Andy Dyehouse – Keyboards & Saxophone

In the 1970s I was at boarding school at Lichfield and my prize possessions
were my portable stereo record player and my small collection of LPs.  The
record player was made by Hitachi and the speakers clipped together to form
the lid.  The problem was that when the speakers weren’t in place the
turntable got dusty, so I made a cover with a timber frame with polythene
stretched over it.  Believe it or not this was a significant step up from
the second hand reel-to-reel player I had, which wouldn’t play at a
constant speed.

We all had our own collections of records and, as we had very limited
funds, we tended to avoid buying any record that someone else had. The
albums I bought initially were Hawkwind, Man, Yes and Genesis, but one of
my closest friends, Les Scott, was a Pink Floyd fan.  He had Darkside,
Meddle and A Nice Pair.  Like thousands of others, this music was the
soundtrack to my teenage years and I can still remember the excitement of
hearing Wish You Were Here, my favourite Floyd album, for the first time.

I’d started playing clarinet when I was about ten and for my seventeenth
birthday I had an alto saxophone.  At school my friends had guitars, a
nasty complaint for which there seems to be no known cure, and I jammed
with them from time to time.

After I leaving school, I returned home to Wombourne and one day met Chris
Clowsley, who suggested I joined him and a number of others for a jam.  The
first song we played was the Rolling Stones’ Brown Sugar.  This led on to
getting involved in a number of local bands, such The King Spiders, The
Corridor Club, Death by Chocolate and The Blue Room.  At various times I
played in bands with Chris Clowsley, Andy Baker and Carl Jones. Early on I
bought a Casio keyboard, with mini keys, and learned to play enough to
graduate to a Yamaha synthesiser, with full size keys, and play in the
bands.

Towards the end of the 80s, the band I was in fell apart and I took a short
break for 15 years.  Then in 2005 I had a phone call from Andy Baker asking
if still had the keyboards and whether I was interested in joining a Pink
Floyd tribute band. I wasn’t convinced, but thought what harm can it do
and agreed to go to a rehearsal…I was hooked all over again.

Best Gig? Difficult, as there have been some lots of really good ones, but
the Wyeside, Builth Wells, The Altrincham Garrick and The Theatre on the
Steps, Bridgnorth stand out.

Best Darkside moment? Taking a bow with my arm round the legend that is
Stevie G. It’s like hugging a warm, wet sponge.

Fav Track? Shine On You Crazy Diamond… no Time… or perhaps Welcome to
the Machine…could be Echoes..or Dogs…ask me again tomorrow.

Equipment

• Keyboards
• Korg CX3 drawbar organ
• Roland RD300SX stage piano
• Roland Juno 106 synthesiser
• Emu synthesiser module
• Korg G4 Rotary Speaker Simulator

Saxophone

• Pan American Tenor