We scour the countryside to bring you tomorrow's Electronic Sound-makers — Tandoori Cassette at The Marquee, by John Wright Tandoori have been together for quite some time, but recently they have not been quite so busy due to the involvement of the individual members in other projects.

If you haven't heard of the band before, then you might be surprised to see who it features. On guitar and lead vocals is Zal Cleminson, formerly of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Nazareth, on bass is Charlie Tumahai, well known for his days in Be-Bop Deluxe, on drums, Barriemore Barlow from Jethro Tull, and on keyboards, Ronnie Leahy who has played with, amongst others, Jack Bruce and Jon Anderson.

It might be expected, given the backgrounds of these men, that on turning up to a Tandoori gig you are in for some kind of history lesson, and I suppose this is not an unreasonable supposition. However, nothing could be further from the truth; I can assure you that you've never heard anything like this in Jethro Tull, and come to think of it you've probably never heard of anything like Tandoori before.

Before And After

The style of the material is original in every sense of the word. Tandoori started with just Barrie and Zal; they spent about six months working together on their ideas and then recruited Charlie and Ronnie, though I think I am right in saying that a lot of the present material is a band effort.

The Marquee was well crowded, and as far as temperature and humidity levels go, let's just say it was "sweaty to very sweaty". The audience appeared to be a mixture of first timers and those who have followed the band during the past two years. Tandoori move away from the usual "drums centre stage" set up, and have the keyboards raised stage left and the drums raised stage right. Barrie uses Simmons electronic drums, except for a conventional snare, and to his left has a console which houses his mixer, amp and also a drum machine.

The gig started off with an unusual taped intro with music and voices, accompanied by the lights shining on a suspended cassette recorder during which time the band assembled on stage and then went into their first song, 'Rain Maker', closely followed by 'Angel Talk', a lively number which a few months ago they released as their first single.

By the time the band arrived at 'Dancing Girl' and what I think is called 'Paint Your Universe' the audience were well involved and it became clear, judging by the familiarity with these songs, that quite a proportion of them had been before.

Sounds Complicated

Tandoori achieve a very full sound and the individual playing skills of the members are clearly in evidence, especially when it comes to Barrie Barlow's use of the drums; a lot of the rhythms are unusual and sound very complicated, and undoubtedly could only be achieved as a result of his unquestionable skill. Such skills make him hot property in the rest of the music world, and in fact Barrie has recently drummed on Robert Plant's latest album.

Following on, what happened next in the set was rather unusual; a drum machine rhythm was set in motion accompanied by Ronnie playing a choppy rhythm on keyboards. Charlie and Zal reappeared on stage wearing strange orange suits and started doing the motions of muscle building exercises while chanting 'Build Them Up', and Barrie reappeared on stage with a pump and 'pumped up' Charlie and Zal. When inflated the music changed, dropping in pitch and speed, while Charlie and Zal subsequently deflated. After this brief departure from 'whatever', Tandoori went on with their set featuring 'Space Horses' and 'Third World Briefcases'.

Encore Une Fois

At the end of the set the audience were not in any state to let the band finish, and after a few minutes off stage they were brought back by all the shouting, foot stamping etc. The final song was 'Flats', a good one for audience participation resulting in the whole of the Marquee joining in, with a chant-like style.

No doubt about it, the evening was a great success. It's good to see that these men can get so much enjoyment from playing to what must be, for them, small audiences compared to those which they have been used to. The band deserves all the recognition it can get. At a time when standards in the world of commercial music seem to be declining this is the type of 'unit' that could brighten it up for us all.