WHY NOT first started off in October 1965 when Ian Scotney met up with Geoff "Mad Dog" Horgan and had a jam together and decided to form a band. Importing Neil Adams on Drums and Platon Georgiades on Bass they decided to call their band THE PSYCHEDELIC SCORZONERA. (Scorzonera being a Spanish name for Hash or Pot). Geoff Horgan wanted the band name Why Not but was out voted by the other band members. At the time Beat Music was all the rage, but these four lads were not into that kind of music but were more interested in Psychedelic rock that was coming out of Chicago and Detriot at that time. In March 1966 they changed the name of the band to THE REVOLUTION.
Importing a Manager to the Band they took on BIG GEOFF DULLEY who have performed in a blues band and who showed them the rope and found gigs for the band to perform.
In 1967 the signed to Modern Home Music Records a small independent label in London, England and released their first Single titled A Side I´VE GONE penned by Geoff Horgan (Mad Dog as he was later known to fans) and the B Side WALKING BY MYSELF penned by Jans Laine. The Single was quite a success and sold around 18,000 Vinyl Singles per mail order and at gigs of the band. Then was released their first long play Record titled "REVOLUTION 99" now available on Downloads worldwide. Many other albums were recorded and tracks released independently by the band on plain music cassettes and sold at their gigs.
In 1968 the Band changed its name once again to NEW LIFE having imported a new Drummer into the Band KEN (last name unknown) and Neil Adams became Lead Singer and on Keyboards. They were to record with this line-up lots more independent recordings sold on music cassettes at their gigs. Geoff Horgan /Later known as Mad Dog) was writing all the songs at that time and they were recording hundreds of tracks in Neil´s garage or front room on 4 track and 8 track tape machines. A lot of those tracks are now available under New Life, The Revolution, and Why Not on downloads. They were turning out what one could call a new album nearly every week, a massive amount of tracks which WHY NOT now producer Dirk Buro at DB Tonstudio is now re-mastering for a series of Why Not Re-Masters Series being loaded onto the Internet very soon on hundreds of Albums on downloads eventally.
In June 1968 as well NEW LIFE got to perform the now famous free open air concert in Hitchin in Bedforshire (North Of London) before thousands of hippies performing all original songs in psychedleic mode. some photos of that gig you can see in Photos of Why Not above, and in the CD Booklet from their Revolution Inc. Album.
In 1969 the band members split up with Ian Scotney moving to live in Australia.
Geoff "Mad Dog" Horgan went out into the wilderness and decided to take up playing lead guitar and performed with various other bands, including an audition for the band Yes which he got turned down for, and eventually teamed up with a band called TOAD whom he only performed 2 gigs with but very well attended gigs.
In December 1970 Geoff Horgan teamed up once again with Platon Georgiades on Bass and Neil Adams on Lead Vocals and two new members Rob Godwin on Drums and Chris Page on Keyboards (Cousin of Jimmy Page) and so Geoff Horgan got his way and WHY NOT was born onto the Rock scene, and so it is WHY NOT carries on still today.
Big Geoff Dulley took on the roll of Road Manager and WHY NOT got a new Manager Graham Rollinson (Penthouse Magazine) who had about 30 other bands under his wing and so WHY NOT turned professional and started 6 years career of recording and touring wth other well know bands. WHY NOT were told that they were never going to be the top band but were employed to merely be the support band for many other top named bands and toured with the likes of: Camel, Deep Purple, Argent, T-Rex, Taste, Stud, The Pretty Things, Colleseum, ELO, Grateful Dead, Formerly Fat Harry, The Who, to name but a few and any more. They were signed still to Modern Home Records who were now a part of a major record group, and recorded in that period from 1970-1976 three albums, The White Album, The Pink Album and The Orange Album, the original demo recordings of those albums now available on Downloads worlwide.
They toured all over Europe and the some other parts of the world performing their art of Progressive Rock music as a support band with some headlining dates as well, and two tours in the USA, and Japan.
In 1976 Why Not split after having made some impact on the world of rock music but their progressive art of music did not catch on so the band members decided since their record contract had come to an end to go their separate ways. All photos of the band were mainly taken by their then Road Manager Big Geoff Dulley and as a result of a fire at his house all of their tour photos were destroyed over night which was a blow to the band as six years of touring all went up in smoke overnight.
Some photos we retained but not many. If any fans ever saw WHY NOT perform and took photos we would be very happy to make copies of them.
in 1980 Geoff "Mad Dog" Horgan got the band back together again to record a new idea album and all the original members of WHY NOT started work on this new idea. Geoff´s composing had improved somewhat and they started working on the new album. Memebers would come and go recording this album and it didn´t quite get properly finished so once again the band split up and all the members went onto to other things. That was the final ending of the original line-up of WHY NOT from the 1970´s.
But it was not over yet by any means. Geoff "Mad Dog" Horgan still continued a career in music working as a songwriter writing songs for many other artists successfully and recording an album under the Why Not flag here and there with various line up´s of musicians as well as recording a lot of tracks that were never released which are now all featured on downloads today. (See Amazon WHY NOT under digital releases, mp3)
In 1992 Geoff met up with Reg Fellows (Producer of such bands as Diamond Head, Radio Moscow, Def Leppard, etc) ad who was also a big fdan on Why Not, and together they set about finishing off the Why Not album which was started in 1980. Together with the help of a few well known session musicians and Geoff re-doing some vocal and guitar parts by 1994 thew album was finished and ready for release.
But it took another few years before that album saw the light of day under going yet another digital re-master by Dirk Buro in 1999.
Four guys started the origins of Why Not in 1965 with a zeal to progress in music and now Why Not is in its 51st year in Rock Music with over 600 Albums plus to their credit most of which are on sale on downloads today, a band whose amazing output of songs totals around 6,000 tracks recorded and released, more than any other rock band in the history of Rock Music. It´s an amazing output of songs and music over 50 years in Rock.
WHY NOT were never the major label band with all the trimmings of promotion and publicity other rock bands received they always remained and Indie Rock Band recording and performing music of their own liking being free to record what they wanted to without being restricted by commercial output. Perhaps they might not of been the biggest name in Rock Music but they are still around releasing their art of Rock Music even today and as Platon Georgiades (Deceased) once said "Why Not is progression in every note". WHY NOT do music other bands only dream of doing.
Nigel Molden former General Manager of Warner Bros: WHY NOT is always ten years ahead of the rest no wonder they are never considered a commericial Rock Band but a progressive one".
Fast Eddie Clarke (Ex-Motorhead/Fastway) "We are the old school WHY NOT was around doing one takers and recording lots of tracks hundreds in fact and making rock history they might never have been the top band but they are amazingly still at it if you don´t know WHY NOT then you don´t know Rock!"
Why-Not
Tracks
1. Mods And Rockers - 4:41
2. Burning Up - 5:01
3. Don't You Let Me Down - 4:18
4. We Belong - 4:41
5. Who Are You? - 5:17
6. I've Gone - 5:09
7. The Revolution - 5:28
8. The End (A Rock Opera) - 8:00
9. Friends - 3:57
10.The Story Of Why Not - 8:16
11.I've Gone - 3:39
12.Walking By Myself (Jans Lane) - 3:13
13.Curtains - 3:44
14.Bring It Down - 3:04
All songs by Geoff F. Horgan except where noted
Why Not
*Neil Adams - Vocals, Percussion
*Geoff F. Horgan - Lead, Rhythm Guitars, Vocals, Keyboards
*Platon Georgiades - Bass Guitar, Vocals
*Rob Godwin - Drums
*Chris Page - Keyboards, Mini Moogs
*Ian Scotney - Lead Guitars (Tracks 11, 12)
*Pete Cooke - Backing Vocals
*Mick Pritchard - Backing Vocals
*Ritch Battersby - Percussion
Mari i find it strange that the reactions to your 2 blogs are so different. Rockasteria has far more resonance than Plain and Fancy.
ReplyDeleteBut where is the difference ?