Murphy's Law was formed in the middle of 1988 from ex members of Christchurch New Zealand's Muligans Irish band, Mathhew Morley vocals, guitar, harmonica, tin whistle and plectrum banjo, Patrick Wilkins, vocals, laggaphone, percussion and bodran, Lawrence Cooper, tenor banjo, 5 string banjo, mandolin, button accordian and concertina, with Dave Kershaw, electric base, mandolin and fiddle, an ex member of Christchurch New Zealand Bush/rock band, Bushfire, along with Pat Simmonds, mandolin, 5 string banjo, tenor banjo, guitar, electric base and fiddle, a gifted musician from an Irish family that were living in Gisborne New Zealand. The band was formed to provide entertainmet at a local Christchurch Irish Pub, Warners Hotel. The Band played without a name for a couple of weeks. As members could not agree on a suitable name, and as Hotel Management required a name for advertising purposes, we, in desperation, offered patrons in the bar a pint of Guinness for the best name. As the night wore on, and the pints flowed the names became a blur, so we settled on Murphy's Law, as it was the only one we could remember that made any sense
At the beginning of 1990 Pat Simmonds, headed for Ireland, became a fluent Gaelic speaker and took his musicianship to even greater heights. He now resides in Toronto Canada. ( He can be found here : http://www.spraoi.ca/ ). Another ex Bushfire musician, Andy Hills, tin whistle, flute, clarinet, saxophone, and vocal replaced Pat. As we all grew older, had families, needed to find careers that enabled us to live without the risk of starvation, Murphy's Law fizzled out in the mid to late 90's
The style of music performed by Murphy's Law has its roots in the Celtic Tradition which arrived with the many Scottish and Irish settlers who came here from the British Isles. From this celtic root a local style of music has evolved, we have been influenced by this Irish and Scottish music but have a different style compared to traditional Celtic music. Murphy's Law plays many songs that come from the Austalia - New Zealand folk tradition, songs about shearing, gold mining etc.
Murphy's Law produced 4 tapes, which we sold at our gigs. the first one, Murphy's Law - Behind Bars, sold about 300 copies. This tape was made from a demo we recorded. lineup was the original band. We only stopped selling this tape when the master we were copping from became too worn to use anymore. Tape 2 was called Murphy's Law - Live at the Gluepot, recorded live at this infamous bar in Auckland New Zealand, on our north island tour, which was a farewell to Pat as he flew off to Ireland at the end. The next tape Murphy's Law - Live in Nelson, was put together from a live recording of gig in Nelson, New Zealand, and was by original lineup. Tape #4 Murphy's Law - Murphy's Home Brew was recorded by Terry Molloy at his studio, by the second lineup, and was our best qualify recording. I have presevered these tapes by recording them digitally and burning them to CD. As the tapes were well worn some of the quality has been lost.
Murphy's Law has available on our website ( Murphy's Law Homepages ), the artwork for our Cd "Murphy's Home Brew" If you like our music please feel free to download artwork and songs and burn your own copy of CD, give copies to your friends, or any one you want to, as long as you don't try to make a proffit from our efforts.
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