"Keith Richards!" – A Night at The Bistro with Joe Bear

 

21 July 1990 – Rhyl

Last night at The Bistro was one for the books — a night laced with sweat, nostalgia, and the smell of stale lager clinging to black and salmon walls. But what made it truly unforgettable was running into Joe Bear — legendary Denbigh rocker, local myth, and walking embodiment of Keith Richards worship.

Joe’d just come back from Maine Road, where the Rolling Stones were doing what they do best — making shitloads of cash with sweat and swagger. It was one of the gigs on their Urban Jungle Tour, the Stones deep into their steel-belted stadium rock phase, with Keith prowling the stage like a half-dead pirate god. And Joe? He was buzzing. High on it. Properly alive in that way only a lifelong rocker can be after brushing against the real thing.

Every time I saw him that night — and it felt like I passed him on every lap to the bar or bogs — he was in a slightly worse state than before. Pints turning into doubles, turning into slurring sentences and a slow descent into the usual Joe Bear wobbling stagger. But every single time, without fail, he’d grin, prop up his invisible Telecaster, and rasp:

“Keith Richards!”

Then he'd mime one of those half-shouldered licks, eyes rolling back, lost in the moment.

The Bistro, if you’ve never been, was Rhyl’s dark, sticky womb of alternative music — punk, goth, indie, metal, the occasional trance night if someone forgot to check the playlist. It was the kind of place where the DJ booth was part pulpit, part bunker, and the walls sweated with decades of feedback and body heat. Every corner had a tale. Last night was no different.

By the end of the night — early hours now — I staggered into the toilets in search of a piss and possibly my remaining dignity. That’s when I saw him.

Joe Bear.

Face down on the soaked tile floor, one arm submerged in the blocked porcelain trough, the other stretched out toward the urinal wall like he was trying to commune with the plumbing gods. His eyes, bleary and half-conscious, found mine. He didn’t speak at first. Just kind of blinked.

Then, with the slow, tragic elegance of a fallen hero, he lifted his soaking wet arm from the piss-water, raised it to his chest, and started strumming the air guitar again.

“Keith... Richards...”

he slurred, barely audible over the bass thump still leaking through the toilet walls.

That was it. That was the moment. The full Joe Bear experience — a man half-drowned in lager, piss and rock ‘n’ roll, still worshipping at the altar of his six-string saviour.

He might have been wrecked, but he was glowing with something pure. It wasn’t just booze and nostalgia — it was belief. Joe didn’t just go to see the Stones. He absorbed them. Channelled them. Brought them back with him like sacred fire, only to collapse in the urinal like a martyred prophet.

And you know what?

In that moment — half-dead, piss-soaked, muttering about Keith Richards — Joe Bear was and is a fucking legend.

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.

4Q / Black Listed - The Swinging Sporran

Manchester. The Swinging Sporran. It sounded exotic, like the sort of place you’d expect to find wild Highland dancers or whisky-fuelled riots. What we actually found was a mostly empty pub with a scattering of punks and a landlord who thought he was running the Hacienda.

When we rolled up, a knot of out-of-town punks were waiting for us — kids who’d been buying Crud fanzine for years. They gave us a hero’s welcome, and for a moment we thought we were in for a packed night. But as it turned out, apart from Danny Williams, John Casey and a mate, that was pretty much the lot. Thirty people, tops.

Still, thirty punks are louder than three hundred indie kids, and we made the most of it. Black Listed, the semi-metal band we’d sort of adopted from Penmaenmawr, opened up. They were eager, tight, and clearly desperate to do everything “the proper rock way” — the posturing, the flourishes, the ritual of “being a band.” I don’t mean that unkindly, but they would’ve done better just being themselves. You can’t fake sweat and chaos. Still, they got through it, and for a bunch of lads still finding their way, it was decent.

Then it was our turn. After the 500-strong Aberystwyth gig the week before, playing to thirty in Manchester should’ve felt like a comedown, but it wasn’t. If anything, I enjoyed myself more. The smaller the crowd, the more personal the piss-taking, and the night quickly became a running exchange of banter between us and them.

We blasted into LSD and Mental Asylum, the sound bouncing off the walls like we were playing in a rehearsal room. I Hate TV and Bat Gooch kept the energy up, but then Matt smashed through yet another bass pedal — his third that week. With him out of action, we killed time with an impromptu Stand By Me, everyone singing along, the sort of daft interlude that makes a gig feel alive.

We patched the set back together with Burn In Hell, Poo on My Shoe, Imagine, and We Want You. During the latter, my bass just dropped clean off — strap gone, instrument clattering to the floor. I just laughed and carried on. The crowd loved it; nothing like a bit of unintended slapstick to keep people happy. We closed with 4Q Blues, Robin shredding like he was headlining Donington in front of 30 bewildered Mancunians.

At the end of the night, the landlord decided to play the heavy. He turned up with a seven-foot-wide bouncer in tow, demanding twenty quid for room hire. Twenty quid! We’d pulled in barely thirty punters. But after some fast talking, a lot of shrugging, and a cheeky promise to “forward the difference next week,” I got him down to a tenner. He probably knew he’d never see the other half, but we shook hands on it anyway.

We left Manchester grinning. No, it wasn’t the triumph of Aberystwyth, but it was raw, ridiculous, and ours. Sometimes thirty punks in a half-empty pub are better than five hundred students in a hall.

Aberystwyth: The Night 4Q Took the University

 

Aberystwyth University. Five bands, 550 students, and a PA that cost £180 but sounded like it had been salvaged from a skip. We were on the bill with U Thant, Mavis Riley Experience, the Mistecs, and Jon Busker, and while the night promised plenty, it quickly descended into the kind of glorious wreckage only 4Q could deliver.

The Mistecs opened — a gaggle of Blaenau schoolboys thrashing out a tupenny-ha’penny Metallica imitation. Everyone has to start somewhere, but honestly, they should’ve stayed at home with their homework. Then Jon Busker followed with his anti-fox-hunting song, which was so dreary it made you want to pick up a shotgun and go after the nearest fox just to spite him.

Then came the Mavis Riley Experience, and they were wonderful. Even Matt liked them, which was a miracle in itself. By the time we were up, the place was primed for carnage.

We didn’t get a soundcheck thanks to U Thant turning up late, and it showed. With two lead guitarists battling for supremacy, the mix was shite, and to the poor sound engineer it must’ve sounded like a car crash. Within minutes of plugging in, Gumpsh pulled a “Neil Crud special” — breaking a string by looking at it. While he wrestled with his guitar, the rest of us jammed Stand By Me to fill the gap. The crowd lapped it up.

And then it was on.

“Thank you, c’mon!” Cumi bellowed.

“There’s not enough room for them to come up onstage, Cumi,” I shouted back.

We launched into Mental Asylum — or as I renamed it mid-song, Mental Shed. It was so loud we couldn’t hear a bloody thing we were playing, but the crowd didn’t care.

“This one’s for everyone who watches Coronation Street,” I quipped.

“Is everyone enjoying themselves?” Cumi yelled.

“Yeah!” came the reply.

“What about you lot at the back? You’re all boring.”

On we went, chaos and noise. I Hate TV ran two verses short because Cumi lost track. I demanded more guitar in the monitors. We barrelled into Bat Gooch, where we bullied the crowd into joining in with a chorus of “Oi!”

We tore through Twisted Tabloids, which I introduced with a story about getting lost in a field near Blaenau Ffestiniog on the way to the gig. We Want You followed, then Cumi tried to big us up: “We’ve almost secured a record deal, this one will almost definitely be the single. It’s called Burn in Hell.”

“Single what?” I chipped in. “Single cream?”

People danced! Fuck me! Next was Poo on My Shoe it hit like a hammer, “fucking spot on.” Imagine descended into comedy, with Gumpsh starting it out of tune to our delight, and the audience split down the middle on whether John Lennon was genius or tosser. We wrapped it with 4Q Blues, Robin hammering out a ridiculously over-the-top metal solo just to put the cherry on the cake. And Cumi doing a walking handstand.

“Cheers,” I said. “I thought we were bloody marvellous.”

And we were. For all the feedback, the string breaks, the insults, and the nonsense, we’d owned the night. So much so that when U Thant came on after us, they had to work twice as hard just to keep the crowd. I even stayed to watch three songs — which for me was a compliment.

We pocketed the cash, packed up, and headed home. Robin, true to form, managed to upset Cumi’s Jane by climbing on her car and vomiting everywhere. A perfect 4Q ending: noise, chaos, laughter, and a trail of mess in our wake.

The Bee Hotel Massacre – 4Q in Rhyl

 

The Bee Hotel in Rhyl was never a great gig. Cumi and Matt didn’t want to do it, and I couldn’t blame them. Bee gigs were usually more trouble than they were worth — dodgy sound, small crowds, and an atmosphere that felt less like a venue and more like a waiting room. But a gig’s a gig, and in those days, we didn’t say no to playing.

At first it looked like we’d made the wrong call. The room was empty until 9:45pm, then suddenly people began streaming in — mostly Matt’s clan of family, friends, and admirers who’d come en masse from Colwyn Bay. By the time we were ready, the Bee was packed and already brimming with trouble.

Soundcheck was a nightmare. Levels wouldn’t sit right, feedback screamed, and then someone called Boz decided he was the star of the night. He picked up Robin’s guitar like it was his, and when I told him to put it down, he mouthed off, slagging us off like he had some divine right to any instrument in reach. I’ve never had time for musos like that — the type who think playing a few chords entitles them to anything they want.

If the saying’s true — that a bad soundcheck means a good gig — then this night was determined to prove otherwise. We opened with LSD, only for both Robin and Gumpsh to snap strings almost simultaneously. Absolute carnage. And there I was, trying to impress Martin Trehearn, hoping he’d consider booking us for The Bistro, while our set collapsed around us.

Once the guitars were restrung, Gumpsh’s lead gave out. Cheap gear will always betray you at the worst time. While he fumbled about, the rest of us tried to keep the crowd alive with a chaotic rendition of Purple Haze. It was shambolic, but at least it bought us time.

From there, the set lurched forward: Nein Werk, Video Party, Bat Gooch, VD, Poo On My Shoe, Burn in Hell, I Hate TV, We Want You, Imagine, 4Q Blues. It was raw, loud, and messy — a typical 4Q gig. By the end, the Bee looked like a scrapyard: smashed glasses, puddles of beer, debris of a night too wild for its four walls.

The image that’s burned in my mind, though, isn’t the broken gear or the broken glass. It’s one of Matt’s endless girlfriends, slumped unconscious in a chair, her head thrown back, vomit tangled through her hair and streaking her face. That sight was the punctuation mark on the whole night — ugly, tragic, unforgettable nad really fucking funny.

We’d rolled in from Colwyn Bay and trashed the place. It wasn’t a triumph. It wasn’t a disaster. It was 4Q: chaos in motion, leaving wreckage in our wake.

Manchester Boardwalk Blitzkrieg / 4Q

Huw Prestatyn kindly agreed to drive us to Manchester’s Boardwalk. On arrival? Total confusion. Our promoter Dave Bennett was supposed to front £170 to cover the venue, soundman and door staff. The manager wasn’t having it at first and it looked like the night was dead in the water. After much arguing, he finally relented but warned that if the takings didn’t cover the costs, he’d baseball bat the promoter. Fine by us.

By 10pm the place was empty. Not a soul. Then, just as despair set in, a huge throng of fresh-faced first-year students came marching down the road, chattering and singing with their new grant money burning holes in their pockets. At least fifty of them. I intercepted, laid it on thick, promised them the night of their lives for £2.50 — and fuck me, they all came in.

The gig that followed lives long in memory. None of these kids had a clue what punk was, but they didn’t care — they danced, cheered, stage-invaded, got pissed, and turned the Boardwalk into a madhouse.

We tore into Nein Werk and Video Party. Cumi was on form, spouting:

“Mary had a little lamb & it was always grunting, she tied it to the garden gate & kicked its little…”

Then introducing VD:

“It’s about Wales, sheep & the things you do to them.”

Me: “He mentions that at every gig.”

Cumi: “I don’t, you do.”

Me: “Do you want me to take my clothes off?”

Crowd: “NO!”

Cumi: “They don’t want to see a gnat’s penis.”

By Not Now Not Never I was pointing into the crowd: “This one’s dedicated to him. It’s a description of his sex life.” Cumi piled in: “And his dick.”

During 1984 I peeled off my jumper just to show my “trendy designer t-shirt.” Cumi: “It’s fashionable, isn’t it?” Cue wooos from the students.

We crashed through Dope Fiend and PMT (my adaptor plug came loose, cutting the guitar out completely). I shrugged: “They don’t need a guitar, they seem to manage quite well without me.” Cumi filled the gap: “This is the interlude where we have a rest and you can buy your sweets, ice creams & crisps in the foyer.”

Jerks went down tight. Afterwards I joked: “People always say we’re cliched. Well, we’re going to show you just how cliched we can be.” Cumi: “Cliched?” Me: “It’s a French word meaning ‘we’ve seen it all before’.” Someone yelled: “It means crap!” Me: “Yeah, that’s about right.”

God Save the Queen got a massive cheer — the best we’ve ever played it. Twisted Tabloids was introduced by Cumi: “This song’s about donkey’s piss flaps.” Big cheers, none the wiser.

We closed with Systemisation, me giving it the “last disco smooch” spiel:

“This is for all you sweethearts. You know when you’re at a trendy disco and the last song is ‘Last Christmas’ by George Michael? Well this is our version. Have a smooch.”

Cue chaos and mock ballroom dancing. Before the last chorus I announced: “I think Blitzkrieg are the best band I’ve seen this week, a fine bunch of musicians.” The room erupted, standing ovation, chants of “More! More!”

Cumi signed off: “Thanks a lot, goodnight — if you want to see us again we’re at the Swinging Sporran in Chorlton, a week on Saturday.”

“Who with?” shouted someone.

“Wham, Kajagoogoo & Tina Turner,” deadpanned Cumi.

I went to turn my amp off and fell flat on my face, raising the roof one last time.

Then Blitzkrieg came on. After three songs, the place emptied.

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.

Hitching Hell

Ann The Beermonster, self, Jill the Ripper

If I ever have another day like this one, I’ll happily place a noose around my neck and play on the swings. It was supposed to be one of those simple “hitch it to Sheffield” days. No drama: up, out, posters plastered, job done. Getting there was easy enough. Finding the venue — Take 2 — took a bit more public transport detective work, but I got there in the end (it's in Attercliffe). Getting home, though, turned into the kind of nightmare that makes you wonder what the fuck you’re doing with your life.

By 6:30pm I’d managed two lifts as far as the Snake Pass moors, then another that dumped me in the East End of Manchester. From there it was a bus across to the other side of the city, then a long, cold wait that produced only two pissy little lifts in the next three and a half hours. That left me stranded outside Knutsford on some A-road pointing vaguely towards Chester. It was dark, wet, freezing, and looking like I’d be stuck there all night.

The rain pissed down, but I had my Sony Walkman, and Nick Cave for company. John Peel had introduced me to Kicking Against The Pricks, Cave’s LP of not-so-standard cover versions, and Wayne had taped it for me from his vinyl copy. I played that cassette to death, and out there in the wet night I found myself duetting with Nick Cave to By The Time I Get To Phoenix — only I swapped Phoenix for Colwyn. A sodden lunatic with his thumb out, singing his heart out to the hedgerows. Every song on that tape was a high point. Years later I finally bought the CD, but back then, that battered cassette was my lifeline.

Eventually, mercifully, I got a lift to Chester and bolted for the station, racing through the rain with two random blokes to catch the last train home. £5.10 for a single, rolled into Colwyn late but still alive.

The day wasn’t a total loss. On the way over I’d stopped in Glossop and knocked on Jill The Ripper’s door. She was in, looking gorgeous with her hair plaited orange, purple and black. She was warm, welcoming even, but very cordial. She showed me photos of The Damned on tour, and her very boring-looking boyfriend — “I’ve been with him a year now,” she quipped. Whatever spark had once lit up between us the year before had gone out, and I knew it was me who’d snuffed it. Just another reminder of how fleeting things can be when you’re living half your life on the hard shoulder of the motorway.

4Q – Cornhill Vaults, Lincoln (with Blitzkrieg)

 

Cumi and Crud in the passion wagon

After the shambles in Huddersfield, we figured Blitzkrieg would’ve had the sense to do a runner and swerve the next night’s gig. Fred the drummer had been a piss-soaked liability and the band were literally fighting outside the venue while their set fell apart indoors, so we weren’t expecting to see them again. With that in mind, we killed a bit of time wandering Huddersfield, then spotted in Sounds that the UK Subs were due to play in Nottingham. Decision made: let’s gatecrash the Subs.

We pointed the Fiesta van towards Nottingham, stopping off in Sheffield on the way, only to find out the Subs weren’t in Nottingham at all but Retford. Typical. So off to Retford we went, hung about waiting, no Subs in sight. On a whim we rang the pub in Lincoln where the gig was booked — and to our amazement Blitzkrieg had shown up. Fred must’ve sobered up just enough to locate his sticks. Cue a mad dash to Lincoln.

The Cornhill Vaults was like a punk rock version of Liverpool’s Cavern — low, arched ceilings, brickwork, sweat dripping down the walls, bikers and students crammed in shoulder to shoulder. Blitzkrieg insisted on playing first this time, just to make sure Fred was still in a fit state to hold his drumsticks the right way round. Fair play, they played a half-decent set, even if vocalist Spike blew his nose all over me when I called him an ugly cunt. All taken in good humour, apparently.

Before we went on, a lump of resin was presented to us and a makeshift potato pipe, happily getting most of the bands stoned. Matt had only just joined but he’d already slotted into the anarchy like he’d always been there. He even reckoned last night’s Huddersfield debacle was a laugh. With both bands all off our tits, we hit the stage at 10pm.

We tore into Nein Werk and straight into Video Party. The set was the same as Huddersfield — Nein Werk / Video Party / VD / Not Now Not Never / 1984 / Dope Fiend / PMT / Jerks / God Save The Queen / Twisted Tabloids / Systemisation — but this time the crowd lapped it up. Bikers bellowing, students pogoing under the arches, the room bouncing like it was built for us.

Highlights? I did an impromptu Bruce Forsyth impression on a stool, which ended with me toppling onto my pedals and crashing into Spike and Gaz Sumner. Cumi got shoved into a biker mid-song — thankfully the biker laughed instead of lamping him. Chaos, but good chaos.

We came off to a proper cheer, walked away fifty quid better off, and with the promise of another booking down the line. Chalk that up as a win. Even made a few new fans, including Chantelle, a peroxide blonde who turned up with her leg in plaster and still managed to cheer us on all night. Dedication.

The drive home was unexpectedly picturesque — Worksop, Stockport, winding cross-country roads — all under cover of darkness. Took us three and a half hours, rolled into Colwyn Bay at 3:30am. Huddersfield already felt like a bad memory. Lincoln had made up for it.

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

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).

The Birth of Crud

It was the 30th of August, 1986, and I was in my flat on Ellesmere Road, Colwyn Bay. I remember it well — one of those warm days when you’ve got the rickety shash windows open and the world just drifts in. That afternoon, I started hearing the thud of drums and raw guitars echoing across from beyond the main road. It sounded good. Really good. Curious, I followed the noise.

The music was coming from the Rydal School playing fields — an open-air punk gig / summer fete happening right in the middle of Colwyn Bay. Rydal was a private school, and not exactly unfamiliar territory. Being teenagers, we’d often skulk around there, full of adolescent hormones and the daft idea that we might catch a glimpse into the girls' showers.

On stage was a Welsh punk band called Anhrefn, delivering a fierce, rebellious set. I’d actually heard them just the week before, doing a session on John Peel’s show on Radio One. Seeing them live was something else — wild, Welsh, loud, and absolutely vital.

Sharing the bill were another band from Bangor called The Paraletics, just as raucous, just as raw. Their guitarist, Jez, ended up getting told off mid-set by — of all things — an angry clown, furious about his swearing. You couldn’t make it up.

As the bands played, I was appraoched by a guy selling fanzines. One stood out immediately — ROX, thrown together by John Robb of The Membranes, a maniacal noise outfit from Blackpool. I’d flicked through countless 'zines over the years, but this one had a real charge to it. It was anarchic, urgent, buzzing with DIY spirit.

I’d been keeping a scrapbook since leaving school three years earlier, full of oddball newspaper cuttings, satirical bits, and funny headlines. As I thumbed through ROX, I thought, Why not do something with all that? Maybe put together a fanzine of my own.

When I mentioned it to Edi, he took the idea a step further.

"Why don’t we do a ragmag-type magazine for the Bay?" he said.

I paused. "Yeah. But what the hell would we call it?"

Edi didn’t even flinch. "Well," he said, with a perfectly timed pause, "Crud."

And that was it. That was the moment it began — on a late summer day in Colwyn Bay, fuelled by punk noise, DIY attitude, and a clown with a grudge.

Bath Street, Rhyl - The Corridor of Doors

 

He opened the book on his bare lap, fingers tracing the flavescent page, bent and creased from some forgotten moment of distraction. The story itself was about patricide — grim, unsettling, and yet he couldn’t look away. The words reached into him like an infection, twisting something already restless inside. It was a kind of perverted perversion, a fascination that felt alien and yet entirely his. Power radiated from those sentences: the power of imagination, of annihilation, of mutilation, amputation, and ultimately… of contemplation.

Closing the book, he rose and found himself walking down a corridor. At first it seemed ordinary — long, sterile, clinically clean, the sort of place where echoes linger long after footsteps fade. But something was wrong. Something shifted. At the far end loomed a door, heavy and waiting.

He paused, listening. Nothing. The air hummed faintly, as though alive. With a breath that caught in his throat, he turned the handle.

The world on the other side wasn’t right. The corridor continued, yes, but now its walls pulsed with a fuzzy purple light, static and liquid at once. The surfaces moved yet remained still, a contradiction that defied reason. He reached out, hand trembling, and the material resisted like gel, then rippled away into silence.

And then he saw it: the void. Where one wall should have been, there was only blackness — infinite, hungry, bottomless. The purple corridor clung to existence on the edge of that abyss, as though straining against being swallowed.

Along the single remaining wall stretched countless doors. Closed, identical, each one humming with unseen possibility.

A chill ran through him. Each door, he knew without being told, contained a future. Not a metaphorical choice, but a literal one. Only by opening a door and stepping through would he discover which life awaited him.

He hesitated. His hand hovered at the nearest knob, sweat beading at his temple. What if he chose wrong? What if the wrong door led only to deeper voids, to darker corridors? What if none of them led back?

The silence pressed in, thick and suffocating. His heart raced. For a moment he almost turned back — but when he glanced over his shoulder, the clean corridor was gone. There was only purple static and the infinite dark.

No retreat. Only doors. Only futures.

His hand touched cold metal. He drew a breath, braced himself, and—

—suddenly, awareness hit him like a crash of light.

The corridor dissolved. The void melted. The doors vanished. He was back on the threadbare carpet of his first flat in Bath Street, Rhyl. The book was still in his lap. The walls were still nicotine-stained. The buzzing wasn’t cosmic energy — it was the fluorescent strip light.

It had been an acid trip. One of many in those days, when his experiments with LSD carved out strange journeys through his own mind. That night, 1984, he had wandered corridors of choice and stared into black voids of possibility. And though the drug had rattled him with visions of futures unknown, somewhere in that trip — and in the years that followed — he’d like to think he chose the right door.

John Lennon is Dead

 

It was a wet and miserable December morning, the time was about 6.55am. I was in Colomendy estate in Denbigh on my paper round. I had been doing it for about a year & Xmas was coming, normally for a paperboy the advent of Yuletide meant a big pay-day as the tips for your year long slog with scant reward would start flowing. This, sadly was not the case, my round cover the most affluent part of Denbigh, nice houses, nice cars, no tips. The other paperboys who did the council estates returned loaded with 50p's and pound notes, although there was little money within the households they served. There was plenty of cash flow, perhaps the phrase; 'the rich get richer while the poor get poorer' stemmed from the generosity extended to the paperboy at Xmas.

My BMX bike weaved its way along the dark pavements, door to door, delivering the Telegraph, the Guardian, and the Times. For company, tied to the handlebars I had an Action Man radio, a waterproof birthday present which could transmit Morse code should I ever get lost in the depths of Denbigh. Radio One, as ever, poured out drab pap music, but it kept my 14-year-old mind on the job in hand.

The 7 o'clock headlines rang out across the sleepy housing estate:

'John Lennon has been shot dead outside his home in New York.'

I pulled the brakes on my bike, took the heavy paper sack off my shoulder and dropped it onto the wet pavement. A state of complete shock came over me, but I didn't know why, John Lennon had never consciously meant anything to me, particularly during my musical awareness years where the likes of Sham 69, Sex Pistols, The Damned, Clash etc. were my idols.

Leaving the sack in a puddle where it fell, I solemnly made the long climb up Vale Street and home to my sleeping family. I awoke my mother:

'Mum, John Lennon's dead.'

We lived in Ruthin in the late sixties as did John & Cynthia Lennon, and my parents would attend the various parties held by the neighbours.

My mother didn't get out of bed that day.

Dad’s account of this day (written in 2009) goes like this…

It was my day off. I dragged myself out of bed mid morning, turned the kettle on and then the radio.

The kettle boiled dry.

Shocked by the news, I never got my morning cuppa. I sat all day, stunned, as a crackly medium wave Radio City struggled to reach over the Welsh mountains. They played Beatles tracks all day back-to-back.

John Lennon had been shot.

The following day I was back at work for the Evening Leader newspaper. Myself and feature-writer Carol James were the only newspaper people John’s ex wife Cynthia would talk to at that sad time. We interviewed and photographed her at her home in Castle Street, Ruthin, whilst the photographers from the Nationals were dropping mind-blowingly huge cheques through her letterbox desperate for exclusive pictures and an interview. She tore them all up.

We got through the door because we were journos she could trust to be sensitive and not sensationalise how she felt about John’s death, having previously done a feature about her charity work a few months earlier and prior to that a promotional piece about her book A Twist of Lennon.

For me, the whole thing was made far more poignant since I’d been part of the 60s/70s music scene myself.

My band, The Executioners, had graduated from the local village hall dances, through the Chester and Deeside working-mens clubs, to earn our place on the Mersey Beat scene. We played the Cavern, The Iron Door, Tower Ballroom New Brighton and many other Merseyside Clubs, alongside the likes of the Searchers, The Big Three, Freddie Starr and the Midnighters, The Black Abbots, and the Undertakers.

Sadly, we were never on the same bill as The Beatles, so I never got to meet John Lennon.

It was spooky when some time later, I photographed Julian Lennon as a young man because at that time he was just like his father during the Cavern years.

Today, 29 years after his untimely death, John’s music is as fresh and meaningful as back then. It will live on forever. But I often wonder what he would be doing now had December 8th 1980 never happened.