4Q / PMT – Attendance: 2 (who fucked off)

Monday night in Sheffield, Take 2

Two days before the gig I phoned Spike to confirm Blitzkrieg were on the bill. “Nah mate, we’re not doing it.” AAAAAARGH. After all the fucking hassle I’d gone through with posters, I felt like puking. Tried Metal Duck – no answer. Luckily PMT stepped in at short notice. Nice lads.

I hitched to Wrexham to grab the van, and our four intrepid heroes rattled over the Snake Pass to Sheffield. That road is less a carriageway and more a rally stage – I swear one day I’m getting a rally licence just for the hell of it. We met PMT at the venue, Take 2, and soundchecked to… two people. They both left before either band played, leaving only the bar staff as our audience.

PMT went on first (not that it mattered!) and as ever, were truly excellent.

So we did what 4Q always did – turned the void into noise. PMT’s Martin wandered around with two balloons under his shirt, Cumi shouting:

“Hey, where’s your nipples?”

Me: “Shut up and let me feel your tits, come on…”

Straight into Nein Werk, Video Party. No crowd, no problem. Every song an in-joke. Cumi announced:

“This is called Not Now Not Never – it’s about his dick.”

Me: “There’s nowt wrong with my dick.”

Cumi: “It does the bizz, does it?”

PMT’s bassist joined us to mime during 1984. Their guitarist jumped up for Dope Fiend. By the time we hit PMT, the whole of PMT were onstage singing the chorus with us. May as well – nobody else was.

We rattled through Jerks, then there was a row about whether it was the last song.

Cumi: “This is our last one – it’s called Systemisation.”

Me: “No it’s not, fuck off. There’s three left yet, he just wants to go home.”

Cumi: “You’re joking… oh sorry, I forgot about them.”

So we thrashed out God Save The Queen, then Twisted Tabloids, then finally Systemisation – but not before I told everyone (all five of us on stage) to ballroom dance. And we did. Ballroom dancing to Systemisation in an empty Sheffield cellar.

Cumi: “Thank you.”

Me: “You’ve been a wonderful audience.”

Cumi: “Kill him.”

Me: “Kill him, but love me.”

We packed up, skint, and had to scrounge petrol money off PMT for the drive home. That’s it – Sheffield, you’ve seen the last of us for a long time.

4Q – My 25th Gig, 02.09.1988 – Huddersfield, The Wharf (with Blitzkrieg, PMT)

 

Blitzkrieg in happier times

The 25th 4Q gig, a proper landmark, and we celebrated it by playing to a crowd of wankers in Huddersfield. Before we even got there, I did my usual reconnaissance mission the weekend before, hitchhiking my way across the country armed with a pile of posters and a few copies Crud to shove under the noses of unsuspecting record shop punters. Jane and I had even hand-painted two massive A2 posters for the venue to display — proper effort, like we were a real band or something.

I stuck some Cruds in the record shops, slipped a few into the shelves at WHSmiths (covert ops, urban guerilla style), and blagged a lift part way from the brother of the bassist in New Model Army. Nice bloke, off to Brazil with the band next week — six gigs at £12,000 a shot! And there’s me, grubby little turd hitchhiking to Huddersfield, pasting posters on bus stops and begging shopkeepers to take fanzines. Punk rock economics in a nutshell. He dropped me in Manchester, which gave me a chance to scrape together some Crud cash from Piccadilly Records, and then it was train jumping and thumb-waving until I made it back to Colwyn Bay. Took me over four hours to get home, which was standard punishment for being in a band that nobody wanted to pay to see.

Back home we had the added drama of a meeting with Paul Puke, our ex-drummer, who was trying to reclaim his drum kit. Trouble is, we’d bought the thing as a band, so technically it wasn’t his anymore. Bands usually split when money gets involved, when they’ve got something worth fighting over. Us? We’d never made a penny. The most we’d ever been paid was seventy quid for Brighton, and that felt like we’d just robbed a bank. But Paul wanted his kit back, and voices were raised, accusations flew, and even Wayne the Bastard lost his rag, which was rare enough to make everyone take notice. Paul left empty-handed and fuming, kit still ours.

To mark my latest brush with the law (a speeding fine, another tick on the criminal record), and buzzing off having an actual decent recording of a half-decent gig, we cobbled together a cassette release: Brain Dead and Barmy in Brighton. It was even reviewed in the Weekly News — destined to shift a mighty six or seven copies if we were lucky. Still, better than nothing.

Logistics for Huddersfield were sorted thanks to Cumi’s battered 100cc motorbike and Satan’s driving licence. With that lethal combo I hired a knackered Ford Fiesta van out of Wrexham, barely roadworthy but just about able to get us there with gear piled to the ceiling and arses perched on amps.

The gig itself? An absolute write-off. The Wharf was full of the kind of punks who still thought it was 1977, clinging to their faded Pistols memorabilia like it was scripture. Huddersfield’s only claim to fame was being the last place the Pistols played before it all imploded, and they’ve dined out on that trivia nugget for the decade. The crowd had that smug, ‘we were there first’ attitude, like anyone gives a toss in ’88. PMT, our Bolton based buddies, got the warmest reception of the night, but once we’d got past the first three songs our set was completely ignored. You could’ve heard the sound of the bar pumps over us.

Blitzkrieg fared even worse. Their drummer, Fred, was so pissed he spent half the set smacking the wall instead of the floor tom. At one point he actually toppled off the kit, wandered off mid-song, and had to be coaxed back after five excruciating minutes to finish. By the time the landlady came to pay us, she lopped forty quid off the agreed £150, citing Blitzkrieg’s shambles as justification. They were outside fighting amongst themselves while she counted out the cash.

We cut our losses, dragged our gear across town to Eggy’s flat (the promoter), and got hammered on whatever was going. The night was rounded off with Atari marathons, which, frankly, were more entertaining than the gig.

Our set that night was: Nein Werk / Video Party / VD / Not Now Not Never / 1984 / Dope Fiend / PMT / Jerks / God Save The Queen / Twisted Tabloids / Systemisation.

Line-up: Cumi Pants (voc), Neil Crud (gtr), Wayne The Bastard (bass), Matt Vinyl (drms).