Bands: The Masters of Nothing

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My first band! We formed in 1981 after a school art trip to London ended in confusion on the way back, when we stopped in Baldock and all the teachers went to the pub. For a long time.

When we got back me, Robin Hare and Paul Myland wrote a song about the experience called "A-Minus Work". People in the playground laughed, and we spent the next seven years trying to get them to do it again. Like all bands we argued, and as we were busily pubescing at the time it was difficult to pinpoint a time when all three of us were still actually in the band.

Our Golden Year was 1987, when we actually did a couple of gigs. The first was a revue in aid of Comic Relief which, to be honest, i organised solely so that the Masters of Nothing could do a gig. We did, and it was brilliant. A couple of months later we played in School Assembly (YES!) performing "Decapitated Blues" to illustrate some of the trials of growing up. Our English teacher laughed, and unknowlingly he sealed our fate. We thought we were great. Hey! We were stars of the school!

Unfortunately, in what would develop into something of a trend over the next decade, i got a bit carried away, and booked us some real gigs. The first of these was pretty good, we played at the Gaslight club in Peterborough, did several songs to an audience of our friends and completely bemused regulars saying "Are they really playing Gerry Anderson theme tunes on their stomachs?" My Dad came, but hid at the back. And that's how i spent my eighteenth birthday. I became a man and a ROCK AND ROLL STAR.

Well, that's what i thought at the time. We got paid 15 quid for that gig, and some years later Voon would play the same club, and get paid exactly the same amount. Hmm...

Later that year i organised another charity revue, rather over-ambitiously over two nights and, as the start of another tradition, there were more people on stage than in the audience. Still, The Masters of Nothing got to do three songs this time. On the first night the crowd didn't react much, so we refused to play our hit, "A-Minus Work"!!! And we meant it too! After all, we had a big gig coming ...

Oh dear. I booked us a gig at Peterborough's scariest Irish pub. We were to do two sets of 45 minutes each. We only had 4 songs. Thus we spent a month playing scrabble and deciding which songs we should cover, drawing up a long list of titles. A week before the gig, with me confident we could do it, a terrified Robin and Mileage pointed out that none of us could play any instrument at all, and though it was a laugh in front of our friends, they had college places to go to and didn't want to be brutally murdered just yet, and i was forced to agree. Thus ended The Masters of Nothing, but their spirit was to rise again in Voon...



Releases:

A Minus Work
Ticket To Baldock
Our First, Last, And Everything
The Least Bad Bits

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