Biography
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Founded In
Albany, Albany County, New York, United States
There are multiple artists called The Verge:
1. The Verge were a 1980s psychedelic beat group from Adelaide, Australia.
The origins of The Verge trace back to the Adelaide foothills suburb of Rostrevor in 1980 where two neighbours–guitarist Andrew Piper and bassist Rohan Belton–met through a mutual friend and started jamming to their favourite Beatles songs. They teamed up with another neighbour–drummer Grant Middleton–and the three high school students soon became a fledgling outfit.
In time, Rohan met Lance Storm at photography school and they discovered they had similar musical tastes. Lance was an accomplished left-handed guitarist and he brought along his brother, Mark, to a jam session, who was a gifted songwriter that played a bit of rhythm guitar. Friction between the two brothers was imminent and, in a reshuffle, Lance left the band while a new drummer, Scott Morse, was swiftly recruited. Soon they shaped this 4-piece guitar band into a unique psychedelic beat group.
Wearing paisley shirts, winkle picker boots, Haight-Ashbury sunglasses and sporting mullets, the band played a show at the outer northern suburban Smithfield Football Club. Initially, the beer-drinking footballers with a taste for Cold Chisel, Barnsey and AccaDacca were taken aback but, with a set consisting of up-tempo 60s and 70s covers, the band managed to escape unharmed.
Soon came a toga party at the Magill Institute and their first pub gig at the Angas Hotel in Adelaide. Although cheap equipment hindered the development of their live sound, more gigs followed and Mark's vision of a late-sixties style psychedelic/acid band straight out of the 'Summer of Love' soon came to fruition as they carved out a niche in Adelaide's underground music circles.
During the Spring of 1983, Mark recruited Belinda MacQueen as a keyboard player and vocalist to broaden their musical soundscape as the 5-piece became sought after, often featuring on bills with the likes of the Screaming Believers and Fools Apart. The scene in Adelaide was about to explode along with the band's crowd numbers as packed out gigs at venues such as The Tivoli, The Cathedral, The Princess Berkely and The Union, soon cemented their popularity.
During this period, Mark became a volunteer announcer at community radio station TripleM (now 3D Radio) with his own show, "Surrealistic Shower". This provided a valuable shop front for demos and recorded works by Adelaide's underground bands to get some airplay, with The Verge being amongst them. The band recorded a demo at Concordia College's studio with their live sound engineer, Mike Longmire, resulting in the track "I Will Make You Live", which garnered regular airings.
During 1984, local record label, Greasy Pop Records, was picking up momentum with more frequent releases and its founder, Doug Thomas, also owned the inner city record shop, Umbrella Music. Everything was in place; the bands, the label, the retailer and a vibrant scene, and a compilation album was to follow.
The Verge recorded two tracks, "Here With No Fear" and "Outside Eden" at Studio 202 with engineer Kim Horne during the 1984 Christmas season. Scott was unavailable for the session so Andrew Geue of Dead Astronauts and Dust Collection drummed on the recordings. These songs became the opening tracks of the compilation album, 'An Oasis in a Desert of Noise', which was to become an Australian indie classic.
In early 1985, drummer John Gilbert replaced Morse but before long, tensions in the band arose. Rohan started moonlighting with The Garden Path and Dust Collection, and Mark's ideas were not being supported by the rest of the group and he chose to depart. They played their final show at the Tivoli Hotel in March 1985 to a packed house.
The band regrouped with singer and rhythm guitarist, Ray Brown of The Hairdressers, under the name The Affection and continued gigging for a few months before Belton left to concentrate on commitments with his other outfits. The Verge left a small legacy of one compilation album, some live tapes in the safe custody of the State Library of South Australia. and some very groovy photos.
2. 1980's Albany New York USA Trio Similar In Style To Joy Division, Gang Of Four or Killing Joke. Atmospheric Guitars and Gloomy Vocals Backed By Urgent Bass and Drums. Released four song "Habitual E.P." in 1983 and one song on the compilation album "Hudson Rock" in 1982. Tom Rella: Guitar/Vocals/Words and Music. T.Murray: Bass/Vocals. Marty Feier : Drums.
The Verge (USA) official sites- http://www.myspace.com/theverge1980s
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Verge-online/222424800336
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheVergeBand
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Verge/Habitual+E.P.
3. The Verge is an alias used by Greek psy-trance artist, Mario Sounoglou.
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