Hobbit and "The Bar Years" 1986 - 1989 Members: Glenn Caloren - Vocals After the disolving of Probe, Greg had a serious itch to get out and be a professional musician and make his stage performance ability more accessible to more people. The Vancouver club scene offered lots of work for musicians who were willing and able to "make the grind" and G wanted in. His first professional gig was with Cinderella Rockafella. A well known pop-dance act featuring the stunning and talented Dakmar Plavins, who dazzled people with her bass and vocal ability. The band also featured Rob (Rocko) Larson and Jesse Hartline on keyboards. The band toured the Vancouver and surrounding British Columbia bar scene for nearly a year and made it to exotic places such as Inuvik NWT. The band is still together and playing in the South Pacific and Middle-East! During this time Greg maintained contact with his close friends from Probe and desired to play in a much "heavier" act. Hobbit was formed with old band-mates Wes Lawrie and Brian Morrison. With the addition of keyboardist Chris Weintz, the group hit the road in February 1987. The band jam-packed houses all throughout BC and were notorious as an intense party band, often selling establishments out of their stocked beer. The act lasted exactly one year and the group played their last performances in Whitehorse BC at the "Klondike Inn" during the world famous gold-rush party "Rendezvous". Alot of song-writing occured at this time however, there are only a few rare recordings of this era as no serious studio work was done. Things grew tire-some for the band and it was time to move on. Greg remained business partners with long-time friend Wes Lawrie and they set out to create the best band the local scene could produce. Bassist Peter Olster and singer/guitarist Murray Hardacker joined the project and "The Guf" had a short-lived but very intense life-span. It was Murray one night on the road who first coined the nick-name for Greg and referred to "his drunken on Jack Daniels alter-ego" as G Willy. The rest is history. Greg decided to take a break from the bar scene and touring and took up a job as a disc jockey at a local night-club. During this time he played a short stint with "First Cut" who were well known for their outrageous thrash metal version of the "Rodeo Song". Life was changing for everyone at this time and it was time for a change. G entered the dark studies of Jim Morrison of The Doors and all of the historical and intellectual reading that came with it. Soon the "lizard King" would re-awaken and take the stage with the "New Creatures".
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