The bassist for Scottish band Simple Minds, Ged Grimes, talked about music and his life to pupils at Kingspark School.
He talked about how technology has changed the music industry, how nobody buys records anymore and how videogames killed the radio star.
He spoke about his younger life where he played with his family band and busked across Dundee and St Andrews.
© DC Thomson
Ged Grimes speaking to the S6 pupils.
In the late 70s he met Gary Clark and made another band called Danny Wilson, then moved to London to try to make it big, but no success. They stayed there for three years, then came back to Dundee and were signed by Virgin Records and became successful.
After a while his friend’s son has a games company and asked him to help him write music for games.
He wasn’t sure because it was completely different from what he used to do but he picked up so much that he got better at it.
After that he performed on stage with Deacon Blue.
One day he got a call from Jim Kerr, frontman of Simple Minds, asking if he would play a gig with him in Paris in four days’ time, with no rehearsal in front of 80,000 people and the concert was on the TV.
Ged has been in the band for 10 years now and has travelled all over the world playing gigs with them.
He said you have to give every concert 100% because some fans could have saved for a long time or travelled far to see you.
He still makes music for video- games and loves that they showcase different types of music to young people. He said people no longer listen to the radio to hear new music but they can hear it in games.
Review:‘Nasty’ pranks made readers laugh
We are reviewing The Twits, which was written by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake
It’s about a terrible husband and wife who are super nasty to each other.
They make worm spaghetti for people, do pranks on each other, steal money, train monkeys and love to eat bird pie, which causes lots of trouble for them.
We liked the storyline and the characters were funny, especially Mr Twit who kept food in his beard.
We liked the voice we imagined Mr Twit to have but we felt bad for the birds when they got pied.
We felt sorry for the monkeys too because they kept getting shouted at.
We liked the Twits because they were funny and daft.
They remind us of being with our friends and being silly together.
They did great pranks like making Mrs Twit think she was shrinking.
Most of us liked it but some didn’t because they are not very nice people and forced monkeys to stand.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Our hero
This week we are shining the spotlight on school technician, Bruce Anderson.
Our hero is Bruce Anderson, ICT repair and engineer, because he helps out everyone and whenever something can’t be fixed he always finds a way to fix it.
Whenever we are stuck we know we can rely on him. If something is not working, for example computers or punctured tyres he will fix it until it’s done.
It makes us happy when he does these things, especially fixing the bikes because we can ride them again.
When we were a lot younger, Bruce trained some of us how to ride a bike in his spare time when no one else would teach us.
We can’t thank him enough for all he has done for us. We know the school staff also appreciate Bruce as whenever they’re stuck he would make time for them.
If I could time travel, I would…
… go to meet Buddy Holly because he’s one of my favourite singers. I’d try to stop him from dying.
– Chloe Walker.
… travel to the prehistoric period to meet dinosaurs and get a ride on a triceratops.
– Jordan Shannon.
… go to the 1700s when Mozart was popular to meet one of the greatest composers to have ever existed and make a piece with him.
– Lewis Holden.
… bring some future technology into the time machine and show the past how to make a machine, then come back and realise I’ve created Judgement Day.
– Billy Mullen.
… go to see a massive megalodon shark and ride on it so he jumps and some places in 1961.
– Luke Walker.
… go back to the 1990s and visit Dundee city centre and see the hotel at the Overgate and go to fast food chains.
– Shane Lindsay.
… I wouldn’t because I am happy with the way everything is now.
– Xander Baird.
… travel back in time to see dinosaurs and bring one back as a pet. I would call it Steve and take him out for walks.
– Brett Brough.
… to go back to early 00s when time was good and so was the music.
– David Kidd.
… bomb Christopher Columbus’ boat so that he couldn’t discover America and neither could anyone else.
– Jack Cleary.
Video edited by Sheanne Mulholland
