West End, Brisbane, 1984

Band: Hotel Breslin
Members: Lorenzo (v), Brendan (b), Jim (d), Carl (g)
Guitar setup: Ibanez Blazer, Ibanez Tube Screamer

Brendan, Lorenzo and I met at high school. Lorenzo had met Jim somewhere on the revolving floor of the nightclub, Images. One degree of separation, so emerged, Hotel Breslin.

Jim organized the room and we didn't ask any questions. The room had amps, which was fortunate because Brendan and I didn't have any. It was soundproofed, not that it mattered because in 84 this location was the in the middle of nowhere.

We never saw any administration of this room, we just gave Jim the rehearsal money, upon which Jim would jump in his Triumph Stag and drive to the bottlo for a carton. Sharing a beer became fundamental in the sound and style. Some might suggest we indulged in this style a bit too much.


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Brendan couldn't really play bass, but he knew what kind of sound he wanted and he had attitude. Jim had never played before, but we couldn't tell. In that first rehearsal we tried Joy Divisions Means To An End, and it worked. We played this song at every gig until the band broke up in 1989.

We rehearsed two nights a week, and went to White Chairs and then the Tube Club at the Lands Office on Friday nights. We recorded a six track at Burbank Studios, but not knowing what we really wanted or what we were doing didn't help the quality of the final product.

One of our first public performances (notwithstanding someones 21st at the Darra Cement Works, pictured below) was in the Battle of the Bands. We were messy but we went for it, and stood out I suppose. We won a round, returned for the semi-final and got booted.


But there was a journalist, Kevin Meade, at the Telegraph who saw those shows and singled us out for a write-up. His description pretty well matched what we were aiming for in image and sound, and that worked as an assurance to us.

One night Lorenzo got a call from Jim. There was an emergency eviction from the room, if we didn't get out gear out there, it would be impounded. Lorrie took us up there in his Fiat, we met Jim and scrambled the gear out. Apparently the carton that Jim provided was funded by the rehearsal room fees. We didn't hear from Jim for a while after that, I thought it was finished. I was glad when he got back in touch with us.