Brian was always serious-minded,’ agrees Dave Dilloway. ‘He was never the life and soul. In 1984, Tim and Richard were the loosest characters and the biggest personalities. John was just in it for fun, and I was the bass player …’ He laughs. ‘And we don’t have personalities.’
As Hampton’s other musos passed their exams and headed off to universities, others stepped in to take their place. ‘People started slotting into other groups just to keep things going,’ explains Garnham, whose pre-1984 sparring partner Pete ‘Wooly’ Hammerton would later find himself in The Others. In the meantime, Hammerton and Brian May circled each other on the local youth-cub scene; two hotshot guitarists eager to outplay each other. ‘I wouldn’t like to say who was better but both were well above average skills and speed,’ says Dave Dilloway.
‘There was a competition to see who could play new stuffquickest,’ said Brian. ‘So when the new records came out we would all feverishly study them at home.’ A Swedish instrumental group The Spotnicks offered the ultimate challenge with their 1963 cover of the bluegrass standard ‘Orange Blossom Special’ and another, later, single, ‘Happy Hendrick’s Polka’. ‘We really killed ourselves, trying to play it. We’d make our fingers bleed.’ Only later did they discover that The Spotnicks sped up their tapes in the studio.
This revolving-door policy would find Brian occasionally guesting with The Others, and brought May and Hammerton together for a one-off gig at Shepperton Rowing Club in 1965. ‘Wooly’ handled lead vocals and guitar, with Brian switching to bass and Richard Thompson playing drums. Among The Beatles and Martha and The Vandellas covers and The Others’ ‘I’m Taking Her Home’, the trio tried their hand at a game version of The Who’s ‘My Generation’; a song that, among others by The Yardbirds, would signal a shift in direction for 1984 over the next twelve months.
But in autumn 1965, it was time for 1984, and its star pupil, to move on. Brian May left Hampton Grammar with ten O-levels and four A-levels, in Physics, Applied Mathematics, Pure Mathematics and Additional Mathematics. As being a full-time guitarist was not yet an option, May set his sights set on astrophysics, and was accepted for a three-year degree course in Physics and Infra-Red Astronomy at London’s Imperial College of Science and Technology. Richard had already been working for some time, but John took a job at the BBC, Dave headed off to study electronics at Southampton University, and Tim enrolled on a graphics course at Ealing Technical College and School of Art.
Before Imperial College, though, Brian paid for a new amp by taking a summer-holiday job at the Guided Weapons Research Centre in Feltham. It was a position more suited to his scientific bent than his previous holiday jobs: making windscreen wipers and doling out the wages at a fire extinguisher factory.
For 1984, there began a period of, in Dave Dilloway’s words, ‘rehearsing by letter’. Still, they managed to play most other weekends around the West London suburbs, plugging in at Putney’s Thames Rowing Club, Twickenham’s All Saints ChurchHall, Feltham R&B Club … A gig at Southall’s White Hart tavern gave them their first taste of boozy violence, when a fracas broke out in the audience and the police were called; another found them playing behind a barely-clothed female dancer with a snake. Later, they’d break up their three-hour sets by cracking jokes and fooling around onstage with plastic bricks and shaving foam; anything to stand out from the other teenage bands playing the same songs on the same
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