D?B! In The UK Part One

Our first “tour”. With everything that's happened in my personal life over the last year or so, namely becoming a father, there hasn't been much in the way of touring. I was so looking forward to travelling to the UK and playing our first set of shows with DB, and even if it was only three shows, it would do just fine for now, in fact with Polly being so young it would probably be just about perfect. I don't think I could handle a three week tour at the moment, that can wait a while.

This was a weekend for firsts. First time in the UK with Diagnosis? Bastard!, with us we had our first seven inch record to sell and it would also be the first time I'd done a tour travelling by public transport, in this case National Express bus and Midland Mainline train. Leave it to Kev.. The thing is, with the stricter emission laws now in place in London, owning a van has become a very expensive business. Gone are the days of buying a cheap, old van and driving about the country in it. These days you have to have a van up to environmental standard, which is of course a good thing, but at the same time very expensive. If you have an old van it costs you a hundred quid per calender day to drive about in London, something which has effected the DIY gig scene a great deal. Kev's old band Regimes had a newer van that was up to standard but since they broke up they had no use for it and sold it, something which no doubt upset Kev since he used to treat the thing like an old man treats his shed. These days Kev's other band I Like BUGS get about the country in their guitarist Jamie's car. DB would be taking the train.. and the bus...

What I love about Kev though is that even at age forty five, exactly ten years to the day older than yours truly, his enthusiasm hasn't waned in the slightest. If anything, it's as strong now as it's ever been. He still tours in DIY bands by any means necessary, he still puts on shows at the Bird's Nest in Deptford and at other spots around London and he still works in London's best vegetarian and vegan coffee shop. He's a huge part of the scene, a scene that wouldn't be the same without him. He'd sorted these shows out for us, along with our friend Wayne, who also sings in BUGS as well as plays drums in Slow Plague, the band that would join us on this jaunt, and had been struggling to find a van for the weekend. No problem, he worked out that the cheapest way for us to get about would be by bus and train, coming in at just under a hundred and fifty quid for the six of us, the other being Pablo from the two piece that is Slow Plague. That's quite a bargain I have to say. Of course it meant we'd be lending all our gear, but that was sorted too, which says a lot about the UK scene right now. There maybe isn't much money involved in shows, but there are a lot of people who are willing to put you up and lend you all their gear just so you can play, which is really quite humbling. And the fact that Kev, the old man of the band is the one who is suggesting we travel by public transport and lug gear around tells you all you need to know about his character.

I was very much looking forward to this, our first trip to England..

Lucas had flown in the day before us to hang out with a friend in Camden and go to some hipster electro nonsense at the Coco. Viktor and I flew in early on the Wednesday. We'd be practising at night at the place where BUGS usually rehearse before the first show in Sheffield the day after. We got the seven am flight which was a bit of a fucker since it meant getting up at four thirty, although three month old Polly has had me in training with early mornings. It was around ten by the time we got to Deptford, where Kev helps run the wonderful Waiting Room Café with our friend Alec, and our other friend Mucky Marcus has the Kids Love Ink tattoo shop right beside. Mucky and Alec own both the shop and the café. The two of them played in Kev's old band Regimes, as well as a bunch of other old bands like Shackle Me Not and Wives of Seth. You see how it works..

Anyway, I had business both at the café and the shop, namely a wholesome Ploughman's sarnie and a peanut butter shake and a couple of tattoos. When we arrived the sun was blazing above Deptford High Street and the place was packed. It's always heart-warming to see Kev stood there in his apron with his hands on his hips, little belly sticking out, looking chuffed. Despite the crowd in front of me Kev shouts over the queue asking what I want, when I tell him I want the peanut butter shake, something I first fell in love with in the States, he retorts, “What? That's fucking minging!” not a hint of a smile on his coupon. It's not though, far from it. Whilst we're waiting for Luk to turn up I pop in to see Marcus and get a couple of bits done. Luk arrives just as I'm finished and Mucky parps straight up, “Oooh allo! You didn't tell me you had a young stud in the band Gaz!”

The deal today is that we have to pick up shirts from a place Kev uses in Camden, as well as drop off some copies of the new seven inch at All Ages. We also have to meet up with a friend of the guys, Viv, who is showing us great kindness in letting us stay at her flat over in Brockley, which is about a twenty minute walk from Deptford. Kev tells us that Viv will come over and drop off the keys at the café. Really kind of her to go out of her way but she soon lets us know that it's no problem, in fact she was more than looking forward to meeting the “sexy Swedish punk band” that would be staying at her place. I get the feeling Viv is gonna eat Luk for dinner..

Before heading to Camden we decide we'll drop the bags off at Viv's place in Brockley. It's fucking roasting and it would be nice to freshen up. Viv has a work meeting booked so she kindly writes a full page of very specific directions to her house and then walks us to the end of the High Street. As soon as she leaves Vik and Luk turn to me and suggest we get a taxi. Lazy bastards. I insist we walk, what with it being a beautiful day and the fact that Viv had gone to the trouble of writing the directions in fine detail. Vik agrees on the strict condition that we hit a pub on the way. We head over to the trendy Royal Albert but can't work out if it's open or not. It's only mid day so it should be..but it looks doubtful somehow. I suggest that we drop the bags off first and then go to a pub, trying to convince them that a pint will taste so much better after a good walk dragging bags. They reluctantly agree and we head off. We get about five minutes up Tanner's Hill and come across another pub, this one a Samuel Smith's brewery, just like the Rock in Corby. Vik insists we stop and by this point I can't disagree. The cold pint of Old Brewery is about the most delicious beverage I've ever tasted.

We get showered and changed at Viv's and hang out there for a while afterwards, just lazing around surfing the internet, talking about what new records we have to buy. The new Framtid album is out soon.. Before we leave, Viv comes home and we decide to take a walk around to Mucky's place around the corner and say hello to his dog, Mucky Pup. Mucky Pup looks just like Marcus... Same cheeky look on it's face. Mucky shares a really nice house with his girlfriend, and Wayne and his girlfriend as well as Jamie all live there too. It's what you have to do in London with the prices being so staggeringly high.

We walk down to Brockley station with Viv, Mucky and Mucky Pup. Somehow time is already getting a bit short and I'm starting to wonder if we'll make it by All Ages. It might not be such a bad thing really since I don't have much space in my bag for records and I'm sure I'll pick a couple up from distros at the shows along the way. As it happens, the train is delayed by about thirty minutes and the plans go out the window anyway. We make it to Camden, pick the shirts up and then grab some food at a Brazilian restaurant, a former favourite of Luk's from the time he lived here. He insists we have to eat these cheese ball things that he's been raving about all day. They are indeed good. Little bread balls filled with a cheesy dough. What's not to like? It's still incredibly hot and a couple of cold beers along with the food hit the spot perfectly. Luk, being “home”, goes for a Caiprinha, discussing at length the cachaca assortment on offer with the rather attractive waitress. I know his game..

By the time we're done I know there is no way we're making All Ages if we're going to get to practice on time. There is also no way we're going to make it to a music store to buy some drum sticks and other small bits. I feel bad about ringing Kev but as usual it's no problem, he says he can shoot off from the café and pick up some stuff from a shop in Deptford. We head back on the tube to London Bridge to make the connection to Deptford. On the train there is a good looking young lady sat across from us talking to a guy I assume is her boyfriend. I take one look at her and know instantly that Luk will have clocked her. I turn my head and of course there he is, almost drooling whilst gazing at her. I crack up, “For fuck sakes Luk, gimme a break!”. He snaps out of it, almost laughing to himself as he hadn't realised he was staring so intently. “It's the Caiprinha. I got a bit of a hit off that”.

We get back to Deptford just in time for a quick coffee and then head around the corner to the rehearsal space that is owned by Marv and John, a couple of older punks that have been around for a long time in bands like Varukers and Conflict. I've met Marv a few times down the years and was hoping to see him tonight but he's not around. John I think I met a long time ago when Speedhorn played with Conflict at the old Goldsmith's Tavern, just down the road in New Cross. I recognise him anyway. He's a really nice guy in any case. The place they have is really great too. It feels nice to be back in the practice room with the full contingent again. Most of the time it's just the three of us back in Stockholm without Kev, just rehearing instrumentally. I'm really in the mood to bang through the twelve minute set list.

It sounds really good in the room and I'm surprised by how tight we are. We haven't practised in a while since we're currently having a row with our rehearsal space's landlord and are in the phase of once again looking for a new place. We blast through Diagnosis? Bastard!, the first song in the set and just as we're about to transgress into the second song, Nausea, Kev holds his hand in the air, “Wait up, wait up! Fucking nose is bleeding!”. It turns out that Kev has bashed himself in the face with the mic whilst singing the first song. He has to shoot off to the bog and get some paper to halt the flow of blood. Somehow it feels like a good omen.

I'm amazed how our twelve minute set can leave me feeling so fucked. We go through it once and then head to the local shop to pick up some cans of beer. On the way back Kev points over to a burned out café on the other side of Deptford High Street, just down the road from their place, where there are a few bouquets of flowers laid outside. Apparently there has been some turf war thing going on between different gangs here and last week someone fire-bombed the café where the old lady proprietor was sleeping and she was killed, ran out into the street on fire and died there in a heap. Fucking horrible. Rumours are somebody had been trying to buy her out but when she refused to move they took an alternative measure..

When we get back to the rehearsal room we find John Conflict and another old punk called Rutty and his two whippet dogs, hanging outside sat at a makeshift table, drinking a couple beers. It's certainly a nice night for it. “Alright Rutty?” says Kev. “I'm alright.. it's all the other cants!” Rutty replies in typical Cockney droll. I have to laugh. Kev tells me he says the same thing every time.. We sit there putting the world to rights over a can and then go back in and go through the set another couple of times. I'm happy with how everything sounds and I'm feeling confident about the shows. Jamie BUGS, who is kind enough to be lending me his guitar, comes down afterwards to hang out, gutted he's missing the gig on Saturday, although I'd say his three week trip to Sydney probably compensates... But still, a little gutted...

We dump some of the gear at the café for the night and then head down to the Royal Albert. It's a trendy, student pub, but I like it. Kev heads home and tells us not to be late in the morning. Pablo is coming in a six seater cab at quarter to eleven. We promise him it won't be a problem and head off to the pub with Jamie. Some of the girls who work at the café are there and we hang out and chat over a couple of beers, but it's a really relaxed night and we head home when the pub closes, maybe just a little bit tipsy, but then it doesn't take much to get me tipsy these days..

When I wake up on the mattress on Viv's living room floor, next to Vik, my head is thumping a little all the same. It's sorted after a shower and a tablet that Luk has in his bag though and by the time we meet Kev and Wayne at Café Bianca on Depftord High Street I'm feeling good. The veggie breakfast there hits the spot magnificently, their veggie sausages tasting particularly good this morning. Washed down with a minging slash glorious cup of tea, I'm ready for the day. We head back to The Waiting Room and pick up the gear and throw a cup of coffee down the hatch before Pablo arrives in the cab. Alec is working at the café today and I can see by the look on his face that he's sad not to be coming with us. He's not in a band at the minute but he should be.

Getting all the gear into the cab turns out to be a bit of a task and we're packed in like fucking sardines by the time we get going to Victoria. We're early when we arrive, by almost an hour, so we decide to check out the pub across the road for an afternoon pint. Kev is moaning about the prices in this posh part of town but to us it's still cheap, what with the strong kronor/weak pound situation. A pint here costs four and a half quid, which right now is about forty five kronors. A pint of English ale back home would be hitting closer to the eighty kronor mark. Me, Vik and Luk are chuffed, of course. Kev sits there calling us a bunch of Scando toffs and moaning. This is something we're going to have some fun with over the next few days..

The bus to Sheffield takes about four hours, making a couple of stops along the way. There's barely anyone on it when we board at Victoria and we head straight to the back where they have a couple of tables. It's as comfortable as any tour van I've sat on. Good work Kev! The only thing we haven't taken into account with our choice of seating is the fact that the bog is situated right next to us.. About an hour later the bus stops at Milton Keynes and there an old lady alights and makes her way straight to the toilet, determined as you fucking like. Something about it cracks us up, especially Wayne, who is close to tears. The lady is in there for a good while and the bus is moving by the time she comes back out. When she opens the door she stands there staring at us with a pale coupon for a moment and then says, “I don't know how to flush that.” I try to answer her but can't hold the laughter in. She just fucks off back down the bus leaving the bog as it is. Kev renames the toilet the Chod Box, something we laugh about for almost the rest of the way to Sheffield.

We arrive in Sheffield, split up into a couple of cabs and make our way to Chris' house. Chris plays in the band Skiplickers and is putting the show on tonight. It's a shame that Skiplickers aren't playing.. Apparently Chris had asked their drummer about a month ago if he could play the show, knowing there was a chance he was double booked with one of his other bands. He never got back to him, until this morning that is when he rang Chris and asked him if they were playing tonight. Chris was less than amused...I was hoping they'd make the show since I really like the band and being their home town crowd would have pulled a few people too. These being our first shows, almost ever, we really can't expect to pull that many people.

Anyway, Chris and his girlfriend have made a really wholesome bean chilli which we gratefully scoop up with tortilla bread. Avi, another member of Skiplickers, who also plays in Dry Heaves and Cry Havoc, lives with Chris, and the two of them have really sorted us out for tonight with gear and a lift in their van. We barely have to do anything, so the least we can do is pop down to Tesco's and buy a load of beer in. Unfortunately I have to bow down to democracy and pitch in for a couple of twenty four packs of Carlsberg, instead of some far nicer ale they have on offer. “Fucking Scando toffs..” mutters Kev as I ponder the higher echelons of the booze aisle.

I remember meeting Avi in Manchester last year when we played there with Victims. Tormented were on tour with us and they had played some UK dates with Cry Havoc previously and had gotten on like a house on fire. We hang out in the back garden catching up on things and drinking a can or two of lukewarm Carlsberg.

The venue tonight is in the cellar of some “rock bar” called Nelson's in the city centre. The room we're playing in is really small with no stage. First scan of the place tells me that twenty or thirty people in here would create a good atmosphere, something of a relief. There are three bands playing so we're half way there anyway. Chris has warned us about the landlady tonight. Apparently she's this old “rock chick” who is really sweet and kind, if not a bit flirty. We meet her as we load in and she is indeed exactly as described. She goes out of her way to make us all a cup of coffee whilst subtly stroking arms and patting backs. As she scoots off Kev turns to me and says, “Whatever happens, don't let me get that drunk tonight!” looking worriedly in her direction.

I'd checked out the other band on the bill, Carer, from Leeds, only briefly but had liked what I'd heard. The song they had online sounded kind of Jesus Lizard/Pissed Jeans in style and I thought it could be promising. I was left a little disappointed in them though. The music was right up my alley, all drone, one riff, driving from start to finish, but the vocals let it down a bit for me. The guy was doing the whole fucked up/talk/sing/rant thing, which is ok in itself, especially if you are David Yow, but the problem was this guy, dressed in a kitsch Bermuda shirt and looking a little akin to Sloth from The Goonies, was doing his best to seem out there, staggering about the floor, eyes closed, mic hanging around his neck by the cable, arms in the air as if reaching for another plane. The problem was, I just didn't buy it. It didn't seem genuine to me. Something that was immediately confirmed to me after they'd played when I found Sloth sat upstairs in the rock bar, drinking a pint, straight as you like. I don't know, maybe someone could think the same of me when they see me throwing my guitar about and spazzing out, but I genuinely just get washed up in the music we're playing.. I'm exactly the same in the practice room. I don't know, maybe it was the same for this guy.. Anyway, the music was enough to keep me watching.

I was only one of a handful though... I thought that Carer had started exaggeratedly early, considering Chris had said the curfew for noise was two am, but as it turns out it didn't make much of a difference. There were a few metalheads upstairs listening to horrible music and nodding their heads, obviously none of them even considering coming down to check out the bands, and there were maybe seven or eight others beside band members in the little room we were playing. I didn't really care though since I hadn't expected much else. Slow Plague played and I was entranced by their bowel crushingly loud set. How Pablo could get so much volume out of a little Ampeg amp small enough to carry around in his rucksack was beyond me. They were fucking great though. Pablo on bass, Wayne on drums and the two of them screaming torture into their mics over the black metalesque doom. By the time they were half way through their set I was on my third pint of John Smith's (utter piss) and feeling tipsy. I kept laughing at seemingly nothing all the time. That was cut short though when the rock chick landlady walked past me and randomly rubbed my belly, “Alright babe..”

We played to about fifteen people including bands. I loved every second of the twelve minutes our set lasted. We played tight and it felt pretty brutal, all of us putting in a lot of energy. Wayne and Pablo were stood in front of me looking like they were enjoying themselves too. This is what it's about. Fuck it if there isn't many people, it doesn't matter. What matters is playing. Afterwards Chris came up to us and said he couldn't believe that a greater number of people hadn't seen us. He told us he thought it was awesome. I couldn't help feeling what a different show it would have been had Skiplickers played but it didn't matter, I was chuffed all the same. And we sold a t-shirt and a seven inch. The guy who bought the seven was the bass player from Carer and the guy who bought the shirt said he was going to come to the show in Nottingham the day after. The wheels of progress in motion right there...

We ended up grabbing a couple of drinks upstairs in the bar. It was truly horrid. There was this circle of young metalheads, both guys and girls, stood nodding their heads and giving the odd air cymbal smash in the appropriate place to the annoyingly loud Pantera/Korn crap coming out of the DJ booth. They didn't say a word to each other, they just stood there, nervously looking at each other, hoping to impress their opposite sex no doubt. Oh how I remember those days. And oh how I'm glad they are long gone. When Avi came upstairs and said it was time to go we were more than happy to oblige. I felt bad though since he and Chris had packed the van with little or no help from us, this after lending us practically everything. They assured us it was no problem.

We end up back at Chris' place and tuck into the remaining cans of Carlsberg. There seems to be a never ending supply of them.. And before long there is a strew of half empty cans about the place. We sit up until around four am, recanting tour tales and other stories from the scene. Luk passes out on the floor beside me first, and then everyone starts to drop one by one. Chris pulls the sofa out into it's double bed form and fixes another larger mattress for the floor space behind it. Me and Luk take the sofa bed, Pablo, Wayne and Viktor take the mattress. Kev has passed out on the other sofa and I have placed the sofa cushions on top of him like a jig-sawed quilt. He seems chuffed enough.

Viktor, being the liberal Swede he is, gets down to his kecks and jumps into bed beside Pablo, who is laying there in his crust punk t-shirt and jeans uniform. “Pablo, you still have your pants on” notes a genuinely befuddled Viktor, not able to grasp how Pablo can be comfortable sleeping in this manner. “Yes, I know” replies a steadfast Pablo. Me and Luk think this is hilarious, and Luk repeats the scene out loud a few times, laughing equally each time, until we all fall asleep.

The Crew: Roddy

Roddy did one of the coolest things I ever witnessed as a kid watching a band...

When we were teenagers we'd drink cider in the woods and listen to Metallica on a boombox, stomping about “the tree” and mosh like we were down front in the pit itself. Since we weren't eighteen yet we had nothing else to do... Until Franny Lagan started putting shows on at Channel 2 and Andy Warzone at the Willow Room. Still too young to attend, these places usually let us in on the strict condition we didn't attempt to buy drinks from the bar. And it worked for the most part, at least for a while.. The main thing for us was getting in to see “the band”. We were heavy metal nuts and seeing live bands playing our kind of music in our home town was a fucking dream. Roddy was a few years older than us and played in a great band called Krust. For a while he was the coolest guy in town and we all looked up to him a great deal. A few years later he'd be Speedhorn's stage manager and guitar tech.. but it was a long and rocky road that got us to that point.

Anyway, this one night Krust were playing the Willow Room and me and the gang turned up looking forward to seeing the show. It was to our absolute horror then that on arrival we were told by a very regretful looking Andy Warzone that we would not be allowed entrance due to us being under-age. He'd been getting a lot of hassle from the authorities about letting kids in and his hands were tied. We were truly fucking gutted! I didn't care about drinking the shit lager on offer at the bar, although given the chance I'd gladly have a pint, I just wanted to see Krust play their set. After hopelessly arguing our case for a while, we finally turned away. I felt bad for Andy, I could tell he really wanted to let us in, he, like us, really wanted to help the music scene in the town and he knew we, the kids, were a vital part of it.

Not to be deterred we decided we'd head around the back of the venue and at least listen to the band from there. Directly behind the stage in the venue was a wall of large windows that they would draw curtains across during gigs. This was a floor above ground level, which is where we were stood looking up at the back side of the curtains, listening to Krust start their show. It was loud as fuck out the back and we could hear every note they played. This just seemed to put us further down in the dumps though because as good as Krust were, a big part of the band was the visual live show, which included their friend Nogs dressed in a Frankenstein's Monster suit and Roddy in a doctor's blood covered smock and balaclava, waving various weapons about his head. As we were stood loitering about the back door of the venue listening to them play, a couple of cops turned up and asked us what we were doing. We explained and they were actually pretty cool with us. At first they were of course suspicious but they soon realised we were just a bunch of kids genuinely mad about music and they conveyed a great deal of sympathy with our plight. They left us alone to enjoy the gig as best we could.

Word must have got about inside the venue, no doubt aided by the fact that there was a large contingent of the usual audience missing, because after a few songs we heard Roddy complaining down the mic about the fact we were not allowed in to the show. We got a buzz when we heard him fighting our cause but it was nothing compared to the buzz we got when the band opened up the big curtains behind the stage, turned their back on the audience inside and played to us instead! We went fucking mental and started moshing right there in the car park! You could see Roddy was loving every minute of it and before long he had the crowd inside join him in a chant of “Let them in! Let them in!” This was the coolest thing I had ever witnessed. And fuck me, after a few minutes there was Andy at the back door hastily waving us in to the venue. When we walked in the audience inside gave us a big round of applause and Krust started their set over and we got to watch the whole thing for real.

A lot of dirty water passed under the bridge between that night and the night Roddy quit working for Speedhorn, there were a lot of arguments along the way, most of the time probably our fault, but Roddy went from being our local hero to one of my best friends for a while. And as much as we argued during our time on the road together, we learnt a lot from him, even if most the of the time it was begrudgingly... Roddy had toured all over with various bands and tried his utmost to pass on his experience to us and keep us on track...the problem is, we argued with just about everyone all of the time, none more than amongst ourselves.. And Roddy was always right there in the middle of it. That said, there are some great memories from the five or so years he worked with us...

When we started out, playing hundreds of shows all over the country, travelling about in the dark in the back of a hired Transit van, it was Roddy who was often at the wheel, taking us from town to town. Those who had driving licenses in the band helped out too but Roddy took the wheel for the most part. He also took care of what tour managing there was to do, as well as helping out with merch, fixing gear, you name it. Roddy was our main man, he did everything for us. And being best friends with our manager, Dave, he was also the link between the band and the management/label. Note: having the management and the label under the same roof is not always a good idea...

Now if there is one thing we moaned and fought about more than anything else in the early days, it was the fact that we were always broke. Sure we never had to worry about sorting out payment for the van or Roddy, that was taken care of by the label, but at the same time we didn't have any money in our pockets back then. We used to live on the bare minimum which sometimes amounted to the seven of us, Roddy included, sharing a couple of packets of instant mash and a tin or two of stewed steak. At the time we just got on with it but I couldn't imagine eating that shite now, vegetarian or not..

Anyway, Roddy had to put up with hearing us constantly moan about having no money, and he did a pretty good job of not blowing his lid at us, for the most part... This one day though, we're playing in Wolverhampton I think, and Roddy is driving the van around the block where the venue is, looking for somewhere to park and load in the gear. The thing is it's parking meters all over the place and there doesn't seem to be anyway of avoiding paying for a ticket. We're spread out across the cold Transit floor in the back, getting more and more restless with each lap of the block, some of us dying for a piss, others dying to get into the venue and see if there is any free grub or booze knocking about, Roddy sighing deeper and deeper with each circumnavigation of the venue. Eventually he leans into the back of the van and asks if anyone has any change for a parking meter. He's met instantly with a wave of disdain and moaning, some of us are actually shocked that he's had the gall to ask us if we have money, the odd sarcastic laugh somewhere in the cacophony...”You fucking joking mate? I haven't got a fucking pot to piss in!” Etc, etc.. Roddy huffs and puffs and continues his search of a free space. Of course, as irony would have it, the first corner he takes after being balled out by the lot of us is met by the sound of coins flying out of someone's pockets and rolling across the steel floor of the transit! Typical. We all used to wear these ridiculously baggy jeans with big silly pockets in them and as if style had it's own sense of karma, those pockets gave one of us away. Actually, I don't think it was just one of us, since there were two or three of us scrambling around to pick up the guilty coins. We all thought it was hilarious but Rods was far from amused. As usual, he screamed at us, letting us know that we're a bunch of cunts and refused to talk to us for a while...

He always came around though, although not before getting his own back. I remember later on that day we were sat around waiting with nothing to do. It was some all-dayer and we were playing later on, the load in times for these things always being stupidly early. We had no food and no, or little money, and were bored off our tits. We were all starving and moaning again.. Roddy decided he'd exact some sort of revenge on us by sneaking off to Burger King and treat himself to a meal. He came back with the empty paper bag looking completely chuffed with himself. Of course we all went mad, “Where the fuck did you get the money for that?” grilling him suspiciously. Roddy just had that chuffed little smirk on his face and said nothing.. Later on in the day I went out to the van for something or other and when I opened up the back doors I found Roddy squatted over taking a turd in the empty Burger King paper bag. He just commented matter of factly that the toilets in the venue were “fucking disgusting”...

Roddy used to piss about a lot when driving up and down the country, just to kill the boredom during the seldom periods we weren't partying or fighting with each other. One of his favourites was to slam the brakes on when nobody was expecting it, just to hear us all fly about in the back of the van, these were the days long before we had seats in the back..Of course, he wouldn't do this on the motorway but when we were trawling about the inner cities looking for the venue. This one time in Manchester he did his usual trick and I happened to be lying on the floor at the back of the van, up against a guitar cab. It just so happens my guitar amp was lying up there and when Rods slammed on the breaks the fucking amp fell down and landed on my head. Fuck knows how I came away unscathed! I didn't even really hurt, just shocked me if anything. The guys went fucking mad at him, claiming that he could have killed me. I think he actually felt a bit bad about that one.

But there was plenty we gave him back in return that we had to feel guilty about. Like I say, we were always fighting! And even though we were all at it at one point or another, ninety percent of the time the two that were knocking lumps out of each other were the two singers, Frank and John. Among the worst of times was this occasion we were driving down the M1 in a Transit and trouble erupted in the back between those two. A catty argument soon boiled over in to fists being thrown and Roddy screeching the van to a stop on the hard shoulder. As he did this someone opened up the side sliding door and Roddy's uncased JCM 800 amp, the one he'd been good enough to lend us, fell out on to the tarmac. The van hadn't even come to a complete stop yet. As John and Frank are going at at and we're all piling on top trying to break it up, Rod's is just sat there with a look of horror on his coupon, staring at his amp lying beside the van. As far as the fight goes, it was John as usual coming out on top, and most of us were on him holding him down. Just as we thought it had settled, and unmanned Frank takes a pop at John's jaw, the cheeky cunt. At that we all let go of John and let Frank know he'd be on his own. The two of them end up twenty yards down the motorway in a ditch beside the hard shoulder, Frank losing a shoe along the way somewhere. Amazingly Roddy's 800 suffered no damage and whilst all the mayhem is going on I see Roddy standing proudly over his amp, “Can't beat old school Marshalls. Tough as nails!”..

It went on in this fashion for a couple of years, how Roddy put up with us for that long I'll never know. He finally did end up quitting and moving down to his cousin Kitt's in Exeter, who was one of the former bass players in Krust. We lost contact with him for a few months but then he ended up coming to a gig we had at the Cavern and got pissed up with us. He told us that only the week before he'd been thrown out of the very same club for getting up on stage smashed out his mind whilst a band was on stage, picking up one of the front stage monitors and putting it to his ear and telling the band to give him some vibes. The bouncer's had used his head to open the doors with apparently. I could tell, just by hanging out with him that night that he was missing the life with us. He looked a bit lost down there in Exeter. There was some grudge between him and someone or other in the band though and despite the fact that a few of us were grumbling about bringing him back out on the road, the band answer was no. But then a couple of months later we were heading out on our first European tour, our first on a night liner, and Roddy was back. I've never seen him so happy as he was on that tour. And by then he'd been promoted to stage manager/guitar tech, and he was fucking great at his job. Oh how times had changed...

It was a different, far less stressed Roddy who was out on tour with us now. In fact, we were all a lot less stressed, at least for a while, because things were starting to happen for the band and for a while there we felt like this could go really big. And for a while it did, but we didn't sustain it to long, we just weren't the right people to make something like that last. But that European tour, that first one when we were out supporting Biohazard and playing to an average crowd of about eight hundred a night, was one of the happiest times of my life, of all our lives I guess. Not that we didn't continue to wind each other up...And Rod's still got his share of that.

This one night we're in Copenhagen and we all take a trip to Christiania to check out what it's all about. Eskimos and drugs I'd soon find out. Anyway, Roddy had ended up eating some hash chocolate or something and quite a dose of it it seemed, since a couple of hours later he was totally freaking out. It got to the point where Dave was actually a bit concerned about him and told him to go and chill out on the bus and watch a film. A short while later Dave comes on the bus to find the lot of us slumbering about the back lounge of the bus, lazily watching the film Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, a secret agent movie where all the characters are played by chimpanzees, just like the old PG Tips adverts. Dave takes one look at the tv and then another look at Roddy, who is sat there in pale, terrified, silence and asks us what the fuck we think we're doing. “What? Fucking great film..” replies Frank, completely oblivious to poor Roddy. Dave just pisses himself laughing and calls us a bunch of twats whilst helping Roddy out of there. We hadn't even soundchecked by this point.. meaning Roddy hadn't even started work, the poor bastard. When we did go inside the venue to set things up, it was really dark in there for some reason and Gords thought it would be funny to freak Roddy out by sparking his lighter randomly in his face. Great fucking mates...

As much as we all took the piss out of each other though there was a certain bond between us for those first few years, although sadly it did eventually dissolve. But, as much as we argued with Roddy, we learnt a hell of a lot from him and we knew deep down that he just wanted the best for us. Roddy taught me more about touring than anyone else has since, he taught me all the tricks of making money stretch and how to scam free food, like going in turns into to Pizza Hut when they had an “Eat all you can for a fiver” campaign and sharing the same plate, or turning up at the back of McDonald’s at the end of the night and waiting for them to throw the unused food in the bins. He also drilled it into us that we should always treat people with respect, that great line about meeting the same people on the way up as you do on the way back down, has always stuck with me.

Roddy quit touring with Speedhorn a few times and came back, but it was over for good once he started Viking Skull. To be fair, we were touring less by that point as in-fighting and record label problems finally took their toll. But in Viking Skull Roddy finally got to be in the band he'd always wanted. I remember those first shows when they'd play before us if there was no opening support band as some of the most fun gigs I've seen. It was a great set up since our merch guy and close friend Waldie was also in Skull. I remember thinking of them as our Nig Heist and for a while it was great. But in the end they got more serious and it eventually led to a bit of a conflict between the bands, although I feel that I always supported them. By the time Viking Skull were heading to the next level Speedhorn were already starting to reconnect with some of those friends we'd met on the way up.. The tide was changing.

I haven't seen Roddy for a long, long time now. Not so strange since I live in Sweden and Rod's is still in Corby, and Skull and Speedhorn are now gone. I miss him sometimes. I'm happy to hear that he's still involved in music though, having started a new venue in Corby at the Rugby Club where my uncles sit on the committee. Roddy was always a really great at promoting shows and things seem to be going well with The Zombie Hut. I cracked up when I heard the name, he was always into gore and heavy metal splatter. As soon as I heard what the club was called it made me think of the old days when “The Doctor” would come out on stage waving an axe around, covered in fake blood, possessed eyes staring through the holes in the balaclava. Good times indeed.

The Crew: American George

The first few years of Speedhorn's existence were the most hectic of my life. It started off slowly enough, with a few one off shows and a demo recording, but from the moment we went out on our first UK tour, things just spiralled out of control. Before I knew what was going on we found ourselves practically living in the back of a van. One tour followed another, followed another. We'd sold over a thousand copies of the first two demo tapes and were planning to record the first album. Actually, we weren't planning to record any album, but the label told us that if we wanted to keep going out on tour, getting pissed up and acting like non-educated-delinquents then we'd have to have an album to promote. The whole time we were pretty much living like dogs and loving it. In hindsight though, we were probably ill prepared for the pace our lives were suddenly moving along at.

When you're twenty two years old you don't think too much about the future though, I didn't anyway. I was just living day to day in the back of van. Today Brighton, tomorrow Gravesend, in the van, play the show, get pissed. That was all I needed to worry about. I didn't need to think further ahead than what town we'd be in the next day. Every day revolved around sorting out food, finding cheap or even better, free booze, playing the show and finding an alternative to sleeping in the van. Life was simple, and for a short while I thought it would last forever. Or.. I didn't, but I couldn't be bothered thinking about what would come next.

The bigger and more successful the band became, the greater the amount of people became involved with the band. If there is one thing that used to freak me out more than anything else, it was when some stranger would approach me at a show, introduce themselves and tell me they worked for our band. Some radio plugger here, an office assistant at the label there.. I could never comprehend the fact our band had become involved in this world. It seems to be that the more successful you become, in any walk of life, the more hangers on become attached to you. These people are disingenuous and only want to know you as long as you've got something to offer them. That's just the way it is and you have to take these people with a pinch of salt, knowing they'll soon be gone.

When your life becomes one constant tour you do meet plenty of real people though and I'm thankful for the many, many friends I've made all over the world that I would never have known if it wasn't for Raging Speedhorn. In an obscure kind of way my wife is one of them.

Some of the friends you make along the way stick with you for the rest of your life, no matter how seldom your paths cross later on, others come and later disappear into the hubbub of the past, having shared some intense experiences and leaving you with some great memories. One such person is American George, or 8 Pint as he was also known. George was one of the many friends that we chose to surround ourselves with, one of the trusted members of The Crew, which was a gang of friends that we had chosen to surround ourselves with.

George was an old friend of our manager Dave and our roadie, Roddy. I remember George sitting at the door of the old Channel 2 club in Corby, where we played our first shows with our first bands. He had this straight, waist length hair at the time and looked constantly stoned. We knew each other only to talk to at the club but I always thought of him as a good guy. A few years later he had a skinhead and was driving the van and selling shirts for us on tour. He loved a drink and a spliff and we had some amazing times together, pissed out of our minds and travelling the continent. We practically lived together for the best part of two years and George, like Roddy, felt like a part of the band. The sad thing is when the band started getting serious George just couldn't keep it together enough and eventually our paths separated, something I always felt bad about. The thing is though, George wasn't all that happy with his life in Corby and ended up moving back to the States where his dad lived. We only have sporadic contact these days but it's always great to hear from him via the powers of social media and I'm happy to know that he seems to be doing pretty well.

A couple of my favourite memories of George involve the police and weed. There was this one time when we were driving down to Hastings for the first show of a tour with Ninth Circle from Scotland. George was driving our van, which was this old yellow Sherpa that had previously filled the role of a Telecom works van. It was constantly breaking down but what was great about it was that it had a loft space at the back that acted as a bunk for a couple of people as well as a little kitchen space that had a stove and a kettle. In theory it was ace but as I say, it was constantly breaking down. Anyway, we're flying down the M2, nearing the show when we spot what must be another band van ahead of us. We figure it has to be the Ninth Circle guys, although we've never met and have no idea what they look like. We all start egging George on to speed up and overtake them and of course as we do just that, we beep and flip them off and one of us moons them, arse flat up against the window. It is indeed the Ninth Circle guys and they enthusiastically toot back whilst a couple of them hang out the windows cheering and jeering us, giving the obligatory “horns”. We overtake them and speed off into the distance. Ten minutes later we're broke down on the hard shoulder, engine fucking smoking as usual and the Ninth Circle guys drive past, honking the horn and pissing themselves laughing, not stopping, of course. I remember Tony looking at Frank and George under the bonnet and sighing, “I fucking hate our van.”

Luckily for us, we had Frank in the band, who was a car mechanic. Lucky in that every van we ever had, normally purchased through a channel of Frank's, constantly broke down. Before Frank can get the van going this time though, a cop car pulls up behind us on the hard shoulder. A friendly enough looking guy gets out of the car and walks over to us, asking if we need assistance. I remember thinking what a pleasant change it was to meet a friendly pig as he was bent over the bonnet with Frank talking to him about engines. What I had also noticed is that a pale looking George was shifting from foot to foot on the other side of the van, keeping as far away from the cop as possible. The cop was with us for about five minutes and inspected the van a couple of rounds, and each time he moved, George shifted to the other side of the van, doing his very best to look like he was inspecting something and that he had a fucking clue what he was looking at. The thing is, George stank of weed! Not surprising considering the amount he had on him. The cop finally pulled off once assured Frank had the situation under control and George let out a huge sigh of relief. We all pissed ourselves laughing at him as we continued our journey to Hastings.

Later on during the same tour, this time in Edinburgh, another incident occurred involving George, the van and weed. We'd played a show at the Attic and had a good time. Afterwards we hung out in the bar downstairs and got hastily pissed up on cheap lager, hanging out with our new Jock friends Ninth Circle and their gang. When the time come to leave, Roddy went off to fetch the van and pulled up outside the bar on the busy, city centre street. The van was parked up outside, facing upwards on a hill as we loaded in the gear from the venue. When the van was packed we headed back into the bar for one last drink before leaving. George and few others stayed in the van to get stoned. When we later leave the bar there is a big fight kicking off with some chavs and there is a heavy police presence about. We make the smart decision to get into the van fuck off as quick as we can. Of course, the fucking van refuses to start. Most of us get out and start to push the van up this fucking hill amidst the chaos and the sirens. Fucking ridiculous scene. George the swine, has stayed in the van though. We're pushing this yellow van up this hill and the next thing the sliding side door flies open, just as we pull up beside these cops who are busy arresting some chavs. The van stops at a halt as we stop pushing and there sits George, hash pipe in mouth taking a big puff. The cops and George stare at each other in amazement/fright for a split second. George hurriedly slides the door back closed and we continue to push until Roddy finally gets the engine to kick into action. Somehow the cops decide to do nothing, thankfully busy with the small riot going on around us, and we speed off back to Ninth Circle' border towns where we're sleeping that night.

One of the few towns we never actually played in the UK was Torquay, but we visited the place a few times since George had an uncle who lived there, and he let us crash at his place. We'd normally head down to Torquay after playing a show in Exeter. Seems daft now really considering it was a bit of a way in the wrong direction, but it was a choice between that and sleeping in the van. And besides, Torquay is pretty nice. But going there meant that we'd drive through the early hours and arrive sometime around six am. And this meant that one or two would have to sit up front with the driver whilst the rest of the lads were in the back, blasting music and partying. This one occasion we were heading down there we had a bit of a hairy time of it. It was me, George and I think Gordon up front, the rest of them in the back. There was this curtain behind the front seats that separated the back of the van, which meant they could have the lights on in the back without blinding us up front. We were winding around the narrow country lanes that lead from the motorway into Torquay, which at five am seem to go on forever, and the guys in the back were having the time of their lives, blasting AC/DC's Back in Black album loud as fuck, and drinking filthy, cheap booze. Completely oblivious to what was going on up front.

What was going on was a fucking nightmare! The headlights kept failing all the time, every minute or so they'd just go out for a few seconds. It was pitch black out in these back roads and they were windier than the Nile. The roar from the back completely drowned out our screams of “Shiiiiiit!” every time the lights went out. They had absolutely no idea what was going on. Fuck knows why we didn't pull the van over and inspect the problem? I guess that would have just caused more commotion as there wasn't a brain cell left in the back of the van. For a while there I was genuinely terrified. We made it though, somehow. I remember as we pulled into Torquay the sun was starting to rise and I thought at the time that I'd never seen a place so beautiful. When we arrived at Uncle Harry's place, he was on his way out to work. The rest of the guys crashed pretty much straight away, but George and I sat up until around eight am, shooting the breeze and just enjoying being alive.

When I think of George now, it's always one lasting image that sticks with me though. On our first tours, when we'd play from to anywhere between five and thirty people a night, George would go on stage and introduce us before we came on. Proper over the top American style. This one night in Chelmsford, in front of about fifteen bemused onlookers, George takes to the stage wearing nothing but boxer shorts, gaffer tape on his nipples and a newly styled Hulk Hogan haircut, courtesy of a set of clippers we had in the van, and screams into the microphone, “Alright you fuckers, here we go! You wanted the best, you got the fucking worst! Raging Speedhorn!!!” We thought it was hilarious, the fifteen people in the “crowd” didn't know what the fuck was going on. Pretty much sums up the band right there...

I haven't seen George in years, I think he's still living in North Dakota. Sad how life sends you in different directions sometimes. For a while I felt like George was my brother, so close were we. But that's the intensity of touring for you. You live together, scrap together, survive together. It's like this weird bubble you're in and when you're out things are completely different. But the memories last forever. And when I think of George I think of him with a Hulk Hogan haircut with gaffer tape on his nipples. 

Good Coffee/Bad Coffee

The location of a coffee shop is often crucial to it's success and long term future. I'm sad to say that what was for a period Sundbyberg's finest coffee shop, Café Caldo, has now closed down.

For a while it served Sumpan's best coffee and had an array of quite exquisite sandwiches. It then changed ownership, which I guess was a smart move on behalf of the seller because not long after said ownership changed hands the builders moved in, tearing Sundbyberg's high street apart quite literally to make way for the new tram line. Cafe Caldo has for the past year been hidden away behind mounds of concrete and construction site fences. Although the new owners never really reached the same high standards as the originals set in place, it was still a decent coffee shop, and it's a sorry sight to see the “CLOSED” signs now plastered all over the windows.

So it fucks me off all the more when a coffee shop with a quite idyllic location and charming locale, serves me an absolute cup of piss. Gröna Stugan, located on the shore of Lötsjön, is a place I frequently pass whilst out walking Bonzo along one of my favourite routes. The coffee shop itself is a charming old wooden building with a large outside garden and veranda, looking out over the lake and the flock of Canadian Geese that fly in here every summer. On a serene summer's day Gröna Stugan laps up business. Even in the winter months we're presently enduring business is good, the frozen lake still a picturesque setting to enjoy a cup of java by. Unfortunately the people who run the place seem to take the beauty of their setting for granted, as well as my custom..

My first bad experience here was sometime last winter when Jen and I were out walking Bonzo around the frozen lake and decided to pop in to pick up some hot coffee to warm us as we went along. Although the sign on the door said that they were indeed open for another ten minutes, upon walking in to the establishment I was rudely shouted at and informed in no uncertain terms that they were closed. I apologised and grumbled under my breath as a true Englishman is prone to do, said something about it being ten minutes before their supposed closing time, and exited under the rabid stare of the for some reason livid owner.

I've given them a few chances since, but today was the final straw.

I was out walking Bonzo around the lake on this beautiful day and having had no breakfast yet, despite it already being mid afternoon, fancied a caffe latte and a piece of apple pie. I know, healthy lifestyle I lead.. Anyway, there were a couple of tables set up outside and despite there still being snow on the ground it was handsomely warm in the sun, and I felt a quick five minutes with a slice of pie and a coffee overlooking the lake would be just the job. I tied Bonzo up to the fence just outside the door and told him I'd be back in a jiffy. He seems to understand this.. I walk in and there is quite a bit of hustle and bustle with the lunch crowd in the building and a longish queue at the counter. “No dogs allowed!” I look around for a second, confused as to who is talking to who, wondering for a second if someone has come in behind me with a dog. Then I realise that some sour looking cunt clearing tables is talking to me. What? I state the somewhat fucking obvious and inform him that my dog is indeed sat outside and not actually in the building. He just grunts at me, “Just in case you were going to ask..” The miserable bastard shuffles off. Fuck sakes, what is with this place?

I decide to fuck the apple pie off and order my coffee to go. I wasn't happy about it but at the same time I was in need of some caffeine and stranded out here. The nearest alternative is a good twenty minute walk away and I couldn't wait. I resignedly place myself in the queue and shuffle along as the dithering old people in front of me take an age ordering. When it's finally my turn the young girl taking the orders simply walks off into the kitchen for a few minutes. No explanation, no apologies, just fucks off. When she comes back I order a latte to go, shuffling irritably hoping she catches my drift.

Now I'm no fucking barista but through running the bar I know how to make a half decent cup of coffee. This girl either doesn't know, doesn't care or for some unknown reason hates me. She bleeds the espresso coffee into a cup, puts the milk into the foaming jug, turns the steaming arm to full and places it into the milk. And then she pisses off again, leaving the milk to steam unattended for a good two minutes. I'm exasperated by the sheer lack of love she's giving the coffee she's about to charge me four quid for! She finally returns, turns the steam off and commences to pour what is by now a jug of white foam into my coffee. It looks like a shot of coffee with a head of fucking candy floss on top! Without so much as a hint of shame on her mug she slides the beverage over to me and holds out her hand to collect. Slack jawed and amazed I hand over the money and leave shaking my head. The latte of course tastes how I imagine a piping hot cup of pigeon shit would.

Do I complain? Of course not, I'm English. Would it be different if I was Swedish? Nope, they're as cack at complaining as we are. I merely collect Bonzo and continue our walk, tossing the coffee in the first bin. What a waste of a potentially great café.. Next time I'll just bring a Thermos and park myself on one of their benches. And I'm sure when one of the staff comes out and tells me that I can't sit on their premises and drink my own coffee I'll simply apologise and walk off, cursing them under my breath...

God

As well as Victims and Diagnosis? Bastard!, I also play in a band called Battle of Santiago. I say "play" as if it's a regular thing, but in reality we play about once a year.

Battle of Santiago was actually the first band I was involved in forming after moving to Sweden, having previously joined the guys in a band called Rowdy Ramblers, that with the addition of Patrik would eventually become Santiago. The guys in B.O.S. are some of my oldest Swedish friends but for one reason or another we don't find the time to do much with the band. I see Patrik and Olle more for dog walking dates than in the practice room. I guess one reason we're not so productive is that some of us are in other bands, Erik in Mary's Kids and Patrik in The Worthy, but the main reason is that Olle owns, manages and is the head chef at the wonderful Parkliv restaurant, which is just down the road from where I live, and where you can find me and the family on many an afternoon. The fact that you can also find Olle there about two hundred hours a month makes it pretty hard for the band to rehearse and write, never mind tour.

Saying that, we have managed to produce a couple of records in our time. We released a split seven inch with A Thousand Arrows and there is an unreleased album's worth of songs we recorded a couple of years ago at Silence Studio, although fuck knows if or when that will ever see the light of day... One recording that will see the light of day though is a ten inch we recorded about eighteen months ago, with the poet and author Stig Larsson. I'd only ever known Stig as one of the regular old boys at Erik's local watering hole, Rosa Drömmar on Lilla Essingen, but it turns out he's a pretty respected figure in Swedish art culture. It's funny to me, because I rarely have any check on such matters of celebrity in Sweden. It means less to you when you haven't grown up with it I guess.. I always liked Stig though, without ever really knowing much about him. To me he is just one of the old boys at Drömmar who likes the sauce and likes to entertain with his tales. And he's not adverse to taking this piss or winding people up, something that resonates strongly with me... 

Anyway, the record is a collaboration between the two of us, Santiago's music interspersed with Stig's poetry, although not overlapping.. The whole thing is recorded live in one take, with Stig reciting from memory alone. It's one of those things we did just did at the time without any real plans for it. We actually played a show with Stig a couple of years ago, not long after we'd made the recording. As it is next week, the venue then was Rönnels antique book store. Now that was a first for me. It was pretty cool playing to a mixture of young hipsters and older art types. And in an antique book store to boot. Not something I do every day. My favourite memory of the whole episode of that show though was the rehearsal we had with Stig at our practice room a few days before. I was thinking we'd just play through the music portions of the set and that would be that, but Stig wanted to do the whole thing, which meant for the most part the five of us standing around in a circle about Stig whilst he recited his poetry, eyes closed, in the zone, whilst me, Tompa and Erik stood looking on, awkwardly grinning. It's not completely our scene you might say. Patrik and Olle were well into it though, the pair of them having shared a spliff or two with Stig beforehand. Patrik ended up stoned off his tits and, completely taken away with the moment, collapsed into Tompa's drum kit. Fucking ridiculous! Stig was unimpressed at the interruption, Patrik fumbling around attempting to pick himself up out of a distressed looking Tompa's kit, the rest of us howling with laughter.

Anyway, whether we release anything else in the future is unknown right now, whether that album we recorded will see the light of day or whether we take a few songs from it for another seven inch remains to be seen, but we are at last releasing the Stig record and we'll once again be performing it at Rönnels to mark the occasion. If you can't make it along then no stress, I'm sure we'll play a show at some point in 2014...

Diagnosis? Bastard! by Diagnosis? Bastard!

First Show

First show with Diagnosis? Bastard! It had hit me a few days earlier that this would be the first time I've played a “first show” with a brand new band since 1998. My first show with Victims a few years ago didn't really count because although it was a first for me, Victims had been around since 1997. I was a little nervous that night because it felt like I was on trial in front of the Stockholm punk rock elite, but today was a whole other kettle of fish. I was fucking shitting myself! Although I did my best to hide it from the rest of the guys.. I rarely get nervous before shows and it was pissing me off that I was nervous now.

Hometown shows are always a little special, but add to that playing with a brand new band, playing songs most people have never heard before, with the crowd containing a fair contingent of friends and band mates and you've got a recipe that will make your ring-piece quiver. By the time the night came around I was just looking forward to having it over and done with. I tried to shake the nerves from my system, telling myself to get a grip, that this isn't like me, but it was no good. The butterflies continued to flutter...

I started this band with Viktor the day after Andy told me that he and Kristin were having another baby and Victims would have to scratch plans for a west coast States tour we had in the pipeline. As happy as I was for Andy and Kristin, I had an overwhelming feeling of panic, a panic that was screaming my touring days were numbered. Of course, sense would soon prevail and I'd realise I was being stupid, that Andy would still want to tour when things had settled down, albeit with a smidge more planning, but at that time I knew I had to get in touch with Viktor and ask him to play in a band with me. Besides, playing in bands with good friends is far too much fun to restrict yourself to just the one.

I'd been thinking about asking Viktor to start a band with me for a while anyway, since he'd become a good friend and is a great drummer. Of course he was still playing in Nitad as well as Pig Eyes, but I had a feeling he might be up for starting a straight up hardcore band with me anyway. When Viktor told me he was in, I then thought of Bloody Kev, since we'd promised ourselves upon leaving Raging Speedhorn that we'd get another band together one day. Although he still lived in London and practising would take some organising, I knew he was just looking for an excuse to visit Stockholm on a more regular basis. So a simple text message back and forth and Kev was in too. With the three of us sorted, all we needed was a bassist. I had a couple of ideas but Viktor had already made his mind up. Our Brazilian friend Lucas was living here and hadn't been in a band since Avalanche back home had split up. He'd always been a guitarist but Viktor knew he'd jump at the chance to play, bass or whatever it was, it wouldn't matter. Weirdly enough, Lucas told us later on that he'd actually been thinking of asking me and Viktor about a band but we'd beaten him to it. So Lucas was in too..

When I started writing songs I was just wanting to come up with some simple, straight up hardcore somewhere along the lines of Totalitär mixed with a bit of old UKHC stuff, thinking that when Lucas began to write we'd get a good mix of things. So I wrote a couple of songs along that line but Viktor had other ideas. From the start he began playing the songs about three times as fast as I'd planned and it kind of stuck. When Kev turned up and started screaming on them we'd become something completely different to what I'd first thought we'd be.. but I was chuffed all the same.

From that first practice things moved along pretty quickly and within four months we'd recorded our first seven inch with a couple of labels in place to release it and we'd booked our first show, with P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. and Kvoteringen. Ironically, Jen was now expecting our baby and all of a sudden my life was going at two hundred miles an hour... Still, Jen plays in Black Whitesnake and although we're both delighted about having a kid, neither of us intend to stop playing music. So now, I'm in three bands with a baby on the way. Funny the left turns life continues to take.

So before we head to the gig, we squeeze in a quick run through of the set at the practice room. The set is only twelve minutes so it's not a problem. We turn up at Kafe 44 and hang out with Bengtsson who is at his usual piss taking best. He puts me at immediate ease with his gibing. Sikas is with us, who's decided he's selling our merch at every single show we play. He's up for selling some “blouses” as he puts it and partying with us. He's travelled up from Göteborg just for tonight, the crazy bastard. Another friend, Grind Ove who works at Trash Palace record shop, is also hanging out. Sikas and Ove are discussing the haul of records Sikas purchased at Trash Palace earlier, a usual occurrence when Sikas is in town. It's said that Sikas owns something like sixteen different versions of Scum by Napalm Death...And that he owns nothing by them after From Enslavement...

We sit down at one of the tables in the café and ease ourselves into the night with a couple of medium strength beers, mellanöl as it's called in Sweden. I don't dare get too drunk before the show... Another friend hanging out is Christoffer, who used to play in Sonic Ritual with Viktor and now plays in AC4. Of course, the punk scene being the incestuous merry-go-round it is, Christoffer also played in a band with Kelly from P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. and Andy from Victims, but those guys haven't seen Kelly for a long time since he moved back to Portland from Germany. Unfortunately, Christoffer's in a bit of a sorry state since he's broken his toe, or foot or something and won't be able to hang around for the show tonight. Good to see him all the same. It's funny, I remember the first time that Kev set eyes on Christoffer was at Punk Illegal a few years ago. He was wearing this black pin striped suit and some ridiculous Kim Jong Il/Paris Hilton sunglasses. I have to say, I've always admired the cut of Christoffer's jib, he's not afraid to “go there” if you know what I mean... I could see the look on Kev's face though and I knew he was thinking, “Who's this posing cunt?”. But before he could express his thoughts Christoffer had turned around and there, sitting proudly, covering the entire back of his suit jacket was a Gauze patch. Gauze being Kev's all time favourite band, the look on his face was priceless. They seem to have gotten on well ever since.

It's only an hour until doors and there is no sign of either Kvoteringen or P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. so it's up to us to sound check. I was only too happy for the chance since I was hoping it would settle my stomach. It didn't start well though. At Kafé 44 you never know who you're going to have doing the in-house sound for you since it's a DIY schooling ground for young people finding their way around a sound board. I know a few people who worked here early on in their sound-engineer careers, Johan Victims being a prime example. It really is a great thing that the institution that is the Kafé exists and young punks get the chance at a self supervised apprenticeship, doing sound for all types of DIY bands that come through. That said, I don't know if it was this particular guy's first punk gig or what, but when Viktor started checking his snare drum and the guy asked, “Are you really going to hit it that hard during the gig?” I had a sinking feeling we were in for a rough time...

Not like I'm a fucking expert or anything... The Kafé's guitar cab I was using had no ohm indicator by the speaker input. Now I couldn't even tell to you what a fucking ohm is, it doesn't matter how many times Johan has tried to explain it to me..so I asked the sound guy if he knew how many ohms the cab was at, but he told me he had no clue about such things. Well that makes two of us.. I actually had to call Johan whilst bent over the fucking thing, contorting my torso into the slither of space between the back of the amp and the wall, hoping he could help me out. He told me that if the cab doesn't have a marker on it then sixteen ohms from the amp is always safe. He went through the whole explanation of how ohms work, again, but he may as well have been talking Chinese to me. I thought to myself that the next time I get a tattoo done I'll get a 16 written on my arm somewhere...

We eventually went through a couple of songs. Sikas, and another friend; Jamie, who plays in I LIKE BUGS with Kev and had flown in from London to hang out for the show, listened in while we played. The sound guy had been having a bit of a struggle with the P.A. but things seemed to be progressing ... I guess it didn't really help that the speakers in the P.A. were pretty shagged.. He asked us to play through a song once we'd eventually got the different sounds up. He was pretty thrown though when the song was done after thirty seconds.. After pissing about with another couple of songs we finally arrived at what Sikas and Jamie though was a decent enough sound. We packed down the gear and went off to meet Jen and grab some food at La Neta.

It was Saturday night and it was one of Kafé 44's party nights, meaning they had beer for sale. It's usually an all-ages place where they sell coffee, soda and vegan food. There are both positives and negatives to them selling booze on these occasions. Obviously, they're selling beer and the atmosphere is in that case a lot looser and people tend to hang out at the venue and party a lot more, but of course they can only do this by making it over eighteens, which is a shame. The problem being when they don't sell booze all the older punks fuck off to the pubs around the block between bands, leaving the place desolate for long periods of time which kills the atmosphere completely. And it usually means that you start playing to nobody and hope that the room slowly filters in people as you play through the set. Still, without doubt, Kafé 44 is still my favourite place to play in Stockholm. When you play a packed show here there is no beating it.

Anyway, when we get back, having filled ourselves on great Mexican food, the Kafé is indeed starting to fill out. Sikas is sat at the merch table where we're selling all of one t-shirt design and a badge, with a huge grin on his face. He's surrounded by a gang on young, blonde girls and he's lapping it up, sat there looking like a right slick bastard! “What the fuck is going on ére!?” exasperates Kev, “Fuck bringing Sikas along to every show if this is the crack!” Me and Viktor piss ourselves laughing.

There are a large amount of friends here tonight and I'm beginning to feel more settled, the nerves finally starting to subside. There are some work mates that have come along to the show too, which is always fun because they come from a completely different scene and it's always interesting to see their reaction to this music we play. There are even a couple of old boys who regularly hang out at Snotty who no doubt tagged along when they heard that the beer was only twenty kronors here...

Before I know it the clock says eight-fifteen and the time for the first DB set has arrived. On in fifteen minutes. It's time to play the first “first show” in a long time. I'm now back to shitting myself! So nervous my legs are like fucking jelly. I fucking hate this. I haven't felt like this since I was a kid treading the stage for the first time at Channel 2 in Corby with Sect. I forgot.. It is so much worse when you're playing to a room full or friends. As soon as I'm on stage and plugged in the feeling subsides again though. Well almost. I can tell Lucas is nervous as well since he's pacing back and forth across the stage checking that everything is in place. The room slowly begins to fill. Here they come.. Ok, let's get this thing going. Just twelve minutes and then we're out of here.

We're all set, ready to go. But... No sound from Lucas' amp. My amp actually, my Marshall JMP . Got Lucas going Lemmy style. I see him on the other side of Kev, banging away at his strings, confused as to the lack of sound coming from the amp, a look of mild panic on his coupon. I have a feeling I know what's up though. I walk over to him and my suspicions are confirmed. I turn the standby switch to “on” and voilà. We give each other a nervous laugh. Ok, let's fucking do this!

Fuck me, the songs feel fast. The first block of three are all connected so that there is no pause in between them and by the time we get to the end of it my forearms are cramping with tension. There was one little sloppy exchange between the first and second song, something we all notice but hopefully nobody watching could tell. How could they? They've never heard any of this shit before. I look down at Jen, who is stood at the front, protecting her pregnant belly by hiding away in the doorway to the corridor that runs along the other side of the wall from the gig room, smiling away as we play, but I can tell she can't really make out much of what is going on. She's heard me jangling about with some of these riffs at home but now everything is all going so fast that it's a bit of a blurrrrrrr. It hits me then that, to the rest of the crowd this must sound like utter chaos. Of course, that's kind of what it's supposed to sound like, but maybe the choice we made of linking the songs together when no one has ever heard them before wasn't the best idea.. The idea was that since most of the songs are less than fifty seconds it would be better to do it that way, so the set wouldn't just be a load of gaps filled out with some noisy music, but now I just see a look of total confusion on most people's faces.. Thankfully there are some smiles around too.. Thankfully they're not of the piss taking kind either..

Fuck it. By about half way through, around about six minutes later, I feel myself truly beginning to loosen up and I'm even starting to enjoy it. The couple of breaks there are in the set are met with generous applause and cheering and the songs are tight enough, despite the nervous strain on my muscles. Everything is still way fast, but it always is live. I learnt that pretty quick when I joined Victims. Record speed. Practice room speed. Live speed. Three completely different things..

And then it's over. Thank fuck for that. First show done. I think it actually went pretty well. Lucas seemed to have a great time, he'd really been going for it the whole time. It was his first show with any band for three years and he'd been missing it. It was Kev's first show actually singing for a while as well, since he's been mainly “playing bass” for the last year or so with I LIKE BUGS and Shit Filter. Now there's a sentence I never thought I'd utter. I'm drenched in sweat and relieved that it all went well enough. The other three seem pretty chuffed and if they're happy then I'm happy. I pack up my gear as soon as I can and chill out. The guitar player from P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. grabs me in the corridor, “That was fucking brutal man!” Cheers, I gasp between breaths. I can tell the sound wasn't so great, something confirmed to me by a couple of honest friends shortly afterwards, but fuck it. What pleases me most is that Johan Victims is smiling broadly, chuffed. He recorded a couple of demo songs that would later be on the first seven inch, so he recognised some riffs amidst the chaos. He has a beaming smile when I see him afterwards and he's waxing lyrical about his admiration for Kev and the energy he still manages to display in his golden years. Not everyone is of the same opinion though. Another friend of ours, Jenny, is a bit drunk and shouting in Lucas' ear that he should do all the singing and not Kev, that Kev is just screaming all the time and Lucas' voice is much better. Lucas just laughs. We're fully aware that this band is not something everybody is going to understand.

On the other side of things there is a guy who is talking to Kev out in the café, somewhat in awe of the fact that Kev was the Hard To Swallow vocalist. He actually can't believe it for a while and stands there looking at Kev, jaw dropped in amazement. Sikas joins in, being that he's also a fan of HTS. It's all going well until the guy makes the mistake of labelling Hard To Swallow as an Iron Monkey side project.. Kev hastily puts him straight.

I see Viktor hanging out with our buddy Modde, the Nitad singer and Jenny's girlfriend, who's steamboats and telling Vic that he loved the show, slurring into his ear a couple of bands who he thought we sounded like a mixture of. Vic is chuffed with the assessment what ever it is. It's always like that when you start a new band, people try and work out who you are a mixture of, which of course is there to be worked out because every new band is a mixture of some older stuff. There is nothing new under the sun, as they say. Someone else tells me that they thought we sounded like D-Clone covering Totalitär songs, and that was just fine by me.

A little while later one of the old boys that usually hangs out at the bar I manage approaches me. Jorma, a chuffed, Finnish pisshead. I can't quite believe he's tagged along tonight. He grabs a hold of me with a huge smile on his face and gives me a bottle of beer. I thank him gratefully. “I used to work at a steel plant back in the day, I recognised that melody from that place on stage!” He then pisses himself laughing and then gives me another hug. Good old boy.

It's a relief to finally be able to relax and enjoy the night. I watch parts of the Kvoteringen and P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. sets but spend most of the night chatting to different friends and acquaintances, as you always do on these occasions. The beer soon runs dry in the bar though, which of course coincides with a large chunk of the public disappearing. No beer, no punks. By the time P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. are done the place has emptied considerably and Bengtsson wants to close the place as quick as he can. I get chatting to the guitarist from P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. for a while who seems to be a really nice guy. He tells me about how their tour has been going and how their show in Oslo the night before had been a bust since there had been a big ruckus between some punks and Nazi skinheads in town and when the punks at their show got word of what was going on they'd all fled to aid their comrades. What are you supposed to do? The punks had to go and stand up to those assholes but the band went from playing a packed little show to playing to pretty much no one. Tough break. Fucking Nazi's...

Bengtsson eventually clears the last stragglers out and it's time to head off. Andy Victims, Kev and I end up taking the train over to Brooklyn Bar and meeting the rest crew there who had taken a cab. The place is packed when we arrive but Sikas has procured a table so we park ourselves. There is beer a plenty and no one goes parched for the rest of the night. My old work mate Frasse is stood behind the bar taking care of us. Lucas is buzzing from playing his first show in a long time and seems to be well on the road to inebriation. Viktor is sat beside him with a broad smile on his face, looking like he's on the same journey. Andy's got that look I know that tells me he's half pissed as well and Kev is cosying down into one of the big armchairs, gently nodding off into the land of sleep, something that happens all the time with that fucker. The first time I saw Kev in this state was at an impromptu party that Speedhorn played in the basement of the King George by the Astoria in London, long before he joined the band. I clocked him from the stage, stood propped up against the bar, full pint in hand, stupid grin on his face, fast asleep. I've witnessed it many times since, tonight being just another such occasion.

There are a shit load of friends hanging out and the atmosphere is buzzing. Now that the first show is done and we survived it, I find myself wishing we were on tour and that we were heading off to another show somewhere else tomorrow... It seems that everyone sat around our table is pretty pissed up, everyone except myself and Jamie, but that's fine with me. I'm having a great time anyway. I had a pretty rough ride a few weeks ago, and I have no need to experience that again any time soon.. It was the previous time Kev was over and D-Clone were playing 44. The day after I suffered the worst hangover I'd experienced since I was a teenager. Total sprawled out on the bog floor, cuddling the pan and praying to God for mercy stuff. Fuck that crack! I don't do hangovers very well.. Thankfully I don't do them very often nowadays..

Andy heads off after the one beer, he's got a new baby at home and I guess it's not really the time to be getting fucked up. The rest of us shuffle out when the lights in the bar come on a little after three. Lucas is shouting “After party”, and doing some sort of tropical dance. He only lives around the corner so we head there. Fuck it, it's not often I'm out this late and I'm sober. The band and Jamie end up sat around at Lucas' place passing a bottle of cachaca around whilst Lucas runs around his flat hysterically, playing air guitar to the Crazy Spirit album spinning on the turntable. Like a kid, I put the bottle to my mouth but don't take in any of the spirit, fooling the others in to thinking I'm drinking. Ridiculous really, don't know why I don't just tell them I don't want any. Jamie has a few drops as does Kev, who is now falling asleep on Lucas' couch.

Lucas is in great form though. Between running around and drinking cachaca, he makes us some grub. I get him to put the kettle on. So at the “after party” I'm sat drinking tea and eating cheese on toast like an old man. All I'm missing is the tartan slippers and the cardigan. Jamie is vegan, so Lucas makes him a bit of toast with a carrot on it. I find this hilarious but Jamie seems chuffed enough. We end up staying an hour or so until I feel the sudden urge to go home. Kev, Jamie and I depart leaving Lucas dancing about the place and Viktor taking good care of the cachaca. We jump in a cab back to my place, getting home sometime around four thirty.

Funny thing is, now I'm actually in the mood for a night cap and offer the boys a drop of whiskey. I make the sofa bed up and then the three of us sit there watching some inane late night tv, nursing a glass of eighteen year old Talisker. Me and Jamie are chatting away, enjoying the peppery taste of one of my favourite Scotch whiskeys whilst Kev is slumped with his glass resting on his chest. When he eventually takes a sip he shunts the glass in my direction, “Fucking minging!”. Cheeky bastard. Me and Jamie share the rest of Kev's and leave him to sleep, before eventually calling it a night ourselves.

When I climb into bed beside Jen, I'm now glad that we're not on tour, because if I was then I'd most likely be getting up again in a few hours to drive all day and right now I couldn't be fucked with that. Right now, crawling into bed with my pregnant wife will do just fine. And besides, there will be plenty of tours in the future...   

It's All About the Hype

I've been waiting for the new Neurosis album to be released on vinyl. It was released on cd at the end of last year, surely there can't be that many people buying cd's anymore?, but for some reason it has taken a few extra months to see the light of day on vinyl format.

The fact is it's not that great a record. Sorry for being an utter snob and claiming my personal opinion as fact but it's the truth, youth. The thing is, I own all of the Neurosis records on vinyl, all of them up to but not including their previous album Given To The Rising. Ironically, I only have that on cd. And that grates me a tad. I don't really think that record is all that amazing either to be honest, but since I own all of their other albums on vinyl, I kind of wish I had that one of vinyl too. I actually picked up that cd from a distro at a show we played in Warsaw with Speedhorn, around the time it came out. The fact is, it was cheap and the guy who had the distro didn't have the album on lp. I thought, fuck it, I'll get it on cd now so I can listen to it on tour and then I'll pick it up on vinyl when I get home.

The problem was that when I got home the vinyl had long since sold out, despite the fact it was released on a major-indie like Relapse. I've never gotten around to buying it since. I love all the Neurosis records up to and including A Sun That Never Sets and even the album after that, The Eye of Every Storm is a perfectly OK Neurosis record, and I needed Given To The Rising purely to complete my Neurosis collection. Of course, now it's sold out and for some fucking reason another pressing was never made, the only place you can find it is in second hand record shops or online. And of course, it costs up to thirty quid, which it simply is not worth. And therefore I've never bought it, although I've been saying to myself for years that one day I'll just bite the bullet and fork out for it. One day when I have a lot of spare money for some reason..

I just don't get why a label, upon selling out of a pressing of a vinyl, simply doesn't press more. Of course, I understand if it's a small DIY label that has barely shifted a seven inch over the course of a couple of years, but when it's a big label like Relapse putting out a big fucking band like Neurosis, why limit the copies?

So the new record.. I'd heard it a few times and the truth is this. There are good moments in pretty much every song on the album, but there isn't one song that is great all the way through, and being that most of the songs are at least six minutes long, there is a fair amount of average Neurosis on the album. Of course, it's still enough to justify buying the record. The album does have it's moments after all. So, I've been pestering my mate Tim at Sound Pollution record shop to let me know when the album arrives. I wanted to make sure I got a copy of it upon release since it would most likely sell out pretty quick and probably not be re-pressed, meaning that if I missed it when it came out then it would be forever lost to the over the top prices of the second hand market.

Tim messaged me yesterday, telling me the record had arrived. “Cool, I'll be over tomorrow to pick it up if you can save me a copy?” I replied. No problem. But.... “Just so you know... it costs 339 kronors!” What. The. Fuck? That's about thirty quid! I'm sorry, but fuck that! I'm sure it's got a nice, shiny, gate-fold cover and I'm sure the vinyl weighs about five hundred grams or whatever, but that is nonetheless daylight fucking robbery. I've got a kid on the way and nappies to buy for fuck sakes!

So I guess, unless the record appears on Ebay or Discogs in a few years time at a knock down price because whoever owns it realises it's not that good, not likely I guess since quality doesn't really have anything to do with value, then for the first time in my life, I'll be making the decision not to buy a new Neurosis album. It looks like my Neurosis vinyl collection is doomed to in-completion. And since Given To The Rising was probably the last time I bought an album on cd, I won't be obtaining it on that format either...

I know people are buying less and less records these days, even if vinyl sales are on the up again, they alone can not compensate for the vast decline in cd sales since the only people who buy vinyl these days are record collectors like myself, but be that as it may, surely hiking the prices up to insane heights is not the way to make things better? I came close to a similar decision a while ago when Godspeed! You Black Emperor! released their long awaited follow up to Yanqui U.X.O. and was a little taken aback by the steep price of that, which itself came in at two hundred and fifty kronors, but I went for it anyway. It was the first GYBE record for years, and it was really fucking good. The price did sting a bit though...

The sad thing is I really want to support my local record store, because horrifyingly the record store is becoming a dying breed, and I understand fully that the price of an album in the store is merely a reflection of the cost of it coming in, but I'll be fucked if I'm spending over thirty quid on a brand new lp.

On the other side of the coin, there are still a lot of great mail-order distros out there, selling punk and hardcore records at punk prices. But there lies another problem. A lot of labels these days are hyping their releases by only doing one pressing of a stupid amount, like one hundred copies or something. There have been albums recently that I've been after that have come and gone through distros before they could even make it to the catalogue list, never to be seen again. Two weeks later they're on Ebay for four times the original price. What's the problem with doing a release of five hundred and then if it sells out in a decent amount of time, pressing some more? I have nothing against labels putting out a limited edition of a record, be it coloured vinyl or a special edition cover or something, as long as they press a normal run at the same time. But all of a sudden it seems like it's more important for a label to have loads of collectable records on their roster than just having loads of copies of good records. Of course, the reality these days is that a band selling five hundred copies of a seven inch is good going, more than a thousand and it's a big release. My friend Stachel recently put out the final Herätys seven and that sold out straight away. The nice thing is that he immediately made an order for a second pressing. If only every label was the same. I've literally come across labels recently who have releases of seventy five copies. What the fuck is that?

Ironically, it seems the frenzy of record collecting is running in tandem with the decline of record sales in general. Myself, I've never been arsed about all that collectable shit though. I don't care if a record I buy is a first pressing, tenth pressing or a re-release on another label years later. As long as it has the original cover artwork and it's not some shite re-working with a new cover and extra songs like, sorry to be picking on Neurosis again, the re-releases of Enemy of the Sun and Souls at Zero, then I don't care. As an example, I was at Trash Palace record store a while back, a great second hand shop, and found two copies of the first SS Decontrol record. One was a first pressing that cost five hundred kronors, the other was a re-press on another label that cost one hundred and fifty. Same artwork, same everything. No fucking discussion.

It's all about the hype I guess, whether it's a trendy scene like early 80's US Hardcore, late 80's UKHC or Fucked Up releasing a stupidly limited edition of a seven inch, hype costs money if you're not quick enough or old enough to pick it up first or only time around..

There have been happy discoveries of late though. As always when reading documentary books on music scenes you discover a whole host of albums you'd never heard of, forgotten about or just never got around to buying. If you're reading a book like American Hardcore then getting turned on to a lot of those more obscure records is going to cost you an arm and a leg. I speak from experience.. Recently though I read the final instalment of Ian Glasper's books on the UK punk and hardcore scene, Armed With Anger, which concentrates on the diverse underground hardcore scene of the Nineties, and discovered and rediscovered a load of records that I'd never bought or never even knew I needed.

Imagine my delight when I tentatively scanned Discogs for the one and only Kito lp, expecting to find it at anywhere between twenty and eighty quid, and actually finding it sitting there waiting for someone to give it a home for the sorry sum of just four pounds! I can guarantee you the Teen Idles Minor Disturbance ep would set you back a bit more than that. And the best part, the person selling the record was Atko from Voorhees so we had a good catch up to boot. From there it was green light ahead! Voorhees/Stalingrad split, three quid, John Holmes lp, four quid, first Bob Tilton seven inch, six quid, followed by quite a few more. The thing with the scene from this period is although there was a lot of great music, not many people outside of the UK really gave a fuck about it. In fact, the most expensive record I found was the re-press of the Hard to Swallow lp, and Kev assures me that Lil from Household Name Records who put it out still has about two hundred copies of that at his house.

That scene was summed up completely by a guy we know who came to a Diagnosis? Bastard! gig and was blown away when Sikas told him Bloody Kev was the singer from Hard To Swallow. He was chuffed and almost a little star struck by Kev, which is in itself hilarious. This guy even had a HTS patch on his denim, so understandably Kev was chuffed too...Until the guy said something about Hard To Swallow being a side project of Iron Monkey... “”Were we fuck! We started about five years before the guys started Monkey!” Typical. Of course, nobody really gave a shit about Monkey until they split up..

It's all about the hype...