.thermo.meter.
.thermo.meter.
Genres: oxford, UK
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About .thermo.meter.
The band formed in very late 1995 as a 3-piece, but with no particular drummer. As time progressed, Jock appeared, and found himself sat behind a drum kit, in between Alex and Dave, both holding guitars. With Distortion at the ready and inexhaustible youth energy, the WD started playing their first songs, 'Boo', and 'Freaky (untitled)'. After a while, their song listing grew to over 200, most of which were never used, but they were there, and that was all that mattered. On Thursday 13th March 1997, Willful Damage made their debut performance to a crowd of about 30 at 'The Sweatbox' in Wantage with Outbreak and Lunahead. Over-practising and huge amounts of nerves made the gig a disaster. The summer came, and the band decided to find a second guitarist. After an unsuccessful search, Jock went up to the front line, and the search for a new Drummer was now on. Al and Dave managed to find Rich, lingering in their school, and tried him out. You can probably guess what happened next. You can't? What a dumb-arse. He Joined The Band. With the new line-up, all but one of the previous songs were scrapped, the one being 'It'. Luck came their way, with a gig 2 weeks after Rich joining, at the 'Talent Extravaganza', a concert held at their school on the 20th of September 1997, raising funds for a group of pupils going to the inaccurately named Rock Challenge. Anyway, this gig went particularly well, and got the word of Willful Damage spread throughout the school. After that, the pupils still didn't have enough money, so they decided to hold another, this time being 'Talent '98'. Held on the 17th of January 1998, again, the gig was a huge success, thus boosting WDs reputation further. Another gig in quick succession came, this time at The Sweatbox once again. Held on the 30th of January 1998, playing to another small crowd didn't have a particularly positive effect on the band. The gig, being played alongside 'Oceansize', was absolute bollocks. However, they decided it was time to do some recording, so they booked the Dungeon Recording Studios near Long Compton, Oxfordshire, and spent a 10hr. day recording the demo. The Demo was their next 'project', as it were. They went around advertising and selling wherever they could. Oh, and getting it reviewed. After a while of practising, another gig came up, the venue being The Sweatbox yet again. This one, on the 8th of May 1998, was with Smoked Porcupine and Oceansize, and was, well, interesting... Originally, Rich wanted to play until 9pm, as they were going to do anyway, but when Jock, Dave and a few mates went down to the offie, they were slightly delayed on their arrival (by about 5mins). To their surprise, as they approached the Sweatbox, they saw Rich wandering in the general opposite direction of the venue. As the group approached him, he was saying that they were not allowed to play that night, and that he was going to the pub, to celebrate his last day of school. After asking the person running the gig, they found out that was a straight-forward lie, so off went Jock to try and rendezvous with Rich. When Jock caught up with him, he was saying that by the time they got back to the Sweatbox, it would be time for him to go anyway, so he didn't see any point in going. Of course, after weeks of not-practising and being generally uncooperative, this was the last straw, and Rich was now an official Ex-Drummer. As is obvious, playing a gig without a drummer is rather difficult, so up went Al, Jock and Dave, and they played an ad-lib, unpractised, unscheduled 3-piece performance. Taking into consideration the circumstances, it was an alright gig. They decided that now would be a good time to change their name, having wanted to for quite a while. They went through a few suggestions, including 'hwyl', but settled in the end on 'Thermo Meter'. As the summer holidays approached, so did their first gig on Oxford - live at the Elm Tree on the Cowley Road. This was on the 18th of July 1998, and all they had to say on the matter was that it 'rocked harshly'. The gig, supporting Black Candy and Cactus, lead to Steve, the gig arranger bloke, offering them a second gig if they wanted. Being an upcoming band, scrabbling around for any gigs they could get their mitts on, they took up on the offer, which will be mentioned here when it takes place, so watch this space... Well, you watched, so here's what happened on the 6th August 1998 at the Elm Tree: when our faithful friends, 'tha meter' arrived, they noticed a third act had been added to the night's entertainment - Fleck (Originally there was only TM and Apalla). Anyway, with this third band, it meant two bands having to do their soundcheck before Thermo Meter even got a chance to set up their equipment. This led to them having 5 minutes to soundcheck, and only a 20 minute set! As you could imagine, this obviously wasn't an advantage, but it gets worse - almost everyone who came along to the gig was there to see Apalla, and instead of being polite and open-minded, they all stayed in the other room and waited until they'd finished their set before entering to watch longingly at the Jamiroquai ripp-offs, Apalla. Believe it or not, something good did actually come of this gig, as I shall inform you in the following sentence. After the, ahem, so-called 'gig', as Jock, Dave and Al were waiting for their lift home, a faithful fan came up and asked whether they had a demo on them for purchasing reasons. Being the pessimistic boring gits they are, they didn't have one, obviously not expecting a fan. However, they did have one of their handily self-made flyers with a listing of their gigs to come, so they can only hope... After a few more gigs at the Elm Tree and the Dolly, supporting the likes of Ikon (from Warwick), Canola and an Irish-folk band called Warblefly, they finally managed to get a gig at The Point on the 23rd of October 1998. That gig was, as normally seems to be the case, a success; apart from the last two songs, when Alex's bass cut out. They're not too sure what actually happened - as far as he's concerned, "The Point happened to it". Just a week later, on the 31st of October, they were at it again, but this time at a Battle of the Bands at The Net in Abingdon, Oxon. To their absolute amazement, they won, by quite a long way, and got through to the final the following week (7th November). To cut a long story short (well, to tell the whole story) they were caught off guard again, and won, again. After a refreshing christmas break, the boys got to work recording a single, "Why Don't You Just Die?". Very shortly after the finishing of this recording came two gigs in quick succession, two nights in a row in fact. The first, on the 11th May, 1999, was at The Jericho playing alongside Mofus, and no-one showed up, but it reviewed. The next gig, on the 12th, was at The Bullingdon Arms, playing with The Rivals. Again, not many people actually went, but they played well, so it wasn't too much of a bad gig on their part, except they didn't get back in time to watch Spin City. Then came the summer. A gig at their local venue, the Sweatbox, was played on the 26th June before their first festival - Truck '99 on the 10th and 11th July, 1999. A good size crowd and a good response boosted the boys' morales and got in some quick advertising before their next gig, at the Bullingdon Arms on the 21st July supporting Mindsurfer, Kane, and GdStK. With the end of the summer came rain. Oh yeah, and the 'Meter aquired a new guitarist, another Mansun fan, and a very tall annoying person all in one go. This monstrosity (except for the mansun bit) is known as Jamie. On Thursday, November 25th 1999, Thermo Meter were eaten by a large hairy shoe. Thermo Meter - R.I.P
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