David McCormack

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David McCormack is an singer-songwriter from Brisbane, Queensland Australia, who is widely known for fronting the popular Australian rock-band Custard. He was born during the long hot summer of 1968 in the leafy Brisbane suburb of Kenmore. For many people on planet Earth, this was considered the best time and best place ever. He attended the Ipswich Grammar School.

David McCormack
David McCormack

Contents

[edit] Early Groups

McCormack started his musical career in Brisbane rock outfit Who's Gerald?. This was a band consisting of McCormack and fellow Ipswich Grammar School alumni Paul Medew and Glen Donald. They recruited Hungry Jack's burger-flipper Cathy Atthow to play drums. Who's Gerald? released a single named "Wrestle Wrestle/Gerald Is Stumbling Away Upon The Highway Of Life" and had a track called "Pins And Needles" included on the 1988 Youngblood compilation. Apart from that, there is no other evidence to prove the band ever existed, except for a MySpace page at www.myspace.com/whosgerald. To this day, it is yet to be confirmed as to who Gerald actually is and/or was.

[edit] Das Custaro Years

After the dissolution of Who's Gerald? McCormack formed Custard Gun in 1990. The band also featured Paul Medew, James Straker (The Melniks) and Shane Brunn (Hugbubble, Vanlustbader). After a few shows and line up changes (namely James being replaced Matthew Strong, who, as he worked at the Commonwealth Bank at Milton, Queensland, had enough money to contribute to the manufacture of a vinyl release), Custard Gun morphed into Custard. Custard existed for about a decade (albeit with a revolving line-up of drummers, including Gavin Herrinberg, John Lowry and Glenn Thompson, later of The Go-Betweens). The band released five albums: Buttercup/Bedford, Wahooti Fandango, Wisenheimer, We Have the Technology and Loverama, a stack of EPs and singles and a greatest hits compilation entitled Goodbye Cruel World. Somewhere in the SonyBMG vaults sits a DVD video clip compilation called The Spaces By The Side Of The Road - A Digital History Of Custard which may or may not ever see the light of day.

Unbeknownst to most people outside Brisbane, Dave was also in a number of bands beside Custard during the 1990s. Some of these bands included:

  • COW - which stood for Country Or Western. Also featured Glenn Thompson (Custard/The Titanics/Go-Betweens) and producer extraordinaire Robert Moore, as well as about a dozen other people! COW released one CD, called Beard, in 1995.
  • Calf - a COW side-project featuring only Dave and Robert Moore. They played a few acoustic gigs and, in a strange quirk of fate, released a limited edition single called "The Chicken Dance" in 2006 featuring Rob Hirst from Midnight Oil on drums.
  • Frank 'n' Stein - which also featured Robert Moore and Dave's brother Dylan McCormack (of Biro, Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side, and The Polaroids fame), amongst others.
  • Adults Today - mostly a Glenn Thompson project, but Dave also played a few shows with them, along with Dylan McCormack, Trevor Ludlow (from The Melniks and Small Fantasy) and Nick Naughton (of Biro and Miami). The Custard super-hit "Music Is Crap" was originally an Adults Today tune.
  • Robert Forster's (of The Go-Betweens) band - for the recording and touring of his Calling From A Country Phone album in 1994 with Robert Moore and Glenn Thompson.
  • Computor - a collaboration between Dave and Robert Moore that was quite electronic sounding. Computor released a tape called Floppy Disk.
  • Miami - with Maureen Hansen (Dave's girlfriend at the time), Nick Naughton and Paul Medew. Miami released two CDs: Costume of Sand and Feel the Seed (1998).

After the break-up of Custard in 2000, Dave formed The Titanics with Glenn Thompson, Emma Tom (journalist for The Australian newspaper, motorbike enthusiast and Dave's then wife) and Tina Havelock-Stevens. The Titanics released two albums: Size Isn't Everything and Love Is The Devil, in 2000. It was a busy year.

[edit] The Modern Day Lover

Following the break up of The Titanics, Dave went solo. He released a CD of electronical doodling called The Matterhorn (2001). To call it groundbreaking would be an understatement. Many media analysts divide the modern era into pre-Matterhorn and post-Matterhorn. Mere mortals such as ourselves tend to simplify it into a simple "then" and "now". After that, Dave recruited a backing band called The Polaroids. David McCormack and The Polaroids have released two albums, Candy (2002) and The Truth About Love (2004) as well as a few singles and a DVD entitled Save Dave. To this date, it is yet to be determined whether Dave was in fact saved. But one thing is for certain, rumours of his death have been greatly exaggerated.

Dave has also managed to compose two film scores. Firstly he worked on Alex Proyas's gritty Sydney polemic Garage Days in 2002, and in 2006 Daniel Krieg's West. These days, although his exact whereabouts are unknown, Mr McCormack is believed to be residing in Kings Cross, Australia, and can often be spotted late at night in the rain-soaked back alleys of Sydney's seedy underbelly howling at the moon. All of us here at the foundation wish him the best.

[edit] External links

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