Evil Grave

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from a description by John E Zammit Pace along a YouTube video uploaded on 17 Aug 2013 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTvxo1MkEhE

This is a 40 year old tape of Evil Grave, found in a garage in the U.K. These recordings were done at the Rediffusion in Malta in March 1973 as a demo album. Eventually the demo album was made in Australia but by that time the band had disbanded. There are no overdubs and the members played live and direct. 8 tracks were recovered so far. Sorry about the sound , there has been no adding to the recordings, this is how Evil Grave sounded live, with more balance to the sound.

Evil Grave were managed by BAGOSPI. Thank you also to Tom, Marjorie, and Martin Comer.

Evil Grave were formed in November / December of 1971 from two other bands, The Stampede (formed by members ranging from the ages of 12 to 14), a psychedelic/blues band from Attard, and The Beatmoors (later known as Orpheus Balzan). a rock band from Balzan. John E. Zammit-Pace (guitars, vocals), Twanny Darmanin (bass,, Art, Vocals), Clive Simpson (keyboards, vocals), and Mario Barbara (drums).who was replaced by Martin Buhagiar in mid-1972. They called the band Evil Grave to simply 'criticize' and oppose in music and lyrics, all that was corrupt.

Since the members influences came from non-mainstream roots, like Surrealist Art, Avant-Garde abstract Music, and electronics, they opted for original material , in the hard rock and Avant-Garde electronics genres. Just after a month they were offered to be the resident Band at the then very modern and ' mysterious' Pharoah's Den Nightclub, and a year later at the Palm Beach Club.

Their style of playing was very much in the avant-garde rock, with each member involved being a 'soloist' in his own right. They were the first band in Malta to use chromatics, atonality, and synthetic modes in their compositions (an influence(s) from The New Music and Serialism) but they were not allowed to play these works in the recordings found recently. They were also asked to change certain abstract 'cosmic' lyrics in their songs if they wanted to record that Demo.

In mid-1972 a local newspaper said that Evil Grave were the best band in Malta at the time after a journalist reported a 12 hour long concert by several bands.. Evil Grave were signed by the newly formed local group management, Bagospi and immediately afterwards signed a deal to do a tour of Swedish nightclubs. Unfortunately, and not Bagospi's fault, the deal collapsed, and when they were offered a T.V. show, as some compensation, they refused saying 'it is commercial', the Band collapsed too. The guitarist is now a Classical Avant-Garde composer of 140 compositions ranging from Symphonies to abstract electronic works, and also wrote 3 books on music theory and 3 novels which are found on Lulu.com

The bass player is now a Painter/artist and sculptor and teaches art at Mcast, while the others are in computer software and electronics, and the original drummer, a carpenter and a Latin American style percussionist. The keyboard player emigrated to Australia in 1974 taking with him a copy of the tapes, and some label at the time turned those recordings into a Demo Album.

Some numbers by Evil Grave : Berada's Dream, The end and the beginning, Optica, Screaming Lights, Round the Circle, Satin's Death, Maryanne...you sent me flowers, Atomic Bay, ...You are a child of the moon, I ( myself), Going Nuts, .....etc. Only Optica and the End and the Beginning are on those tapes