Vendem

mian - D

runk, Stup

id and

Goth

After Vendemmian split up in 1997, I wrote up my story of the times we’d had. I recently re-discovered the file and after a lot of re-writing here it is -my story.

It’s been a very interesting experience going back over all those times, looking at old photos and the wealth of stuff I’d collected in my memory boxes. There were many good memories, some not so good, but mostly good.

All details contained within are as accurate as I can remember. Some names have been changed deliberately.

Enjoy!

Mark Douglas, September 2013

Eternal gratitude to Callie for all her help

Copyright 2013 - Mark Douglas

Mark Douglas can be contacted atarchwaytowersmusic@yahoo.co.uk

It’s 5am and I’m freezing cold. I’m half-drunk, half hung-over.

We are huddling outside Dublin ferry port, me and Callie, waiting for them to open to passengers so we can board the first ferry back to Holyhead - the first leg of a long journey back home to London.

It has already taken us an hour and a half to flag down a taxi willing to pick up a couple of drunken Goths in the middle of the night.

We shouldn’t really be here at all. We should be tucked up in a nice cosy bed in Dublin somewhere. My best mate Dave should be with us as well (not in the bed – that would be weird, but he should be in the next room or snoring on the floor).

But he isn’t. He’s probably in that nice cosy bed. Or still up drinking Jack and Coke more likely.

The reason we’re not with Dave is that we’ve had an argument. A big one. And he’s buggered off and left us.

A member of the port staff arrives to start his shift and gives us a sorry look which says he can’t let us in yet. We will have to stay out in the cold for another half hour. I look at Callie and wonder how we ended up here...

Dublin - 26th April 1997

The first band I was ever in was called “Sons of Chance” – a band I formed with my mate James when I was in school. We were totally dreadful of course, playing Sex Pistols and Joy Division covers along with a few of our own primitive compositions. But that didn’t stop us sending out demo tapes to the music press. We had no money so we wrapped them in newspaper rather than buying jiffy bags. Imagine my surprise then, when I opened Melody Maker and found a review! Ok, it wasn’t a good review. It said “wrapped in newspaper with sound quality to match”. But all publicity is good publicity right?

James went off to study at university and Sons of Chance came to an end. Then I spent a few years in musical wilderness before deciding the world was ready for me. So here I was, at the age of 20, scouring the back pages of Melody Maker to find my ticket to Rock & Roll fame.

The advert reads “Bassist into Nephilim, New Model Army, Sisters of Mercy ‘85...” Short and to the point.

I give the number a call and I’m greeted by a miserable, unenthusiastic voice. This is Steve. The following evening I’m at Kingston railway station where we meet and go to a local pub. He talks (a lot), I listen and he plays me some tapes of his band Restoration. He’s enthusiastic in real life and I really want to play in a real band. He gives me tapes to listen to, which I do on the train home. I really want to be in this band!

A few weeks later I get the call. I’m in! I meet Dave, the guitarist and we start rehearsals. It’s not the most professional setup. We’re in Steve’s bedroom with me and my little 30 watt bass amp and one chorus effect on one side of the room. Dave is on the other side with his borrowed guitar, borrowed effects and a tiny amp. Rhythmic accompaniment is provided by a Yamaha drum machine pumped through a crappy little Saisho ghetto blaster. Despite all this, it seems to work and before long we’re in a proper rehearsal studio getting ready for our debut gig at the Town & Country Club 2. Wow, my first proper gig. I spend hours imagining how great it’s going to be!

Beginnings

Steve, Dave and Me

I think my imagination needs to be sacked! Our dressing room is basically a corridor, not even enough room to swing a cat let alone a bloody guitar! I rather sheepishly tell the bar staff I’m in the band when I get my first drink but they still charge me full price. This is Rock & Roll?

This is great! I love it. The place is packed. I think everyone is really here for the headliners, Rosetta Stone, and not us but I don’t care. We’re on stage, people are watching us and some are even clapping between songs. It’s over before we know it. We’re done and we hit the bar. Dave is getting horrendously drunk. Dave has passed out. Dave is pronounced dead by a passing medical student. We check. No, he’s dribbling and slurring and most certainly not dead. Bloody students!

So that was it, our debut performance. We’re all excited now and are feverishly writing and rehearsing new songs.

It’s July ‘91 and I’m off to an actual recording studio. We’ve scraped together enough money to pay for one days recording at La Rocka studio in Turnpike Lane, London. It’s not a bad studio either although there’s a distinct whiff of wee in the air mixed with stale beer and smoke. Our engineer for the day is called Scratchy. I don’t like to think why he’s called that but I keep a safe distance just in case.

We’ve been here for six hours. Well, five actually ‘cos we spent an hour in the pub, but somehow we’ve recorded and mixed three songs. It’s been an interesting experience and hearing our own songs coming back at us through the big speakers is amazing! Actually, hang on, it’s not that amazing and I will soon come to my senses and realise that it’s rubbish. But for now we have our first demo tape and it’s all rather exciting.

First gig

Recording

Our next gig is at Gossips Nightclub in London on 3rd September ‘91. It’s the first of many that goes down on the list of “nights to forget”. We don’t go on stage until late and we’ve all had a fair bit to drink. I find myself at one point playing the bass line to “Summer Loving” from Grease with some old suited guy dancing on stage! Dave is mad at me afterwards.

Later that month we’re off to the seaside. We’re in Scarborough supporting a band called The Ancestry. Whatever possessed us to think this gig will be good I’ll never know! As well as the three of us we now have Mr B around who’s acting as our manager/roadie. We’ve all piled into the back of a rented transit van and have made our way up here and when we arrive I’m sent to book us in to our B&B on account of the fact that I look the least weird!

The night before is quite a laugh, messing around along the seafront and playing the amusement arcades. We’ve even found a Goth club! Mind you, this is ‘91 and Goth is still slightly fashionable!

Nights to forget

Off to the seaside

Dave, Steve and Me - The Bull & Gate

We spend the day of the gig nursing hangovers in the pub where the gig will be tonight. It’s a pretty shit pub at that and we play a pretty shit gig to match. This touring lark is not all I had thought it would be!

The next night we’re back in London at The Camden Underworld supporting Rosetta Stone again. This is much better and, in this topsy turvy world of Rock & Roll, everything seems worth it once more. Then it’s on to The Bull and Gate in Kentish Town supporting The Ancestry again and The Last Cry. Fast forward 18 years and me and Dave find ourselves on the same bill as The Last Cry again. It’s like time’s stood still!

It’s October and we do more dates with Rosetta Stone, travelling to Grantham, Leicester, Leeds and finishing at the dizzy heights of The Marquee in London.Wow! The Marquee. Everyone has played here. All the greats at some point have trod these legendary boards. I’ve been here loads of times to watch bands and always dreamed of what it must be like to play here and now I’m actually doing it. It’s great. It’s so good to play a really professional venue. I love this place. Just as well. We’ll be back here many more times.

We’ve been busy writing more songs too and in January ‘92 we’re back in La Rocka to record our 2nd demo “Epsychidion”- I know, it’s a bit of a mouthful but it means something to Steve! We’ve spent longer on this than the last demo but it’s still turned out pretty crap. I’m starting to think it’s got something to do with the noise that’s being sung into the mic! Steve’s vocal style is more growling than singing and I’m not sure this is really working.

The Marquee

New songs

It’s April before we manage to get ourselves another gig. We seem to have bagged ourselves a regular spot supporting Rosetta Stone, the best up and coming band in the Goth scene, and we’re playing Leicester, Birmingham and for the second time in four months, The Marquee. But for me it’s all about the next gig. On 3rd May ‘92 we finally play our first headline gig. We’re playing at The Underworld in Camden and this time we’ve got our own support band! Hastings band Children on Stun will become good mates over the next few years and we will build up a healthy rivalry with them playing many gigs together. But back to this gig. This gig is really good. Loads of our mates are down the front jeering us on. At some point one of them has let her pet rat loose onstage. We don’t bother to ask why she’s brought a rat to gig, it seemed normal at the time!

And now we’re off on our own headline tour taking in Leicester, Glasgow and Sheffield and ending up back at the Marquee again. Our support band is Empyrean, and I have to admit the tour isn’t the greatest success but we’ve had a laugh and at the Marquee we have a crowd of around 300 people who actually seem to be enjoying themselves.

It’s now June and Dave’s been made redundant - total crap. On the plus side, he’s received a rather hefty pay-off which he’s decided to invest wisely. Actually, no he hasn’t, but he has brought some new equipment for the band and financed a vinyl three track EP, Tears and Ribbons which is recorded at the rather plush (by our standards) Vons studios in Islington. We’ve even spent more than one day on it, three or four in fact, but despite a good studio and engineer, Steve still sounds crap!

And Steve’s found us some crap artwork to match! I’m starting to wonder if we’ll ever put out a recoding I’m actually proud of so I’m happy when we’re back on tour and playing live gigs once more - something I think we are definitely getting better at.

Headlining

A proper record

We do a series of small headline gigs with Empyrean supporting again then head off to Nottingham’s Rock City supported by a band called Die Laughing. This is early days for them and we’ll see them on stage with us again later in the ‘90’s. Next stop Manchester at The Banshee. Empyrean are opening and me and Dave are getting happily pissed. We do our set but afterwards something is wrong. Dave is screaming at me for being too pissed to play. I think Dave is too pissed, and anyway, who is he to tell me I’m too pissed? I’m thinking of quitting. In the coming months I will realise that this is the curse of Manchester. We never have a good experience here and we should learn not to book in this city, but we don’t!

Once more the tour has ended up at The Marquee. Despite the gig being set up by us with Children on Stun and Every New Dead Ghost as support acts, somehow Bones, the singer from ENDG has managed to get the gig listing to Melody Maker and The Marquee with them as headliners!

With us away from London on tour there’s not a lot we can do about it. It nearly comes to a head when we arrive at The Marquee. Mr B and Steve approach Bones but he’s not budging from the headline spot and there’s not much we can do about it without resorting to fisty-cuffs which very nearly happens. Steve makes constant remarks whilst on stage about us being headliners much to the annoyance of ENDG.

Tour over, its back to song writing. We’re actually getting quite good at this but we’re coming up against the same problem again as on our earlier recordings. Our relationship with Steve is rapidly falling apart. Me and Dave now openly slag him off and our friends are starting to respond with comments like “Yeah, well he can’t sing in tune for a start”. We decide he has to go and me and Dave will start a new band without him and with Mr B as our manager. Now all we have to do is tell him.

But we’ve got one more gig booked with Steve for an all day festival in Manchester on October 8th. Me and Dave half heartily rehearse and for a laugh change a few songs around deliberately to throw Steve when he’s on stage! We’ve decided how to tell him. We’ve made up some flyer’s to hand out on the day saying that it will be Restorations last gig!

Remember, this is Manchester, so it’s never going to go well for us. The gig

Time for a change

is really boring. It’s an all day festival with 12 bands playing with us second headliners to Sins of the Flesh. We have to arrive by 12 noon for sound-check and we spend the rest of the day trying not to get too drunk. An hour before going on stage Mr B hands around our flyers. He’s even given one to Steve. Not, perhaps, the best way to sack him but he get’s the message. Me and Dave are really pleased when the gig is over and we can head back to London and put Restoration behind us.

Steve will try again in a few months and call his band Restoration 2, or as he writes it, Restoration II. We amuse ourselves for hours calling his new band Restoration eleven and wonder why he’s decided to join a football team!

With Steve out of the way, me and Dave along with Mr B who continues to be our manager, start to look for a new vocalist and a new name.

The name hasn’t taken too long to find. Whilst on their way home from one of their drunken binges, Dave and Mr B have seen the word “Vendemmia” in an Italian delicatessen shop window. Adding an “n” to the end of it makes it “Vendemmian” and a good name. They phone me to see if I like it and I admit, at the time, it sounds cool. So that’s that. We will be called Vendemmian.

As for the new vocalist, he’s not been too difficult to find either. A quick look through Melody Maker and we find an advert in the “Vocalist Available” section for a guy named Dominic.

Me, Dave and Mr B are sitting in a pub by Waterloo station enjoying a nice pint and some crisps waiting for Dominic. He arrives, tall bloke, long hair, quite posh. We all get on well and find we have similar musical tastes. Dominic’s brought his Walkman and plays us some tapes he’s done on his own and he sounds ok. A vast improvement over Steve but I’m soon to realise that it’s not much to compare to. We play him our stuff and by the end of the night Dominic is our new vocalist.

We set about writing songs aiming to record a demo at the end of the year. It has all been going well and by October, we are ready. We do a rough demo on Dominic’s four track round at Mr B’s house beforehand and then, in December, we return to La Rocka Studios to properly record the demo. It’s a three track affair simply named Vendemmian.

Initial reactions to the new demo are good, many people commenting on how much of an improvement Dominic is.

After Christmas, we rehearse and write new songs whilst Mr B concentrates on setting up the all-important gigs.

We make our debut in Leicester on 3rd March ‘93, a gig set up by our good friend Dave Morrison, at The Desire Club. We meet up outside La Rocka. Mr B has a driver booked but he doesn’t show. We persuade his brother Pete to drive us instead. We get there and play our debut to a small, but enthusiastic, crowd.

Dominic

Dominic

Six days later, we play our London debut at The Dome in Tufnell Park. It has turned out to be a great gig. Due to a popular TV advert running at the moment, Dime Bars are all the rage and we get loads of them thrown at us (in a good way). The end result of this is we come off stage covered in melted chocolate!

In April, we play three more dates with Empyrean. This time in Glasgow, Manchester (disaster, obvioulsy) and the Moonlight Club in London.

Something we’ve been talking about for a while now is getting a drummer. We’ve known this Italian guy called Robbie for a while and we’ve found out he plays drums. After buying him a few pints down the pub we’ve convinced him to play for us. With Robbie on board we continue writing new material. We get around the language barrier with Robbie by miming or playing air drums going “you know, boom, boom, crash, crash!”. It seems to work.

Festivals. These should be great events for bands. In theory. Lots of bands should mean lots of people. Mind you, that only works if they are well organised and promoted. May 15th and we are booked to play the first of two all dayers over two weekends at The Island venue in Ilford. Where? Yes, exactly! Ilford’s about 15 miles from central London and not exactly the easiest place to get to. A very bizarre event which, to say the least, is very poorly attended. Anyway, despite the small crowd and the boredom of waiting around all day to play, the gig goes ok. The second weekend however, and it’s a different story. Every band is running late and by the time it comes for us to play (second from last) time is so short that we are bumped off the bill. There is only one thing for it and that is a night out at Slimelight to get pissed!

Later in May and we’re back in La Rocka studios once more to record our second demo “Lords of the Flame”. Having a drummer gives us a stronger sound and compared with our first demo this is a lot heavier and a reflection of what Dave is listening to at the moment.

The gigging continues and our next one is at London’s Camden Palace. We’re a little dubious about this but can hardly turn down playing at such a large

Dime Bar?

Drummers

Where?

Back to the studio

venue. The idea is for it to be a club with one Metal band one Goth band and an “anything goes” band. The turnout is not too bad. There are a few hundred here but Camden Palace holds about 2000 so it looks empty. Anyway, we play well and are paid and being able to say we’ve played Camden Palace makes it worthwhile. The next day we are on more familiar territory at The Moonlight club in West Hampstead playing to about 200 people.

After a gig in Birmingham we’re off to Manchester again. God knows why, I thought it was on the list of places to never play again? We arrive 3 hours early and have been waiting outside in the van for the club to open. We finally get in and sound-check. All is well but we have a funny feeling the curse of Manchester is about to strike when the promoter tells us that he is not expecting a huge turnout as there is a free club on just around the corner at the same time. The club opens and we’ve been hanging around, having a few pints, and we can count the paying customers on one hand. We decide to cut our losses and get the hell out before playing, what would undoubtedly be, a very embarrassing gig. However, there is a problem. The soundman is not too happy with this, as he’s humped all the PA gear in only to have to take it all out again for nothing. We strike a bargain. We lug all his PA gear out the venue and into his van whilst he sits there drinking the beer we’ve brought him, and then we call it quits. To make things worse the club has just one very small and steep windy staircase for which to load and unload gear!

We should know by now not to come to Manchester ever again but we never learn and we’ll be back again next year.

Saturday afternoon and I’m with Dave, Dom and Mr B standing at Victoria train station. We’ve come up with a cunning plan. We’re playing the Marquee in a few weeks time so to promote it we need to flyer like crazy. We’re here today as The Sisters of Mercy are playing with Depeche Mode at Crystal Palace. The vast majority of those going will need to get a train from Victoria so we’ve come armed with 1000’s of flyers to hand out to the travelling fans. Clever huh?

Today is also significant for me as one of those nameless 1000’s who I give a flyer to is my future wife, Callie, who I’ll meet again at the Sanctuary club in Edgeware Road a few weeks from now.

Manchester

Flyering at Victoria

The flyering has paid off. We’re back playing in London at The Marquee to around 500 people and it’s great. You don’t have the highs without suffering the lows! Or indeed, without having to spend an afternoon handing out flyers at Victoria station!

The seaside town of Margate is not, perhaps, the most likely of places to find a Goth club but that’s exactly where we find ourselves a week later. Thanks to some friends from down that way we are playing The Pisces Club. It holds about 50 people at the most and the stage is only just large enough to fit the four of us on. However, it’s great fun and we’ve impressed the landlord enough to let us stay behind for a good after hour’s session.

By now we’ve started to attract a bit of a following so we are standing in the Worlds End pub in Camden being interviewed for the fanzine Curse in Vein. I’m very hung-over, Dave is not much better, Dominic is bright and cheerful and acting serious and Robi is nowhere to be seen. We go to the bar, get drinks, and engage in general chitchat. Several pints later we’re reminded that we’re actually here to do an interview and a tape recorder is brought forth. Over the course of the following few hours we discuss our music, slag off just about every other band going and make Dominic go to the bar quite a few times. Much later Robi

Off to the seaside again

Me at The Dome

arrives. He says about five words for the interview and leaves, as does Dom who needs to get home for his tea. Me and Dave continue drinking the afternoon away and, when I see the 20 page interview in the next edition of the fanzine, I have a sneaking suspicion that the tape recorder was left running because I don’t remember speaking that much bollocks!

Dave has been talking with a guy called Andy who owns Resurrection Records in Camden. He has already been selling our demos in his shop and now Dave has got him to co-finance a CD for us. We’ve worked out recording and pressing costs and come up with our share of the money. So in October we’re in St. Marks studios in Stonebridge Park and begin recording a six track CD to be entitled “Between Two Worlds”.

We record over a couple of weekends during the night (to keep the costs down). The whole thing’s very different from what we’ve been used to doing in La Rocka. We take it a lot more seriously and some more than others. Dom is insisting on singing his vocals in darkness with just a blue light for company, whilst I’m getting tetchy because there are too many people in the control room whilst I’m doing my bass.

We’ve made a schoolboy error. In an effort to keep our costs to a minimum we decided to mix the album straight after recording it and we’ve booked a night session. It sounds horrible as we’re all totally knackered and can’t tell what sounds ok or not. We decide to throw more money at it and book another session to remix it during the daytime.

We’ve overrun a bit and by the time we emerge from the studio to go home we have an issue. The studio is situated next door to an Afro Caribbean center and, whilst we’ve been in the studio mixing, a big community event has started. The car park is rammed and people have started blocking each other in, including us. We go over to the club with the offending car’s registration number and politely ask them to make an announcement for it to be moved. This doesn’t go down

Resurrection & our first CD

too well but we are given the general impression that they may (or may not) do something about it when it suits them. We wait half an hour and nothing happens so we return and ask again but still nothing happens. After an hour or so more of this we give up and call the police. This area of London doesn’t really like the police so their arrival in a riot van is not particularly welcomed! The police advise us to go back into the studio, lock the doors and wait for them to sort it out in case things get nasty. Four hours later we finally get the all clear to leave and I put my foot to the floor to get us out of there as fast as I can.

It has been a couple of weeks now since we recorded and mixed the CD and things have been manic with artwork, mastering and pressing for the CD. It has kind of slipped our minds that we’ve not heard from, or even seen, Robi since we recorded. He never even turned up for the remix session.

Robi’s just informed me he’s had enough and is quitting the band and even quitting England and returning home to Italy. Shit.

We now have a completed CD that we’re pretty pleased with but no drummer and we have gigs coming up again. We’ve decided to go back to a drum machine again. The only problem is that we sold our last one when we got Robi and we’ve just spent all our money on the CD. There is talk of putting what little money we have on a horse “There’s a nice little filly running in the 2.15 at Doncaster”. Then we decide perhaps its best we just try to sell some advance copies of the CD. We blag, borrow, and scrape together what we can and manage to get ourselves a Roland R8 and Atari computer to run it from. We frantically spend many nights and days trying to make it sound like a real drummer before our next gig at The Marquee on 14th November.

Everything is becoming so rushed and we’re running out of time before we have to play. We’ve done the drum programming but we still need to remember how to play the songs live. So, we’re back into the rehearsal studios the day before the next gig. We’ve been in the hot and smelly room for about four hours now and Dave has finished rehearsals on his back in a really bad cold sweat. He is really ill. He isn’t that much better the next day but going into gig mode has made him forget his illness and we do ok. However, for me it’s another story. We’re halfway through our set. God I’m hot! I’m sweating really badly. I feel wobbly and can hardly stand and I’ve not even drunk that much. I make it through to the end but afterwards I’m just lying on a bench in the dressing room sweating really badly. In the end I get Dom to drive me home and I spend the next week really ill in bed.

Back to a drum machine

We’ve two more gigs before the year is out, The Racehorse in Northampton and then The Pieces Club in Margate. Once more Margate is a real good laugh. Callie is now well and truly on board as an official WAG and she and Nashie, our newly employed roadie, spend the whole of the gig at the side of the stage with their fingers constantly on the smoke machine so we can hardly see a thing on stage. After another lock-in we eventually go back to friends Neil and Vanessa’s house where we’re staying. We’re totally bladdered and are highly amused to find that the smoke machine is still warm and working. We’ve managed to fill the whole of a Ford Transit with dry ice - what fun! Dom is driving and he is none to impressed though! At Neil and Vanessa’s house we party a bit more and finally pass out but not before Dave mistakes a wardrobe for a urinal!

We’ve been hanging out at the Sanctuary Club in London since it opened a few months back. It’s a small club but great fun. Our roadie Nashie is now one of the DJ’s so we go every week and get in free and he just plays what we ask him to. We chat, dance and generally get wasted on Red Stripe and Diamond White. Dave has been having chats with the clubs promoter Owen and it has been put to us that we play the New Year’s Eve party there. Dave thinks this is a great idea. I don’t but I eventually agree with a disclaimer that I will definitely be drunk.

We meet up in the pub upstairs early in the afternoon to sound check and set up the PA. We actually have no intentions of doing any of these things. It’s just an excuse to start the New Year’s drinking early! There is quite a gang of us here and it’s a good four hours before we even attempt to do anything.

We play and as promised, I’m pretty out of it. Under normal circumstances, it would be embarrassing but it doesn’t seem to matter tonight as everyone else is in a similar state. Halfway through Russ from Margate is shouting and pointing at me. I have no idea what he’s on about until we finish the song and he holds up my broken bass string in front of me. I hadn’t even realised it was broken. I carry on regardless - drunk as I am I’m still professional enough to manage without a D string. Then the drum machine stops. We look at it. We look at it again and then realise it’s not going to miraculously start working so I tap the keys. Nothing. I tap the keys really hard. Still nothing. I’m trying to focus on what it says on the screen but it’s in double, maybe triple, vision. Hitting it doesn’t help either and in the end I resort to the tried and tested method of turning it on and off. It’s 1993 though so it takes 10 minutes for the thing to reboot and load the sequencer files from floppy disk but tonight in our inebriated state, it’s nearer 20 minutes.

New Year ’s Eve

At the end of the night Owens refusing to pay us as he thinks we were too pissed to play. He probably has a point but we have arguments, stand our ground, and eventually get some money out of him.

We do another Marquee gig in January ‘94 followed by a visit to Sheffield then in February we go to the “Goth Capital of the World”, Leeds.

My God! This is almost as bad as Manchester. It’s only marginally better because we are not in Manchester. Four people have turned up and two of them are only here to play pool all night. We play regardless as the promoter won’t pay us otherwise. Me and Dave are so bored after the first song that we leave the stage and play sitting on stools at the bar. Poor Dom’s mic lead won’t stretch that far though so we feel sorry for him and take him a chair on stage so he can sit down too. We leave depressed.

Leeds

Me with only 3 strings!

I’m not sure quite what to make of what happens next. Dom has just called me to say that we are being featured on Radio One this weekend on a Sunday afternoon programme called The Rock War. It’s basically a battle of the bands feature. A track from each band is played and then the listeners vote for their favourite. What I don’t get is why Dom didn’t tell us anything about it beforehand. He’s starting to act likes he’s running the band lately but more on that in a minute. For now though, we sit around the kitchen table listening to The Rock War. We come second. No big deal, we didn’t expect to win. Oh, and yes, I did vote for myself!

So, back to Dominic. What’s he playing at? He’s put us up for that Rock War thing without mentioning it to Dave or me and now he’s going on about ditching our deal with Resurrection. We have a pretty good deal with Resurrection. It’s a 50/50 split on all profits. Now where the hell do you think we’re going to get anything better than that at the moment?

Now we find ourselves sitting in a pub somewhere in Hampshire talking to some girl he’s made contact with through a small ad in his local paper. Apparently, she’s a marketing guru and can do big things for us. Why me and Dave are even entertaining the idea I don’t know but I suspect the idea of an afternoon in the pub is too tempting to turn down. We listen to what this guru has to say and it turns out (after we’ve flown a couple of ideas up the flagpole, done some blue sky thinking and sung from the same hymn sheet a few times) that it boils down to sending out some mysterious flyers on a weekly basis something like :

Week One – “Guess What?” Week Two – “This band are great” Week Three – “Want to know more?” Week Four – “Vendemmian!”

Dave and me finish our pints very quickly and head outside leaving Dom with the guru. It’s some time before we can control our laughter enough to make our way home.

We’re on Radio One!

Marketing guru’s

Things with Dominic are becoming strained. He has his head in the clouds on the business side of things and I’m not sure how much longer we can put up with him. Things are just a bit crap at the moment. Dom is being an idiot and his singing (if you can call it that) is getting on my tits too. I would really like to have a singer who was, well, a singer. We’ve been trying to write new material but we‘re not really getting anywhere with it. Luckily, we’ve managed to persuade Lionel, who owns the pub where Sanctuary is held, to let us use his basement as a rehearsal space for free so at least we are not wasting money on rehearsal rooms. We keep coming back here week after week and get nothing done. Rather than looking at ourselves we blame our writers block on that dull black bit of plastic sitting in the corner that is the drum machine. Even that is getting on my tits now with its stupid beep, beep, beep, beep metronome.

I’ve had enough! I’ve decided to leave the band. We’ve had yet another unproductive rehearsal and a band meeting this week and I’m sick to death of it all and decide to quit.

10.15 Saturday night. I’m at the Sanctuary Club again. I feel liberated. No more rehearsing, no more travelling up and down the motorway to play to a handful of people, no more endless amounts of money going out of my bank account never to be seen again. Time to just enjoy life. Just me and Callie and whatever we choose to do. This is great and, yes, I’ll have another beer please barman. Dave’s here too. I have no grudges with him and we have a beer or two together and a chat.

2am Sunday morning - several beers later.Brilliant! I’ve decided to re-join the band. This will be awesome. I can’t wait to start rehearsing and playing gigs again!

Despite my 48-hour departure from the band, nothing’s changed, but Dom thinks he may have found us a drummer.

We go down to Camberley where Dom’s arranged an audition. His name’s Russ and he seems a nice bloke. He’s a bit of a metal guy but aren’t all drummers? He’s got a massive kit and he’s pretty darn good. We play a few songs with him and it goes well. He’s in. Russ is our new drummer.

I’m leaving

Russ

With Russ on board, we try writing new songs again and now it seems to be coming together once more. Things are still a bit strained with Dom though but for now, we carry on. We play our first gig with Russ in April in Northampton. Dom turns up and he’s got himself a new pair of army boots. These are not just any old army boots though, these have little pockets on the sides and Dom foolishly tells us he’s using them to store Penguin biscuits. Whilst he sleeps in the back of the van on the way to the gig we pilfer his tuck from his special pockets and from his lunchbox. When he awakes and finds out his lunch his mum has lovingly made for him has gone he’s not best pleased. We laugh it off but he’s really mad. He thinks we’re always picking on him and using him as the butt of our jokes. We can’t really argue with this as it’s true!

Russ’s debut goes well and we follow with another London gig at The Marquee.

Next, we’re off to Nottingham. There are still bad vibes in the air with Dom but the gig has gone ok. I’m standing by the bar chatting to someone when Dave burst’s through in a rage. He’s mad with Dom. They’ve had a massive row. I never really get to the bottom of what it’s about but all the bad vibes and tensions of the last few months have come to a head. Dave and Dom square up to each other but it goes no further than verbal’s.

We endure a depressing journey back to London. We stop at the motorway services and the row breaks out again and now Dave’s girlfriend, Yaz, is slapping and kicking Dom! When we reach London we get pulled by the cops for driving suspiciously slow. We’re not up to anything suspicious at all. It’s just the way Dom drives. Thankfully, the cops don’t ask him to open the back of the van as it’s packed full of people and entirely illegal.

A day or so later and Dave’s just asked me “would you rather be in a band with me or Dom?” It’s not really a question that needs asking and we promptly decide to sack Dom. As it was Dave and Mr B who sacked Steve, it’s my turn to do the firing. I call him that night. Another chapter over.

Time for a change #2

Matt

I’m round at Dave’s house and we’re sifting through a list of potential new singers. After staring at this blank sheet of paper for a few minutes Dave plays me a tape he’s got from a friend of a friend of a singer called Matt. The key word here is singer. Not a growler, not a shouter but a real bona fide singer who can sing in tune, in time and write about normal things, none of this mystical bullshit we’ve been enduring for the last few years. It seems like he even understands the concept of vocal harmonies!

Matt’s interested in joining us so things are looking good on the new singer front. Not so good is the fact that Russ has decided to quit. He’s pissed off with not getting very far in the short time he’s been with us and I’m getting the impression he thinks we’re a bit dysfunctional, mental, or maybe both which is quite understandable. He’s on the lookout for a new band. He’s being cool about it though and has said he will happily drum on any future recordings we do and help prepare backing tracks for gigs.

It’s Saturday morning and I’m making myself a cup of tea when my flatmate, and band roadie, Nashie comes in and says, “Oh, your new singer is in the living room, why don’t you take him a cup of tea and get to know each other”. Nashie had met up with him at the Electric Ballroom in Camden last night and let him crash at our place.

I take him some tea “Hi, I’m Mark the bassist, I have to go out now, I’ll see you later”. Unfortunately, I can’t stay and chat with Matt as I need to accompany Callie on a shopping trip. She’s totally out shoes and could probably do with a new bag as well! After a good six hours or so looking at shoes and bags we get back and Matt’s still here. He’s spent the day with Nashie listening to our stuff and has re-written the lyrics to a couple of our songs, including what will become one of our most popular songs, Masquerade.

Over the next few weeks we get to know Matt a little better and he seems a top guy. A good laugh, a bit wet behind the ears perhaps but I think this can really work. Which is just as well as the German label Hyperium are on at us, wanting a track for a new compilation they’re putting together.

Matt

It’s 11th June and we’re back in La Rocka recording two tracks over the weekend. There’s a really happy and positive vibe in the studio, the sun is shining and we have our new band together. Russ, who is playing session drums for us, has just heard Matt’s first vocal take and decided to not bother looking for a new band afterall. We record two tracks both of which are from the back catalogue but with Matt’s shiny new lyrics for them replacing Dom’s mystical nonsense. We record Masquerade and Hang the Shame.

It’s going brilliantly and we’re all feeling this is the start of something really great. Once we’re all done and the mix is finished me and Nashie head home and listen to the tape over and over again whilst getting very merry on cheap wine and mad dog 20/20!

Resurrection are keen to put out another CD so we’ve spent the last month rehearsing and writing new material. It’s all been going surprisingly well and we’re in a position now to get some new songs recorded. There’s a new confidence in the band and it’s all quite enjoyable!

We’ve booked the next few weekends out in St Mark’s studio to record our first CD with the new line up. It goes really well and Gavin, the engineer, knows how to get the best out of us. We all waste a good few hours on Sunday night by watching Italy loose to Brazil in the world cup finals. For me and my mate Si, who is with us, this is fantastic as we’ve both had bad experiences with Italian girls recently!

We record six tracks. Solitude, Treasured, This Bleeding Heart, Masquerade, Depths of Innocence and Never-ending Tide. The CD itself we will call “Through the Depths of Innocence”

A few weeks later and we find ourselves traipsing around various graveyards of North London with our mate Australian Steve, who’s handy with a camera, taking photo’s for the CD artwork. This takes a while as we need to find somewhere quiet where there’s no people about to stop and watch as we strike our moody poses. He’s also doing some weird shit with feathers and animal skulls back at his house for the main cover art. Being the only member of the band with a computer I’m busy pulling it all together and laying out the artwork. When it’s all done I save it to a floppy disk and take it down to a newly established CD pressing company who, for the purposes of this story, we shall call “Tonic”.

Back in the studio

Tonic has assured me it’s all going well but they have tweaked the artwork slightly and want me to come and check it. “Yes”, I say “everything looks absolutely fine – except that it’s black and white instead of colour, you’ve changed all the fonts, the font size has changed from 10pt to about 40pt, you’ve mis-spelt several words and deleted half of the text that was originally on there”. Apart from that it’s all perfect!

Tonic tell me it actually looks better the way they have done it. I’m open to constructive criticism, but on this occasion I have to disagree and get them to re-do it all again. And again. They finally get it right and they get delivered just in time to miss our debut gig.

August. It’s baked potato hot and we’re stuck in the basement of The Kings Arms (aka Sanctuary Club / our rehearsal room) getting ready for what will be this line up’s first gig. We’re playing at the club later tonight and just going through a last minute run through. Callie, Russ, his girlfriend Claire and me go back to my place to “tart up” before the gig. We’re driving along the A40 towards home when there’s a very strange knocking noise coming from the engine. The temperature gauge is suspiciously high. We just about limp home where I leave the car for the next few years. Who needs a car in London anyway?

“You won’t fucking believe it, but there’s a bloody massive queue outside. There are loads of people here”. Dave’s on the phone from the venue. I’m used to Dave’s exaggerations so I’m guessing he means there are about three people outside. We get a taxi back to the club to discover that, on this occasion, Dave wasn’t exaggerating at all. Oh my God, there’s a big queue!

The gig is awesome and we go down a storm. Everyone is melting in the heat and pub owner Lionel has had to open the cellar doors to let some air into the club. The club has a licence to hold 250 but I’m thinking we’ve got over 300 in here tonight. We’ve got people ripping up paper as confetti to throw at us (later to be named “shreddies”) and we play bloody excellently. By the end we are all dripping in sweat but we’re thoroughly satisfied.

Another debut gig

We’re chilling out having some beers at the end of the evening and Dave’s chatting with Owen the promoter sorting out the money. Voices are being raised and I wander over to see what’s happening. Owen thinks we had about 100 people in. We know this isn’t anywhere near the truth. He’s a promoter after all and having had a good night financially, he’s trying to rob us of our money. In Dave, he’s picked the wrong person to rip off.

There’s big argument and now Owens girlfriend is calling us cheap, to which Dave answers “That’s rich coming from a hooker!” Well, she works in a strip bar anyway! The arguing continues. Somehow, we seem to be in possession of the keys to the club. We know the back door is locked so we edge out the front door and into the pub above locking the door, and Owen, behind us and enjoy another beer. We tell Owen we’ll let him out when he pays us our money.

We’re in the pub enjoying a nice little nightcap and all we can hear is banging at the door “Help, Help, I’m being held hostage in my own club” shouts a furious Owen. After we all calm down a bit and it gets sorted out, Owen hands over our money. It’s a shame it’s had to end this way as we’ve enjoyed coming to this club for some time now and I doubt we’re going to be welcome back after this.

We’re doing three more dates in England, playing Birmingham, Nottingham and Northampton. In Birmingham, we’re playing support to Children on Stun. We’ve both sound-checked but after we finish there’s a definite tension in the air. To us it seems they’re a bit jealous of our new improved sound and things between both bands are quite edgy for the rest of the night.

Neil, their singer has informed us that the supplied rider is only for them and no, they won’t share any with us. We buy drinks from the bar instead but we will get our own back in due course. We play another blinding gig, watch Children on Stun and then load up the van. The Stun are still inside the venue so we take this opportunity to let down the tyres on their van. That will teach them not to share the rider! Australian Steve is with us and he’s just gone, a step too far and actually ripped the valve out one of the tyres. Oops!

Fun with tyres

Russ, Me, Matt, Si, Mr B, Dave and Nashie - somewhere in Germany

These first few gigs have all gone really well and as a band, we’re all getting on well and there’s a strong bond between us. For Matt and Russ all this up and down the motorway to play the towns of the UK is all new and fun but me and Dave want to play further afield and we have our sights set on Europe, or more specifically, Germany. To this end, Dave’s sorted out a few gigs in Germany and one in Austria so that we can get a taste of gigging in Europe.

Thursday night (October 20th), round at Dave’s flat we all meet up for our first of many European adventures. There are eight of us in total; myself, Dave, Matt and Russ, Mr B acting as tour manager, Nashie as roadie, Claire who’ll be sharing the driving with Nashie and our mate Si. Nobody really knows what Si’s role is. I suspect he’s just here for a bit of a laugh and some free beer.

We’ve rented a minibus and take the midnight ferry from Dover across to Calais. By morning we reach the German border town of Aachen in time for breakfast. None of us speaks a work of German other than “ich bin” but by using the universal language of pointing, we get by. Dave’s moaning though as it seems, whatever food you try and order, everything comes with what he describes as a slug slopped on the side of your plate! I think it’s a gherkin but Dave’s not convinced.

We continue through Germany to Koln to meet up with a guy called Oliver from the band Sweet William who has helped set up the first gig.

We seem to be lost. All the exits are pointing to Ausfahrt but we can’t find that town anywhere on the map. Hang on. I think Ausfahrt might be German for exit! We eventually find Oliver’s house after getting pretty lost around the streets of Koln - this was still years before any of us had even heard of a sat nav.

We follow Oliver in his car over to Sweet William’s rehearsal studios where we have a few beers then catch a little sleep. This place is disgusting. It makes some of the rehearsal room’s back home look posh. The toilets are all overflowing with bodily waste and I wouldn’t like to say what else is lurking in this place. It smells like something, or someone, has died here.

The gig is ok though nothing too special and to be honest after the reactions we’ve been receiving in England it’s a bit of a comedown. Anyway, we get paid and sell some merchandise so that means we can eat and after another sleep at the studios from hell, we make our way to Berlin for the second date.

Germany

It’s a long journey to Berlin and we’re glad of the many stops we make to break up the boredom of sitting in the van. German services seem much more entertaining than ones in England. Everything’s kind of the same but different at the same time. It’s probably just that we’re a gang, abroad, fuelled on Rock & Roll and alcohol and acting like little school kids, but even the dullest things seem fun today. Novelty hats in the shop, cuddly toy grabbing machines, Marathon bars being called Snickers. They even sell alcohol in petrol garages! Crazy!

Our best discovery so far has been a drink called Flying Horse. This will become as common as Coca Cola in a year or so in England in the form of Red Bull but for now, it’s something new to us. Flying Horse is an energy drink, full of caffeine and Taurine, whatever that is. Someone tells us later it’s extracted from bull’s testicles. I’m unsure to this day of how true this is but it gives birth to our phrase “Knackered? Knackers!” Anyway, it certainly seems to do the trick and soon we were drinking it by the gallon. It’s like liquid speed. Just what a band on the road needs!

Despite the Flying Horse intake, I’ve managed to get a few hours’ sleep but on waking, I think the minibus has turned into some kind of time machine. Looking out the window of the van, it looks like we’re in the 1960’s. All I see is dull drab concrete everywhere, some painted blue but mostly everything is grey. It all looks very cold and drab out there. I realise we’re in, what was up until a few years ago, East Berlin.

As we drive through the streets we all perk up a bit and Simon pulls out a few beers we have left over from the night before. Mixing them with “a few Horses” goes down very well! After some time navigating the streets of Berlin we finally meet up with Martin, the promoter, who shows us the way to the venue.

Looking back now it seems amazing how we could arrange a gig abroad, meet a promoter we’d never seen before in the middle of a big city, all without the aid of a mobile or sat nav!

Dave and Mr B sampling Flying Horse

The venue’s called “Der Insel” or The Island in English and as the name suggests the venue is, indeed, on an island. We have a look round and it’s all really cool. Martin has informed us, that they sometimes get a bit of trouble from the local Nazi’s but he thinks we “should” be ok!

We can’t get the van across the narrow bridge onto the island so we have to transport all of our gear across using a trolley. I’m so glad we brought a roadie! I’m working up a sweat just watching while I sup on my beer.

Once the gear is in, Martin shows us to our dressing room and this is the moment we decide to pretty much give up playing in England again. For a start, we actually have a dressing room. It’s well lit and there’s a table full of food. Sandwiches, crisps, nuts, cake the lot and better still, standing next to it, a stack of crates full of German Beer! Now this is more like it!

We set about getting stuck into that little lot and with full tummies we sound-check. Last night, Sweet William was helping us with the sound, but tonight it’s just us and the in-house sound guy. Unfortunately, he speaks very little English and, as you know, we speak even less German. We get by ok though using hand gestures and return to the food and drink.

We’re sitting around backstage when Martin pops his head in to check that everything is ok. “Oh you only have one crate of beer left, I’ll get you a few more” this continues throughout the night and we’re loving it!

We’ve played our set but unfortunately the gig hasn’t matched up to the hospitality and although there’s been loads of people around, they all seem to be more interested in clubbing than watching the bands. Oh well, tomorrow will be better, we say, and go back to the beer. We will return to Berlin on many occasions after this and play some of my favorite gigs there I’m pleased to say.

Unfortunately, Martin wasn’t joking about the Nazis but luckily we’ve suffered nothing more than a few verbal’s. We stay at the venue making the most of the free beer and leave about 3am. Getting the gear back out over the bridge is proving to be trickier than when we came in and takes twice as long – nothing to do with all that beer, honest!

Russ, Matt, Si and Me - Load out in Berlin

Matt - Checking out the venue in Worms

From Berlin, we drive straight back across Germany to the town of Worms for our next gig. It’s a long old drive and we arrive around 2pm the next afternoon all pretty shattered. On arrival, some have passed out and sleep, whilst me, Dave, Mr B and Si continue to indulge in the crate of beer we’ve stolen from last night and more Flying Horses.

We’re waiting around for Still Patient, who are headlining tonight, before sound checks can commence. They arrive late then remember they have forgotten something and need to go back home to get it before we can start. The sound-check is late and rushed but we’re in a confident mood for this one.

The venue has just stamped us in with Access All Area stamps and we’re entitled to free drinks from the bar. Now, depending on which bar you go to, you may or may not get a deposit back on your bottle. This is good stuff, we’re effectively getting paid to drink providing you take your free bottle back to the right bar! We abuse this for the remainder of the evening and come away making a tidy profit!

Now this is more like it. We’re playing a stormer and going down really well. It’s actually quite a relief. We’ve all been having a fantastic time so far, but the first two gigs have been a bit of a disappointment, so this has lifted everyone’s spirits immensely. We celebrate by getting paid to drink some more beer! We end the night at Andy from Still Patient’s house where we bed down for the night.

Bleary eyed the following morning, we’re tucking into coffee and toast before driving down to Austria for the final gig. This van is starting to smell. Seven blokes on tour does not smell nice! Obvioulsy Clare, being a girl, is fine. And it’s quickly turning into a bit of a tip. I will end up going in many other bands tour bus’s over the years, but I don’t think any of them will ever have quite the same unique smell that ours have!

We’re at the German/Austrian border (yes, they had proper borders back in those days too) and the border staff are eyeing us with suspicion. We show our passports and all seems fine but why have they held onto Dave’s Irish one? We’ve been told to pull over and wait. The border guard is on the phone. My God, maybe they think Dave’s some kind of IRA terrorist? Ten minutes pass and finally they seem happy and we’re waved through and on our way. I think the free CD we gave them helped.

“Wow, look out the window, we’re really high up”, “what’s that smell?” We’re crossing the Alps and there’s a terrible smell coming from the van. Nothing new there but this isn’t bodily functions, this time it’s the brakes. Yikes! There’s only

one thing for it. It’s time for a singsong! The whole van erupts into song “We’re all going to die, we’re all going to die”. Luckily, we make it down the other side of the Alps despite the burnt out brakes and finally enter Austria safely.

Once in Innsbruck we meet up with Paul Cuska who is the singer from one of tonight’s support band, Kiss the Blade. He tells us we’re lucky we’re late as there’s been a big Nazi rally in town today. Those pesky Nazi’s seem to be following us! Our other support band are Darc Entries who are a lot of fun to be around.

The venue’s really nice and we’re treated to a lovely pasta dinner and, once more, a big spread of food and beer is available.

Germany / Austria ‘94

Tonight we play, undoubtedly, the best gig of this short tour. We’re all really on form now and a tight unit. We go down really well and for the encore of Masquerade we get Paul up on stage to sing along with Matt. We spend the night in a hotel room Paul has booked for us nearby. It’s just one double room but we manage to sneak all eight of us in it. As soon as we’re in the room we try and throw the telly out the window – it’s the polite Rock & Roll thing to do - but unfortunately the window doesn’t open wide enough. Damn!

Germany / Austria ‘94

Next day we’re all up early to start the very long drive back from Innsbruck to London. We do it all in one go with many stops along the way picking up Flying Horse’s and indulging in our new love of cuddly toy grabbing machines. At the very last services in Germany we buy two crates of “Take Off” (another energy drink we’ve discovered) to take home with us. I think the cashier thinks were a bit mad but hey, you can’t get this stuff in England!

We arrive back in London at 3am, knackered, but ultimately very pleased with a brilliant tour. Despite two dodgy gigs, the other two have been great and the hospitality, the friends and the great experience have made it a wonderful time. We can’t wait to get back!

We now have plenty of new material written so in March ‘95 we’re ready to record a new album. We’re booked into River Studios in London Bridge. Gavin who did “Through The Depths” is with us once again engineering. This studio has only recently opened and, as yet, has no heating. We’re recording mostly through the night and its bloody freezing. Day one is spent doing the drums. They’re all set up in the specially built drum room but Russ decides they don’t sound right so we spend another hour dismantling the kit and re-assembling it all next door in the live room. Drums finally laid down we complete the recording process whilst whiling away the duller moments playing Sonic the Hedgehog on the studio’s Sega Megadrive.

Recording has come to a grinding halt. During one of the rare daytime sessions, Russ’s girlfriend has come along and on the spur of the moment decided to buy a kitten she saw in a nearby pet shop. Playing with the new kitten takes priority over actually recording anything! We’re pretty much done but decide the album needs some intro music to lead into the first track. Russ pounds the drums, while I bash away at heavily distorted bass. Meanwhile Matt and Dave are at the mic doing a mixture of Gregorian chanting, screaming and squealing. It ends up being called “Breathless”.

The new album, entitled “Treacherous” is released on Resurrection on 12th April ‘95. We’re pretty pleased with it and think it’s the best thing we’ve done so far. You always think your latest work is your best, but I’ll look back at this in years to come and wish we’d spent either a bit longer on it or ditched three or four of the songs.

Treacherous

With the album out, Dave’s busy setting up more dates and especially busy sorting out a return trip to Germany. He’s received a lot of help from Janis from the band Into the Abyss and we now have about a month of dates lined up in Germany. We’ve also been asked to appear at a festival at the end of the tour which looks mightily impressive and should prove to be the highlight.

It’s very exciting. We’re all round at my flat in London and we have a list of dates in front of us. We’re taking this very seriously by our standards. Normally we’d just discuss things over a few pints down the pub but this is important. It’s the first (and last) proper “band meeting” we ever have. There’s a lot to work out.

How are we going to get round Germany for a month? We’ll need to hire a minibus. Luckily, Russ’s girlfriend Clare works at a company that does van signage so she can get us a good deal through her contacts. Sorted.

Can we all get the time off work? Mostly yes, although my boss is being a complete bitch and telling me I can have 15 days but not the 18 that I actually need. After a fair bit of grovelling and promising that I will iron my shirt in the mornings she finally relents and I’m good to go.

How are we going to finance it? Going on tour costs money. Actually pretty much everything about being in a band seems to cost money. Of course, we will be getting paid along the way and hopefully selling CDs and T-Shirts, but we need some initial funding. To pay for the hire of the minibus for a start. Our deal with Resurrection only releases funds for recording and pressing costs and not for gigs or tours so we’re going to have to come up with it ourselves. We work out a figure, pick ourselves up off the floor and split it between us. It runs to a few hundred quid each but somehow we all come up with it. It leaves us all pretty broke but the plan is everyone gets paid back in instalments as the money comes in from each gig. Right, I’m glad that’s all sorted. Who’s in charge of making compilation tapes?

Before heading off to Germany we play three dates in England along with Into the Abyss. We start off at The Marquee on April 23rd then for some reason find ourselves back in Manchester on 25th. Hardly anyone shows up once again. We vow never to play Manchester again and this time I’m glad to say we never do.

Germany - again

With the home dates complete, we’re ready to go on tour for real and a three and a half week spell in Germany awaits us.

Wednesday 3rd May ‘95 and we assemble round at Dave’s flat. Along with myself, Dave, Matt and Russ there’s Callie, Mr B and a guy called Nick who is going to be our driver. After loading the van and checking for the millionth time that we haven’t forgotten anything, we leave and catch the midnight ferry from Dover to Calais.

Many, many hours later, on Thursday afternoon, we arrive in Koln and meet up with Oliver again, from the band Sweet William, who have set up the first gig for us. We’ve plenty of time to kill so head to a local park for a bit of relaxation and a chance to stretch our van-cramped legs whilst enjoying the nice sunny weather.

We’re back at the ABS Club, the venue where we played our German gig last year. We play to an enthusiastic but small crowd. Merchandising is thankfully good so at least we have some money and can afford to get something to eat! Well, we could if there was anywhere around here that did food! We make do with crisps and chocolate from a newsagents next door until we find something better on the way back to our accommodation.

We spend the night at Oliver’s house. It’s somewhat ramshackle. We ask where the toilet is and he informs us that he and his flatmates usually just piss out the window. We don’t dare ask what to do if it’s not a piss we need! Thankfully, for Callie’s sake if nothing else, we find a room that does indeed resemble a bathroom. We bed down for the night in a room with a washing machine that’s sunken half through the broken floorboards and surrounded by old rusting bikes and various other bits of old junk. Don’t get me wrong, Oliver’s a lovely guy, just perhaps, not as house-proud as some. The following morning we head down to the supermarket and stock up on some proper food and a football as we all quite fancy a game! We while away the early afternoon generally dossing around and listening to Mr B’s list of “gigs I’ve been to, how much the beer was and what my hair looked like” stories, then leave for the next date in Waldbrol.

“Where the hell are we going?” We seem to have passed through a town about 15 minutes ago and now were turning off the main road and heading through a field. We’re following Oliver so I guess he must know where he’s going and now we’ve come to a stop at a building, which appears to be in the middle of nowhere. We park up, pile out and check it out.

Cool! Inside we find a really nice venue. Good stage, lights, PA and the beer is free and plentiful which we take full advantage of while Sweet William do their sound check. We decide to get the football out and have a quick game. It’s quick because we all soon realise how unfit we are.

We tuck into our provided hot meal then hang around and wait for the doors to open. We can’t help but feel that this may be a bit of a disaster. We just can’t figure out how, or if, anyone is going to come here. I don’t know what we were so worried about. It’s been fantastic! We’ve had a good crowd, played a blinder and gone down really well. We’ve made a killing on merchandise and now, sitting upstairs in the backstage (above stage?) area we’ve all got writer’s cramp after the amount of autographs we’ve signed.

We’re staying here at the venue tonight as they have accommodation so we stay up late drinking and hanging out with various people. The free beer flows all night and we stay up until about 6am. Russ becomes the first casualty and after a few too many, chucks up and decides to crawl to bed. Matt’s spilling his heart out to Callie about how he’s missing his girlfriend Tracey, then at one point Dave asks our host if there’s any chance of a bottle of Jack Daniels. She disappears downstairs to the bar but when she returns some time later, she has a sorry look on her face. She apologises profusely as they have no Jack but asks if this bottle of champagne will do. We make do but point out that it’s totally unacceptable!

We manage to get a few hours’ sleep at the venue before we’re woken by Nick telling us to get up as we need to get ready to leave for Koblenz.

The venue has provided us with a cooked breakfast before we leave which is very welcomed and wolfed down by us all. We then load up the van. Still somewhat drunk/hung-over we leave around midday but not before Dave takes the opportunity of challenging Mr B to a race up a very steep hill. Mr B makes it to the top. Dave falls over and cuts his hands to pieces! Never mind. It’s not like he needs his hands. Oh, hang on. Yes, he’s the guitarist isn’t he?

It’s baking hot today, like it has been since we got here, but combined with our hangovers and physical activity we’re all done in. We make several stops for ice creams on our way and also a stop at a music shop to get guitar strings. When we arrive no one else is at the venue yet so we crash out in the afternoon sun waiting for Into the Abyss, who we’re playing with tonight.

They arrive after an hour or so and we take a look around the venue. Hmm, good size, check. Nice stage, check. PA? Err, no PA. Lights? Err well, no, not really. Thankfully Into the Abyss have brought their own PA but, for lighting, our driver Nick takes a walk around town, stealing candles from the local restaurants.

It’s not a great gig it has to be said. We play fine and we’re fed and getting free beer, but there’s hardly anyone here. Thirty at a push and one old guy dancing round with a load of dummies round his neck. Oh, and we’re all too scared to move in case we knock over one of the candles and set the place on fire!

It’s time for a few days break. We’re spending some days off in Darmstadt with the guys from Into the Abyss. We kill time over the next few days playing footy, cards and going to the local bar. We learn a useful trick here. They’re marking the amount of beers you have on the side of you beer mat and you settle your bill at various points in the evening. We keep swapping ours with Matt, whose only drinking coke!

Right. We’ve had a couple of days off, time to get back on the road again. The next gig is in Wiesbaden, about three hours from Darmstadt. The venue is, to say the least, tiny. It’s so small in fact, that Russ can’t even fit his drums on stage so he and Jens (the drummer from Into the Abyss) are sharing a kit. Once open, the venue soon fills up. It doesn’t take much. We play a fast and furious 45-minute set and we’ve gone down brilliantly. Into the Abyss are headlining tonight and go down well too. They’re ending their set with a cover of The Cults “Rain” and invite Matt up on stage to sing with them. But what’s this? Oh dear. Dave’s

Koln and Waldbrol - Germany ‘95

decided to get on stage. Oh God! Dave thinks he knows the words so grabs the mic from Matt. He clearly doesn’t know the words. More worrying is he clearly can’t sing! Giving up vocal duties, he makes his way to the drum stool where he takes over from Jens on the sticks. I’m pulled up on stage next and grab my bass and this impromptu new band bashes out a very ragged version of “I Wanna be Your Dog”. Dave gives up on the drumming and hoists me up on his shoulders whilst I’m still playing my bass.

Suffice to say we’ve all had our fill beer. Mind you, on this front things were a little worrying to start with. Most venues we play on this tour are liberally giving us free beer. There are a few exceptions though like this place, where they give us a fixed amount of tokens to exchange for drinks at the bar. Once these tokens are used up, we’re supposed to start paying. But we use all ours up before we even play! The barman tonight is some American dude and he seems to like us. After handing over a few tokens he says, “Forget about them I can’t be bothered, just have what you want”. Phew! We’ve had a top night and now, heading back to Darmstadt, Dave’s still acting the fool. He’s found a canvas shopping bag in the van and stuck it over his head with his sunglasses on over the top. Every time we pull level with another car on the autobahn he makes it look like he’s the driver (as it’s an English van he’s in, what in Germany, would be the driver’s side) He pulls his hands away from the imaginary steering wheel, sticks his head out the window and shouts “Ich Fucking Bin!”. He’s crazy!

Next day and cracks are beginning to show. We seem to be splitting into two camps. On one side, there’s me, Dave, Callie and Mr B then on the other, there’s Matt and Russ. Nick’s not getting involved. We’ve been away now about a week and there’s been the odd niggle and a few disagreements but now Matt and Russ are moaning they have no money and think they should be getting paid more each day than they are. I don’t really understand what their logic is behind this. We all knew the way the finances would go before we left. Now they’re whispering, I hear them say they think Dave’s pocketing a lot of the money himself. I know this isn’t true. We’re travelling to our next date in Wurzburg. It’s a long drive and it’s still baking hot. The van is, once more, starting to smell and become a rubbish tip! I may well be heading the same way. The venue ticks all the boxes and we’re taken up to a restaurant on top of a large hill where we’re fed by our hosts. Niggles and arguments set aside for now we’re having a good time until we return to the venue to find that there’s only about 25 people. Never mind, our friends Berndt and Claudia from Nurnberg have made the effort and they come with vodka and a big bag of confetti. We play on regardless. It hasn’t been the best gig and it hasn’t helped the inter-band squabbling as we’ve hardly sold anything either, which means less money to go round.

We have a big, long, boring eight-hour journey today to Hamburg to play the closing night of the “Zillo Club”. Zillo has been a legendary club in Hamburg from the 80’s and lots of famous (and like us, not so famous) bands have played there. We’re looking forward to this one so hopefully the long journey is going to be worth it. We’re on the autobahn following Into the Abyss who are playing with us again, when all of a sudden there’s a big cloud of black smoke surrounding us. It’s coming from their van. We pull over to the hard shoulder. It turns out that Russ is a bit of petrol head and knows a thing or two about engines. He soon identifies the problem, and fixes it. I have no idea what it is but we’re glad we’re on the move again. Tonight along with us and Into the Abyss, we’re playing with another band, Shock Therapy, who are headlining the show. When we arrive we’re told that they are running late so we get our sound check out the way first. It’s all going

Cracks

You’re leaving us the keys to the bar?

well. It’s a good venue with decent equipment but then suddenly the soundman cuts the sound and tells us we have to stop as the neighbours are complaining. To keep the peace between the venue and it’s neighbours we aren’t allowed to make any more noise for half an hour. Finally we resume our sound check just as Shock Therapy turn up. Shock Therapy are American and come across as rather arrogant. They seem to have taken an instant dislike to us. They’re all wrecked off their faces too. I think they may have been late due to too much indulgence down on Hamburg’s famous Reeperbahn. During their set later on tonight, their lead singer will fall from the stage (which is quite a high one) and crack his head open.

We tuck into the laid on food and drink some beer as we wait to play. Tonight Russ’s girlfriend, Clare, arrives. She’s a breath of fresh air as we could do with someone new in our gang. Clare is a very switched on girl. Reliable, sensible, but not so much so that she doesn’t know how to enjoy herself. Soon we will be calling her “mum” as she becomes better and better at looking after us and getting us to the right place at the right time. Clare is also a welcome sight for Nick as she’s here to help with the driving. And she comes armed with a video camera. Sadly, I never get to see the footage she shoots over the coming weeks as we loose contact with her after the tour.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. We take to the stage and it’s a big crowd tonight so were determined to have a good gig. The sound check went well so we know our stage sound is good. It’s just up to us now to deliver the goods. Russ thumps out the intro of our opening song but as soon as I hit my first note, I can tell something’s not quite right. I give Dave a puzzled look and Matt too. The sound coming from our on stage monitors is so heavily distorted we can hardly make anything out. I move closer back to my on stage amp to see if I can hear that better, but it’s no use. I can’t hear Dave at all, he can’t hear me and it’s all a bit of a mess. It improves as the gig goes on thanks to frantic shouts to Nick who’s relaying our comments back to the sound guy but we come off stage disappointed. We seem to have gone down well though and the general consensus is that it sounded ok out the front. I’ve heard this so many

times. I think it’s a line people say to make you feel better when they know you’ve had a bad gig.

We’re back in the dressing room and were all pissed off. Dave especially. He’s convinced that Shock Therapy deliberately messed with our monitor settings. We get confirmation of this later when the sound guy comes in the dressing room, apologises, and confirms that pretty much every fader, knob and button on the mixing desk had been changed between our sound check and when we went on. There’s nothing we can do about it now though other than chill out, have some beers and witness Shock Therapy’s singer fall from the stage. Shock Therapy decide not to hang around much afterwards and the mood immediately lifts. A bit of a party has started to get going and we are all getting horrendously drunk.

We’re staying in the venue tonight and when I say in the venue, I literally mean, “in the venue”. There are no beds or proper accommodation but the venue has said we can sleep on the stage! We knew this before we came and have come prepared for this with sleeping bags.

The club is now emptying out and by 4am the bar staff leave and hand us the keys to the venue. I’m not sure if they are aware of this but they have also left us the keys to the bar, and the DJ booth! By now, I’m passed out in the middle of the dance floor in my sleeping bag with a pillow under my head, but the party continues well into the morning with Dave and Callie alternating between DJ and lights. Nick’s checking out the four star brandy and unfortunately I miss Janis from Into the Abyss dancing around, Greek Style, in his underpants.

Next morning we’re all nursing our hangovers, back in the bus and heading to the town of Meiningen. It’s situated just inside what was, until recently, East Germany. Despite the reunification its looks like money from the West has yet to get this far. As soon as we’re across what was the old border everything suddenly changes. The landscape looks different somehow and every building seems in need of repair. Then we see it. Our first sight of that classic East German car, the Trabant. There’s something fascinatingly beautiful about them and we see more and more of them chugging along as we approach Meiningen.

Trabants

From the outside the venue looks like another run down farmhouse but when we step inside we find a really cool venue, all black with ripped up fishnets hanging from the ceilings and skulls everywhere. There’s even a bloody coffin in the middle of the floor. It looks like this could be pretty good.

Along with Into the Abyss, Darc Entries are also supporting us tonight and it’s good to meet up with them again after meeting them briefly on our tour last year. Once again, our friends Bernd and Claudia have turned up with confetti, vodka and, this time, even a chocolate cake! The evening’s gig is fantastic and the highlight of the tour so far. We’ve played really well to loads of people who were all really enthusiastic. We get two encores, finishing with a combined version of our songs Masquerade and Solitude. We leave the stage to the sound of the crowd singing “Come on you boys in black, Come on you boys in black”! They want more, and we’re ready to give them more, but bloody hell, the sound-crew have already started taking the mic’s down! They must be in a hurry to get home.

After the drunken excess of the previous evening most of our entourage have gone to bed. Me and Dave are the only ones left standing from our lot along with the Darc Entries boys and Jens the drummer from Into the Abyss. Between us we finish off our riders and all we’re left with is some cheap wine which neither Dave nor I really like so we decide to make cocktails out of it using whatever we can find in the kitchen. White wine with a glug of tabasco and lemon anyone? Mmmm. Nice.

Matt, Russ, Me and Dave - Enjoying a beer backstage in Meiningen

We’re hung-over yet again. What the hell is that noise? Callie’s found a tuba tucked away in a cupboard in the venue. She claims she used to play in a brass band when she was a young girl. Really? She’s either very out of practice or that tuba needs tuning. Can you tune a tuba? I have no idea, but I do know that if she doesn’t stop soon it’s going to end up shoved in an unfortunate place!

The venue has provided us with an amazing spread for breakfast and now that awful noise from the tuba has stopped, I’m starting to feel human again. Today we’re off to a place called Zoblitz. Not far from Dresden and right by the Czech border.

We are, by now, all getting somewhat sick to death of this bloody minibus and the endless travelling. We’ve listened to every tape (yes, tape – no CD players in vans in those days) we have about a million times over and everyone’s bored. But the boredom lifts as Dave invents a new game. Trabant spotting! Such is our fascination with the lowly Trabbi we’re all on the lookout for them. With western influences pouring into what was the old East, Trabbi owners have started doing all manner of customisations to their beloved cars.

Dave’s awarding points for each successful Trabbi spot. There’s one point for your standard green, blue or beige number but extra points for things like roof racks, spotlights and coloured windscreen wipers. Even more points if you spot a snazzy coloured one. Oh yes, ten points to Russ for that funky fuchsia pink one but oh no, I’m in the sin bin for a false spot! That pesky Lada looked like a Trabbi for a moment back there. Damn!

Matt finally comes out on top with a winning spot of a green one, in a field, with tinted windows and a roof rack! 10 points that man!

Sweet William have booked this gig for us and they warned us that we might be slightly dubious when we get there. They’re not wrong. Zoblitz is a tiny town in the middle of a forest with one road, two houses and a bar/club/place for people to doss down in. This is the venue. But after our encounters at Waldbrol with Sweet William earlier on this tour we know it will be ok and indeed, it is.

The stage is a little small but the PA and size of the venue are excellent. Once again, food and beer is free and by 8pm the venue’s jam-packed. We play another great gig and really enjoy ourselves. The stage is way too small for us all so me and Dave rectify this by jumping down into the crowd and play amongst the audience for the encore. More drinking and autographs then finally bed, at around 4am.

The following morning I’m happily sleeping upstairs in the venues accommodation when Matt bursts in through the door, out of breath but full of excitement.

“Dave’s got us a ride in a Trabant – you coming?”“uh?”

Matt disappears again and as I slowly wake up I realise what he’s just said to me but I’m too tired to move. I roll over and go back to sleep.

By the time I get up and down for breakfast Dave, Matt and Russ are gone. The morning is still, sunny and quiet. Then the stillness is interrupted by the sound of a siren as the polizei whizz pass. Thinking nothing much of it I return to my breakfast along with Callie and Clare.

A while later Dave, Matt and Russ return. Dave’s not in a good way, he’s clutching his nuts and can hardly walk. They’re all laughing though so things can’t be that bad. Between tears of laughter the story unfolds:

Dave was up all night drinking with a few of the locals. The conversation turned to Trabant’s when one guy said he had one. Dave then persuaded him to go and get it and take us for a spin. The guy dutifully got his car for the crazy Rock & Roll stars and off they went with Dave leaning out the window shouting “ich fucking bin”. After a bit of a drive around the owner tried to show them what the Trabbi could really do. They came to sharp turn, which the driver took a little too fast. They went up in the air, landed in a ditch, proceeded to come flying out the other side, and landed on a brand spanking new BMW! Now this is a small town where everyone knows each other so the driver of the BMW turned out to be the boss of the Trabant driver! Not only that, the policeman, who turned up on the scene was the guys mate!

Despite all the laughter, we’re feeling kind of sorry for the poor guy who is now in trouble not only with his boss but also the cops. But, he’s laughing about it too. His only concern is that he’s just wrecked his beloved Trabant.

Dave seems to of come off worse from the whole thing. His nuts have been smashed up somewhere towards his adams apple! In fact, he can’t really walk properly. We help him upstairs to have a lie down while the rest of us pack up the van.

After a lie down, Dave’s feeling fine but we do have to help him back down the stairs with the aid of a broom as a makeshift crutch!

Germany - May ‘95

Today we’re heading back to Darmstadt for a few days rest before the next gigs. As we’re leaving we follow Sweet William’s van and both pull into a garage to get diesel. Sweet William have a slight issue with their van so they get their toolbox out the back and do some running repairs.

All sorted and we’re off again driving through small villages and now up a very steep hill and it becomes apparent that Sweet William have not only forgotten their toolbox which we picked up for them, but they haven’t shut their back doors properly. Their doors are flapping open as we take the incline and now various pieces of gear are falling out the back! We keep stopping to pick up random bags and oh look, here’s a guitar. We’re furiously beeping them and flashing the lights but they remain blissfully unaware. The local villagers are now also trying to make them aware, waving arms at them to stop. Finally, we’ve caught up with them and hand back all the pieces we’ve collected along the way. Turns out, they thought the locals we’re just being friendly and were busy waving back at them!

After a few days break, where we’re joined by Dave’s girlfriend Yaz, we travel to Dusseldorf. We’re a bit down as we’ve just discovered that Thursday’s gig in Aachen has been cancelled at the last minute. The club we’re playing in tonight, The Dschungel, is tiny. Looks like we’ll be lucky to get even 100 people in here. Somehow though we get about 120 in and the place is packed, sweaty and extremely hot. We play really well again and our spirits are lifted afterwards when the promoter offers us a second night. So, next day we go through it all again albeit to a much smaller crowd.

After a night spent on living room floors we head off in the early hours - destination Berlin. We’re playing Factory Slaughterhouse and yes, by the look of the place it did indeed used to be a slaughterhouse. It’s 2am before we take to the stage but it goes well and there’s a bit of a party atmosphere. It’s Yaz’s birthday tonight so we get a load of balloons (we couldn’t find a florist) and me, Dave and Matt jump down into the crowd again to play the encore. Poor Russ, he doesn’t really have that option being the drummer!

More gigs

We have a mammoth journey ahead of us, right back to the West of Germany to a town called Miesau near Kaiserslautern so we have to leave straight after the gig.

This is another place in the middle of nowhere but, despite our good encounters with this kind of thing previously, this place feels strange. I can’t really explain why, we all just have a gut feeling that this one is going to be odd. So odd, in fact, we’ve spent about an hour outside debating whether or not we should even bother playing. It’s really hard to explain but this really doesn’t feel right. The promoter turns up and I think he can see our concerned faces. Cunningly he leads us inside, through the main bar and downstairs to the venue where he shows us to the free beer. Ok, we’re persuaded. We’ll do it. The venue’s a good size but it all looks like it’s never been used before. We’re thinking this is some kind of front for a drug money laundering scheme! The owner of the club reckons that we’ll have 200 people in here at least but he’s not convincing us. The promoter tells us he’s just off to get some pizza’s for us and shows us to a door leading upstairs which he says we can use as a dressing room.

Upstairs we find another bar and several rooms. Each room has a bed in it. Some have rubber walls and, oh look, this one has a nice big mirror on the ceiling. It dawns on us. We’re playing in a whorehouse!

As expected by 9pm only two people have paid in. We play regardless as do Into the Abyss who are with us. It’s been a disaster and we can’t wait to get out. We pack our gear away then start to take it back out to the van. We have to go through the main bar of the venue to do this where we find our 200 people. All squaddies from the nearby US airbase. A load of drunken squaddies plus 20 Goths doesn’t make a pleasant atmosphere. It’s only a matter of time before one of them notices. We almost get away with it but just as we’re taking the last of the gear to the van, we hear “Oi!” Fawkin’ Goths – we’re going to have you!” We get to the van just in time to make a speedy exit.

Whorehouse

Clare takes a well earned rest

This is crap. We now have three days off and we’ve hardly any money left. We’re staying in Darmstadt with the guys from Into the Abyss. Me, Callie and Matt are at bass player Kostas’s house. He’s a fantastic host. He gets up early every morning to go and get fresh bread rolls for us. By the time we wake there’s a great spread on the table for breakfast and endless coffee on the go. I’m not sure his girlfriend is too impressed though but she doesn’t speak any English so it’s hard to tell.

We’re killing time playing football down the park and I think we’ve had more injuries than goals. We are all rather unfit. Back at Kostas’s house Matt’s just told me he’s having a really crap time and he’s thinking of leaving the band. What?

Time for a rest

Dusseldorf and playing football

Are you serious? I’m incredulous as I think this whole tour experience is brilliant. Ok, we’ve had some downs but I think the highs have more than made up for them.

Matt’s deadly serious but is afraid of what Dave will say (or do) when he tells him. He decides to keep it to himself until the tour’s over. Later that night though, we’re at the pub without Matt when Dave mentions something about doing a new album and starts talking about things for the future. I’m biting my lip but it’s obvious to Dave I know something and in the end he gets it out of me.

Dave’s gone mental! We go back to Kostas’ flat and Dave has Matt up against the wall screaming and shouting at him. We finally manage to calm everyone down and sleep on it.

We’re trying to put last nights row with Matt behind us and he’s trying to do the same and move on. We travel up to Bochum for the penultimate gig of the tour at the Zwishenfall Club. We have arrived a bit late due to traffic but a fabulous roast dinner awaits us, which we scoff in between sound checking.

The gig goes really well, despite struggling with atrocious on stage sound. We’re loving it and could play all night but, once again, the local neighbours are complaining to the club and threatening to call the police if we don’t obey the local noise regulations. We’re told we can only do one more song, so we merge three songs into one and then retire to the dressing room.

Tonight is our last night with the boys from Into the Abyss so it’s a bit of a party. We’ve had such a good time with them and have become firm friends. Their hospitality and help organising the gigs has been fantastic.

By chucking out time, we’re all truly wasted but load the van and head off back East to what will become the highlight of this tour - playing at the Indie Tours Festival in Freyburg.

Bochum

Bochum - our last night with Into the Abyss

It’s been a long, long, drive but thankfully we’ve all slept most of it. it’s 10am when I’m woken by the van violently shaking and rattling as we drive down small cobbled streets as we arrive in the town of Freyburg, right by the Polish border.

It all seems a hive of activity. We park up and go to find out where we’re playing and, more importantly, where the beer and catering tents are! We’re playing on Stage Two apparently but no one seems to know where it is! Finally, we find a guy who seems to know about it. He issues us our wristbands and informs us they are still setting up the stage and waiting for the PA to arrive but we should be ready to sound check around midday.

Hooray! We’ve found the catering tent. It’s all gloriously free. Just flash your wristband and have whatever you want. It’s still fairly early so we’re tucking into coffee and croissants. Nick disappears to see if he can find the elusive Stage Two. After a while he returns having found it and we all troupe off to take a look.

Wow! How cool is this? Stage Two is actually an amphitheatre cut into the hills. It looks amazing and it’s pretty big too. This should be awesome.

“Are you one of the bands playing?” asks a stagehand. We inform him we are and he says seeing as we’re all here we may as well sound check now. It’s all a bit blasé and we’re beginning to realise nobody is really too sure of what’s going on here but we’re all good to go so we do our sound check. All is well. Let’s just hope some people turn up!

It’s all very exciting this. It’s the first proper festival we’ve played. The grounds are massive so it should be awesome come show time. We’ve also put behind us the bad vibes from a few days ago and all is well. It’s perfect weather too. Scorching hot. Talking of which, I’m parched. Where’s that beer tent?

It hasn’t taken us long. We’ve sniffed out the beer tent and the first one is going down lovely. To keep our costs down, and also because we thought it might be fun, we made the decision before leaving home that we would camp here and really get into the festival atmosphere rather than stay in the hotel. We’ve all brought tents and sleeping bags along with us and we’ve just hatched a cunning plan.

Indie Tours Festival

There’s a load of our mates over for the festival and they are all camping too. We’re in the beer tent, but they can’t get into the festival ground yet as it hasn’t opened to the public. We’re chatting with them across the fence that divides us and they are envious of our chilled golden refreshments. We strike a deal. “You put our tents up for us and we’ll get you some free beers from the beer tent”. Sorted.

The paying public have had to patiently wait for the other acts to finish sound checking on the main stage before the festival site opens but despite the chaos that surrounded the morning and early afternoon things have started to come together with the first acts on both stages playing vaguely on time.

We’re having such a great time, relaxing, drinking beer, catching up with people and watching bands here and there. It’s easy to forget the real reason that we’re actually here. Oh yes, we’re meant to be playing.

“What time are we on?” “10.30”“What time is it now?”“9.30”“Shit. I better sober up, let’s get some coffee”

Sufficiently sobered up, 10.30 arrives and the amphitheatre is packed out with people. In-fact, it’s packed to capacity, so much so that many more have to find room around the surrounding grassy banks.

We play what is, undoubtedly, the best gig of the tour. We’ve had a great time on stage and the crowd have had a great time watching. We finish to cries of encore, which we do and then they want even more. We’re in the tiny backstage area and the noise is deafening, we’ve never experienced anything quite like this, it’s totally mad but brilliant. We want to go back on and play one more but the tight schedule will not allow for it which is a shame. But the gig has been a great way to end a brilliant tour.

We spend the night under canvas but the good thing is that, come morning, we don’t need to bother trying to boil a kettle on a little camping stove. No, we can just pop back into the festival site and get a big breakfast and coffee in the hospitality tent. Much better.

Oh no, disaster has struck! We’ve just been informed that the beer tent has stopped giving free beer to band members. We will now have to start paying!

Matt and me - Indie Tours Festival, Germany

Indie Tours Festival

Disaster! Other rumours are starting to filter through as well. It seems that some bands are not getting paid. Thankfully, we got our money as soon as we finished last night. The PA company are threatening to pack up as well as they have heard rumours that money is running out.

But the festival continues and we enjoy watching Altered States, Rosetta Stone and then, to finish the evening, The Mission.

It’s our final day and in true festival style we wake up to find it pissing with rain. This is why hotels are better than camping. The rumours have turned to fact and the PA company have pulled from Stage Two and many bands have not been paid. There’s a couple of other English bands here due to play today including Children on Stun and Inkubus Sukubus but with Stage Two now out of action they’re cobbling something together to play in the beer tent. I’m just glad we played on the first day and got our money. With the rain comes the mud and we pack our stuff away and load the van. It’s not pleasant and now we have to spend the next 18 hours in the back of the van, caked in mud, on the long drive back to London.

For me it’s been a great tour and I’ve had a wonderful time and met some great people. There have been a few rows though, which I guess is to be expected when you’re living in each other’s pockets every day. The rows have mainly been with Russ and Matt. Things with Matt have now been sorted but Russ is being a serious pain in the arse. He’s done a tour of Germany, played some great shows and now thinks he’s the big rock star.

We get back to London next day and after taking my stuff up to my flat, Russ’s last words to me are “Give me a call when EMI ring”. Well, EMI never do ring so I never see or speak with him again.

A few weeks later, me Dave and Matt meet up round at Dave’s flat for a chat about where to go next. There are a few things on the horizon but top of the agenda is Russ. After a long chat, we decide to sack him from the band and revert back to using a drum machine. He’s become too self-obsessed and we feel there’s no longer any room for him and his ego in the band.

Now back as a three piece we take a well-earned break from doing anything for a few months. That is, except Dave. Along with Mr B he’s organising a two-day festival to be held in London at the Marquee. It’s to be called “Nekromantic” and will have 12 bands playing including ourselves.

I thought I was meant to be having a break! Things seem busier than ever. I’ve got involved, along with Dave and Mr B, getting everything sorted for Nekromantic. There are flyers to be done and distributed, accommodation to sort out, equipment to hire and we’ve come up with a great new T-shirt slogan - Drunk, Stupid and Goth. I think it fits rather well!

Callie and I have just started a small fanzine to coincide with Nekromantic. As part of it I’m writing up all about the German tour we’ve just done. Then there’s also the small matter of purchasing and programming a new drum machine to replace Russ.

Saturday 11th August and we’re off to The Marquee for two days of fun. I’m already sweating like a pig after a twenty-minute tube journey and me and Callie have been accosted by some American tourists who want to take photos of us. It’s turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far. All is calm on arrival. Dave and Mr B have the whole thing well under control. We hang around for a bit then retire to The George pub for a few welcome pints before heading back to enjoy the bands. There’s a massive long queue outside the club stretching along Charing Cross Road. It’s nice to see so many people have come along after all the hard work that’s gone into it.

The heat is taking its toll though. In between each band, the whole venue has to pretty much empty out onto the street, so people can get out and get some fresh air. Ruth, keyboard player with Die Laughing, has just fainted. She’s ok after some water, but it’s a warning that you that really must keep yourself hydrated in these hot conditions. Right, let’s get a beer then!

Who needs a drummer anyway?

Nekromantic

Next day and we do it all over again, only this time, we’re playing. We get there early to sound check then it’s the familiar, pub, bands, backstage, beer, bands, pub etc. until 10 when we take to the stage.

Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen The Marquee this full. It’s great to play to such a large crowd in London. I can’t really put my finger on it though, but compared to our recent German dates our performance all seems a bit flat. Perhaps it’s not having Russ there?

On the whole though, the event has been an overwhelming success. We have the French band Corpus Delecti staying with us at our flat tonight so we need to get two cabs back. One of the cab drivers is being a pain wanting double the cost, as he has to take so much equipment. We tell him, not to bother and we’ll get another cab driver instead. Faced with losing business he relents but once back at my flat he kicks off again about wanting more money. We get inside but he starts hammering at my door demanding money. We ignore him until he goes away. Which is actually quite a long time. I’m not sure what our new French friends make of it all!

Nekromantic Festival

We follow Nekromantic with three dates playing with Nosferatu as part of their UK tour. We play in Leeds, Glasgow and Nottingham. In Leeds we’re given strict instruction by Nosferatu not to offer their singer Mark any alcohol as they don’t want him pissed on stage.

“Hi Mark, fancy a beer?”“Yeah, don’t mind if I do”“Want another...”

Needless to say, we’ve got him roaring drunk and he’s ended up crawling around the stage! The other members of Nosferatu are not too pleased. Glasgow and Nottingham pass without incident and now it’s time to start thinking about a new album.

Now that we’re back to using a drum machine we can write at our own leisure round at each other’s flats. It’s all going really well. Me and Dave are writing some of our best songs to date. Matt’s not around much leaving it to me and Dave but when we get a few songs finished we run him off a cassette so he can prepare his lyrics to them.

A month later, we have a load of new songs and we’re all round at my flat deciding which songs to do for the album. Matt sings along to some tracks and we make some rough demos before recording and it’s all sounding good. We’re all very excited about recording again and book ourselves into River Studios during October.

Here we are again. Back in the studios. We haven’t got off to the best start though. Me and Matt have had a bit of a disagreement. He’s been talking about getting Rachel, from Die Laughing, to do some backing vocals on a track which I’m fine with, but now he wants her to do vocals on about four or five songs. This I’m not alright with. I think its fine for one track, but what’s the point of putting her vocals on over half the album? She’s not in the band. I stand my ground and begrudgingly Matt backs down. I foolishly think he really is ok with this but later find out he’s not really at all and he’s pissed off. Apparently he thinks his input is not valid. I think his input is valid and I always listen to any suggestions. But when someone’s being a tit they need to be told. Right?

Transition - take one

We have a new engineer this time, called Brad. He’s a right character. Quite young and a bit of an Essex wide boy. Think of a young Jamie Oliver behind the mixing desk. It’s all bish bosh bash. Job done. Sorted. Geezer.

He knows nothing much about our kind of music just as we know nothing about his kind, which is all dance stuff. But it’s all working really well. Brad is really getting the best out of us and the drums, bass and guitars have all gone down well over a couple of weekends.

The album is sounding excellent and we now have a couple of days booked for Matt to put his vocals down. Due to the month off for Germany earlier in the year I can’t get any more time off work so I’m stuck at work while Dave, Matt and Mr B go down to the studio. I can’t concentrate at work though. I’m too busy wondering what’s happening and how it’s all going.

Eventually I’m out of work and heading down to London Bridge to the Studio. I’m so excited to hear how it’s all coming together and I can’t wait to get there. I’m almost running now. Finally, I’m here. Ready to hear how this new album of ours is sounding. I walk in.

“Hi Dave, Hi Mr B”Matt’s in the control room with Brad.Dave - “He’s ruining our bloody album!”“What?”Dave – “You wait ‘til you hear what he’s singing”

I’m confused. What’s Dave going on about?

Dave explains that Matt’s re-written most of the lyrics he did on the demos. Basically, every song is about either me, Dave, our girlfriends or how he hated his time in Germany with us. It’s not subtle either.

I’ve still yet to hear anything when Matt appears and Dave launches into an argument with him, which seems to have been going on most of the day. I’m a bit stunned as I’ve not been around so I don’t really know what’s happening. Now Matt’s stormed off. “I’m going for a walk to clear my head” he says “I’ll be back in half an hour or so”.

With Matt gone, Brad plays back the vocals Matt’s done. Dave’s right. He’s singing about how he hates us all and what a crap time he had in Germany. It doesn’t even sound like Matt that much. He’s not putting any enthusiasm into his vocals.

I don’t believe it. Why has he done that? I thought we’d put all our issues behind us and moved on. Obviously Matt hasn’t but how can he expect what he’s singing about to sit well with me or Dave? He may as well call the album “I had a crap time in Germany and I hate Mark, Dave and their girlfriends”. An hour or so has passed and it looks like Matt’s not coming back. We’re left with little choice but to gather up our stuff and leave for home.

We won’t see Matt again for another six months by which time he’ll be in a new band – Complicity.

So, what now? We’re depressed and pissed off. We get back home and speak to Andy at Resurrection about the whole thing. Andy’s as surprised as we are by all this and offers to act as mediator but we end up in a stalemate.

Matt won’t finish the album unless he can use his new re-written lyrics and neither, me or Dave will let the album be finished unless he changes his lyrics.

This is so crap. Me and Dave have put so much hard work into the writing of the songs and now Matt has self-terminated his position within the band. We have a whole album recorded musically but without a singer to finish it. Not for the first time we decide to look for a new singer.

We’ve placed an ad in the music press. The phone rings.

“Hello, is that Mark?”“Yes”“Hi, I saw your advert in the melody maker for a singer with a Goth band”“Err yeah”“Well, my name’s Timothy Potter and I’m very interested”“Ok, what have you done before?”“Well, I know all the Elvis stuff and I do a lot of Tom Jones. I’ve done lots of work on the P & O ferry circuit you see. Now, tell me about this Gothic rock stuff” “Hello? Hello? Mark. Are you still there?“Is this a wind up?”“Yes”“Right”“Actually I’m calling from Capital Radio and you’re live on the air”

New singer #4

Prank phone calls from radio stations aside we’ve had a few responses but nothing very promising. Then I receive a call from a guy called Umray. He sounds enthusiastic and at least knows what kind of music we’re doing. We’ve arranged to meet in a few days’ time.

So, we’re in the pub on Shepherds Bush Green. Me, Dave, Mr B and now this guy Umray. He seems alright. He also says he plays acoustic guitar, which we think could fit in quite well. We give him a tape of our, as yet unfinished, album and ask him to see if he can get some lyrics for a few tracks and then arrange a rehearsal with him in a week’s time.

Oh dear, this isn’t so good! Umray has turned up and we ask him if he has come up with any ideas “Oh yes”, he says. We play through a couple of songs and he basically just hums along to the bass lines. He also seems to be quite insistent about putting in a spot of whistling. We take a break and he produces a cassette of stuff he thinks we may like to consider as a new direction. It’s basically bad, middle of the road, rock. We continue to play our own songs. Umray hums along. We say goodbye.

The next day I’m on the phone to him to say it’s over.

Things are becoming frustrating. Even if Umray had turned out Ok, I’m feeling that I wouldn’t really trust anyone else to come in. I just know it would be over again in another six months.

I’m a strong believer in the old saying, if you want something doing, do it yourself.

I’m home from work and Callie’s out. Phew. I’m a bit nervous about this. I’m sure I can do it though. I mean, I sing along in the car to stuff and I reckon I sound ok. I’ve hastily written some lyrics of my own to a couple of our songs. I get out my four-track recorder and plug in my newly purchased microphone. It’s a lovely red colour and cost me £15 in Tandy. I’m singing. It sounds ok. It really does. Callie will be back soon. I hide away the mic and lyrics until the weekend. I know she’ll be out all day Saturday as she’s doing a weekend shift. I’m so unsure about doing this I’m not telling anyone yet.

The following weekend. I get the microphone out again. I think I’m doing ok. My God, this could be the answer we’ve been looking for.

If you want something doing ...

“Another drink?”We’re in the pub. Me and Callie and I’m trying to get her (and me) a bit pissed. I’m in need of some Dutch courage. Back at the flat, I nonchalantly tell her I’ve something to play to her. I slip my demo cassette into the player. The music starts and Callie’s wondering why I’m playing her our unfinished album. Shit. Other side of the tape. Rewind. Ok. Start again. She’s still puzzled for a few seconds but then a voice comes in. I look at her face to gauge a reaction. I can tell straight away she knows it’s me and then a big smile crosses her face. She thinks it’s good. Phew!

A few days later, Dave’s over at the flat. He’s staying with us temporarily as he’s between houses. He asks me if we’ve had any more replies from our advert. “As it happens, yes”. “I’ve received a tape from someone” I say and I play it to him and go through the same agonising wait I did the other day with Callie. Dave looks puzzled as it starts to play. “Who is it?” he asks. “Someone you know” I say. He ponders a while longer before saying “Is it you?”.

Dave makes me play the tape on repeat about 100 times over. He can’t stop laughing. He’s not laughing at me but at the situation. To quote Dave “All this time we’ve been together with crap singers letting us down and all this time you can sing. You bastard!” He’s joking of course, well, mostly.

So this is it then, I appear to be the new singer of Vendemmian. There’s no way I can sing and play the bass at the same time so we decide we can add the bass to the backing track along with the drums. Within the space of five months, we’ve gone from a four-piece to a two-piece.

A week has passed and we’re still getting used to this new version of the band but we’re not wasting any time. There’s been quite a few rumours flying around lately saying that we’ve split up so we’re down at The Borderline in London at a Children on Stun gig handing out flyers for our new album “Transition”. Ok, so we haven’t even finished it yet. I haven’t even written all the lyrics yet, but we know it will all be ok now. We know we won’t let each other down.

Me at The Astoria ‘96

It’s Christmas time. We’ve had the turkey, done the presents and watched Only Fools and Horses on telly and now we’re back in River Studios finishing the album. I’ve spent the last month writing and re-writing lyrics and even found time to write a new song called “Lowlife” (a little dig at those thinking we’d split).

I’m a little nervous as all eyes are on me. I’ve never sung in front of people before. I know it’s only Dave, Brad, and his assistant here but it’s still a strange place I find myself in. Thankfully, they’re all out there in the control room and I’ve positioned myself so they can’t look at me as I do my vocal takes. It’s going really well though. Dave’s impressed and Brad is too. He compliments me on being one of the easiest vocalists he’s ever worked with and tells me my double tracked vocals are perfect. This gives me no end of confidence in what I’m doing and within a day or so, we’ve completed all the vocal tracks and we have a complete album.

We spend the next few days mixing it and finally by early ‘96 we’re done and ready to start playing live again. What have I let myself in for?

There’s also good news on the gig front. We’ve been offered our first gig in Italy and even better, we’re going to America which is very exciting!

It was all going so well. We have our new album all done, we’re both really pleased with it, and now we have our debut live gig booked for 25th February at The Marquee. That’s only a few days away and here I am, in bed with horrible flu and the most outrageous sore throat. I’ve been to the Doctors and he’s told me I may have tonsillitis. He’s given me some antibiotics.

My flu symptoms are clearing up but this throat is terrible. I can hardly speak now, let alone sing. I look, as best I can, down my throat in the bathroom mirror. It definitely looks very red down there and if I’m not mistaken, I’m sure one of my tonsils is twice the size of the other. Callie confirms this so I’m off to the Doctor again. He takes a good look with his torch and little wooden spatula thing. “Hmm” he says. He scribbles something on his notepad and tells me to take it

Transition - take two

with me and get myself down to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. It’s now Friday and we’re playing our gig, my first gig singing, on Sunday.

I’m at reception at the hospital.

“What’s your name?”“mmmmaaawwwwkkkkk dooogluf”“I’m Sorry”“mmmmaaawwwwkkkkk dooogluf”“Perhaps just write it down”“Ok, Mr Douglas, someone will be with you shortly” Yeah right. I doubt that very much. Miraculously though I’m seen almost straight away. The Doctor takes a good look and informs me I have what is known as a quinsy. Not to be confused with the hit American TV drama Quincy, it’s basically a big lump of pus that grows on your tonsil. Nice.

The doctor asks me to take a seat and pulls out the most gigantic syringe I’ve seen in my life. He assures me it won’t hurt and, thankfully, it doesn’t as he sucks out the pus that’s been living in my left tonsil for the last week. It takes no time at all and then he asks me if I would like to see what came out. Foolishly, I say yes. He shows me and I nearly faint. My God! There’s litres of it. Well, perhaps not litres, but there’s an awful lot of the stuff. I decline his offer for me to keep it as a souvenir (he’s a Doctor with a sense of humour!). He tells me I should be fine now and immediately I find I can talk without pain once more. He tells me I should try not to talk too much to let it all heal properly. I decide not to tell him I’m singing a gig in two days’ time.

So, it’s now Sunday and we’re at The Marquee once more. Yesterday we rehearsed and my voice came out fine so all is well again. It feels weird sound checking, just me and Dave. I’m not even holding a bass, I feel naked, I don’t know what to do with my hands. It all goes fine though and after a bite to eat the club opens and a healthy crowd builds up. A couple of friends of ours John and Anna, who run the label Grave News, have recently been arriving at gigs bearing random gifts to be placed on the merchandise table. I never do understand why they do this but they do. Tonight they have brought with them, of all things, a goldfish! The goldfish is accepted in kindness and placed alongside the CDs, T-shirts and badges on the merchandise table. Everyone tries to pretend it’s not at all odd!

Yet another debut gig

I think we’re both a little nervous tonight. Me, obviously, because I’ve never sung live in public before, and Dave because this is a new beginning for us and we don’t really know what to expect. It all goes ok though but, truth be told, I’m probably not at my best. I have, perhaps, had one too many beers to steady the nerves. Not helped by the antibiotics I’m on for my throat. But the new songs and singer are accepted well.

After the show, it’s a sense of relief. Finally, we’ve come through all this. We have a new line up, proved we can do it live and now all that’s left to do is decide what to do with the bloody goldfish! Nobody is tempted with the poor thing so in the end me and Callie take him home to live with us. We name him Quinsy after my recent infection. He lives happily with us for many years to come until he outgrows his tank and we have to give him to my Mum where he lives in her garden pond.

This all seems very exciting. We’re off to play a gig but we’re not in the back of a van or a minibus. Oh no. We’re flying! Here and now, in 2013, I can tell you there is nothing exciting about flying to gigs. It’s tedious and a right pain in the arse. But, back in 1996, this is cool. We’re booked from London Luton to Turin flying with Debonair (classy name). Now just a two-piece band we can travel light. Just one guitar, some effects and a backing CD are all that’s required. We have Callie and Yaz with us too. We’re met in Turin by the promoters of tonight’s gig, Steph and Lesley and also, Steph’s boyfriend Danny. Danny plays bass in tonight’s support band and in about 12 years’ time he will be playing bass for us. We go back to their flat in Turin and then they take us out for a coffee before going to the venue for a look around. The venue is really cool and they are expecting a pretty big crowd. We have to take their word for this as we really have no idea what to expect tonight.

We’ve been hanging out in the dressing room before returning to Steph’s flat for some food. There are about five metal steps, which lead down from the dressing room to the stage and as I walk down, I trip on the first and fall the rest of way. There’s a moment of stunned silence as it looks like my leg twists on the way down and everyone thinks my leg is broken. Thankfully it’s not, but it’s severely gashed forcing me to spend the rest of the weekend limping about and trying to get sympathy!

After a fabulous home cooked pasta meal at Steph’s flat, somehow, we all manage to squeeze into Danny’s little Fiat and he drives us back to the venue.

Italy

Driving in Italy is a new experience for us all. When there’s a queue of traffic in front of you, don’t worry, you just drive around it on the pavement. It’s also quite feasible in Italy to get three cars through a gap big enough for one. Fifteen hair-raising minutes later, we’re back at the venue for sound checks. All is good and we’re getting the whole rock star treatment. Nothing is too much bother. There’s drink and food a plenty and now we have to do a couple of interviews for local fanzines.

The show is amazing. The place is packed. We walk out on stage with our intro music playing and we are immediately greeted by about 20 people down the front all squirting silly string over us. We haven’t even played a note yet. I can’t even see my microphone as it’s now completely covered in silly string. Thankfully, the opening song has a long intro, which gives me enough time to pick it all off. It’s been a great success. We’ve played a brilliant show and gone down really well. What’s more, we’ve made a killing on merchandise. We’ve sold well over a million. Ok, so it’s a million Lire but who cares!

Turin ‘96

A few weeks later and we find ourselves in the US of A. New York to be precise. When we were first asked about coming over last year we had hoped to make it a bit of a holiday too and bring the girlfriends with us. Unfortunately, the costs kept going up and up so it’s just me and Dave here. We’re playing three gigs. Two in New York and one in Chicago. How exciting is this? It’s my first time ever in America. Well, it should be exciting but I’m not really feeling it.

Things started badly this morning when we arrived at Heathrow. I realised I’d left my wallet at home. I have some cash on me but hardly enough to the last the five or six days we’re going to be away for. There’s no time to do anything about it but Dave’s said he’s happy to sub me until we get back, thank god. Going through security we got pulled to one side by American Airlines who went through every single piece of luggage we had with us then followed with a load of dumb questions such as; “why are you in band?” and “why are you friends?”. The flight was boring and we didn’t even get seats next to each other. To top it all off, coming through US customs (after another interrogation) the guy wanted to know if we were the band Gene Loves Jezebel!

Anyway, we’re here now. I’m grumpy and we’ve just been met at the airport by a couple of young girls who call themselves collectively “The Borg”. They’re friends of Patrick Cussack who has set up our New York stay. Don’t get me wrong. They’re nice and friendly I just don’t really know why they call themselves this. I think this is some kind of Star Trek thing? We just accept it and they drive us back to their house, which is in New Jersey, which I believe is the posh end of town. Well, it certainly looks it.

We’re staying our first night with one of The Borg where she lives with her mom and pa (see, I’ve picked up the American lingo already). It’s a massive mansion of a place compared to homes in England and we’re shown down to a basement which has two camp beds made up next to some workbenches and is about the size of my entire flat. We have a short sleep and then The Borg, who have now doubled in numbers, take us out to a restaurant to eat.

Have we done something wrong? We’re getting some strange looks from The Borg. We’ve ordered a pitcher of beer each to go with our meals. The Borg (who seem to keep growing in numbers as more friends arrive) think we’re crazy and question us as to if we’ll be able to finish them on our own. We assure them we’ll be fine and order a few more before the night is out. Dave and I aren’t really sure what the problem is.

America - New York

Next day and we finally meet up with Patrick at his flat in central New York. Sorry. Noo Yawk. His flat is up many flights of stairs. Thankfully, we’re travelling light. His flat is also very small. Most of the space is taken up with his impressive CD collection. We manage to squeeze ourselves in and we have a chat over some beers before we go over to the venue for our first US gig, travelling in one of the infamous yellow cabs.

The venue’s a bit of a shit hole to be honest and to make matters worse we don’t get a rider. We’re given a measly two tokens each to exchange at the bar for beer. Dave’s having trouble. We’re setting up for our sound check but the voltage converters we have don’t seem to be working quite right. We checked all this before coming over but Dave’s effects pedals keep switching on and off intermittently. We try everything but nothing solves the problem. In the end the guitarist from our support band, Judith, lets Dave use his set up. It’s not ideal as his guitar sound is now totally different but we struggle through. It’s not a great start.

The evening doesn’t get much better. We play to a very small crowd and hardly sell any merchandise. And we have to keep paying for our beers now. Our tokens are long gone. I keep forgetting to tip the barman and when I do remember I don’t tip enough, which pisses him off so it takes an age to get served.

We spend the next day hanging out in New York with Patrick. He’s really nice but I’m not really enjoying myself. I’d like to be looking at the Statue of Liberty or taking in Manhattan or Broadway but we’re actually, hang on, actually, I have no idea where we are. Somewhere in New York, but we’re looking around CD shops and flea markets. I could do be doing this in Camden. It’s the same old shit really. After a day looking at fleas Patrick takes us to a club called The Bank. He’s spinning there tonight apparently. I didn’t realise that breakdancing was still popular in New York but then I find out spinning actually means DJ’ing!

We sit in the club whilst Patrick does his spins. It’s quite boring and we don’t have a lot of money so we have to try and make a beer last as long as possible.

Our second and last date in New York is at a club called Batcave. It’s not too dissimilar to Slimelight back home with about four floors, each one playing a different genre of music. Patrick has advised us not to go to any of the other floors except the one which we are on which is the Goth floor. We don’t.

There are three other bands playing tonight. None of whom we know or who are in any way similar to us. They represent each of the other genres of music being

played on the other floors. The gig is another let down. With no introduction and no sound check, we go on to play just a short thirty-minute set. Dave has problems again. We tested his gear after the first gig and it all appeared to be working fine so we had just put it down to dodgy electrics at the club. Tonight though, we have a similar issue. Dave’s effects are playing up again but somehow we get through. The audience, although larger than at our first gig, seem mostly disinterested and look at us as though we’re spoiling their night. Again, we hardly sell any merchandise. It’s getting depressing. I’d rather be home but we still have Chicago to go.

We’ve taken a flight from New York to Chicago and are met at the airport by a girl who goes by the name of Scary Lady Sarah. She’s not scary at all and is actually quite lovely and friendly. Sarah drives us from the airport to her flat, which is right near the football stadium. I say football. I actually mean that game the Americans play that’s rugby with motorcycle helmets! Sarah informs us that yesterday there was a shooting there but don’t worry it doesn’t happen that often. She leads us up to her flat. Dave follows Sarah but turns straight back around and says to me,

“You’re not going to like this”“Why?”“Err. You know how you have a phobia of snakes?”“Yes”“Well, she’s got two rather large ones in her living room and that’s where we’re sleeping”

Oh, bloody hell. I have a massive phobia of the things. Always have. I can’t even look at a picture of one. How on earth am I going to stay in a room with them?This is a nightmare. I haven’t exactly been enjoying myself on this trip and this is just the cherry on the cake. I don’t know what to do. I’m sizing up the landing I’m on thinking maybe I can bed down here tonight.

Whilst I’m panicking, Dave’s gone back into the flat and is explaining to Sarah the problem. Sarah is brilliant and totally understanding. I wait outside a little longer and then she returns and tells me to come in, as all is fine. She has covered the massive tank with black out material and then, to be sure, she’s put rather heavy weights on top so that there’s no chance of them escaping. This is making me cringe even typing this.

America - Chicago

Once it’s all clear I go in. The bastard things are behind me I know, but I make sure I don’t turn around. Even though they are covered and secure I still can’t bring myself to see how big the tank is. Sarah makes us coffee and I start to calm down a little. She asks if we would like to go out in the evening. Without hesitation, I say yes. Anything to get me away from those things.

This is better. We’re at a small club that Sarah knows, having some beers and chatting with some of her friends. Everyone here seems a lot friendlier than back in New York and I’m actually starting to enjoy myself. I down enough beers to make sure I fall asleep immediately we get back so that my brain doesn’t start going into overdrive with my phobia.

A new experience today. We’re in a Dunkin Donuts. It’s all glamour for us. It’s just down the road from Sarah’s flat and as she has had to leave early, we’ve come here for some breakfast. It’s the only place we can find. How could anyone possibly eat a doughnut for breakfast? It’s beyond me so I stick to croissants.

Once Sarah returns, she takes us with her to her work for bit, explaining we might enjoy it. It’s a place that does relaxation therapies. Girls stuff basically but up for a laugh, we go along with it.

Me and Dave are now both lying down on comfy reclining chairs in a darkened room. We’re wearing headphones playing some kind of relaxing music. It may be whale song, I don’t know. Or maybe sounds of the womb. Sarah hands us both a pair of glasses. The glasses have little LED lights inside them that flash various colours across our eyelids.

We’re both trying very hard not to laugh. This is so not us. Sarah knows this and thinks it’s quite amusing to see us like this. She says we should just relax and listen to the calming music whilst the lights dance across our eyelids. Half an hour should do it she says and leaves us to it. The door clicks closed and almost immediately we both burst out laughing. What the hell is this? We spend the remainder of our half hour just chatting in the dark while distant whale music emits from the discarded headphones.

When Sarah returns her next treat for us is a go in a floatation tank. Right. So not content with exposing me to my biggest phobia last night, now she wants me to confront my claustrophobia as well! If you think I’m going to put myself in pitch-black plastic box with some water in the bottom, you’ve got another thing coming my girl. We decline the offer.

After some lunch, Sarah takes us on a whirlwind sightseeing trip of Chicago and then a trip up the Sears Tower, which is very impressive and very high. Good job I don’t have vertigo! This is so much better than New York. I quite like it.

The following day, after another breakfast in Dunkin Donuts, we locate a music shop. We’re not trusting these power adaptors we’ve brought with us so we’re going to buy a complete new power supply for Dave’s effects. Luckily, they have one in stock and when we get back to Sarah’s we give it a good test. Seems to be ok. We spend the rest of the day just hanging out at Sarah’s before heading over to the venue.

At the venue things are looking up. It’s the first venue we’ve played here that’s actually nice and we’re really pleased with the sound check. Sarah’s set up projections of our name and logo across the stage which is a nice touch too. The gig goes well and we have a good turnout. Without doubt, it’s the best of the three. We hang out afterwards until the early hours when the club closes and from there head back to Sarah’s for the briefest of sleeps before heading back to the airport.

Bam! I’m jolted awake by the plane touching down at JFK. I can’t even remember the last few hours. A combination of alcohol and lack of sleep has put paid to that. I feel groggy and now we have to wait six hours for our connecting flight back to London.

It’s been a strange few days. I didn’t enjoy our time in New York much but Chicago was really fun. It’s certainly cost us more than we had hoped and we’re not returning with a healthy balance sheet. Has it been worth it? Time will tell.

It isn’t worth bothering to unpack when we get back home on Thursday because on Friday we’re off again. This time in a hire car to Germany. We’re playing in Darmstadt with our friends Into the Abyss. Callie and Yaz are with us too so it’s not just the two of us this time. It’s a long journey with me being the only one of us who can drive and it’s 2am Saturday by the time we arrive.

After catching up on some well-needed sleep, we go to the venue for sound check. It’s a decent size but looks odd. This place used to be a swimming pool! The audience stand in what was the pool while the bands play at the top just above the deep end where the lifeguard used to sit. Thankfully, we don’t have to go through the verruca pool! It kind of looks cool, if not a bit strange, but there is

Back to Germany

a major flaw to it. The acoustics are terrible. Sound check is a struggle but we get something vaguely decent eventually.

Into the Abyss are headlining tonight as it’s their hometown gig but it’s a fairly small crowd when we go on. The sound is terrible. Despite trying to rectify it from stage and asking Callie and Yaz to tell the sound guy to do something, nothing happens to improve it. Dave’s mad afterwards. The guy doing the sound was Abyss’s own soundman. We suspect he deliberately made our sound rubbish in order to make Abyss seem better. Or are we being paranoid?

A massive row has ensued. Dave has been on at Janis from Abyss all night about them deliberately screwing our sound up. It’s a shame because they had been great friends up until now. Kostas and Jens from Abyss are trying to calm things down but nothing works. We’ve severely got the hump. We’re meant to be staying with Janis tonight but that offer seems to be off the table now. Kostas and Jens have tried to persuade us to come and stay with them but our stupid pride has got the better of us. We end up spending an uncomfortable night sleeping in the car. We didn’t realise it at the time but I’ve parked right next to a church and we’re rudely awoken on the hour every hour by bloody church bells.

Come morning, bleary eyed, we make our way to the nearest service station for breakfast and then travel the long journey back home. The weekend had been a disaster and we’ve made no money.

It’s time to do something positive.

Dave’s decided to organize another summer festival in London. Mr B, who helped with last years’ Nekromantic, has dropped off the radar so Dave’s doing this pretty much on his own. I end up helping in various ways but really, this is Dave’s festival. He’s managed to secure London’s Astoria as the venue, which is a big leap up from last years’ Marquee, and he’s also changed the name to Sacrosanct. It’s a bit of a gamble holding it at the Astoria but Dave’s confident.

We’re fed up of constantly suffering from bad sound so we’ve decided we need to get someone on board who can act as our own sound man. Someone who can help with driving would be good too as we have several German dates ahead of us. To this end we’re meeting up with a guy called Tim who we’ve found through a small ad in the music press. We meet him at a pub in Golders Green. He’s a quiet guy and it’s quite hard to get much out of him but I think he gets what we’re about and he seems to know his stuff regarding sound mixing. He can also drive which helps, so we ask him along for our next trip which is two dates in Germany.

We head off for the continent early on Friday morning. The girls are with us and space is a bit cramped as we now have Tim along as well. As we travel we try to engage Tim in conversation. I can understand how hard it must be to be amongst four people he doesn’t know but he’s really not a talker.

The first of the two gigs we’re playing this weekend is in the German town of Ahaus near the Dutch border. It’s a good venue and now we have Tim with us this should be a good gig. Can you see where this is going?

We’re halfway through sound check but everything sounds a bit crap. I jump off stage and have a word with Tim.

“Yeah Tim, can you turn Dave up a bit and me down?”“Look, they’ve got an SPX1200 Delay-o-matic here. I can do some cool effects with that”“Yeah, great. Can you sort out the basic levels first though?”“yeah, yeah really cool effects”“Tim? Are you listening? Tim? Tim?” Eventually Tim gets a reasonable sound mix but the gig is pretty poorly attended. All is not lost though. We’re staying at a big youth centre tonight and there’s a ton of beer to get through.

Soundman #1

Tim sits quietly in the corner - Ahaus ‘96

Callie and Me - Ahaus ‘96

Ok, so perhaps Tim’s not the most outgoing person in the world and perhaps he’s not the best soundman in the world. Maybe he’s good at the driving? Next day with us nursing hangovers, it’s Tim’s turn to do the driving. Grrr. He drives a nice steady 50 on the autobahn all the way to our next gig in Meiningen.

After our gig here last year I’m really looking forward to this one. The only issue is that we’re playing with Into the Abyss again. After our little spat a few weeks back I’m not sure how this is going to go. We finally arrive and Abyss are already there. Kostas and Jens are friendly as always and it’s good to see them and realise they have no grudge. Janis is a different matter. We hardly even get a hello.

The hospitality from the venue is, once again, excellent and they have provided both bands with a delicious hot meal. We hadn’t really noticed this yesterday but Tim’s hardly eating anything. I question him and he tells me he’s fine. He’s brought his own sandwiches with him. It turns out he’s a vegan and very fussy about what he can and can’t eat. He’s actually brought little else with him, it turns out, other than one small holdall that’s crammed full of mushroom sandwiches and a couple of pairs of pants and socks for good measure.

Gig time’s approaching and I’m little worried about the turnout. Compared to our gig here last year it’s very small indeed. Fifty people, or thereabouts, is all we’re getting tonight. We take to the stage a bit pissed off with poor turnout. The sound is terrible again. I really don’t think Tim has actually got a clue what he’s doing. The stage is full of screams of feedback. It’s a mess. Dave’s getting angrier by the minute. Hang on. What’s he doing now? Dave’s put his guitar down and stormed off stage. Oh great! I’m now stuck here on my own. Is he coming back or isn’t he? I have no idea. I can see Yaz and Callie trying to calm him down but he’s having none of it. I jump down from the the stage and convince Dave to continue which he begrudgingly does and we limp through to the end our set. As soon as it’s over we all retreat upstairs to the backstage area.

This is awful. We’ve done nothing but argue and bicker since we finished over an hour ago. Dave’s blaming me for the crap gig. I’m blaming him. We’re both blaming Tim. It’s all ridiculous and it’s a horrible atmosphere.

The girls have had enough and gone to bed. I’m hanging out with a few random people getting drunk. I’ve no idea where Dave’s got to. He’s wandered off and I’ve left him to it. I suspect he’s doing the same as me somewhere else.

Darren on merchandise duties

Me at The Astoria

I find him a few hours later downstairs. We have a little chat. We’ve both calmed down now. I pour a bottle of beer over his head and we’re all friends again. We stay up for what’s left of the night together, drinking until the sun comes up.

Another day, another hangover. I really can’t face sitting in the back of the car while Tim drives at 50 miles an hour again. I’m possibly over the limit from last night but I drive to the nearest services where we stop for breakfast. It’s another long, long journey home.

We eventually get back to London and drop Tim home. We drive round the corner and I have to park up. We all burst out laughing! Poor Tim. I don’t think he really got us. And we certainly didn’t get him! We never call on his services again.

We’re still convinced we need someone to do sound for us. How hard can it be? We only have a backing CD, one guitar and one vocal but we just seem to be getting crap sound everywhere we go which pisses us off and then we do a shit gig. It’s not really a happy time for us but we may just have found the answer to our prayers. Oh how wrong could we be?

We’ve come across a guy who’s actually a professional sound man. He’s just finished working with Depeche Mode on their recent American tour. So he says. Dave’s met him and he said he seems to be ok. He’s between jobs and is happy to work with us so long as he gets fed and a bed for the night. He doesn’t drink so he’s more than happy to do all the driving. It all sounds too good to be true. It is.

We’re off on another trip to Germany. Right, this time it’s going to be good. It has to be. Please. Zoblitz and Berlin here we come. We’ve hired a minibus this time as the band Die Laughing are coming with us for their first taste of Europe. We’re all round at Dave’s flat getting ready to leave and spirits are high. I’m driving the first little bit and then we’re going to stop and pick up our new soundman just outside London then he’s driving the rest of the way. So far so good. We pull off the motorway and pick up Mr Sound. I really can’t bring myself to type his name so let’s call him Bill. Right. We’re not even at Dover yet and I have taken an instant disliking to Bill. I don’t really want him around. Since we picked him up, he’s done nothing but talk about himself and brag. If there’s one kind of person I really dislike it’s people who talk about themselves and think they’re great. I’m relieved when we get on the ferry as it means I can get away from him. No chance. He’s collared me at the bar and now he’s telling me all about his tour with Depeche Mode. Actually, he’s just bragging about it.

Soundman #2

Off the ferry at Calais and back on the bus, we drive through the night and thankfully sitting in the back the music from the stereo is drowning Bill out.

We finally arrive in Zoblitz and sound check goes well. I have to admit Bill is pretty good. He does indeed know his stuff behind the mixing desk. I still dislike him though. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, we have a good gig. There’s plenty of people here and we have great sound. It’s also good to be hanging around with Die Laughing.

No time for Trabant trips this time though as we’re off to Berlin next to play the Slaughterhouse again. Another successful night. Hopefully we’ve turned the corner. I’m even starting to tolerate Bill. Maybe I was a bit too judgemental?

We’re staying at the venue tonight and while most people have gone to bed, Me, Callie, Yaz and John from Die Laughing stay up drinking and for some reason decide it would be a good idea to try and play football with a melon! The game is cut short though after John tries to head it and gives himself mild concussion and a badly stained T-shirt! All in all, it’s been a pretty successful trip.

Dave’s organising of the Sacrosanct festival is now in full swing and to coincide with it we feel we should release something. We don’t have the time or the songs to do a new album so we’re going to put out a CD single.

I’ve been busy writing some stuff at home and have even started to put some synths into the songs to add a new dimension to our sound. I’m pretty pleased with these demos and once Dave’s worked out some guitar bits, we’re ready to go into the studio and record.

Andy from Resurrection is never one to spend money when he doesn’t have to so he’s come up trumps with a cheap place for us to record. He’s been getting to know a guy called Michael who’s a student at London’s School of Audio Engineering (SAE). As part of his studies, he’s looking for bands to record to help him improve his skills.

I’m not sure if this is 100% legitimate. I’m not sure Michael has full permission to be doing this. He tells us we can’t put the real studio name on the CD so we have to make one up instead. We find ourselves at the rather plush studios at SAE. It’s a really good studio all kitted out with the latest gear and a mixing desk larger than any I have seen before. It’s a pleasant experience and the drums, bass and guitar all go down effortlessly over our first weekend.

Wake you up

The sun is shining and it seems like the whole country is in a good mood today. Even me. The press are calling it the second summer of love. Brit pop is in full swing and England have just beaten Spain in the quarter finals of Euro ‘96. There’s a party atmosphere on the tube as I head back to SAE to record my vocals for the new tracks. Once again it all goes smoothly and by the end of the weekend we have three new tracks for a CD single called “Wake you up”.

With our new single now in our hands we return, yet again, to Germany on July 5th. We’re playing a festival in Leipzig called Wave Gothic Treffen. It’s early days for the festival but in years to come it will become huge and we will play there twice more. We take Bill with us again and once more, we have a good show. We play outdoors and take to the stage just as the sun goes down. There’s a really big crowd of 1000 or so. I’m pleased we don’t screw up. However, despite getting good sound again, Bill is endlessly bragging when he’s around us and generally getting on my nerves. I speak with Dave about him but he thinks it’s a small price to pay for having someone good out the front doing our sound. I guess he’s right. I’ll just have to bite my lip a bit harder.

Another weekend and another trip to Germany. Why don’t we just move there? We’re playing another festival, this time in the town of Beeskow right on the Polish border. We’re all squished into a hire car and I’m driving the first bit down to Dover. Bill is with us again. We’re not even out of London yet and I’ve just had to pull over, calm down and have a word with Bill.

“Right, Bill. I have been driving for about 10 years now. I know what a speed camera looks like and I’m fully aware of the speed limits. If you continue to point out camera’s and remind me of the speed limit every two minutes either you will get out or I will. Alternatively, you could just shut the fuck up and let me get on with it. What’s it to be?”

Leipzig

Broken windscreens

In silence, we make our way to Dover and catch the ferry. On board, Bill apologises to me and I accept. There’s nothing worse than a back seat driver eh? Actually, he was in the front, which makes it worse. Anyway, I don’t want this crap atmosphere so we put it behind us and get on with it.

The festival’s a lot smaller than Leipzig but still there’s a big crowd. It’s nice and sunny so we’re just chilling out with a beer watching some of the other bands before we go on.

We go on. There’s no sound coming from the on-stage monitors. Where’s Bill? Look towards sound desk expecting to see Bill on top of the problem.No one there. Weird.Scan crowd. No sign of him.Scan crowd again. Locate group of young impressionable girls with annoying soundman letching over them.

Finally, Callie gets Bill to return to his post. He tries to look important and twiddles a few knobs but he does nothing much to improve things. Shit gig. Pissed off.

Dave’s on the warpath. He’s just had a blazing row with Bill. We leave Bill to chat up young girls he’s got no chance with and go and get drunk. Bill appears again and another row erupts. Far worse this time. We’ve had enough. None of us wants him around us anymore. Dave shoves some money at him and tells him to go and fuck himself. He can make his own way home.

Beeskow Festival

We’re staying at a local JZ tonight about 2 minutes away. A JZ is like a youth club with accommodation. We pack our stuff into the car and head to the exit of the festival. Bill’s waiting for us at the gate. He’s blocking our exit so we can’t get out. Unless, of course, we run him over which doesn’t seem like a bad option right now. But we do stop the car and another row breaks out. He thinks he should come with us. We tell him no way. We’ve given him more than enough money. He can make his own way home.

I return to the car. I’m sitting in the drivers’ seat. Yaz and Callie are in the back. I start the engine again and then BAM! Bill’s just smashed his metal flight case through the windscreen in a rage. Thank god, I’m wearing glasses to drive as loads of shards of glass splinter against them. He could have blinded me, the idiot! He’s not finished yet. He’s now round the side and has done the same to the back passenger window where Callie is. Yaz is now out the car having a go at Bill and, oh look, he’s just swung his flight case in her direction as well. Thankfully he’s missed. What a nice chap.

Four or five big guys pull him away. Yaz is now kicking and punching him and Dave’s about to leather him until he’s pulled away too. I’m now in shock and it takes a minute or two to come out of it. We’ve no idea know where Bill’s gone now.

Twenty minutes have passed and the cops arrive. We’re taken away to give statements over what’s just happened. Bill’s now up for criminal damage to a motor vehicle. We all have to give our version of events to the copper. He doesn’t speak great English so most of the conversation is translated through a German guy called Martin who’s been hanging out with us and speaks good English.

It’s taken a good hour for us all to recall the events to the police but now we can finally leave. As we’re leaving a bunch of tough looking guys approach us and in hushed tones ask us if we’d like them to take care of Bill for us. They know the surrounding forests very well and they tell us that they can hurt him real bad and no one will ever know. We thank them but decline their offer and decide that the police will be better placed to deal with him. The car’s a mess. We remove as much of the broken glass as we can and carefully drive the short distance to our accommodation.

Thankfully, there are some well-needed beers there when we arrive so we tuck in and go over the nights events. It’s been one hell of a day and it’s not long before we fall asleep.

I’m just drifting off when there’s a knock at the door. I hear Dave get up and answer it. I don’t believe it. It’s the cops. They’re done with Bill and have brought him back to us. Oh, how kind of them! Dave explains we don’t want him. Bill says he wants his cassettes he brought over with him which are in the car. “Help yourself, there’s a big fucking hole in the window” says Dave. With that, thank God, he’s gone.

Next morning and thankfully it’s sunny! The last thing we need with a big hole in the car windscreen is rain. After a fantastic breakfast sitting in the sun, our German friends are being very helpful ringing around German equivalents of Auto Glass, RAC and AA. They all want ridiculous amounts of money as this is a Sunday and we’d need to actually join them before they would even come out. We’re not exactly flush with money and none of us has a credit card. We’re a bit stuck and not sure what to do. As if by magic one of our hosts has just appeared with a small box in his hands. It’s a temporary plastic windscreen. Not just any temporary plastic windscreen though. This one is from a Trabant!

We fix it in place and I tentatively give the car a little test drive. It seems to be fine so long as you don’t go above about 40. Going above this puts too much pressure on what’s left of the windscreen and bits of glass start to fall into the car.

After a very long days drive we’ve made it as far as Belgium. We’ve had to stop several times due to rain, as we can’t use the windscreen wipers. At the last stop, we get some diner and Callie makes a translation faux pas and orders herself apple pie and chips. In her defence, it did look a lot like quiche. It certainly does now with all that ketchup she’s just put on it!

It’s late and time to get some sleep. We’ve pulled off into a service station and found a nice spot under a tree to provide shelter. We bed down for the night in the car.

Next morning, after some coffee and breakfast, we’re ready to get going again. Arrrgh! I’ve just turned the ignition and me and Dave in are showered in bits of broken glass! Seems I must have knocked the windscreen wipers to the on position whilst sleeping - whoops!

Another very long day but we’re determined not to have to sleep in the car again so we push on at a steady 40 mph. We finally make it back in the early hours of Tuesday morning. We drop off the hire car. They don’t seem too concerned about the lack of windscreen although, obviously, they’re going to charge us for it. I think they feel sorry for us as they even give us a lift back home.

Our smashed up car!

It’s now all about the upcoming Sacrosanct festival. Promotion is all done, accommodation and catering for the bands sorted and I find myself the night before folding and stapling festival programmes and punching holes and attaching lanyards to laminated backstage passes.

The big day arrives and we head down to the Astoria. It’s so amazing to be here! I’ve been here so many times in the past to see bands play but this weekend I’m actually playing myself. I can’t wait! With the auditorium empty at the moment the place looks massive compared to some of the places we usually play. And that stage - it’s enormous! I’m just wandering around taking it all in. I haven’t really got much to do now. Callie and Yaz are busy backstage making a hundred rounds of sandwiches for the bands. I offered to help but, thankfully, my help wasn’t required. Dave’s, well, I don’t know where he’s gone but he’s probably doing something important. The bands are starting to sound check. Rosetta Stone from Liverpool first. It sounds awesome out front but they’re having on stage sound issues. Nice to see it’s not just us that has this problem.

I check out the queue that’s now started to form outside. I don’t think Dave’s going to have too much to worry about. It’s massive and by 2pm, the doors are open and people start flocking in.

Sacrosanct

Dave at The Astoria ‘96

Me at The Astoria ‘96

We spend the day enjoying the show. Each band plays really well but afterwards each band complains about the bad stage sound. Now it’s my turn to say it sounds ok out front. Rosetta finish the night. I think it’s them anyway. There’s so much dry ice it’s hard to see. They’re still experiencing sound issues though.

Sunday, and this is our day! Despite hangovers, we’re back at the Astoria for day two by midday. We should be doing our sound check but we’re waiting for the Astoria’s sound crew to fix the issues that dogged yesterday. They seem to know what it is and are now replacing the monitoring setup with new bits of equipment whilst, literally, throwing large pieces of old equipment across the stage. It takes an age to sort out and, by the time they’re done we’re so limited on time we only manage a five-minute check. It’s not ideal but we’re out of time, the doors will be opening again soon. Sound check done we nip outside and admire our name in lights above the Astoria. It’s a great moment to see it there. Makes you proud. Shame they’ve spelt it wrong then! Yaz goes off to find someone and soon enough the missing “m” is put in place.

It’s another great day. As soon as the doors are open, there’s a mad rush on our merchandise table. Now, I never do the merch. I find it better to leave it to the girls as they’re better at that kind of thing. However today, even I have to help out. It’s crazy! There’s money flying about all over the place. This is good.

The five bands preceding us all go down well and then we’re on. I’m so up for this. We start with some intro music and then straight into a track from our last album called Face to Face. It has quite a long intro before the singing comes in so I stay back while Dave’s out there on the Astoria stage all on his own. Finally, I walk on. The crowd is huge. What a moment! I’m trying to enjoy myself but I’m really struggling. This sound issue is doing my head in.

Every time I sing, there’s a delay before it comes back at me through the stage monitors. Depending on where I stand on stage, the delay time seems to vary. It’s really off putting and makes it so hard to tell where in the song I am. The crowd don’t seem to notice though so I just try as best I can to enjoy the moment. We make it to the end. There’s a massive roar from the crowd and we’re done. We’ve had our fair share of difficulties and it’s tainted what should have been a real highlight but overall the weekend has been a great success!

Sacrosanct

After a short break from gigs, a dream of mine has come true. Our flat has been turned into a recording studio! There’s gear and wires everywhere. Unfortunately, it’s not staying. It’s all on hire. A German label has asked us to record a track for a compilation CD they’re doing. It’s not for Resurrection so Andy’s not paying anything towards it so we need to fund this ourselves. We looked around and decided we could do it cheaper by hiring stuff in rather than going to a studio. We record and mix two tracks over the weekend with very pleasing results.

There’s two more gigs left before the year is out. On Halloween we return to the Kings Arms and recreate the Sanctuary club of old for one night only. We’ve lined the front of the stage with pumpkins, laughing ghosts and other crappy Halloween stuff we could find at the 24 hour petrol station and it’s a great night. More of a party than anything. Then we travel back to Italy to play in Rome. It’s a strange gig this. Quite a hostile atmosphere and afterwards the place is invaded by Italian Nazi supporters. We get the hell out.

January ‘97 and we’ve been busy writing more songs and we’re turning our attentions to the recording of a new album. Once again, Andy from Resurrection has done a deal. Remember that company Tonic we dealt with for the pressing of our Depths of Innocence CD? Well the guy behind this now has a brand new recording studio over in Ealing, West London. This should ring alarm bells after our last involvement with them but stupidly we ignore all voices of concern.

We’re about two hours into our first session and we’ve done precisely nothing. We didn’t quite realise how new this studio was. When they said new what they actually meant was unfinished! There are still electricians who have been here all night wiring things together. Nothing is working yet but we’re assured that we can start recording soon.

Somehow, we’ve managed to lay down the drum machine parts but we’re now trying to record the bass and guitars and we’re running into “teething troubles”, so we’re told. None of the gear in this studio wants to talk to one another so nothing will synchronise making it impossible to record. It’s a shambles! We decide to call it a day and give the studio the time they need to sort out their issues.

Home studio

Halloween & Rome

One eye open - take one

A week later, we’re back. Same problems.

We’re nowhere near finishing this album. In fact, it doesn’t really feel like we’ve even started it yet. We have quite a few dates lined up for the coming year so we better get a move on. We have a gig in Edinburgh, one in London, Dublin and then a few in Germany and Italy. Dave’s also talking about doing Sacrosanct again in August. A busy year ahead then, but first we’re off to Paris.

I’ve got this wonderful new thing. It’s called the Internet. We’ve arranged this gig all through the mighty power of email! How exciting. We may even make our own webpage but first I need to find out what HTML is!

We’re supporting Rosetta Stone at a place called “La Locomotive”. We arrive late in the evening the night before the gig and we’re stunned - we’ve been told that we’ll be sound checking at 8am. Did I hear that right? Apparently so. Yes, eight o’clock in the morning. Blimey. It turns out, due to noise restrictions, this is the only time we can do it.

Well at least the venue has provided breakfast for us. Coffee and, of course, croissants. Rosetta are moaning though. All they want is a nice cup of tea but the French don’t really do tea. Dave’s also having a moan. He thinks croissants are just pieces of cardboard. Still, I’m happy enough though.

Sound check done we return to the hotel to catch some sleep before finding a nice English pub complete with red phone box. We sink a few pints then we’re off for the quickest of looks at some big electricity pylon standing by something resembling Marble Arch! Then we’re off to a few sex cinemas.

Paris

Sex cinemas? Oh yes! We have a friend called Darren with us. He’s a little, shall we say, obsessed with them. That’s the only reason. We’re doing it for him. Honest.

The gig goes well and it’s a lovely venue to play in. It’s also good to see Rosetta again too. Nobody knows this at the time but this is (I think) their last ever gig.

Now it’s back to the studio to try and crack on with recording the new album. Finally we’re getting somewhere. We’ve managed to get some more done but there are still issues. I’m in the vocal booth recording. It’s like being back on stage at the Astoria again with big time delays between me opening my mouth and hearing anything back through my headphones. The engineer asks me if this is a problem. Err. Yes.

I’ve had enough of this. We’re never going to get this album done here. It’s a mess. Once again, we leave the studio with promises of it being fixed in time for our next session. We have no intention of returning. Rather sneakily, whilst Dave’s chatting away with the engineer, I’ve ejected all the tapes we’ve been recording onto so we can take what bits we’ve recorded with us. We have a plan.

We head straight to Resurrection and we’ve managed to convince Andy to hire in the equipment needed to complete the recording.

It’s Sunday morning and my flat is full of flight cases. Both me and Dave are knackered as we’ve just had to lug them all up four flights of stairs. No time for rest though and a few hours later we have our own recording studio set up in my spare room.

The following seven days are hectic. We spend every precious second we can trying to finish off the album. We’re both trying to fit it around day jobs, although it soon becomes evident it’s never going to be completed unless we take a few days of precious holiday to get it done.

This is ridiculous. Dave’s in one room recording some guitar parts while I’m in another trying to write lyrics. Somehow though, it’s starting to come together. By the weekend, I don’t know how, but we’re nearly done. We literally eject the finished DAT as the guy from the hire company arrives to collect all the gear.

One eye open - take two

It’s been a gruelling week and not a particularly enjoyable one. The first few seeds of doubt about whether I want to carry on doing this or not have been sown. On reflection the past twelve months have not really been the greatest. We seem to have had more bad experiences than good and the highs are no longer making up for the lows. I was never in this for fame or fortune. If you want that then never, ever join a Goth band! I was in this for enjoyment. Sadly that seems to be diminishing at the moment.

Right. Snap out of it. Get on with things. This is a new chapter. It’s March 1st and our new album “One Eye Open” has been released. It has the worst cover artwork I have ever seen in my life, but no time to worry about that. We have lots of gigs ahead and the first is tonight in Edinburgh. We’re playing back in London tomorrow night so in order to do this and get back in time we’re going up on the train.

Predictably we’re a bit late arriving at Kings Cross station as we spent a bit too long in The Devonshire Arms in Camden beforehand. The train is now full and about to depart any minute. There are no seats and we end up having to run along the platform with all our gear, right to the front in order to get on a carriage with a bit of space. It’s standing room only all the way to Newcastle when, at last, we manage to get a couple of seats for the last bit of the journey.

We should have just stayed in the pub! I was quite happy there. Six hours on the train (standing for four of them) to play to ten people. It’s been a disaster. There’s plenty of time to ponder on this as we make the six-hour journey back home again. Thank God for the buffet car. I need a beer!

Off the train, onto the tube and now we’re at The Borderline in London. I quite like this venue. I’ve seen several other bands here but we’ve never played here ourselves. It’s small but has a very professional set up. We play a really good gig, the new songs go down well and we get a good crowd too. But does this make everything ok again? I’m not sure.

Snap out of it!

It’s been eight weeks now since the last gig. Dave’s been busy setting up the Sacrosanct festival for this year. He’s planning something even bigger this time round with it spanning four days. Meanwhile, I’ve had plenty of time to think things over. I’ve come to a decision. I’ve had enough and it’s time to end things. On the surface, it’s an easy decision. I’ve been doing this because I enjoyed it. But this last year has not been so enjoyable. More lows than highs. The enjoyment has gone.

Deeper down though the decision has been pretty tough. My life for the last six years has revolved around the band. When I first met Dave, all those years back, he was just the guy that played guitar but over the years he’s turned into one of, if not my best, friends. It’s not going to be easy telling him. I don’t know what his reaction will be but I have to think of myself too.

There are lots of things planned over the next few months and the last thing I want to do is let people down so I have decided to carry on with this up until the Sacrosanct festival in August. After that we have nothing planned or booked. So I’ll stay committed until then and call it a day after that. Hopefully, we can go out on a high. But how do I tell Dave? Perhaps I should do a flyer like we did when we killed off Restoration? Nah. I don’t think so.

However I tell Dave, it’s not going to be tonight. It’s Friday 25th April and we’re playing his hometown gig in Dublin. He’s excited about this one and left yesterday so he could hang out in Dublin. Me and Callie are making our way across today by train and then a ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. It’s not been the most pleasant of journeys. The ferry was delayed for about an hour and once we did leave we found it full of hundreds of pissed up Liverpool fans returning from a match. Then more of the same, but more cramped, on the train from the ferry terminal into Dublin.

We’re a little bit late arriving but still in plenty of time for sound check. We meet up with Dave and find that he’s been panicking, thinking that we weren’t going to show up at all. I don’t know how he came to that conclusion. We’re here. In Dublin. Bring on the craic!

The place is busy and a good-sized crowd has turned up to watch us. However, I’m not feeling it. I think that now I’ve made my decision to leave this all seems like a bit of a charade. I didn’t expect to feel this way. I should try and snap myself out of it but I can’t. I just can’t. We play a fairly dull set.

Dublin - 25th April 1997

We don’t look at each other once throughout the whole gig. Dave knows something’s wrong.

Afterwards he asks me straight.

“What the problem?”

I really didn’t want this to happen tonight but, it all comes out. I tell him how I’m no longer enjoying myself doing this. But I also tell him about my decision to stay until Sacrosanct.

It’s not gone down too well. Dave’s gone mad. A big row has erupted. Dave’s shouting at me, I’m shouting back. From Dave’s point of view, if I want to leave I should just leave now. Or as Dave puts it “Fuck off now”. Meanwhile Callie’s having a big row with Dave’s girlfriend - it’s all got very messy. We’re meant to all be staying together tonight at the promoters house. By the end of the evening, we can’t even find Dave. He’s gone. Left us.

So here we are. Outside in the freezing cold at Dublin ferry port at 5am in the morning, waiting for the first ferry of the day to take us on our long journey back home.

I saw Dave a few times after that night in Dublin but we never spoke. It was always at gigs or clubs so I just kept out of his way. He went on to hold his Sacrosanct festival in August and in a small way I even helped out by putting up one of the bands playing (The Last Dance) in our flat for a few days. Well, that was the intention, but we all got on so well it ended up being a few weeks!

Dave then started a new band, Excession, with his new girlfriend Yasmin.

It was a good four years until we bumped into each other properly again. This time at a Chameleons gig in Shepherds Bush in 2001. It was good to see him. Slowly the old friendship was reunited. I went on to play live with him a few times, playing bass as part of Excession as and when needed.

Things then went quiet again for a few years. I met up with Matt again at one point and we even ended up doing some music under the name Trash Candy. Nothing ever came of this, we never played live, but we did record about twenty songs in demo form.

Then, late in 2007, I got an email out of the blue from Dave. Events had conspired to make him think it could be a good time to do a re-union of Vendemmian.

After several email exchanges we met one night in West London to have a few beers and to discuss about how, and even if, we could really do it.

By March the following year we we’re on a flight to Florence in Italy. From the seat next to me Dave looks at me and says “Looks like we’re doing it then”....

Epilogue

Gigs - Restoration

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T&C 2GossipsUnderworldStage DoorUnderworldPrincess CharlotteBull And GateImagesPrincess CharlotteWarehouseMarqueePrincess CharlotteEdwards No 8MarqueeUnderworldPrincess CharlotteTraders

MarqueeRock CityPen and WigPrincess CharlotteHalt BarBansheeMarquee

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Desire ClubDomeGlasgowManchesterMoonlight ClubVenueVenueCamden PalaceMoonlight ClubPen and WigBansheeMarqueePieces ClubRock CityMarqueeRacehorsePieces ClubSanctuaryMarqueeHallomshireScrumpiesOld SalutationPieces ClubRacehorseMarqueeRock Shop

LeicesterLondon

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Gigs - Vendemmian #1

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Sanctuary ClubMerecat

ABS Club

MarqueeCavern ClubMarqueeUnderworldMerecatABS ClubWaldbrol JZHausmetternichBasementZauberberg ClubZillo ClubJZAlternativezentrumDschungelDschungelSlaughterhouseFresh ClubZlwischenfallIndie Tours FestivalNekromanticDuchess Of YorkNice ‘n SleezeyRock City

LondonBirminghamNottinghamNorthamptonKolnBerlinWormsInnsbruckLondonExeterLondonManchesterBirminghamKolnWaldbolKoblenzWiesbadenWurzbergHamburgMeiningenZoblitzDusseldorfDusseldorfBerlinKaiserslautenBochumQuerfahrtLondonLeedsGlasgowNottingham

Gigs - Vendemmian #2

25/02/199616/03/199628/03/199630/03/199602/04/199606/04/199603/05/199604/05/199617/05/199618/05/199605/07/199627/07/199611/08/199631/10/199630/11/199601/02/199701/03/199701/03/199725/04/1997

MarqueeDracma ClubPyramidBatcaveNocturnaEledil ClubLogoJZ ClubAlternativezentrumSlaughterhouseLeipzig FestivalBurgfestivalSacrosanctSanctuary HalloweenVelvet ClubLocomotive

The BorderlineThe Tower

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Gigs - Vendemmian #3

Vendem

mian - D

runk, Stup

id and

Goth