David McCormack

David McCormack (born 1968, Kenmore, Queensland) is an Australian musician and singer-songwriter who fronted Brisbane-based rock group Custard (1989–1999, 2009).^[1][2]

Early groups

David McCormack was born in 1968 in the Brisbane suburb of Kenmore and attended Ipswich Grammar School. He started his musical career as a vocalist and guitarist in Brisbane rock outfit, Who's Gerald?, in 1986, which included school friends Paul Medew on bass guitar and Glen Donald on keyboards, they recruited Cathy Atthow on drums.^[3] They released a cassette, Who's Gerald's Greatest Hits in the same year on their own Gerald Corp Records. In March 1988 they released a single, "Wrestle Wrestle" and had the track, "Pins and Needles" on that year's Youngblood compilation. Atthow, McCormack and Medew briefly formed Automatic Graphic in 1988 with Scott Younger.^[4]

Custard

Main article: Custard

In 1989, McCormack and Medew formed Custard Gun with Shane Brunn (later in Hugbubble, Vanlustbader) on drums and James Straker (later in Melniks).^[5] After a number of performances, Straker left in early 1990, the band was renamed as Custard, and Straker was replaced at year's end by Matthew Strong on guitar.^[1]

Custard existed for about a decade, with a number of different drummers, including, Gavin Herrenberg, John Lowry and Glenn Thompson, (later of The Go-Betweens). The band released five studio albums: Buttercup/Bedford, Wahooti Fandango, Wisenheimer, We Have the Technology and Loverama, a number of EPs and singles and a greatest hits compilation entitled Goodbye Cruel World.^[6] A DVD video clip compilation called The Spaces by the Side of the Road - A Digital History of Custard was released in 2007.^[7]

Other 1990s bands

McCormack was moonlighting in other bands during the 1990s, which formed in and around Custard's practice rooms. The Cows from 1993 (later styled as COW or C.O.W. - for Country Or Western) had Thompson and Robert Moore on bass guitar;^[8] as well as Maureen Hansen on vocals, Susie Hansen on vocals and John Lowry on bass guitar by 1995.^[9] COW released Beard in June 1996. In 2006, McCormack and Moore collaborated on a new COW single called "The Chicken Dance" with Rob Hirst of Midnight Oil on drums—50 copies were issued.

McCormack, Moore and Thompson recorded with Robert Forster (ex-The Go-Betweens) for his second solo album, Calling from a Country Phone, released in 1993 and toured with Forster as Silver Backwash.^[1] Frank 'n' Stein from 1995 had Moore and McCormack join with his brother Dylan McCormack (ex-Biro) and Ian Wadley.^[10] Miami, also from 1995, had Maureen Hansen (also in COW and McCormack's then girlfriend), Nick Naughton on drums and Medew.^[11] Miami released two CDs: Costume of Sand (March 1997) and Feel the Seed (1998). Computor was another collaboration between McCormack and Moore,^[12] which was electronic sounding and released a tape called Floppy Disk.

After Custard

After the break-up of Custard in 2000, McCormack formed The Titanics with his then wife Emma Tom (newspaper journalist for The Australian) and Thompson and film-maker, Tina Havelock-Stevens. The Titanics released Size Isn't Everything (2000) and Love Is The Devil (September 2000).

Custard reformed for a concert on 10 December 2009, as part of the Queensland Proclamation Day, 150th Anniversary Celebrations.^[13]

The Modern Day Lover

Following the breakup of The Titanics, Dave went solo. He released a CD of electronic doodling called The Matterhorn (2001). 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.

In November 2006, David assembled a band to perform a concert at the Tivoli in Brisbane as a tribute for the late Grant McLennan of The Go-Betweens.

In early 2007, David then went into the studio to produce a tribute album to the Go-Betweens called "Write Your Adventures Down". Sony BMG released the album.

Dave has also managed to compose two film scores. Firstly he worked on Alex Proyas's gritty Sydney polemic Garage Days^[14] in 2002, and in 2006 Daniel Krige's West.^[15]

In October 2009, David released the long awaited new album "Little Murders" which contains 20 tracks and runs for almost an hour. The name comes from a 1969 film.

External links

• Official site
• David McCormack Myspace page
• Custard Myspace page
• The Titanics Official site
• Who's Gerald? Myspace page
• Go-Betweens tribute Myspace page
• Photos from the Grant McLennan tribute concert

References

General

• McFarlane, Ian (1999). "Whammo Homepage". Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop. St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1865080721. http://web.archive.org/web/20040405231007/www.whammo.com.au/index.asp. Retrieved 23 February 2010.  Note: Archived [on-line] copy has limited functionality.
• Spencer, Chris; Zbig Nowara, Paul McHenry with notes by Ed Nimmervoll (2002) [1987]. The Who's Who of Australian Rock. Noble Park, Vic.: Five Mile Press. ISBN 1-86503-891-1. ^[16] Note: [on-line] version established at White Room Electronic Publishing Pty Ltd in 2007 and was expanded from the 2002 edition.

Specific

1. ^ ^{a b c} McFarlane 'Custard' entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
2. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) McCormack, David entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
3. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) WHOS GERALD entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
4. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) AUTOMATIC GRAPHIC entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
5. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) CUSTARD GUN entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
6. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) CUSTARD entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
7. ^ Mathewson, Catriona (21 November 2007). "Cream of the Custard". The Courier-Mail (News Corporation). http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22797318-5003421,00.html. Retrieved 23 February 2010. 
8. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) COWS, THE entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
9. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) COW/ C.O.W (Country or Western) entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
10. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) FRANK ?N? STEIN) [sic] entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
11. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) MIAMI) entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
12. ^ Spencer et al, (2007) COMPUTER [sic] entry. Retrieved 23 February 2010.
13. ^ Mengel, Noel (2009-10-10). "Powderfinger and Custard pay homage to Queensland music". Brisbane Courier Mail. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,26187790-3102,00.html. Retrieved 2009-11-15. ^{[dead link]}
14. ^ "Garage Days (2002) Full Cast and Crew". IMDb. []. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280696/fullcredits. Retrieved 2009-11-15. 
15. ^ "West (2007) Full Cast and Crew". IMDb. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480053/fullcredits. Retrieved 2009-11-15. 
16. ^ "Who's who of Australian rock / compiled by Chris Spencer, Zbig Nowara & Paul McHenry". catalogue. National Library of Australia. http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2090055. Retrieved 23 February 2010. 

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Name	Maccormack, David
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Date of birth	1968
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