After having finished A-levels at upper secondary school and moved to Copenhagen to start engineering studies I had a number of freelance gigs in a diverse range of pop/dance bands for a couple of years. It was a good supplement to study grants and loans. Eventually I wanted a more steady relationship with a band.
Nota Bene, v 1.0 1972 – 74
In 1971 while living in Valby, a suburb of Copenhagen, I saw a small advert in the local newspaper about a newly started pop/dance music band looking for a bass player. I auditioned and was accepted as a member of the band. We called ourselves “Nota Bene” and had quite a few gigs under that name during the first part of the 1970’es in music restaurants and for dances at sports centres around on Zealand.
In the beginning the band members were Werner Sønæs on Hammond-organ, Bent Scharnberg on guitar, Freddy Pedersen on drums and me on bass guitar. In the mid 60’es Bent had been part of another Danish band called ”The Donkeys” which he started together with Keld Heick who later got a good career in Denmark as a singer and TV-presenter. Freddy had played with ”Melvis & His Gentlemen” among others. Werner was the lead singer with Freddy and me singing chorus on many of the tunes.
Werner was a school teacher as his day job, Bent was an electrical engineer, Freddy was working with reprography at the magazine “Se & Hør” and I graduated as a civil engineer during the time I was playing with Nota Bene.
We had a photo session in the garden of Werner in Valby in order to get a series of press photos; afterwards we relocated to nearby school yard to get some more shots of silly postings.
Example of press cutting 1973
Performance at the Night Club Valencia, Sep. 1973
In the autumn of 1973 Nota Bene was engaged to perform for a month in the night club “Valencia” which was located on Vesterbrogade in Copenhagen (now closed). We played for dances in between the performances by strippers, magicians and entertainers. We shared the wardrobe with the stripper Eva Terese; the actor Alvin Linnemann was the showmaster.
Freddie worked for the Danish weekly ‘gossip’ magazine “Se & Hør” and had arranged with the editor that they would put something in the gossip column about our performance at Valencia. A photographer from the magazine took some photos in September 1973 in front of the entrance to the establishment. One of the photos together with a nonsense text ended as a notice on one of the pages in Se & Hør on 14 Sep. 1973.
Car free Sundays during the oil crisis in 1973-74
Due to the worldwide oil crisis in the end of 1973, the Danish Government introduced “Car Free Sundays” from 25 November 1973 until 10 February 1974, in an effort to save scarce fuel resources. However, it was possible for certain trades to apply for a special licence when they could demonstrate that it was necessary for their business to use the car for transport, also on a Sunday. Since our band could never get home from a gig before the curfew kicked in at Saturday midnight, I applied for a licence to be placed in the windscreen of the car.
Nota Bene v2.0, 1974 – 76
During summer 1974 Werner Sønæs decided that he did no longer want to be a member of the band. I was by then doing compulsory national service at the Civil Defence and was accommodated in a barrack room together with Torben Møller who was the happy owner and user of an electric organ. He was offered to join the band.
We also invested in a new band dress in the rather unfavourable colours of the 1970’es: Purple trousers with flare, and shirts with a purple/brownish pattern with wide collars (!!)
We had always worked in the band with multi-voice singing, mainly with Werner as the lead singer. After he left the band Freddie and I had to take over in turns the job as lead singer, and we had to re-arrange the multi-voice singing. Bent also took the lead on a few songs.
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