Home spare
 

Gloucester Heavy Rock Bands

Back in the early 80s there were two good local Heavy Metal bands, Tyrant and Hooker who became Idol Rich.

My connection to both bands was from being at school with various members, I was at primary school with the lead guitarist of Idol Rich and at secondary school when he formed Tyrant with another 6th former.

During 6th form and holidays from further education I hung around with Tyrant, and occasionally Hooker the predecessor of Idol Rich, for around a year Tyrant were their original line up with Nick on Guitar before he left and was replaced by Jim, at the same time Mark Kelser the original big nose singer joined, he also had the stage name of Mark Kelsa. This line up was the one which released the single, and the demo tape used for the album, at the same time Hooker still had Andy as their original singer and was of the period when Dirty Dreams was written. I tended to hang around with Tyrant more but still visited Nick quite a bit.

Tyrant then moved to live in a farmhouse at Down Hatherley about 2 miles from my house. They wrote and practiced a lot here, I remember waiting with them before going to Worcester for a gig to find that Pete had fallen off his bike (Tyrant rode around on Honda Superdreams - not much quicker than my tuned GP100). After a couple of years Gary and Jim left Tyrant due to getting disolutioned with the business, Gary worked for BT, Jim I sort of lost contact with.

They were replaced by Danny Gwilym and Phil Vokins, and carried on living at the farm house. Not long after they broke up.

The local band mantle then fell to Idol Rich as Hooker were now called, they released an EP with Lee Doherty (Lee Silver) His web site

The next singer was Mark Thompson-Smith, who stayed for around a year. by then I had purchased a video camera (the famous Sony HVC4000P & SL-F1UB) I videoed about half a concert of this lineup. 

The final singer was Snake and features on the Live at the Roundabout DVD - this was the last time I saw Idol Rich play and was one of their last ever concerts.

I videoed 2 gigs of Idol Rich their very last gig is the subject of a DVD.


Tyrant Discography

Single

Days at the farm


Idol Rich Discography

Working Girls EP

DVD Live at Cheltenham

DVD Live at the Roundabout


I have the Idol Rich "Working Girls" EP and the Tyrant single and Album "Days at the Farm" which features some of my photos. 

I have a few pictures which I will be uploading to this site in the near future.

Links to other sites of interest

Tyrant Interview  Danny Gwilym (ex Tyrant)

Idol Rich History (My picture)

Where to buy the latest CD from Nick Burr (ex Idol Rich, ex Tyrant)

 

Idol Rich DVD - this will be £5 a copy and I will give royalties to Nick if I can find him!
DVD Live at Cheltenham
DVD Live at the Roundabout

Tyrant Pictures
Tyrant
Tyrant


Tyrant

Tyrant
Tyrant

Tyrant - Jim Merrit 
Jim Merret

Tyrant Jim Merrit
Jim Merret again

Tyrant - Mark Kelser
Mark Kelser


Mark Walker


Mark Walker again


Nick & Pete


Nick Burr on loan from Idol Rich - Gary Adkins was injured


Pete Antonious


PA and Mark Kelser

Hooker (Later Idol Rich) Pictures, these are off negatives and don't scan as well as slides