The "Sasquatch" is one Josh Taylor. He was local small-time promoter with big-time dreams. He started off alright, booking gigs all over and putting in some work, but as soon as he saw the dollars his focus changed from supporting the metal scene and making a few bucks on the side to looking after himself at the expense of the scene. It started off small, empty promises and dodgy one-sided contracts, avoiding paying the bands, that sort of stuff. The sort of shit that could fly under the radar for awhile. Nobody really knew the extent of his wrongs because nobody talked about it publically, but the rumours were circulating, whispers getting louder.
People kept quiet for various reasons. Alchemont didn't want to make a scene because he owed them thousands. Grotesque kept quiet because they potentially risked losing prime gigs. Other bands kept quiet because they believed that he would come through in the end. His partner couldn't act because Josh had worked it so he had control over the finances of their promotions business, and a lot was at stake. For whatever the reasons, Josh was able to kept on digging his hole deeper and deeper until there was no way to fill it in again.
I got the ball rolling when I arranged for members of a bunch of local bands to meet up at my place to discuss this problem and to discuss what to do about itlem, and then I blasted his ass on Western Front for his shitty promotional work. The boil was ready to burst and out came an endless flood of attacks from almost every Metal band in town, plus plenty of others who had a grievance. Fuck, but there were some horror stories. Almost all of them came back to the same thing: money and empty promises. Josh was the master of the sidestep, a silver-tongued weasle and a born conman. The gigs he put on brought in money that never made to the bands, his creditors and even his partner. He abused the kindness of Geoff and BigMac who had taken him in, stealing from them and not paying his share of bills and rent. He put on our CD launch and pocketted over a thousand bucks from the door. The tension he caused in The Alchemont caused the band to fold. He lied himself into corners and lied himself out again, created a whirlwind of raw hatred against him, and finally fled the state to avoid the shitstorm that was brewing. Just as well, some of us had started paying him visits at night and it was starting to get ugly, he got hit a few times at a gig he was silly enough to pop into.
Despite his delusions of grandure, Josh is a twit. He tried to get Daz - unsuccessfully, of course - to close down the topics exposing him by threats of legal action. He tried to start up a new band conning scheme in Queensland but Geeks from Brizmetal was warned that Josh was sneaking into his town and shut him down. He tricked a band called Wounds of Decay (i Think) into signing with him and got outed as a conman all over again. He was spotted dancing like a hippie in a videoclip by some faggot, Ben Lee maybe? He pissed off Dyson and Brad who went on a national campaign to bury any last shreds of credibility he may have left. He was too stupid to cut his losses, but kept on coming on WF for months afterwards with posts splattered with contradictions, omissions, obscene justifications, cries of martyrdom and just out and out bullshit. Ah, I could fill pages with his crap, and as I recall the original topic was close to thirty pages long, tragically it was erased - along with a year of posts - by an computer fuckup.
Josh DID accomplish one thing though, the bands tend to work together a lot more tightly these days to prevent a recurrence of this sort of rorting. And the Sasquatch as a nickname.... Well, I guess you had to be there.
Oh yeah, we have a song on the new CD dedicated to the Sasquatch, "Seven Levels of Hate", so he may be gone but he will never be forgotten.