Nick Adams recalls:- As a member of a local group, Storm, we used to rehearse in the hall each week in the evenings from around 1972 to 1976 when Horace Hawker was the caretaker. We were told that we could be heard in Axminster on occasion (of course, you don’t permit it now). Back then, the entrance was double doors at the top end, and there was very little heating in the hall, sometimes they paid extra to turn on the two (I think) heater bars. I believe we used to occasionally store one of our speaker cabinets in the kitchen between adjacent rehearsals.
Picture of “Storm” in the hall. From top-left to bottom right are, Ian Goode from Dorchester (drummer), Arnold Strawbridge from Stockland (rhythm guitar), Barry (Ebi) Ebdon from Axminster (bass), Nick Adams from Axminster (vocals) and Phil Hallet from Lyme Regis (lead guitar).
Storm were a rock band playing covers, including Black Sabbath (Paranoid, Evil Woman), Deep Purple (Black Night, Fireball, Highway Star, Strange Kinda Woman, Smoke On The Water, Child In Time etc), Status Quo (Paper Plane, Caroline, Down Down, Roll Over Lay Down), Rolling Stones (Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman, Jumping Jack Flash etc), Black Oak Arkansas (Jim Dandy To The Rescue), Steppenwolf (Born To Be Wild) and many more.
We wrote original material e.g. Roadrunner, Florentine Blues and Illusion. We also made a demo tape of five original songs at Arny’s Shack studio in Bournemouth including the track Illusion
We gigged locally, which meant anywhere from Torquay to Barnstaple to Weymouth or thereabouts including two Axminster Carnival gigs in the Guildhall with Derek Real’s disco. Storm got to the semi-final of one of the Bass-Charrington talent contests, playing at Pontin’s Brean Sands Holiday Camp to an audience of 3000+. We came second. The winners were a country band called Denver Spur.
Information provided courtesy of Nick Adams.