The Rigg

The Rigg

The Rigg was formed at the beginning of 1966. Kenny and Stu from the Modes, Mick from The Lawrence James Federation joined together to a make a trio and Geoff, who was free at the time, joined soon afterwards. We played the clubs and "all nighters" (whatever happended to them?) at The Iron Door, WayDown, and The Cavern - where we were asked to leave by the Police on the "First Last Night". Mr.Wooller (god bless) was upset at our home made Leslie Cabinet

The picture was taken in London (probably by Paul Dixon). In the spring of 1966, we went for a sound test after Chris Curtis (drummer) from the Searchers saw us in a showcase at the Grafton Rooms (lock your grannies up - though they are looking nicer by the day). Geoff, who was the oldest (probably still is, sorry Geoff) got introduced to Tito Burns in his offices in Russell Square (appropriate? Russell - Russell ?).

Our meteoric rise to fame (supposed to be a joke) throughout Liverpool City Centre reached a climax when we backed The Graham Bond Organisation (heros of ours) at the Iron Door. Ginger Baker had just got his new (double bass drum) kit - VERY shortly afterwards, we heard about the advent of Cream - I bet he knew and never told us. email Mick Pappas using mick@intbis.com

The "recording engineer" was (again) Paul Dixon. The recording was on a single track tape recorder with a condenser microphone in January of 1966. It was in the cellar of 5 Arundel Avenue where we rehearsed whenever we could. (did we bring the house down? It has gone and was rebuilt)

Audio only

Georgia
Take me for a little while.
The Strut Around

The brick images are of our brick in the famous Cavern Wall.

October 2004 video - Keep on Runnin' (big file)

(smaller file)

EARLIER
I thought it would be a good idea for us to include some specific experiences and see how similar they were, so here go's nothing.
My first gig was with my cousin Yanni Tsamplakos, Dave Stephenson and Michael Mizlas in 1964. I don't know if we had a name but at the age of 14 I'm sure a name was a very important thing - I wonder if they remember the name . The club was in Rupert Street, Everton and owned by our uncle Danny. That was a great favour to get us started. Yanni and Dave who were from King David school, went on to form the Seftons and Worth and now the Mersey Legends (and a few others in between). I returned to our cellar in Hartington Road for a few years and played blues with some school-friends from the Liverpool Inny. I know the Seftons were aslo formed in Yanni's cellar in Sefton Park Road*.
test

So there we were, strumming and drumming in our cellar in Hartington Road with my white Olympic kit and a big old Selmar amp which everything went into. Mick Wallis on bass and I can only imagine that we advertised for a guitarist on the board in Hessey's and Alan from Anfield joined us. We knew a few blues songs and I can't remember exactly how things developed, but one day my mum saw a feller in our street with a guitar she brought him down to the cellar. He later told me he was more than a bit "apprehensive" of what he would find. He was Eddie Berry and he opened up our repatoire with more blues songs from Woody Guthrie and some local country songs. I still have some tapes of him and his girlfriend Sylvia. Later we moved to Arundel Avenue and painted the new cellar.
test

Things were sounding better and after my 13.5 inch snare skin ruptured for the second time and couldn't be replaced except by having it re-lapped with goat skin at Rushworths (at great expense), my mum decided (without any prompting from me) to buy me a new kit. We took the old olympic down to Hessey's in a taxi and came back (in a taxi) with a "gold champaign" Sonor kit. I remember we used to get phone calls from the shop when I hadn't been down to pay the weekly HP. They were very good about it.
test

Eddie had some pub contacts and I remember the "Blue Sounds" started doing paid gigs, I remember The Shipperies and The Clarence. It was about this time (and again I can't recall how) that Gordon Humphries joined us on lead, eventually Eddie bowed out and we got Joe, a keyboard player with a Vox keyboard and formed the Lawrence James Federation (LJF) and got an actual paper contract for four gigs at Hope Hall. Don't think we ever got another paper contract, but we did play around the clubs.
Mick Pappas, Eddie Berry and Gordon Humphreys >>>

Something happened - I can't remember what but the LJF disbanded and Gordon was friends with Kenny Parry and Stu Lynch from the Modes, who also at the time were disbanding so in January 1966, we three joined to form The Rigg.
test

EARLIER I thought it would be a good idea for us to include some specific experiences and see how similar they were, so here go's nothing. My first gig was with my cousin Yanni Tsamplakos, Dave Stephenson and Michael Mizlas in 1964. I don't know if we had a name but at the age of 14 I'm sure a name was a very important thing - I wonder if they remember the name . The club was in Rupert Street, Everton and owned by our uncle Danny. That was a great favour to get us started. Yanni and Dave who were from King David school, went on to form the Seftons and Worth and now the Mersey Legends (and a few others in between). I returned to our cellar in Hartington Road for a few years and played blues with some school-friends from the Liverpool Inny. I know the Seftons were aslo formed in Yanni's cellar in Sefton Park Road*.	test
So there we were, strumming and drumming in our cellar in Hartington Road with my white Olympic kit and a big old Selmar amp which everything went into. Mick Wallis on bass and I can only imagine that we advertised for a guitarist on the board in Hessey's and Alan from Anfield joined us. We knew a few blues songs and I can't remember exactly how things developed, but one day my mum saw a feller in our street with a guitar she brought him down to the cellar. He later told me he was more than a bit "apprehensive" of what he would find. He was Eddie Berry and he opened up our repatoire with more blues songs from Woody Guthrie and some local country songs. I still have some tapes of him and his girlfriend Sylvia. Later we moved to Arundel Avenue and painted the new cellar.	test
Things were sounding better and after my 13.5 inch snare skin ruptured for the second time and couldn't be replaced except by having it re-lapped with goat skin at Rushworths (at great expense), my mum decided (without any prompting from me) to buy me a new kit. We took the old olympic down to Hessey's in a taxi and came back (in a taxi) with a "gold champaign" Sonor kit. I remember we used to get phone calls from the shop when I hadn't been down to pay the weekly HP. They were very good about it.	test
Eddie had some pub contacts and I remember the "Blue Sounds" started doing paid gigs, I remember The Shipperies and The Clarence. It was about this time (and again I can't recall how) that Gordon Humphries joined us on lead, eventually Eddie bowed out and we got Joe, a keyboard player with a Vox keyboard and formed the Lawrence James Federation (LJF) and got an actual paper contract for four gigs at Hope Hall. Don't think we ever got another paper contract, but we did play around the clubs. Mick Pappas, Eddie Berry and Gordon Humphreys >>>
Something happened - I can't remember what but the LJF disbanded and Gordon was friends with Kenny Parry and Stu Lynch from the Modes, who also at the time were disbanding so in January 1966, we three joined to form The Rigg.	test