PLAYBOYS BACKING MORRISON QUARTET

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30636, 30 December 1964, Page 6

PLAYBOYS BACKING MORRISON QUARTET

A Christchurch pop band, the Playboys, is backing the Howard Morrison Quartet in a tour of North Island holiday centres this summer before settling in Auckland to work.

The Morrison Quartet is also going to Sydney, Noumea and Tahiti on its final tour and the band has a chance to go too. “It’s up to us to work hard enough,” said Kevin O’Neill, rhythm guitarist of the Playboys. “We’ll have to be good to go on that tour. “It’s quite a break for us at the start. Most groups when they decide to turn professional go to Auckland and have to wait until something comes along.” The Playboys have been playing together every weekend for 14 months at a dance in Gloucester street. The others in the group—which includes two sets of brothers —are Dave Miller (vocalist), Graeme Miller (drummer), John O’Neill (bass guitar), and Brian Ringrose (lead guitar). They had made the decision to turn professional and were planning to go to Sydney to just “try their luck,” “We heard someone from Auckland went round and listened to all the Christchurch bands, and he told the promoters there what they were like,” said Kevin O’Neill. “Then one night Howard Morrison came along to the dance—l suppose he’d been told about us—and he listened to us. He offered us the job of backing him in the North Island.”

Most New Zealand pop bands boast longer hair than the Beatles, but the Playboys have fairly short haircuts. Kevin O’Neill said: “I’m going to have mine cut shorter. But not in Christchurch. There’s no-one here who can cut it the way I want it.” The band concentrated on rhythm and blues. Asked if

its sound was modelled on any particular pop group, he said: “We’re trying to develop our own style—but you can’t help copying something of the others.”

One of the Playboys’ last engagements in Christchurch was to back Dinah Lee. This was . a sort of reunion as Dinah Lee was the vocalist of an earlier Christchurch Playboys’ group to which the drummer belonged and this group left Christchurch for Auckland three years ago. Recently the band taped some music for the 3YA New Year’s Eve programme. It has not made any recordings, but its members hope to.