GIG - The Dry Retch / Spam Javelin / Grenades / MRI @ Swinging Arm, Birkenhead

 Sunday night in Birkenhead, and instead of doing something sensible like preparing for Monday, we pointed the car toward The Swinging Arm for a charity show in aid of the Clatterbridge Cancer Charity. Punk garage rock, shaved heads, packed room — the sort of wholesome community event your grandparents definitely didn’t imagine when they said “get involved locally.”

My band, Spam Javelin, played this event last year and were kindly invited back to fill the slot left by local heroes Sonic Assault, who have apparently imploded. Not completely, mind — two of them resurfaced long enough to jump onstage with a borrowed rhythm section and chug out a single song like a brief and touching punk rock séance.

After a gentle ninety-minute scenic tour of the North Wales coastline (translation: driving and talking nonsense), we arrived just in time to see Decibel finish sweating through their set. I’ve seen them five or six times, so I knew exactly what we’d missed — and besides, I’ll catch them at Curiad Pulse Festival soon, conveniently located near my sofa.

Next up were punk-psychedelic explorers MRI. They admitted to being under-rehearsed, which in our terms just means “rehearsed enough.” Their short, snappy songs were a blessing — proof that not every psychedelic band needs to wander off into a ten-minute jam and forget where they parked. Also, I remain deeply envious of Richie’s Gibson SG, which is frankly doing more for my guitar jealousy than any therapy session could.

Grenades followed and immediately triggered a debate among our camp. Two guitarists, slightly understated volume, and a vibe our Dave described as Pavement. A quick YouTube Music investigation the next day confirmed this was both accurate and complimentary. They may have played one song too many, but when it’s for charity you’re hardly going to wave them off mid-chorus. Their singer also took one for the team and had his greasy mop shaved off, raising £200 in the process. Venue meets barber shop: a winning formula.

Meanwhile, earlier that morning I’d been at home wrestling my battered Marshall amp into harmony with my Boss GT-6 pedal. It’s only taken me about ten years to achieve this technological breakthrough. Standing on stage, basking in the glorious sound of equipment actually cooperating, I couldn’t help wondering why I hadn’t done this sooner. Probably because I’m an idiot.

Spam Javelin did what Spam Javelin does. Loud, fast, job done. People seemed to enjoy it, which is always a relief.

The Dry Retch closed the night with their gloriously filthy, Stooges-tinged, cosmic garage punk chaos and dodgy guitar leads. Unfortunately, although desperately wanting to be their dogs, by this point we were an hour behind schedule and still had a long drive home. So we caught the first five excellent Stalingradient songs before quietly slipping out at 10pm like responsible adults and cursing the fact none of will be in bed before midnight.

All in all: loud music, shaved heads, a room full of people raising money for a good cause, and only mild hearing damage. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday night.

4Q: Birkenhead: The Lennon Backlash That Never Came

 

March 3rd, 1990. The same day the Liverpool Echo ran the headline FURY OVER LENNON SONG SLUR – BAND’S TASTELESS ATTACK ON JOHN & PAUL, taking aim at us for our version of Lennon’s Imagine — the one where we sang that maybe Macca deserved a bullet too. It was pure piss-taking, punk provocation in the classic style, but to the Scouse press we’d desecrated their holy shrine.

The timing couldn’t have been worse: that night we were booked to play in Birkenhead, across the water from Lennon’s city. Cumi was bricking it. He tried to pull a Paul Puke manoeuvre, claiming, “I’m going away this weekend, so I can’t do the gig.” Truth was, he didn’t fancy facing a mob of irate Beatles disciples. To be fair, I had my own doubts. If we were going to get our heads kicked in for slagging off the Lord Lennon, then so be it — but it would’ve made a hell of a story for Crud.

When I told Cumi we’d do it without him if necessary, he backed down. He wasn’t about to let 4Q march into Birkenhead minus its frontman.

We rolled up at the Golden Fleece to find the place rammed — not with outraged Beatles fanatics but with punks. Proper punks. The room was so small they stood only inches from our faces. A couple we recognised from Planet X were there too, members of the band Go Heads, grinning like they’d come for blood but stayed for the fun. Even the landlord was in on it: he knew our parody lyrics to Imagine word for word. Instead of hostility, the scandal had done its job — it pulled people in.

We let fly with a longer set than usual: LSD, I Hate TV, Mental Asylum, Bat Gooch, Nein Werk, Video Party, Poo On My Shoe, Burn in Hell, We Want You, Imagine, 4Q Blues. The room shook, punks yelling back every line, bodies pressed against us. When the landlord himself starts singing along to your blasphemous Lennon send-up, you know you’ve won the night.

The crowd wouldn’t let us go, so we encored with Stand By Me and VD, then ended with a cut-down reprise of Bat Gooch — rechristened Bat Goo after we hacked it to pieces. By that point it hardly mattered; the atmosphere carried us.

The moment that still makes me laugh, though, was the little old lady who shuffled to the front mid-set, wrinkled brow, politely asking if we could “turn it down a bit, because I can’t hear myself think.” God knows how she ended up in the Golden Fleece that night, surrounded by 100 punks and a band tearing Lennon’s memory to shreds, but there she was — the most surreal critic of all.

In the end, no fists flew, no bottles were hurled. We didn’t get lynched for mocking Lennon. Instead, we played one of our tightest, most electric gigs. What the Echo called a slur turned into the best publicity we could’ve hoped for. The cult of Lennon survived unscathed. 4Q, on the other hand, walked out bigger than we’d walked in.