tracks:
Hard'n'Fast / Kingpin / Struggle / Take The Bait / Challenge / Voyage / Nowhere To Turn / Another Day
These are from a promo in the Punk Etc collection. (The other side has tracks of another band from New Zealand: 'Sticky Filth')...
The songs appeared on the Challenge 12" on Do This recs (label and distro ran by the band's manager Greg James a.k.a. Greg Serious).
This HC/punk trio originated from New Plymouth (New Zealand) but they moved to Australia in the early 1990s. the line-up on the record was Chris Fegan (guitar/vocals), Mike Fegan (drums/vocals) & Sid McMillan (bass/vocals).
Brob
Greg (our manager at the time) must have sent it... No problems about putting the tracks on the www. I re-did the Casualty CD with most tracks...
Early 80s and we were just getting through school; listening to UK bands such as 'UK Subs', 'Sex Pistols', 'The Clash', etc. A local band (' Nocturnal Projections') was playing at our school; I didn't know what to expect. They were great, played loads of punk songs and would shape my musical career in the early years. I went home and thought "Fuck I could do that!". Times were tough and money was extremely tight; and the town I lived in hated punks. We were like a target to bash on the street.
'Casualty' was the name my brother & I and a mate from school somehow settled on. We were about 14 and still couldn't play an instrument. After a while of dithering about, Mike landed on drums, Chris Snowdon (later in 'Sticky Filth') on bass and myself on guitar. We sourced the cash for gear to get started. I had the worst guitar, it was a piece of shit…wouldn't stay in tune. We were starting to pick up on music and chords, then learned the mighty bar chords. I used to hammer the bar chords every day and soon we were able to do 3-chord songs… We still didn't have a singer and used to just have a crack. It took time but we started to pull it together, we decided to stay as a 3-piece at this stage. I was learning to play guitar and sing (more like shout) at the same time. Looking back seemed later a good skill to learn…as I'm still here doing it today. We used to play mainly covers at this stage but had a few originals in the set. We landed our first gig in a gymnasium of all places, big venue and loads of bands playing. I was SHIT; had tuning-problems the whole time and didn't have the experience to get it back in tune. [...]
'Casualty'; 85-86 line-up with Chris Fegan, Chris Snowdon & Mike Fegan
We started playing around as much as we could and rehearsing in a hall that we hired for an afternoon. We improved a lot and started to arrange our own gigs in halls, these could be great or get quite violent depending on who showed up. We played a range of covers (early UK bands to the second wave - 'G.B.H.', 'Subhumans' - you name it, we probably played it at some stage. And we started to throw in our own songs which we were starting to develop and focus on. We tried a singer for a short time but it wasn't good and it just didn't work well in the line-up. [...] Chris decided to join 'Sticky Filth'. 'Casualty' had a hiatus for a while [...] We still didn't have a bassplayer at this stage. [...] We met some new guys who had moved into town; one of them (Sid) was a bassplayer, a good guy level-headed and easy to get along with. We recruited him and started jamming. By this stage the American influences were happening ('Suicidal Tendencies', 'Black Flag', 'D.O.A.', etc.) [...] 'Casualty' started back up with fire! We played our asses off and had started to get our own crowd, played out of town more. During this time we had built up a network of friends in bands in other towns and when they toured we gave them accomodations or gear etc. So when we went there they helped out out in the same way. It was a very cool arrangement, likeminded people helping each other on tours. We had become close mates with Auckland bands 'The Warners', 'Salad Days' & 'Bygone Era'. Good times!
We booked into Writhe recording-studio in Wellington and recorded the Challenge LP. Greg our manager at the time had lined up some dates throughout New Zealand from Auckland to the bottom of the South Island Dunedin and Invercargill. The tour was on. The LP came out and we toured NZ in 1988...
Chris Fegan
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