I'm a failed rocker

Well I'm a failed rocker I suppose, I still play in bands, and duos but the dream is OVER.

There's nothing really that original these days, it's all repackaged vaudeville as far as I can see.
Every generation has it's own rebel music, back to the teddy boys and rock n roll, or the mods, or the hippys or the glams, or the punks, goths, indie show gazers, emos and and back round again and again and again. It's all been done, even an emo is a shit goth. A punk today is not as violent as a punk from the 70's they certainly dont have the same drive or passion or commitment, maybe the same government so I can understand some of it, but they are weekend punks, they're not the real deal. The real punks still frighten me to this day, even though they are in their 50's they still punk themselves up, and I'm more terrified seeing an adult looking like that rather than a uni kid trying to be retro.

Every kid now tries to shock me with the new bands they're into, some kind of ultra heavy fuck metal death band with a messed up name, some kind of shocking name like the crawling bleeding C**TS, meant to shock me, but it doesn't it's just hype, it's bullshit to make geeks buy the music that's all, it's a selling device, a marketing tool and once again the geeky kids looking for an identity buy it trying to have strength in numbers and try to shock me but they wont. It's been done, it's vaudeville, its theatre, it's shit.
Give me a band that's going to disembowel themselves for real during the last song, and I might get tickets to that, but until then don't waste my time.....none of it's real and I don't care how shocking and rocking the band is, they WILL mellow out I guarantee it, they will mellow and mature and they will be listening and playing the mellow music I listen to now, you know why? Because we ALL go back to rootsy music in the end, we try to rebel against it in our youth but we love it and appreciate it as we mature, there's no escaping it. SO just cut the shit, and listen to good music NOW, why not, you can;t resist it forever, it will get you in the end, I don't care how much eyeliner or white powder you put on your face, or the black nail varnish you put on, I'm telling you now...STOP IT, put on a checked shirt, grab a can of beer and listen to Barry Manilow 'I made it through the rain', It's over, give it up, you're not an individual. Stick Barry on, chill out. Get on with it!!

I remember being in original bands, playing at small festivals and gigs, and battle of the bands. I remember weeks before building these gigs up in my mind. I'd see hundreds of people before me jumping and screaming the lyrics to the songs, girls perched on top of guys shoulders with their tits out bouncing to the beat of the music I was pumping out to them. I'd see people who had done me wrong standing in awe as I thrust my guitar around the stage doing Jimi Hendrix type licks and riffs, pulling out all the stops, amps blaring out feedback, cameras constantly flashing, the press eager to follow me along the stage filming my antics, cheers, screams and flashing strobe lights, the heat rising from my head like a smoky haze as the backlight hits me........
Then in reality I'd get to the gig, and it would be a small pub like your local 'Red Lion / The Crown' and I'd be told to playin in the corner where the pool table used to be, but I'd have to wait until some of the punters there had finsihed playing on the fruit machines......and there'd only be about 20 people in, and no one knew your songs / liked your songs / or even cared who you were.

Santa Claus does not exist (1979)

It was 1979, I was living in Stead Close.

There is an apartment store in Darlington called 'Binns'. It's part of the house of Fraser franchise. Myself and my parents were shopping there in December of 1979.

We all went to a part of the store that was full of toys and my dad told me to look for things that my sisters would like as presents. So I had a look around and eventually we all agreed on some presents for my sisters, they were probably dolls and things like that, sindy and Barbie and so on. My dad asked me to look for some presents for myself, so you can imagine I was a little taken back by this but also excited, this was a room full of toys, I was in heaven.
I think I picked a star ship enterprise and a Klingon battle ship of 'Star Trek' fame. Star Trek - The Motion Picture was just released so I was really into it at this point, I was seven for gods sake, that's an acceptable age for a 'Star Trek' fan.

That's when I knew Santa didn't exist, but hey....I didn't give a shit.

All of these presents were wrapped as one BROWN PARCEL and thrown on top of a big wardrobe in my parents room.

Naturally I cracked the secret by telling my sisters about the big parcel on top of my parents wardrobe. My sisters and I crept into my parents room (when they were out) and poked a little hole into the parcel.
Day by day as you can imagine.....this hole got bigger and bigger, it was so big that it was obvious to everyone that...IT WAS A BIG HOLE, it was obvious that someone was trying to look into the parcel yet nobody said anything and everyone carried on as normal day by day. Christmas day was the hardest task of all because when we opened that same parcel (when I say opened, it was really a bunch of presents with a scrap of wrapping paper on top) but when we looked at our presents we all feigned surprise and excitement. It was a hideous sight and a horrible performance from me I must say.

I don't think I looked too happy with my presents that year, but my dad just said to me 'Tough luck, you picked them!'

1970's - films & heatwaves.

Because I was only young in the 1970's I cant really remember too much, but what I do remember was happy times. People who are a lot older than me always mention the summer of 1976. It was the hottest summer Britain had ever had to that date.

I remember this believe it or not. I remember everyone in shorts running around squirting water on each other outside the street. People were going away for the day to the beach or the country, or just outside to play on their bikes...tomahawks and choppers were the rage then. I remember seeing 'the worlds greatest athlete' at our recreation centre in the town, that was our cinema in those days. All of the towns kids would go there to give their parents a break. I remember returning home in my shorts and looking at the ground, it was bright white with the sunshine glazing off it, you couldn't look too long because it would hurt your eyes, so I stopped doing that naturally.

Rivers dried up in places, the river Tees near Hurworth and Croft dried up completely I later heard, this summer was serious.
That was the last Britain would see a heat wave for many years. I think the last was in 2006, It's ironic that during this time I had just moved to Athens in Greece, and as soon as I leave.....Britain has a heat wave.

I remember 'Star Wars' coming out on the cinema, I was five years old, this must have been 1977. My dad and my sisters went to the Odeon in Darlington (Now Riley's snooker club) I can still remember certain bits that I remembered from the cinema experience....I remember the part where Luke Sky walker looks into the two suns and contemplates his future,Strange how things like that stick with you, and if I watch that scene now, it takes me right back.

Like many other boys of my generation (generation x apparently - the lost generation) we all loved Star Wars. There was nothing like it before apart from '2001 a space odyssey' but that was too slow to watch for kids, this film had everything. We loved it, and to top it all, someone left a parka and a balaclava in the cinema, so my dad asked around if it belonged to anyone, when no one owned up, he took it home and I had some new clothes. I wore that balaclava for years after that, I remember it being really itchy though. I always imagined me being itchy and warm, and some kid in Darlington freezing his nuts off outside his house waiting to get beaten off his dad for losing his coat & balaclava.

Superman was my film I think, my god I loved that film so much and my sisters will tell you, I used to try and stuff a towel down my back as a cape, I mean I ACTUALLY HID THE TOWEL as if it WAS my cape and I could unleash it at any moment and save the world....TOWEL BOY.

Loved Superman, this must have been 1978 (this has turned into a memory exercise for me if nothing else). Yes it was 1978 and I remember one of my sisters being really angry because my dad wouldn't let us see 'Jaws 2'. All of us had to watch Superman for my sake (I was 6) and my god I loved it. Maybe it's a film for geeks but I don't care, I didn't then, I was only six years old for Christs sake. I came home and ran around the living room and used to jump in the air onto my dads belly, he would let out a big gasp of air and pain. We did this until I left home at 27. Only joking of course, I was 23.

Yeah Superman was my hero and he got the girl naturally, in years to come I would dream of being a superhero and whisking the school hotty away with me for a trip around the clouds just like the film. Later as I grew up this fantasy would become more realistic as I tried to whisk girls to my room by pretending to be an enigmatic rock guitarist, with poor results I might add.
By the way, I still OWN all four superman films on DVD (at time of typing, I'm probably the only one in the world) my friends laugh at me because of this, but sometimes I just love going down memory lane as I am right now.

Cannot believe all of that happened over 30 years ago at time of writing this.

I wish I could go back for a day

SHIT

The brown couch

We had a brown couch that sort of hugged two walls in an 'L' shape if you can imagine. Its was brown corduroy. Is that possible? Well anything was possible in the 70's & 80's, as long as you had a dream, they would ruin it with corduroy whether it was a couch, clothes, your car.

The brown couch would remain in the house until 1990 I think, so it had some great times. It had seen a lot of action. A lot of parties,a lot of bottoms and a lot of teenage heavy petting. Although I would never reveal that to my parents. Isn't it strange how the same couch you slept on at five years old would be the same couch you sucked a woman's breasts on twenty years later, and at this moment I am looking at the couch I am sitting on mulling the same possibilities, although at this time I'm fairly old, the couch I'm looking at now will be a place for me to lie down when I'm ill or just plain tired, that's life !!



The brown couch was great, at one end sat my dad nearest the television and at the other end sat my mam, two bookends, and the rest of us were in the middle. Maybe this signified their marriage, maybe it was over. some of my friends in later years remarked on this, It's funny thinking that they sat there for over ten years like statues. My mother would eventually have a table full of lager cans and knitting next to her chair, it's quite sad thinking that's all she had in the end. I understand how she felt at times poor woman. My dads chair moulded into the shape of his bum after ten years, making it impossible for anyone else to get comfortable there without padding.



Money would always fall down the back of the brown couch as well as broken biscuits, keys and important documents. All of which would become a great surprise when discovered, sort of lifted your spirits when you reached into the depths of the couch to pull out that 'passport, driving licence or £20 you had been searching for, for the last two years.



So we had the brown couch, and in the middle of the floor in front of the couch was a Chinese coffee table over run with ashtrays and coffee cups, and on a night time, usually Tennents lager cans with the sexy women on the sides, do you remember them or know them? look them up. My mother would also have her Carlsberg special brew cans on there eventually, and in later years our dog 'Max' would try to eat the fag butts from these ashtrays or try to get you to pull his whole weight from the edge of a fag butt in his mouth. In fact, Max would own his own throne from this brown couch, he would have the collapsed chair of my dads to sleep on, he loved my dad.



Yeah, the brown couch, who could forget, perhaps you or your family had one, four chair pieces and a corner chair all linked together, it was the best couch in the world.

Whatever happened to the UNION?

When I was 15 or 16 I joined a local band. We were called 'The Union', named after the union jack. The union jack was associated with mod bands like the Who and the Jam, and we thought ourselves as a similar type of band, singing for the disgruntled working class youth. We were like every other young band, we thought we were the best. We were going to make it. We were young and naive.


I had been playing the guitar for about a year before I joined this band and had become quite good at the guitar for my age. I worked at the local newsagents as a paperboy when I overheard a guy there talking about his band, they wanted a guitarist for a competition they were going in for. It was to play for 'going live' which was a BBC programme for kids in the '80s. It was to be held at the riverside in Newcastle.

I auditioned and got in the band. To be honest we were quite good for our age, the singing was not great, but we were trying. We never got through our heat in the competition, but we got a brief mention on 'going live' somebody took a photo of us, and that was my slice of stardom for the year.
The band continued to go for a few more months, during which time we played at a local youth centre. My friend John (drums) got his mother to film the gig, unfortunately the light was so bad that the video shows nothing the flashing disco lights.

Anyway, years later, I was bored, I was in a crazy reflective mood (I was going through a rough time and wanted a distraction) and I just fancied trying to do a rockumentary / mockumentsry about 'the union' using the footage from the original gig footage Johns mother filmed, and using actual rock documentary footage and trying to blend them together to make my own rockumentary. The result is a total abomination. There is nothing good about it at all for the neutral viewer really, nothing makes sense, it's full of private jokes that no one can relate to, but I kind of like it as it takes me back to the year we made it, and even though it's pathetic, cringy, humiliating and embarrassing, it reminds me of my mate John, and how I got through a rough time by keeping occupied, occupied by filming this piece of shit !!!

Recording dreadful songs

Yes the song above is called Jacksonville to Arkansas, and it's basically me reading directions from Google map in a Johnny Cash style voice. That's it.
It's dreadful, but I'm reminiscing tonight because I'm missing those times in my mates house. I'd go there for a place to get away from it all and we had some good laughs. During which we'd record some dreadful songs like this one.
One of my favourites was me talking about my problems and my life for 20 minutes non stop, and then going back and recording some music alongside it, a 20 minute song that got worse and worse. I enjoyed it. YOU WON'T.

Here's to you John, thanks for giving me your time, to get away from it all and record this shit.

Getting away from it all.

Hi there. Here's a video, to me it's kind of bitter sweet. I was a carer for my mother for a couple of years before she passed away.
During this time, I had little money to do anything, little time, and not much motivation, I was kind of depressed to be honest, so whenever I could I would set out on the train from my hometown to the end of the rail line which was Saltburn, and start walking form the ship inn and along the coast.

I loved it, although I could have done with some company at times. There are moments when you think 'Yeah this is great, this is what it's all about!!' you go into a quaint village, you think 'I'm so lucky to see this, the world is beautiful!' you go in a country pub, you get a drink of beer, you think 'This is amazing, I've spent my time wisely this weekend, this is what life should be about!'....you sit down next to the open fire, the friendly dog comes to greet you, you think 'This is great'...you look around and see other people, other people together, other people talking, other people who are kissing, other people enjoying each others company...and you think.....'FUCK.....I'M ALONE !!!'' and out into the cold fucking wind you go....for more punishment, that's what it was punishment, punishment for being ALONE!!

I joke of course, the scenery was stunning at times. ..and I would meet other happy walkers too, you know those type?? The old ones who dont have sex anymore. I didnt mix too much with them, those fuckers slowed me down.

I'm joking,it was just a time to myself, somewhere to burn my energy off and think about things, sometimes the countryside can do this, it can clear your mind.
I stopped in Staithes one night, which was a bit like a pirates den I thought, especially at night. The pubs near the seafront were like something out of dickens novel or Robert Louis Stevenson, low ceiling, Ales, shouting, laughing, it was great, I ordered a beer and waited for someone to crash the door down, someone dressed in black with a long black cape, and a hook of some sort, it had that feel. I made my way back up the bank to the captain cook hotel which was where I was staying that night. That's another nice little place. I had a few ales and sat in front of the open fire, but i got a bit depressed and sad, wondering why I was doing this to myself. I still don't know why, maybe I wanted to see how low I could feel, so going back home would feel great. I went to bed drunk and slept like a log.

Next morning at breakfast I met a nice chap from Leeds, and after a few bits of small talk, we found out we had a love of football and the Who. He also asked me why I was walking out here on the coast. I told him about my mother, and that I was her carer and needed a bit of break from it all. His face lit up, he told me he was doing a similar thing. His son had cerebral palsy and he was his sons carer and this was the only way he could get a bit of a break from it all. It was quite heartbreaking to hear about his son and I wish I'd met this guy earlier, we could have went for a few drinks and maybe walked a bit, who knows....It seemed a shame. Well, where ever he is I wish him the very best, all the best Dave.

That morning I headed out from Staithes to sandsend, through thick fog, which was totally terrifying. it reminded me of the horror film 'THE FOG' it just kept coming and coming,and blackened out the sun until 2.00p.m. freezing sea fog, from all those dead souls who perished in the icy waters of the NORRRRRTH SEA AAAARRRGGGHHH.. I made it to Sandsend in the afternoon, had a lovely slap up Sunday dinner in the pub there, hearts inn or something?? Can't remember the posh pub at Sandsend... Unfortunately I'd walked all those miles in shorts that had sown in underpants, which chaffed and cut the inside of the top of my thighs in between my scrotum, so it was painful to walk.....I got the bus back to Saltburn...

My mother cured me with Lemon Barley Water

At the time of this writing I am ill with the flu.

Having the flu, or being ill always makes me want to be near my mam. Is this the same for you? It's awful to think that at this moment my mam is really severely ill with C.O.P.D. and other ailments yet, I am not there for her.

I'm a such a hypocrite.

Well at the moment I am nursing myself back to health with tablets and Lemon Barley Water and it is this that takes me back to when I was a kid, an ill kid.

My mam would always be there with some Lemon Barley Water, a cold flannel for my forehead and maybe a hot water bottle, and it's strange because once you know your mother is there, you kind of feel better, well at least, I did.

These are the moments that my sister seems to forget, or maybe she was not treated as well as me I am not sure.
However i treasure these little moments even though it's not nice to be ill, it's nice knowing your mother is there to make everything alright.

I just wish my parents would be here forever. As do you, no doubt.

Mr Critch - Evil music teacher (1983)

It's 1983, I am ten years old. I have asked to start music lesson with Mr Critch.

The main reason is to avoid normal lessons, my so called friends advised me to do so and get out of maths or whatever we did on Wednesday afternoons at wood ham burn junior school.

Mr Critch is about five foot seven, with a bit of a bald head like an egg in the nest. He has glasses (the classic pedo look) and in short....he was a twat.

I came into the class, not knowing a thing about music. He had already put some music on the black board in a series of scales upon a musical stave. He was going through the note types such as quavers and crotchets. I assumed (and this is the key word here) I assumed he was speaking directly to the other kids in the class because they had been studying a while now, I didn't think I was expected to know, memorise or understand ANYTHING HE WAS TALKING ABOUT, and when you think of it logically....HOW COULD I??? This is my first music lesson where music theory is learned.

So he asked me a question about the music on the board, to which I could not answer correctly. He went into a rage, I could not believe it he went from ZERO to a full rage of pure hate. He actually screamed at me so much that one of the other boys started crying, one of those boys who ADVISED ME TO GO TO THIS MUSIC LESSON. I now understood WHY, it was because our music teacher was a PSYCHO, and the ironic thing is that I had come out of my original lesson to avoid my day to day teacher of this year which was MR DRAKE (see other posting of him in this blog)
Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

So one if not both of the other boys in the class (small class - no surprise) they were sent out, while I stayed in with the fucking psycho teacher who lost control because I COULDN'T UNDERSTAND MUSIC BECAUSE I HAD NEVER READ MUSIC IN MY LIFE PREVIOUSLY. That's understandable.

SO he sat me down (i was always sitting anyway, maybe he sat me down further) and he spoke to me again. I believe he went through some drum rudiments using only a drum stick, he had decided upon five minutes that I was a drummer. Then he changed his mind and gave me what I presumed was a French horn, it was a horn of some sort.
On this horn was a squeaky valve, now this is the thing. I personally believe that the valve would always squeak due to wear and tear and without dare I say - lubrication. Mr Critch said that the squeaking would stop only If I practiced every day until next week.

So every day I practiced, but it was difficult because only one small puff of the horn would shake the house from it's foundations so there was always hammering and shouting from my parents, so I couldn't really practice at all.
Naturally, when I returned to music class the following week, I played for Mr Critch and there it was again, that squeaky valve. Once again, the psycho hit the roof. He reigned down torrent after torrent of hate upon my head, and I tried the only option I could think of at that time which was BY TELLING THE TRUTH - YOU CAN'T GO WRONG WITH THE TRUTH AS THE HEAD MASTER USED TO SAY. I told Mr Critch about my problems playing the horn at home, that it disturbed the peace, but he would'nt accept it of course he probably lived in a posh house in the middle of no where on his own estate you see, not like us lot, stuck in council houses)
He went nuts and once again, the other boys started crying.

After that, I avoided the bastard at all costs. During sports day, I remember it was such a hot day, the bastard was looking for me all over the sports field. I could see him asking kids, teachers and the odd parent if i was at school, if I was in attendance, if so and so was my mother / father or if I was entering any of the races and games - What a complete psycho......I mean...WHO WOULD DO THAT???
Meanwhile I was hiding between parents legs or crouching down, anything I could do to avoid him. I entered more races that year than any year, and you know what, I won more too, that's how scared I was, just so you know, I didn't race with the French Horn, that was left at home. He was like the kiddy catcher from 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' a real fucker. That ordeal went on all afternoon for me, it was real tense, too tense for a ten year old. He must have been really angry with me to come searching for me.

Just so you know there is no point to this story apart from the hate I feel towards him.

One Sunday morning I remember just looking at 'songs of praise' or 'morning worship' as it may have been called back then. It was an early Sunday morning edition I believe. I was not a viewer, I must have just been curious to watch for a minute or so, it was actually filmed in Durham Cathedral this morning so maybe that's why I was interested as Durham was quite close to me. As I watched, the camera pulled back slowly and revealed Mr Critch, sitting in the congregation ,hymn book open, smiling and singing his heart out. I grabbed my dad and told him "Hey dad, there's Mr Critch, the crazy teacher from School" My dad wasn't bothered of course but I was really angry because of him. It is something I still hold onto today, something to do with the WARPED mind of some religious people IF NOT ALL, How could someone SO EVIL be religious, and a religious fanatic (the worst kind). I have seen so many examples of this over the years, we see it in old Catholic Schools, and nunneries where innocent people were punished supposedly in the name of god.
They are animals.

Let me tell you, I hated Mr Critch with a passion, right now I would love to track the bastard down and punch him in the face, but I have a feeling he is already dead. If he is....I hope it was a painful slow death and I hope he realised that heaven does not exist.....especially for evil men such as him.

Burn in hell Critch.

My parents in america 4

I am not exactly sure of all the circumstances with my parents in America. I know they always told me how cheap things were to buy there, how efficient things were, but my mothers life was not very good and in a sense I think she missed her family, after all my mother was only a young woman in her early twenties with two children and a husband she rarely saw.

Something happened, something that threw everything in chaos and my mother came back to Scotland with my sisters leaving my dad behind to continue working. All I know about this time is that the 'Rose & Crown' had gone under or was losing money / had lost money and my dad had took some job on that was almost like torture to him. I remember him telling me he had to do something like paint / strip paint or re - decorate an entire building on his own. He was exhausted, and was sleeping in some dingy rented room somewhere, he told me he was starving and lost weight and was eating things like mars bars just to stay alive and finish this doomed job, which he did. Quite a frightening and desperate image for me to imagine.

My dad returned to Scotland and during his stay, ended up in hospital with pneumonia, again I do not know the details but I know he nearly died, I know he was on the 'death ward', and I remember him telling me he had an outer body experience. I always thought my dad was sceptical about these kinds of things but one day he opened up and told me.
He said he was on the death ward with a religious fanatic to his right who kept on preaching about how god was waiting for everyone in heaven to arrive and that they MUST NOT BE AFRAID, and accept the lord when they passed over. Later that night the preachers screams were heard throughout the ward as he fought to stay alive, and how he didn't want to pass over, he was frightened of death. My dad hated religious people probably for that reason, that they are deluded hypocrites, something which I have inherited & thank him for. Because...death IS frightening, and life IS beautiful, who would want to leave it behind?
My dad was so Ill he said he saw himself on the hospital bed as if he were looking down upon himself. He believed that this is simply your body dying and your mind is preparing for death OR telling yourself to pull yourself together and STAY ALIVE. Which I believe also. My mother allegedly had a similar experience in later years where she claimed to have seen the bright white light, she also believed it was her body fighting to stay alive.

So back to my parents. They were living in Scotland, my mother & sisters lived somewhere in Rutherglen..