It's A Gas, Gas, Gas

Although I’d spent my childhood in the Seventies, my teenage years in the Eighties and entered adulthood at the beginning of the Nineties, my soul remained firmly planted in the beats of the Sixties. The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks and The Stones will forever be within me, and I’d never be without Zeppelin or Hendrix. Music was a passion, the radio or record player was always on at home - childhood was, to all intents and purposes, good – I even enjoyed going to school.

By the middle-to-end of the desperately unsatisfying, greedy, fascist Eighties the radio never seemed to be on quite as much and school was hateful. I was mortified at the distinct lack of creativity in mainstream pop music... Bros, for fucks sake! How had we managed to go from the Fingers demanding an Alternative Ulster, the Pistols proclaiming Anarchy In The UK and The Clash telling us about Spanish Bombs to being force fed that kind of crap?

I swapped my prized FS1E moped for a battered nylon stringed classical guitar and dog-eared book of chords at the age of seventeen. Musical ability never really came into the equation - there really was none. Noise and performance, I figured, was a preferred expression, and I dutifully set about learning the absolute basics.

It wasn't long after that I fell in with a few like-minded individuals and - after begging, borrowing and stealing equipment - we formed a band. As I was a fucking hopeless guitar player I took over the bass from an equally inept "musician" who, in turn, grabbed the vacant mic. Fortunately the drummer could drum and the now guitarist could, well, guitar. Half of us could kind of play, the other half joined in, and what a fine, radio unfriendly racket we made.

Although, over the years, I've played in other bands my fondness and high regard for the three teenagers, that I spent only a short period of time with, has never diminished. We played three gigs, made an unnerving, feedback-drenched, god awful sound and bowed out, unknown.

When Will I Be Famous - my arse!