My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 4/6/98 - Upstairs At The Garage, London

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I'm very very excited about the re-opening of St Pancras Station. All of my early years in ROCK were spent living in Leicester so St Pancras was my access station for the capital, and so being there meant i was EITHER about to embark on an adventure OR heading home, tired but happy, having just HAD one. Also it was always a lovely oasis of The Midlands down South - the little shop near the platforms even sold Samosas!

So it was with a heart full of joy back in 1998 that I hoped on to the Victoria Line and headed for Islington for a gig Upstairs At The Garage. Having played in bands for several years I was still but a BABY in terms of The Solo ROCK Performance, but I had already learnt one valuable lesson: Always Take A Book. I really cannot over-state this point - other people may claim that ATTITUDE or EDGINESS is the most important thing to have ON THE ROAD, but I would definitely put a BOOK way above any of that, even above taking an INSTRUMENT with you, for you can (nearly) always borrow something to play, but there will be MANY times when you're stuck on your own with no-one to talk to, nothing to look at, and nothing to DO but wait for the sound-guy to turn up.

Thus it was that I found myself in the grotty little backstage room, next to the toilets, sat reading my book for about an hour before anyone else turned up. OH THE GLAMOUR. Eventually Frankie Machine, still chaperoning me on these forays into SOLO ROCK, arrived and we soundchecked before heading over the road to the PUB. I don't know why it is, but there are almost NO full-time gig venues where the beer is even DRINKABLE unless you're drunk before you get in - if only they'd fix THAT they'd make a lot more money just from the bands NOT fleeing to somewhere with a decent pint. I'm not talking about CASK MARQUES or anything like that either - a gig venue that served beer that WASN'T guaranteed to make you shit yourself inside out next morning would be NOVEL.

In the pub we met the band Mark 700, very nice people with a lot to say about lower league football teams, and after several drinks we headed back over to find that, amazingly, PEOPLE had turned up, and they had WORDSHEETS, so that they could join in the chorus of my World Cup Song, "The Fair Play Trophy (again)". This song had come about after Sean from Fortuna Pop!, who'd released my first single, rang to ask if I had any songs about the World Cup for a split single he was putting together. "Of course I do!" I said, then RAN home to write one. As bizarre chance would have it, it ended up coming out on the same day as my first AAS single "Clubbing In The Week", and i had VISIONS of the pair of them FIGHTING IT OUT for the top of the charts. Which would I sing on Top Of The Pops, if I was forced to choose?

Unlike Meryl Streep i was not forced to make SOPHIE'S CHOICE, although I DID nearly get on television with "The Fair Play Trophy (again)". As the title suggests, the song's about the need to take comfort in the fact that although England were guaranteed to disappoint in the actual playing of football they would pretty much always get the award for Fair Play. I particularly remember a very peed off Gary Linekar, who would obviously have rather just gone home, having to go and collect it one year.

Anyway, Sean sent the single out to various places, one of which was a programme called Under The Moon, a late night football show hosted by Danny Kelly. Alarmingly they got quite excited about my song and asked if I'd be prepared to take my band on to play it! This was GRATE, of course, although I didn't actually HAVE a band at that time - hurried in-pub discussions found me Frankie and Mr Tim Pattison, then of noted indie hopefuls Prolapse, who were willing to play, and I had my eye out for MORE and spent happy evening asking people if they'd like to be on TELLY with. Eventually we got news that a decision was imminent, with the final say on the matter due next day after we'd all watched England play Argentina. Once we'd watch Argentina soundly beat us, largely due to David Beckham being sent off after KICKING somebody, singing a jolly song about Fair Play no longer seemed like a very good idea.

That was all still in the future though, and on the night of the gig there ended up being about twenty of us crammed onto the stage, BELLOWING the chorus to the song and having so much fun that we were forced - FORCED - to go out clubbing directly afterwards and have SO MUCH FUN dancing that my glasses flew off my face. Yes, THAT much fun!

A couple of weeks later I DID get some media coverage for my song, when John Peel played it on his Radio One Show. This was a MASSIVE deal and I missed most of it being played because everyone I knew IN ROCK was ringing me up to tell me about it. He introduced it saying "There's been a lot of World Cup Singles arriving this week, some of them good, some of them terrible. Here's one that arrived today." It was a good while before I realised QUITE how ambiguous this was, but at the time i didn't care - at LAST, I'd been played on John Peel! It's difficult to compare a play on John Peel to ANYTHING now, it really was the be all and end all of THE INDIE, and though he would never again play one of my records that single broadcast meant that, like thousands of other bands over the years, I was able to claim "Peel Favourite" status on ALL press releases, posters, and indeed Christmas Cards.

Once Mr Peel had finished playing the record I did the logical thing and went to the PUB, expecting to SWAN AROUND being FAMOUS and REVELLING in my new PEEL FAVE status. As it happened I ended up sat in an old man's pub with Tim and Prolapse Roadie Turk, talking about Cooling Towers. It's safe to say that FAME was not quite what I'd imagined it to be.

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