West Texas Crude - the TRUTH!

Local band West Texas Crude will play the Hall Pavilion on Thursday March 13th - the National Sheep Dog Trials community BBQ / hop. Who are these elderly rockers?

It began in the lounge room in 1995 at Hugh Watson's house in Palmer Street Hall when Philip Williams (Wallaroo Road), visiting for the first time, noticed a guitar and asked if Hugh played. Hugh picked up the guitar and started into Neil Young's "Helpless" and Philip joined in with a pitch-perfect harmony and soon some mean blues harp. Philip's wife Carol walked in to say "you guys sound good – you should play together". 13 years later they still are.

They were soon joined by Andrew Purdham (Hall Street) who brought his amazing musical versatility with piano accordion, keyboard, congas, and mandolin..... not to mention the original t-shirt design. Some much-needed professionalism was brought when Stephen Webb from Murrumbateman came to play drums. A former drummer for "Black Feather" in Melbourne he had played with Farnham among others. Stephen also brought a series of mates to play lead guitar and bass, particularly Mark Thomann, at various times.

All band members had played in bands at one time or another (see early photos) and they brought an eclectic mix of songs.

The first gigs were "The New Blue Do" in the Hall hall and "Christmas in July" also in the Hall hall. Damian Schroeter (Victoria Street), then a young teenager, filled in on lead for some early gigs and showed the considerable promise he had (see photos). Videos from those early gigs show Hall residents rocking their socks off as the band rolled through "Born to be Wild", "Mustang Sally", " Midnight Hour" and of course "Gloria".

Practice was in Hugh's garage and the neighbours and animals on the Bolton farm were tolerant (see photos). Their gigs were local and loud.

Fame interrupted

West Texas Crude's inexorable rise to stardom was rudely interrupted when Hugh went off to work for SOCOG in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. He celebrated his return in 2000 with a birthday party "West Texas Crude Live at the Abbey" which saw Matthew Herbert (Palmer Street) joining as lead guitarist and learning 40 songs in two weeks. Matthew brought not only his incredible lead licks but also a voice to take on some lead vocals. Philip was noticeably absent having been sent by the ABC to report on troubles in Dili – nevertheless he did ring in the middle to sing a birthday song by phone (See photo).

The band's rise was further disrupted when Philip selfishly took a London posting with the ABC for almost three years at the end of 2000. Performances were limited in Philip's absence although he was sent off with a loud and somewhat rough outdoor gig by the dam on his Wallaroo property (see photo). Memorably rough but enthusiastic was an end-of-the-night rendition of "With a little help from my friends" (Cocker version) when WTC were joined by the House Howlers – the Parliament House Press Gallery choir.

Andrew pursued his musical versatility performing with several bands including Can Belto, a ten to sixteen strong a c'appella group that sings music from Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Balkan areas, plus a bit of modern comedy. Stephen joined up with other musos to form several bands and Matthew and Hugh went into the studio.

The studio years

The initial studio was in one of the rooms in Matthew's house kindly vacated by his daughter Rachael. Eventually Matthew built a room on the garage which became the band's practice place, retreat and "gentleman's club". Hugh dug out some songs he had written many years earlier and Matthew brought some much-needed guitar work to them. In 2002 they entered the ABC's PanAct competition and won with a song "Firies on the Line" (Words: Hugh Watson, Music: Matthew Herbert) which reflected the work of local firies in the devastating fires that had struck Canberra.

Over the next three or four year they wrote and recorded nearly 30 songs. Generally Hugh would write the lyrics and walk two doors down to Matthew's and several days later there would be the music. Some of the songs reflected their respective childhoods in Bega and the coast ("The Battler", "Hughie McVean") while others were comments on current events ("Bali Storm"). Interestingly Hugh likes a song written by Matthew called "Writing on the Wall") best while Matthew likes Hugh's "The Battler".

Note: A new WTC song will be published on this website regularly over the next year. Love to hear your feedback.

Back Live

With Philip's return the band once again began performing live. In 2006 WTC was joined by seasoned musician Greg Clift who not only brought some much needed discipline to the Tuesday night practices but also a wealth of talent with his ability to play keyboards, bass, lead, rhythm and just about anything else we asked. A veteran of Canberra group Naughty Rhythms he claims that the Tuesday night practices in the Palmer Street studio are a highlight of the week.....

The core band was Matthew Herbert (lead guitar, vocals), Greg Clift (bass guitar, keyboards, guitar, vocals), Philip Williams (Blues harp, vocals) and Hugh Watson (guitar, vocals).

New drummer John Sayers (Palmer Street, Hall) joined the band in 2007 for rock gigs and Andrew Purdham brings his multi instrument talent when the group plays as WTC6.

The band has played twice at Poacher's Pantry on Nanima Road to sellout audiences to raise money for the firies and cancer research, regularly at Philip's winery on Wallaroo Road for the Wine and Roses festival, at Radford College and for various charities an significant birthdays of friends.

While they don't charge for performances they have decided from 2008 to seek a donation for a designated charity.

Hall cleaned up »