Sunlight's first gig was at the legendary Subway club in Edinburgh's Grassmarket. The Subway had a weekly showcase night where two or three new local bands could play for a small cut of the door money.

We were all broke at the time and our marketing skills were minimal - we simply told everyone we knew and photocopied a thousand A5 flyers and a hundred or so A4 posters which we coloured by hand with pens, pencils, crayons - anything yellow we could get our hands on.

My memory is a little hazy but I guess a hundred or so people turned up on the night. We squeezed as many of our friends onto the guest-list so in the best traditions of live music we were going to make no money whatsoever. Sunlight was never too bothered about those sort of minor details. We just wanted to play. If people wanted to listen then that was a nice bonus. If they bought us a pint even better.

None of us had played live before or appeared in front of an audience so we were all a little nervous. I had my drums to hide behind so felt relatively relaxed about the whole thing despite suddenly not being able to remember how any of our songs went. We kicked off into the first song and started to relax as we fell into the groove and took the audience with us. Someone succumbed to nerves and threw up behind their amp around the eighth bar but didn't miss a note. Halfway through the first song Ross broke a string. Not wanting to loose the audience's attention I panicked and kicked off into a five minute drum solo. Phil and Ross jammed over it and we got everyone dancing while Ross treated his injured guitar. We started over and the rest of the set went really well. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and by the time we left the stage we were all hooked on playing live.

Over the next few months we played another couple of gigs at The Subway, The Venue, The Music Box and The 'Original' Black Bull Tavern. Our audiences were pretty small - we were hopeless at marketing - but generally enthusiastic. The gigs were all a blast..

When not rehearsing we often hung out together; getting naughtily drunk at Sneaky Petes, The Venue or The Black Bull and recovering in Mary King's Tavern or The Malt Shovel the next morning. Our social circles were different but with enough crossover to ensure we bumped into each other all the time. On quiet days we would lie for hours staring at Phil's ceiling; putting the world to rights and idly discussing various projects.

We were generally a mellow, chilled out band but we had our moments of rock and roll mayhem too..

There was the Subway gig where I busted my nose, bled all over my snare drum and ended up looking like Hannibal Lecter. The gig at The 'Bull where I played the last beat of the third encore then slid off my stool - fast asleep. There was also the notoriously drunken gig at The Music Box where we got paid a crate of beer each (in advance) and finished a very chaotic show with a terrible half-hour cover version of The Doors 'Roadhouse Blues' and a selection of Beach Boys classics punk style.

The only really bad experience was a gig at The Subway that decended into a violent riot (nothing to do with us, the audience had loved our set). The club got trashed and a lot of people were badly injured. Sunlight had established a defensive position in the D.J.'s booth and emerged unscathed but our equipment only survived because our (unpaid) security guy Kryten had a black belt, a heavy mic stand and a scary beard so no-one seemed keen to get on the stage with him.

We always played all our own material, often jamming and re-writing stuff on the fly, saving covers for encores. We all got to choose covers and played a wide variety from punked-up Beach Boys and Monkeys classics to Slayer and the Sex Pistols.

Sunlight had a lot of friends and family who helped us out and supported us. They coloured-in and handed out flyers, humped drum-kits, tuned guitars, gave advice, took photos and videos, lent us equipment and money, and dragged people to our gigs. Most of all they believed in our music and for that especially I give them my undying thanks.

Gigging was great fun but we thought it was time to expose ourselves to the public at large and decided to record a demo. We had a few songs on tape Phil had mixed on his four-track but we wanted something we could put out to record companies, magazines and radio stations. We had no money but somehow scraped together enough from friends and family to buy 12 hours in an eight-track studio.

Over two days in The Sound Station in Galashiels we recorded four great songs one of which we wrote in-between takes. Engineers Tommy Roseburgh and Dottle guided us through our first studio experience with humor and professionalism and we ended up with a tape that sounded pretty damn good.

The gruesome details of recording the demo are covered elsewhere on this site and it is available for download too.

We got a couple of hundred tapes made and punted them off to record companies, magazines and radio stations. We kept the professionally copied tapes for promotion but lots of people got free copies. We just wanted as many people as possible to hear us so we gave away a lot of copies.

We had a couple of good reviews and a little radio play (I heard John Peel played us on his show) but there was no interest from record companies. We really had no clue about selling ourselves and to be honest didn't make much of an effort. We were young, naive and happier playing than marketing. What we really needed was a good manager or agent but we didn't know that and just quietly rolled along.

In the end Sunlight just fizzled out. We were starting to stagnate and it was becoming hard to keep up the enthusiasm when nothing seemed to be happening. Keith was planning to move away with his girlfriend and I had been offered the drummer's stool in a band that seemed to be going places fast. One night in our Niddry Street rehersal room Keith announced his intention to leave which made it easier for me to follow his lead. Sunlight had run it's course. We had a great jam, packed our kit up and went home.

If we had only got hold of a good manager I think Sunlight could have done a lot more. Alas, we were so incredibly naive about the business part of the music business we didn't stand a chance.

I tend not to dwell on the past too much but I still listen to the Haven demo regularly and both my girlfriend and her wonderful 10 year old daughter love it (although admittedly we are all biased). Looking back at Sunlight I think that is all it was ever really about for us anyway - we loved to play music for ourselves and our friends.

I had a lot of fun and made a lot of good friends as part of Sunlight. I consider my time with Phil, Ross and Keith as one of the most positive experiences of my life and will always cherish the memory of the good times we had. Thanks guys.