by Rachel Hill
Two years ago at a legendary gig when lead singer of The Throbs, Andrew Bisset, said “the show must go on”, the famous saying took on a whole new meaning.
While his eight-piece band was performing at a private function he had an internal haemorrhage and fainted.
He was dragged into the back room and revived, had a quick discussion about what to do with the room full of people, collected the cheque, got back on his feet and finished the gig.
Lying in his sick bed in hospital, Andrew was approached by the saxophonist with a new song called Throb Your Life Away.
“It was so appropriate because I had taken a big step towards the edge myself. I thought if you’ve got to go, what better way to go than doing what you love,” Andrew said.
While in intensive care and strung out on morphine, the “guts on another song” were composed.
Both of these songs were used on the band’s first CD, Mind Behind the Sky, which also served as a useful recuperation initiative for Andrew.
After the accident Andrew and the band’s manager Tony Magee, planned a full-strength attack on the iron doors of Sydney’s record companies and were lucky enough to open one.
Although EMI let them in, the forbidding words “we’ll get back to you” were spoken and the pair soon found themselves, their suits and their tapes on the other side of the door.
A few months later, the footman delivered a magic scroll.
The trumpets sounded and the drums rolled as The Throbs read with glee an offer from EMI to sign a deal with Channel Nine’s popular program Wonderworld.
Since then the show has been using the band’s music as backing for some of their stories.
Taking another jaunt to Sydney to “press flesh” with Wonderworld, the same pair ventured forth, coming away with another gold star.
The following day Wonderworld called and said they wanted to film the band.
The video clip of Throb Your Life Away went to air on June 15.
Pleased with the choice, Andrew said, “with the song being so rhythmically intricate, the visual images could work just as fast, which is what you want in a clip.”
In true Wonderworld style the band never knows when another song is going to be used, that is until the footman reappears with a postcard and a request scrawled on the back.
How can things be taken too seriously when the name of the band was inspired by the Kenny Everett Video Show.
Remember Captain Kremmin and the voluptuous Carla? The band did.
It took its name from the space control’s Throbotron - a strange machine that the pair hopped into for a bit of R and R.
Mind Behind the Sky is distributed through Crunchy Frog.
First published in The Canberra Times, June 1994.
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Crunchy Frog leaps into the Big Pond
Black Roots White Flowers by Andrew Bisset
Tribute to a troubadour - Andrew Bisset
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| Andrew Bisset (left) and Tony Magee |