7/10 Split

7/10 History It all started along time ago when a young Tristan Checkly flew over to Spain to compete in the running of the bulls. During the event, Tristain was run down by the charging herd and ended up in hospital with a ruptured spleen and severe spinal injuries. As Tristan lay in bed and recovered, he be-friended a young spanish man by the name of Steve Plowright who had suffered the same fate as he had. The two talked for hours on end and found that they both shared a burning passion for ska and punk rock. They also worked out that they both played musical instruments, as Tristan had previously played bass in the Jon Bonjovi back up band and Steve had busked on guitar for most of his life. Eager to start a band of his own, Tristan begged Steve if to move to Australia and surprisingly, Steve (who didn't actually know where Australia was) quickly agreed. Tristan squeezed Steve into his pants to avoid customs and they arrived in Adelaide set on starting their own project. After being in the country for only a few hours, Tristan and Steve went for a walk along Christies Beach to get a breath of the salty ocean air. As if by fluke, Tristan met up with Peter Shaw (his old sparring partner from his professional boxing days), who was surfing at the time. Remembering that Peter played drums in his early days, Tristan asked the surfie if he wanted to join the band. Peter agreed to play in this band but only on one condition - that his grandfather Lee Questionmark could be the singer. As there was no singer in the picture at the time, the boys agreed on the line up and began jamming right away. They decided on the band name "Donkey Punch" and they began to string together a list of original numbers. Just when the band felt they were getting ready to play to the waiting public, Lee Questionmark slipped in the gutter when walking his dog and broke his hip and punctured his lung. This signaled the end of Lee's singing career and it also meant that Donkey Punch was down a vocalist. Bummed out, the three remaining guys sat in Tristan's lounge room and pondered over who they should get as a singer. Out of sheer frustration, Tristan exploded into a raving mad man and proclaimed that the next person to knock at the door was to be their new singer. Barely 5 seconds had passed when the the door bell rang so the three guys ran to the door to see their new singer. As they opened the door, they heard the all to familiar words. "Hi, I'm Josh Smith and I'm from the Church Of Latter Day Saints". Gimmacing, Tristan asked Josh if he would join the band, to which Josh agreed. With a new singer came a new band name and they felt that the name "Agent 99" suited them nicely. They continued to practice and Tristan hooked up their first show which was to be at the "Underground" in the heart of Adelaide. There was 2 weeks to go before the show when Tristan got the bright idea that he wanted horns in the band. He quickly rang Mattie Jones as he remembered him from his army days in Vietnam. Mattie and Tristan had fought side by side in 'Nam and he also played the bugle in the marching band. Mattie was keen as beans to join the band but had the task of writing trumpet parts for 8 songs in 2 weeks. He ended up completing the task at hand, and to this every day they still stand as the worst horn lines ever written. The band played pretty bad but even so, people seemed to enjoy the up-beat vibe of this young ska/punk outfit which gave the boys ambition to improve their sound. To celebrate their first show, they boys went out to a seedy jazz club where they spotted an awkward man with massive hair and a hairy upper lip who was busting out on a shiny black saxophone. It is told that Tristan exclaimed (quote) "I gotta get me one of those", and hurried off to secure the services of the freak, who is now known to many as Matthew Smith. Smith slotted nicely into the band and was instrumental in getting Mattie's (so called) horn parts into order. From there, Agent 99 played various shows around Adelaide until the unthinkable happened. It was a stormy day and against his parents wishes, Josh went sailing in his tiny single mast boat out in Hallet Cove. His boat capsized in the rough conditions and Josh (who didn't wear a life jacket) was drowned, leaving the band, once again, without a frontman. The group one again sat in Tristan's lounge room and pondered over what they were going to do about a new vocalist. While they were thinking, re-runs of "Hey Hey Its Saturday" were being shown on t.v. The "Red Faces" section came on and the band watched in awe as a crazy character called Time Inglis rode a uni-cycle, juggled and sang the theme song to McGuyver all at the same time. Nobody could believe the talent of this guy, so Tristan rang Channel 9 and got Tim's details and proceeded to ring and ask if he wanted in the band. Tims response was an enthusiastic 'YES' and once again, the band was back in the game. Once again, a new singer meant a new band name and they came up with the catchy "7-10 Split" as a replacement. The band formally known as Agent 99 began to play shows more and more frequently, and they were getting to sound more like a decent band. One day without warning there was a knock on Tristans door and when he opened it he saw the cutest thing in the world. On the doorstep stood a tall, skinny Japanese guy called Kenichi who had escaped from the detention centre in Woomera. In his hands he had nothing but a few "Kenichi Sticks" and a shiny trombone. Tristan took him in and cleaned him up and invited him to join the band. Of course Kenichi didn't understand a word he said, but he nodded his head anyway and whether he liked it or not, he was in 7-10 Split. A few days after his arrival, the band went to the Adelaide Cup to show Kenichi what it was like to go to the races and so that everyone to let off a bit of steam and and have a bit of a punt on the horses. During one of the races, $5 blew out of Peter's hands and onto the race track. Having eyes only for his crisp fiver, Peter ran onto the track to retrieve his cash but before he could pick it up he was trampled by the oncoming field of horses in race 14 and that was the end of him. The 7-10 camp was surprisingly unphased this event and began to search for a new drummer. After minutes of looking they found a wiry bloke named Angus Agars who was selling cigarettes to children out the back of Heathfield High School. Tim guessed that Gus could play drums because he had a floor tom, a hi-hat cymbal and a pair of drumsticks sticking out of his back pocket, so he was asked to join the group and Gus agreed. 7-10 Split continued to go on in leaps and bounds until the start of March 2002 when Kenichi was tracked down by immigration officials and sent back to the detention centre in Woomera. This really stung the 7-10 Split camp as Kenichi had been both band and crowd favourite over the time he had been with them. Still they surged on, recruiting Lachlan Johnston from the Yatla Jail prison band on trumpet and Mattie Jones switched from trumpet to trombone. Since then the band has gone on with the job and has continued to entertain the crowds of Adelaide with their catchy tunes and onstage antics. Who knows what will happen in the future for 7-10 Split? Nothing is certain but one would assume that there is a lot more fun and games in store for anyone who attends their shows. Taken from: http://sevententheband.tripod.com/seventensplit/id1.html