Quandowns

   Info kindly supplied by John Reed - who was later a member of Toby Twirl

Alan, further to my previous email please find attached two photos of The Quandowns. The group primarily worked around the Sunderland area and down the A19 working the mining villages and Stockton, Middlesborough and Hartlepool. The First is a publicity shot prior to us going off to Germany. We did actually play in many clubs around Germany through 66/67 including the famous Top Ten Club in Hamburg. While we were playing at the Liverpool Club in Dusseldorf we were invited by Casey Jones to be his backing group. Casey was from Liverpool and had had several hits in Germany including a million seller called 'Don't Ha Ha'. The second photo was taken at a club in Dusseldorf backing Casey. We stayed with him for about nine months but toured extensively throughout Germany including a tour of Austria. The tour was ten days and we covered 25 towns in that time! I actually have the tour itinerary (attached). I remember keeping it as I thought to myself at the time no one would believe we had done so many shows in that time. Line up in picture one is Bob Beattie (lead vocals/guitar) Pete Watson (bass) John Reed (drums) and Ron Madison (guitar). Pete told me recently that sadly Ron died a couple of years ago. Second picture is Bob Beattie, John Reed, Casey Jones, Arthur Webber (bass) who replaced Pete Watson and not in shot Malcolm Wright (keyboards) who replaced Ron Madison. Hope this helps the site and keeps two groups who were part of the North East beat group history in the 60's alive.
All the best
John