THE GARDEN PATH

Emerging from a Hackney cellar early in 1985 The Garden Path came into being from the remnants of Fools Apart and burst forth onto the underground music circuit of inner-city Adelaide. Vocalist and guitarist Vic Conrad and bass player Colin Gellard both from the recently defunked power pop quartet Fools Apart teamed up with drummer Terry Aldridge of The Sack. Conrad recruited Rohan Belton, bass player with psychedelic gurus The Verge to join on keyboards and backing vocals while guitar maestro Graeme Burdett was snapped up after departing the icons of Adelaide punk, the Screaming Believers.

 
After a short period of frequent rehearsing the band left Vic’s cellar and booked some time at Soundtrack Studios in Kent Town to record four demo tracks including ''Night & Day'', ''Times (Out of Mind)'' and ''The Acid Test''. To fund the studio time the band played their first gig at another cellar, Lark & Tina’s in Hindley Street one night in March 1985. Many gigs quickly followed, more studio time was booked and demand for their moody, solid, semi-psychedelic rock quickly grew.

The Garden Path regularly played with the likes of The Spikes, Exploding White Mice and the Mad Turks from Istanbul at their favourite venues including The Tivoli, Lark & Tina’s, Adelaide University Bar, Limbo and The Union Hotel. Though some effective publicity and a powerful demo, the band received plenty of attention. The Garden Path was one of the six bands out of hundreds to be chosen to contribute a track on mainstream SAFM’s compilation 'Brewing' alongside the Mad Turks. Sydney station Triple-J also took a shine to the Path and requested two tracks for their nationwide compilation 'Cooking With George – Mark Too'.

Further recording took place at Studio 202 with engineer Kim Horne. One track from this session, ''This Place'' was included on the Greasy Pop compilation of Adelaide bands 'An Oasis in a Desert of Noise'. In June 1985 ''Night & Day'' was re-recorded at ARS (Adelaide Recording Studio) for the 'Brewing' compilation. As a point of trivia, ARS in a former life was where the Masters Apprentices recorded ''Undecided''. Within a few weeks, ''What Do You Want to Hear'' and a second version of 'Times (Out of Mind)'' were recorded at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) Collinswood Studios. The recording room was the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra concert hall and the acoustics are evident in the recording which gives these tracks a unique feel but it was not as polished as Conrad had anticipated. Both songs were also given a fresh take in the Studio 202 sessions.

In July 1985, the band’s first album, the eight track LP ‘5 Reasons’ was released on Greasy Pop Records and coincided with a four-gig visit to Sydney with locals Died Pretty. The Garden Path had an established rapport with Died Pretty due to many supports with them in Adelaide. While in Sydney, ‘5 Reasons’ leapt to the #3 position of the RAM Australian Independent Music Chart in its third week after release, immediately behind legends Hunters & Collectors and the Huxton Creepers.

The final track on ‘5 Reasons’, the haunting ''Little Pieces'' was picked up by ratings leader SAFM and received reasonably high rotation which was not commonplace for a local band. The album received strong airplay nationwide and stayed in the RAM chart for ten weeks. A university radio station in Bordeaux France reported the album reached their #1 airplay position. Doug Thomas of Greasy Pop had recently struck a distribution deal allowing his product to go worldwide. This allowed ‘5 Reasons’ to sell encouraging volumes in Italy, France, Spain and Scandinavia.

Television appearances eventuated when the Nine Network recorded the ‘Brewing’ show at an outdoor stage in Elder Park, Adelaide during June 1985. On July 13 1986, the ABC recorded footage for their late night music show ‘Edge of the Wedge’ at the Tivoli Hotel with their Greasy Pop label mates Screaming Believers and July 14.

A heavy schedule of gigs kept the Garden Path busy during 1985 and 1986 including three Melbourne gigs in May 1986. Soon after, the band once again put down some tracks at Studio 202 with Kim Horne at the desk. Although the recording process was drawn out, efficient use of many late night / early morning sessions kept it affordable and prevented the imminent epic album from blowing the budget. The recordings were eventually mixed at grapevine Studios in North Adelaide and released in 1987 as the bands second album ‘Blue’.

'Blue' was met with much anticipation but unfortunately coincided with the departure of Graeme Burdett and Rohan Belton. As a result, the album was supported by only a handful of live gigs and no interstate shows and 'Blue' failed to chart as successfully as ‘5 Reasons’. Dave Lokan was quickly recruited as a replacement guitarist and the new line-up moved away from tunes with the overtones of keyboard. A support for INXS at Memorial Drive resulted as well as an appearance on the television variety show Hey, Hey it’s Saturday.

Momentum with the Garden Path soon slowed, and the band went into a hiatus. In 1989 they returned to the studio to record more tracks for a forthcoming album, 'All the Things' which was release on the CC Music label. Conrad, Gellard, Aldridge and Lokan continued moonlighting as The Acid Birds, specialising in covers of Robyn Hitchcock songs. Into the early nineties, former members of the Garden Path reformed as Vic Conrad and the First Third, releasing an album on the British label Worronzow. In March 2004, the original Garden Path members of Conrad, Gellard, Aldridge, Belton and Burdett reformed to play a reunion gig at the Joiners Arms Hotel in Adelaide to coincide with the release of the compilation 'South Central Indi Pop From The Mullet Era' on the Smashed Records label. In 2018 they released the album 'Live 2017' recorded live on November 11, 2017, at the Governor Hindmarsh Hotel, Adelaide. The lineup was Colin Gellard (bass), Terry Aldridge (drums) Graham Burdett (guitar), David Lokan (guitar), Rohan Belton (keyboards) and Vic Conrad (guitar vocals).

 
Members

Vic Conrad (guitar vocals), Colin Gellard (bass), Terry Aldridge (drums), Rohan Belton (keyboards), Graham Burdett (guitar), David Lokan (guitar), Craig Rodda (drums), Charles Derek (keyboards)

SINGLES

''Just Like You (#90) / Take It All Back'' 1989 CC Music

ALBUMS
'5 Reasons' 1986 Greasy Pop 
'Blue' 1987 Greasy Pop 
'All The Things' 1989 CC Music
'Live 2017' 2018 Walking Bird Records

References

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Garden+Path

http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/