PROFILE---RESUME ---FILM FANATIX--- RED PILL--- ZORROS

The Zorros were an Australian rock band, formed in 1979. They were popular in the Melbourne music scene of the early 1980s, playing at venues such as the Crystal Ballroom , Exford Hotel City, Sydenham Hotel Richmond, Pier Hotel Frankston, Sorrento Hotel Sorrento, Piccadilly Hotel Kings Cross, Le Tote Fitzroy, Derby Hotel Nth Fitzroy, Katunga RSL Numurkah, Macy's South Yarra, Prince of Wales St Kilda, Duke of Edinburgh St Kilda, Roxy Sth Melb, 465 Club Spencer St, Tiger Lounge St Kilda, Bombay Rock Brunswick, The Champion Hotel Fitzroy, Barleycorn Hotel Collingwood, The Club Collingwood, Hearts Carlton, The Stockade Carlton, Corner Hotel Prahran, The Central Club Richmond, Bananas St Kilda, the Market Hotel Prahran, Geelong Hotel Geelong, The Rehearsal Room Hotel Redfern, The Esplande St Kilda, Floyd's Canberra, ANU Canberra, The Stockade Canberra, Mordialloc Club Mordialloc, Port Melbourne Park, Princess Hill High School, Brunswick High School, Arthur's Seat, Mt Macedon, Builders Arms St Kilda and many more that I cant remember the names of. ( Hotel Motel make you wanna  cry! )

 

                They released one 7" single on Au Go Go Records, "Too Young", which was an awesome piece of rebel punk-pop. Mixed by Tony Cohen, Greg Pedley and Nic Chancellor. We spent 24 hours on two songs, taking a raw drum track upstairs via Speaker boxes to a floor under construction. With two microphones recording a natural echo/ reverb for the final mix.( 27 years later Ive seen at Columbia Records in the US they have a room under their basement purpose built concrete room with speakers and two microphones! aka the columbia echo sound) The Song went to number 3 on the Melbourne 3RRR charts. And in 1988 an Album was released on Dreamtime Software. In November 2008 a Best of Zorros DVD is to be released.

The Zorros were "too FAST, too LOUD, too YOUNG " on a truck in a 1980 Port Melbourne park festival.

PUNKATMOSPHERE

 

calling adam five! come in adam five! julie joy,jarryl wirth, john smith from the suburbs!

punk gunk outside "NEWS" house Farraday St Carlton Melbourne new years eve 77-78

Mark, Wayne and Darrens band " the Proles "

Nic and Darren had done an impromptu surreal street performance in late 1977 outside the Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant in Collingwoood at Mid night that gathered a large crowd.

Nic was working as a roadie in 70's punk band NEWS and as Doorman at the "Bernhardt's Nite Club" foremely the "Thumping Tom" of sixties fame in Little Lonsdale St Melbourne and Darren was in "the Proles" a band that played with "News" at this venue.

They both ended up working at Ford Motor Co in Broadmeadows and met up again at a gig at RMIT

 

THE BAND

Saw three chairs on a stage once , this inspired us to turn ourselves into the Black Masks, borrowed a drummer and Alex Nic and darren got up for the first performance an impromptu jam at the little bands night some time in late 1979 Champion Hotel Fitzroy used to be a real violent place surrounded by commision flats care of the Misery of Housing, had changed for the better as the eighties came on. Put an add in the Juke Mag....
                        

Greg Pedley original drummer/ Auditioned on new years day 1980

played from Jan 1 1980-September 1981. Drummed on Single "too young"

Go the Black Falcon and the Falcones.

Listen for the roll he would play in Circus of anarchy!!!! Helped engineer drum sound natural echo on Too Young Single.

Went on to play in Wires, Real Life, Phantom Band.

Gibson Explorer 1980, Darren in mirror in 108 hallway, ghosty face in leg. photo nic.

 

The ORIGINAL line up......Alex Zammit, Nic Chancellor, Greg Pedley, Darren Smith.

Photo was backstage at  the EXFORD 1980, fresh and green! Played with INXS, Rose Tattoo, Z Cars, the Ears, La Femme, Marching Girls, 21 Faces, Degenerates, Brain Spasms, PFM, Corporate Body, and many more.

nic singin Port Melbourne 1981

 

photo by Linda Nolte appeared September 1981 ROLLING STONE with the caption "nic of the zorros revels in the rebellious"

 

1980 Alex Zammit Bass, under the colored lights, Exford Hotel Melb.(photo Sony king)

Z Mobile Man going to see god! we used to drive his HQ up the F19 to Donvale listening to the Angels first album. Met Chris Bailey backstage at Hearts in Carlton. Alex protected me from a beserk bouncer at the 475 Club by picking up a microphone stand and assuming an attack stance. Over half his friends were posties and in eight years I would be one, up every morning at 5am for six years.

 

EXFORD hotel Russel St Melbourne a peice of Olde Ireland many a night packed to the rafters.
 "Peter Hi Fi" our mixer would scream out "anarchy! anarchy! anarchy!" yes it was.

Alex tells me that Peter lives in Maldon.

Delores San Miguel was promoter of this wintergarden and crystal ballroom.

 

 First gig at the Champion Hotel Fitzroy January 1980, home of the little bands. Another promoter, Simon would promote the Market Hotel in prahran, one night La Femme were playing before us and wernt happy about it so they sabotaged every single dial on the mixing desk before our set and then their drummer nic apocalypse stood in front of me weilding a chair while the feed back filled the room He eventually took on and disarmed two policemen while on pcp so I got off lucky..Punk Lucky!

Craig had come from the Z Cars after Alex left.
Craig played bass for nine months in 1981 and on single 

. Meanwhile Single "TOO YOUNG" was at #3 on Indi Charts..

1982 Paradise Lounge Nic, Phil and Darren.Played some clubs sound was not right, apocalypse now was starting on another planet. Did a 2 hour radio show on 3 PBS. Concentrated on Four Track songs as we wanted to broaden our perspective and not play the 2 year old favorites.

This was a time of great experimentation, with out being restrained to live performance, too bad we didnt get to record Albums and do post productions, most recordings of the band are mediocre and rarely catch the live phenomena or the magic practice room warmth. And yet we are left with a great collection of four track recordings that I have remastered remixed and resung vocals to for the upcoming DVD.

 

POST PUNK 1983

Vivian's Party 1982 Ashgrove. Gary Williamson on Drums,

Gary helped free the music from pure intensity and into experimentation. At this stage the band had a couple of visits from Ian Meldrum Count Down Host, who had shown an intrest in progress of the band, we were trying to rise above the punk poverty line. One night at a party at Molly's house Nic and Darren were standing in the kitchen carving a huge leg of Ham and looked up next to them was a White Album signed by all the Beatles. the Album contains the song Piggies and the connection was not lost on them. Most of the music industry were piggies in their starched white shirts. , thankfully CD burning shook their crown and rattled their jewelry!

At about this time at a hotel in Prahran  the Zorros refused to leave the stage after some particularly bad mixing by some unknown standin, the crowd gathered around as the PA was turned off, the crowd packed in tighter, the lights were turned to house lights and our manager Delores San Miguel pleaded with us to stop, a virtual shoot out / mexican standoff occurred and the Zorros were propelled into the underground as she was the promoter for many venues and knew the rest ( and understandably upset with us ). This would lead to the Zorros remnants moving to Sydney in 1984 (Darren and Nic). The cultural cringe is alive and well. Eventually the power was turned off and we played an acoustic song, Rebels without a manager! Darren's brother (ex Proles) Wayne was playing drums that night.

1983 season.... very intense Gold Top Hunters....Nic, Gary, Darren...(photo Sonya King).Nic had taken up the bass as a last minute option and taken the band back to a AC/DC style of bass playing, ( with a back beat narrow and hard to master) Did some wild gigs down at Frankston's Pier Hotel and Sorrento Hotel, also inner city hotels in Carlton Collingwood and Richmond. Gave out communal Mushrooms from the pulpit stage at the tote punters came later to tell me of their Visions the unearthly phasing We were young and free. trytoplaybassforthefirsttimetoFeveronpsylocybinsorrento!

 

Article from Melbourne Herald by Johnathan C.

Sydenham Hotel Richmond 26 week Residency - Nic on Gibson SG Bass,

Someone must have been smoking in front of the photographer! At this venue the Zorros learnt an improvising method of playing songs live. They were never really far from being Poetic Punk with an ongoing desire to grow out of their presumed style like shedding snake skin, when faced with the Industry of Music these guys would be the Picket line" out there"! At the Sydenham it could be four sets a night, had to experiment and develope new songs on stage, some good crowds very friendly and pretty relaxzed.

 

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1983 Coburg Party, Christine Bass, Gary Williamson drums, Nic Vocals, Darren Guitar.

This was at Brian's House he grew a beard and laid carpet while we weren't watching.

 

Gary Drums, Christine(an illegal alien from Paris) Bass, Darren Guitar, Nic  Vocals ...at the Shrine of Remembrance Melb...photo Sony

One night at the Shrine after going on a Gold Hunt the cops saws us crawling out of the windows of Darren's 1960 Falcon, Nic had suggested that we were reptiles and the car was an egg! They confiscated a couple of bags that we had suggested were for toast and Vegemite and left us one that we rushed home with to outer space. They said they would take the goldies to forenzics but as they were going back to their car I saw they were like two earthly kids looking into a magic bag, and I knew they were going to take them !

 

SYDNEY 1984-1985

 

Arrived in Sydney July 4 1984, no maam were muticians err ahhm I mean musicians. Located a house in Pyrmont St Pyrmont. There were 3 houses in the street, a church with a drunken priest and dead Power Station with four huge stacks. Out my window was Darling harbour and directly across the water was the City.

Pyrmont to Darling Harbour 1984 photo Maurice Fletcher.

Our neighbours in Pyrmont were in for a shock, once they came into complain about the noise and found me a darren standing on a pile of broken glass laughing ?!! That side of the house were experimental noise musicians and not into the wild colonial boys on holidays from melbourne. I'd been going to Sydney every 4 months since I was Seventeen, I would explore the squats of Darlinghurst where one whole side of a street had its ajoining top back room walls knocked out. What a sight, such a long room that was more like a hallway. At 17 I lived in a squat in an old naval base opposite Luna Park. Pyrmont had squats in 1984 and they were pretty full on, most of the survivors would end up in Nimbin Byron and Lismore.

Floyd's Night Club Canberra Tour- Tim Bass and Darren Guitar.

Played with two lads from Canberra Tim Lester on Bass and Mark "Burger"Fleming on Drums, They lived in Bondi on the corner going to the beach,some nights we would busk at kings cross.

SYDNEY 1984 Nic micro dots under the Sydney Town hall and ex Pyrmont Power Station. Daniel Dilated.

A fellow gold hunter Daniel Smith played up and drums! Phenomenal Power and Interactive flow of Beats.....Rode a Ducati Dharma....played drums between 1983 and 1994, had a lizard called Raymond. Circa Lygon St Carlton.
                Standing in front singing while he drummed was awesome. I wonder who he would imagine the drums to be sometimes. He joined us after his band "21 Faces" split. One night we played with 21 Faces in Redfern and we almost came to blows! What are you rebelling against johnny? What have you got!

                We lived together in Pyrmont then an infamous squat at 221 Bourke St. Darling it hurts. The place had been fire bombed and the roof was missing from the lounge room so you could see into the room above where a complete set of our furniture was suspended in mid air by strings where there had once been a floor. We could stand in darkness on the rim of what was left of the second floor and peer at the visitors below who would be invariably in awe of the floating furniture. In the lounge room there was no furniture and in the fire place was a copy of "Brain Salad Surgery"! Very real, very surreal. The Bourke St Darlinghurst Block of Houses ended up in a film we saw by accident years later called Bliss. Daniels room on basement level was completely spray painted in colors! Shower was outside in the yard,

I remember one morning we had our block and the cars were going up and down outside and we were so primitive living right next to the main road of civilization. one of those raw moments, like being in mid air and jumping higher than the patroling police car through the botanic gardens, the occupants were stunned by the sight and decided quickly it was'nt real, a man with a black Heart on Serenty Tranquility and Peace should be left alone.

Up the road was the Oasis a legendary commune in the first governors house. It had about a hundred rooms and each with a different story to tell, became quite a distraction standing peaking in the governors garden like supermen, gazing out to sydney and her twisted exotic lost nights at the cross in the manzil room, at the back next to the cigarette machine where they would cut up their powders like women at the mirror, or her bouyant Bondi Royal Hotel. Tried walking through liquid legged while Headhunters( Evans ex ACDC )played,

Those waters run fast and shallow in sydney but its a great place and I met so many people like Michael Hutchenes. We were on the 13th floor of a motel in Kings Cross and were both looking out the window when we spoted a record below in the car park, so we went down the 13th floor elevator and found it was a pile of about ten records, the top one was a bootleg Jimi Hendrix and had the most outrageous Afro Front cover. Michael introduced me to the film Blade Runner while on the tv was his band INXS were getting 7 awards on Count Down. "Nobody knows how long they've got" he said reaching for the reused nescafe jar full of Hash oil.

Did a few lines of 'This is not a love song" with John Lydon New Years Eve 84-85 after being pushed on to the stage! Met Bo Didley , I said what do think of Sydney He replied "I cant Wait to get back to the States" Went into Steve Kilby's Wardrobe and my eyes survived, so many paisley shirts. Would watch Headhunters with original ACDC bassist Mark Evans at the local Bondi Royal.

Lived in Pyrmont next to the old power station behind Pier 13. Met Matt Dillon while he was making "Rebel" a world war 2 film at Pier 13, after they were finished Filming we swiped all the hundreds WW2 set sandbags and  insulated our practice room in them.

We played some gigs in Sydney at Kings Cross, I can remember the last song at the Picadilly Hotel on the last note I ran out through the crowd and through the front door onto the street and into the gutter to dry reach. Played in Redfern and did a tour of Canberra, Floyd'sNight Club being a memorable night. Darren was flying his guitar on stage. Went to dinner at the Canadian High Commisioners Mansion. After that tour I went to live in Bondi before bailing. Sydney fast and unrelentingly shallow.

Nic, Mark, Tim and Darren.

This photo shoot for the Canberra tour was with our last two dollars, we went to a photo booth in Bondi and squeezed two of us in took two photos and before the next shots jumped out to let the next two into the booth! Making this the cheapest photo shoot in history and the tighest! Pre photoshop using a photostat machine to do layout.

 

Universal Re-Entry Position Melbourne-1986-1992

 

Nic shows Charlie how to surf ! Yin Yangs anybody?

We played the final Gig at the Crystal Ballroom on Halloween Night 1987. It was a classic, the velvet paisley wallpaper and snake tiled floors and even though the band had practiced as 4 individuals we played as one wave of music. Truly a wholistic punk band if I'd ever been in one, this was the night we were able to surf our music thru the crowd, the late Stephen Rosenberg had handed out the yin yangs This gig felt like anarchy, the crowd went off and this Canadian guy screamed into the microphone HAPPY HALLOWEEN! It was like San Francisco in the sixties I have a Beta video of the gig its the most sex pistolish gig we ever did!

The GEORGE aka Crystal Ballroom aka Seaveiw Ballroom aka Paradise Lounge. This was the view from my last Flat in Melbourne.

1987 Prince of Wales St Kilda. Alex Bass, Gary Drums, Nic Vocals, Darren Guitar.

Zorros Prince of Wales St Kilda 1987

 

Posters by Pru Brooks, Darren Smith, Daniel Smith , Nic Chancellor.

The END - ZORROS 1993

 

Nic  - lead singer/songwriter/frontman/seer/sage/muller and packer! 6'4" Red Back Spider Smoker! His influences were Dylan, Doors, Sex Pistols, Springsteen,Lennon, Albert Camus, Elvis and Bon Scott. Also played guitar during 82 and Bass all of 83. sung on album and Single. 16 Z years.

Daniel Dharma Smith - Drummer. Influences were Killing Joke, King Crimson, Nuggets, Manson band, Lesley Blood, Gene Keupper, Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra. Daniel played drums on the album in 1988, learnt in the scotch band playing military beats for a laugh.

Darren Sirenica Smith - Guitar, wrote 75% of Zorros music and 10% of Lyrics. Initially inspired by Steve Jones to be chugga thick,ultra slick and tight with a DS1 Boss Distortion pedal and Gibson Explorer Guitar through a GoldenTone / Marshall Amp. His influences were varied from Saints, Ramones to Bach, and Beatles! ...Darren and Nic wrote over 500 original Zorros songs! Played Guitar and Slide on 1988 Album and Guitar on 1981 Single. A complete evolutionary! Could tune up the band mid song. Guitar Guru. Guide to other worlds of sound. Probably Alien.

Alex Ze Zammit - Bass Guitar and co-founder of the Zorros, played 1979-1980 and 1987-1994 / Rock Solid! built Mosfet Amps...do you smell that, you know, that burnt transistor smell..I love the smell of amplifiers at the Exford ! Alex had started the band with his bro joe and Harry Lindsay in Brunswick 1978, Nic met Joe at the Brunswick Unemployed Group and Alex said if you can sing the Stranglers song "Death and Night and Blood" you can be in the Band! Influences were Creedence, Stranglers, Saints, Clash,Boston,UFO. Played bass on the Zorros 1988 Album. Bounces Bouncers.

 

 

The last gig we played was the Esplanade Hotel St. Kilda Gershwin Room 1993, Daniel and Nic had serious motorcycle accidents, both being hit by cars. A Change in priorities ensured after 16 Years on the road. Both went on to have children...joy! and the band? Light years ahead of themselves they have a memory of mine. The Zorros lived on the edge of the golden sunset next to the Port Phillip Bay, high on arthurs seat they made a pact with the sun to stand still in time and to bring magic to music and it was good........

POST ZORROS
  The Zorros played for 16 years with over 500 performances and over 500 songs written by Darren Smith and Nic Chancellor. Nic has created "30 Light Years in the Stratosphere" a DVD compilation of 26 songs from the Zorros. The DVD intends to showcase the eclectic variety of music styles that their original fan base could not have appreciated and its Visuals/Animations have been created by Nic.

Nic singer lives in Lismore/ ByronBay. made some zorros film clips recently( user=touchesclouds )

Alex bass player lives in Campbells Creek Victoria, is playing bass in a band near Bendigo Victoria,

Greg Drummer lives in outer Melbourne,

Gary drummer whereabouts unknown,

Christine bass whereabouts unknown,

Darren Guitarist Great Gig in the Sky .Check his acidplanet.com extended music collection

Daniel Drummer lives in Caulfield Victoria. Driving a 28 ton tram (beware PD's)

These were the mainstay of the band personnel who played in the Zorros for more than a few months and are the musicians on the DVD.

Ride on .

notice the see through petrol gap, no good for easy rider!

Songs from the DVD "30 Light Years in the Stratosphere "

too young
let me love you
77
break of day
girl girl girl
party table
circus of anarchy
black widow spider
move out
Death Heard My Call
blue moon butterfly
Dance Like the Fire
El Zorado
leave the party
on the run
memphis
back to the front
I dig you
groovyland
celtic rush
High Road
Smoke Signals
magic moments
ghost train

 

el pueblo unido heras sera vencido !