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La
De Das
The La De Das fall into a special category of New Zealand and Australian
music. The circumstances of the day prevented them from recording
the kind of records they were capable of recording, and any analysis
of that recorded output fails to explain the quality of the musicianship
and performances which rendered them of legendary status.
The core of the band that became The La De Das came together in
late 1963 at Rutherford High
School in Te Atatu Auckland when schoolmates Kevin Borich, Brett
Neilson and Trevor Wilson formed a band called The Mergers, like
so many other groups at the time inspired by the instrumental sounds
of the Shadows. It was those groups who were best equipped to embrace
the next big trend in sixties music when it arrived – the change
brought about by the arrival of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
All the “Shadows” groups had to do was stop playing instrumentals
and find a singer. Trevor Wilson knew of a guy called Phil Key.
Along with a singer, the group found themselves a source of material.
Phil Key's sister was an avid record collector whose taste took
in lesser known British groups, as well as hard-line American R&B,
and this music became the basis of the repertoire played by the
increasingly popular Mergers. In time they decided a name change
was required. Trevor Wilson's mother came up with the La De Das.
In April 1965, a TV producer caught the band at one of their regular
gigs and offered them an unusual deal. He wanted someone to sing
the title to a newly released movie he was featuring on his show.
In return he would finance, produce and release a one-off single
for the group. Thinking it was a chance they couldn’t refuse, and
happy of the television exposure, the La De Das agreed to perform
‘Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines’. Both sides of
the resulting single ‘Little Girl’/’Ever Since That Night’ were
originals in the Stones R&B style. The single went nowhere.
Another person attracted to the La De Das at that same regular gig
was keyboard player Bruce Howard. The band was interested too, invited
him to their next rehearsal and added him to the line-up. There
weren’t many groups around boasting an organ in their line-up. It
was a difference another local entrepreneur noticed, and in January
1966 they were approached about recording cover versions of a couple
of American songs which featured organ. That single ‘How Is The
Air Up There’/’Pied Piper’ gave the La De Das their first Top ten
hit. The follow-up featured two original songs, and when that went
nowhere they were forced to go back to recording cover versions.
The La De Das’ version of Bruce Channel’s ‘Hey Baby’ became the
first New Zealand-made record to top the national charts.
The group finally ventured to Australia in May ‘67.
The second album ‘Find Us A Way’, which tried to shift the focus
original material, was released in their absence.
Australia’s initial reaction to the La De Das was disappointing.
The company with the rights to their records even refused to release
their records. They went back to Auckland later in the year to earn
some money and rethink their repertoire. At the start of 1968 they
went back to Australia, no longer an r&b band but playing the new
‘progressive’ rock of bands like Vanilla Fudge and the Doors. For
a while they even billed themselves as The Beautiful La De Das.
They recorded an album based around ‘The Happy Prince’, a children’s
tale written by Oscar Wilde. The ambition of the project outweighed
its entertainment value. Nor was it something all the band members
were committed to.
With Australian drummer Keith Barber on board the La De Das took
themselves to London, and, as happened when they first landed in
Sydney, the group again found itself out of step with what was going
on. All they had to show for nine months in London was a single
version of the Beatles, ‘Come Together’. They returned to Australia
in April 1970, minus a couple of members and again needing to regroup
and reinvent themselves.
A new La De Das emerged, and the promise of a future at last when
July 1971’s self-written ‘Gonna
See My Baby Tonight’ became a big hit. But the La De Das drama had
one more scene to play.
What had always attracted band members and audiences to the La De
Das from the beginning was the musicianship coming off the stage.
While documenting it like this paints a picture of a group hurtling
from one dramatic change to another, in between were the kind of
performances most musicians and groups dream of delivering. The
changes came both from circumstances, and the fact that the group
had never really been allowed to be single-minded about what they
wanted to do. And this proved to be the case again when the band
split in two following another hit, ‘Morning Good Morning”.
One side of the band, Phil Keys and Peter Roberts wanted to pursue
a gentle pop course and formed Band Of Light. What was left of the
La De Das, Kevin Borich and Keith Barber, added bassist Ronnie Peel
and became a rock powerhouse. The spotlight now fell on the one
La De Da who had been there though the whole journey. Kevin Borich
had always impressed with his guitarwork. Now he had the chance
to shine, a latterday Jimi Hendrix with pop star features inside
a fiery rock trio. It was a La De Das period at last represented
on record, the album ‘Rock N Roll Sandwich’. When that line-up split
in May 1975 the La De Das name was finally put to rest.
Kevin Borich continued his career as one of Australia’s premier
rock guitar heroes. His son Lucious Borich is drummer with progressive
rock band Cog.
MORE
Related
artists
Band Of Light
Cog
Renee Geyer
Wild Cherries
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