Loosefish kicked off at the end of 1993, when Colin Owen (guitar) decided to leave his current band 'Wanted' and start a new project. He persuaded Dave Jones (vocals) and Anton Hobbs (bass) - who were also current members of 'Wanted' - and drummer to countless local bands Jason Edmunds to join him.


Using Colins trusty Fostex 4-track they set about recording the beginnings of what would eventually be the bands first release - 'Ways of Escape'.

Meanwhile, bereft of a rhythm guitarist (and unaware that their singer was about to leg it too!) 'Wanted' auditioned Simon Darvell - a music student at Bangor Uni - as a possible replacement. Simon failed the audition, but struck a chord with Dave. 

Unfortunately they didn't swap details.

However, it turned out that Simon had a ridiculously memorable phone number and on a whim Dave gave him a call and said 'We've got a track that we'd like you to play on. Would you be interested?'

A late night visit to Colin's ensued, and Simon added a short guitar solo to 'Feed The Mouth That Bites' after a cup of tea and a chat.

The band was complete!

Rehearsals and more recording followed, 'Ways of Escape' was released and by May 1994 the band were ready for their first gig, ironically supporting 'Wanted' (for whom Anton was still playing bass!).

The gig was a resounding success and many more followed, until late 1994 when Colin realised his work/family/band balance was unsustainable and decided he had to quit. Shortly after this Jason also left the band due to increased commitments from some of the other bands he was in.

The End.

Er... not quite.

Undeterred, Dave quickly found a new drummer in Ian Cuniff and the new slimline Loosefish MkII spent early 1995 busily recording the 'Propoganda' e.p. in the cold back room of a pub in Abergwyngregyn.

Not long after this Anton decided an overdue phd thesis was more important than two bands and drove his battered Austin Maestro into the sunset. Simon's course at the Uni was drawing to an end and Ian was in great demand from other bands, so it seemed that Loosefish would soon join the annals of history.

The End.

Er... still not quite.

Cue the return of Jason on the drums and new recruit Lee Hughes on Bass! Despite the fact that Simon now lived in London the band still managed to gig quite regularly until 1997 (playing at least once as a 6 piece, with Kevin Robinson on rhythm guitar and Tom Kincaid on keyboards!) and produce the 'Never Say Why' e.p.

The last song the band recorded was an experimental track called 'Mantra' that included a Roland TR-707 drum machine, tape loops, an Ensoniq Mirage 8-bit sampler, some BBC archive sound effects and a heavy nod to the powers of random.

The End.

Except.....

With the 20th anniversary of the bands inception fast approaching, new things seem to be brewing.

       The early beginnings were on a Fostex 4 track cassette recorder, but quickly moved to a PC and software. Some songs are finished, some are not - the process of re-visiting them is too daunting! Some tunes are either demo material or just included for curiosity.



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