Life after Jupiter
I started my drumming chaos in London at the tender age of 5 when I was required by my accordion playing father to bang the door with the palm of my hand while dad played war time memories to anyone who would listen. Gradually I got taller, so the pitch got higher ruining a promising career banging doors. I worked my way up to spoons and before long I was tugging at dads sleeve to buy me my first kit. It was a red sparkly John Grey Autocrat kit .
That was it, friends at school decided to form a band , I said I would join only if I could play the drums, they said OK and ELMTREE was formed. Robert Barnett on Bass, Oliver Chojnacki on Guitar. We had 2 singers, Andy Imlah and John Young. Later we found Ron Mazurkiewicz to play keyboards with us. The first song I ever learnt was “yummy yummy yummy I have love in my tummy”, we quickly moved to Jimi Hendrix and then I decided this is the life for me. In 1970 I left for London. Retuning to re join Elmtree in 1974.
Philip Edwards
ELMTREE was a great band and everlasting friendships were formed. It had various incarnations with changing bass players like David Kantec, a wonderful guy, great bass player but sadly he lost his life in a car accident after a gig. Like many good bands you eventually move on to bigger and better things. John, our second singer became JPY, we told him he would never make it,......We continued on with Andy Imlah on vocals. Later Jupiter started, with Ron, Dieter and me, eventually we found Phil Laycock.
It was hard trying to earn a living from playing Jazz Rock, so eventually I ran away and decided to try playing in a Pop Rock band, they had loads of gigs and when I asked them what type of tunes do they play they said “fast ones and slow ones” of course they really were all at the same speed, fast. I had a lot of fun with them and I even got paid a number of times. This was the “Lonelyhearts” This is a great clip from Channel 10 “Ambition” . Time to go back to London again.....
After a couple of years in London, I decided to come back to Sydney and joined the Loneyhearts again, some people never learn. There was a succession of cover bands, but one day Jeff Duff rang and was looking for a drummer. Jupiter musicians in the past had been hired as the core of his backing band on occasions to earn a few dollars, it was like old friends again. So the first ever Jeff Duff Orchestra was formed, fantastic musicians and not a guitarist to be seen, 2 violins, with Miss Helen and Violinda, keys with Freny Ardisher and bass with Sally Cooper.
I have a son and the parents at his old school decided we needed to raise money for the school music programme, what else but form a band. Innerwestlife was born, just as a fun way to keep the music flowing. So now I still play with Ron at Atlantic Studios on the weekends and we jam till our brains explode. Free form instrumental jams have always been something that I love to be involved with and hope to continue with for a long time to come. Who knows, there may be a second coming of Jupiter one day.......
JUPITER was for me a steep learning curve, the material pushed me to understand music from a different perspective. Discipline was required, never my strong point, however when I look back on the growth that took place with my playing and the absolute buzz of playing with such innovative musicians, it is , was and shall always be the band that I loved to bits. It was also a time of great personal growth and as such to grow further, I had to move on.