Go Ahead, Lick The Toad - Three Legged Dog Review

Feeling suitably inspired I put down the book and finally began this review I had promised many half moons ago. I find a hangover and a blurred Sunday morning a highly creative time. Tired and loose, the mind can wander in a perfectly natural state. One of the beneficial factors of a comedown. Every cloud has a scabby and warted underbelly – it’s just how you lick the toad that matters.
I was told that Three Legged Dog were a Celtic Folk-Rock band, so I braced myself for a cold trip to the blowing battlefields of the Highlands and a swim in the icy waters of a mythical Irish lake, set to the sounds of some kind of Paganesque, ritualistic, sacrificial ceremony. Better to be ready for the worst than to naively go skinny dipping with a gang of friendly Piranha.
Step It Out Mary did nothing to quash my preconceived ideas of folk music. Or at least its lyrical content anyway. Tales of debauchery, and sexual urge and trade abound. A hard shuffling drum beat sets the song off at an aggressive pace, with a classic folk acoustic guitar riff fluttering away like a hepped up butterfly. Then SLAM, the rhythm section batters me in the back. The charging, war painted cavalry come charging down the hill. Right at me. Stand and take it. Just as I thought “this is it, time to get trampled by great huge crazed Scots in skirts”, The Ogre grabs me on the gallop and whisks me away on horseback. As enemy or friend is still unclear. My hairy chauffeur is telling me of a local girl he is to marry. A fine looking maiden by the sounds of it, “Eyes like diamonds and golden hair”. She’ll do, but I have a feeling she’s not to share. I dread to think of The Ogres reaction if I offered to take this girl to the local tavern for a mead. An ancient descendant of the Hells Angels he maybe, but in the mood to share his future bride he is not.
Dangling across his saddle like a deer strapped to the bonnet of a mountain poacher’s station wagon, I do well to keep my flailing arms and loose necked head out of the charging legs of this huge beast. I still manage to maintain a respectful and polite conversation with my saddle man.
We charged into town at around 8 o’clock and were greeted by the beautiful Mary and her father. From my unusual view, it appears he is selling his fine young daughter to The Ogre, demanding she show some leg and marry the wealthy outlaw. “Jesus”, I thought, “this is the clan to be in”.
The rhythm stayed close behind at all times. Tight and on cue to join in on the drunken jeering and leering. A constant huge heavy hand on my back, slamming every breath from my lungs, as all I could do was smile along and wish it was me taking this girl forevermore on Sunday. I don’t think the old man was too impressed by me though. Not exactly the big hero from out of town. More like supper.
The ceremony was short and to the point.
“Do you, Ogreman, take Mary to be your lawful wedded wife?”
“Eey, that I do.”
“I pronounce you man and wife” and without so much as a kiss for the camera’s The Ogre stomped off down the aisle like some Neanderthal, dragging the heat of my groin behind him.
Stood with the many locals in the joyous churchyard, I thought I heard Al Wilson’s Northern Soul classic, The Snake. I must have spooked the giant worm, and The Snake slid off and left me standing with young Matty Groves and The Fiddle.
The whorish cuckold that is Lord Donald’s wife approached us both. “A fine way to get over the loss of young Mary” I thought. But of course the whore wasn’t interested in the big haired, loose limbed stranger, brought into town strapped across the saddle of the big, strong, rich, primitive Mr Ogreman. Oh no. Matty Groves was her prey.
Bald as brass she came out with it, “come home with me and sleep till nine.” That little ratbag. How did he do it? Was this an ambush or something of a regular? I urged him, with my new friend The Fiddle, “Go on you fool. Take her for all she’s worth! Your master’s woman! Jesus boy! Take her and give her the lashing she’s after! Prod the kipper!”
There was a commotion in the crowd. I couldn’t be sure what it was, but there was a definite trail. Like the way a mole lifts the turf as the little bastard goes blindly racing around under the perfect Miracle Grown lawn, inches from the surface. It was the servant! That little snitch shit swine!
The affair rolled on with flashes of 60’s stabbing jangle, and a powerful bass line, keeping the party going with a constant forceful push of its huge barrel chest.
Last I heard from the great peaking female vocal, was that old crazy Lord Donald had done them both in, and that was it. All change. The Fiddle took the lead and hailed the murder. Gathering purpose and energy, a fuzzing guitar soon followed. At a canter the fuzz took centre stage, with a filthy solo worthy of any garage psyche blues freakout. Somebody ripped the door from its hinges and the band came in and stomped me.
I came around 2 hours and fourteen days later; who knows how many years. The soft dewy grass had soaked my back through and the early morning air froze me to the bone. A thick layer of mist hovered inches above the loch. If I had a leaf blower big enough, a big, huge, petrol powered, industrial strength DeWalt bugger, I could have blown the ghostly covering right off in a few sharp blasts, off into the trees.
“I’ll start the goddamn day at my pace if that’s ok?!”
But I didn’t have a blower. Or much else. All I had was my thin leather jacket, Funkadelic T-shirt (soaked), Levi’s, and my trusted desert boots. I was freezing. I thought I was going to shatter my teeth I was shivering so bad. My jaw completely malfunctioning. Better keep my tongue well back from the calcium bladed guillotine. I don’t know if you’ve ever been conscious of the positioning of your tongue within your mouth, but once you are, and you try and control it, you’re in for a strenuous ride. Impossible to swallow.
I sat up and sank my hands down into the soft grass behind me and tried get my bearings. Nothing but mist and huge pine trees, prickling the low early morning cloud. Still no sun to burn off this eerie loneliness. I expected Hemmingway himself to enter stage left from the forest of pine, fishing rod in hand. Or maybe David Lynch dressed as Agent Dale Cooper in a dreamlike twist.
But I was greeted by something a lot less expected.
Across the inlet I could barely make out the figure of a woman. She was alone and singing some kind of folk tune. Black Is The Colour. Her voice carried across the loch like a swan on floating timber. She sang of her love. Another woman. Great news! Maybe a woman/woman thing? Or maybe just artistic license. The acoustic guitars began sweeping away the cloud and the sun made its warm presence known to all. I hope she finds her woman as I hoped to find my way out of this clearing and back to civilisation. I sent my best back across to her and got up to get lost in the forest.
Toes now soaking and pruned. That’s what you get for wearing canvas shoes in deep wet grass. SWINE BASTARD!!
It must have been late afternoon when I finally found the road. From my left a car came gunning up the road toward me. Lights dipped in the low sun, he came straight for me. “Holy Jesus! Not the Ogre?” The bastard boomed right by me. Missing me by inches. It could never have been the Ogre. Though the speeding Volvo was as trusty as his battle scarred horse, I don’t imagine he would’ve made it through the Theory Test. Hazard Perception? The Ogre? The hairy bastard would run down any hazard on the road like a slack jawed Hick chasing down a trespassing city slicker for some back door barn dancing. YEEEHAAAAA! YES SIRREE WE GOT A FINE ONE HEEERE!
The Volvo - the dense Pine - the giant blue and yellow IKEA billboard standing bright and bold behind me? Surely not? But sure enough I was. I was In Scandinavia. I was in SCANDINAVIA! How? How did this happen? What did the Ogre man and his keen rhythm section do to me when I passed out? Did they send me off with the Vikings as some sort of tartan scalp trophy? Treacherous behaviour. To be expected.
“Here we stand in Scandinavia.”
You are not wrong my friend. Just you, me, and the acoustic guitar keeping up hope. He plays a fine tune. Somewhere between Stairway to Heaven and the soft acoustic side of Pink Floyd.
The speeding Volvo was long gone. My only chance was to follow him on foot and hope to find civilisation before I fall into the depths of an energy sapping panic attack.
So off I set.
“See you later my friend.” I shook the vocal by the hand and left him there in the middle of the road. The crazy bastard just stood there, singing to the sky. How could he keep such hope in this remote place of ‘natural beauty’?
He’ll get his comeuppance.
I didn’t get far before he chased me down. But he wasn’t alone. A whole gang of the crazies chased me. But they chased me with open arms and smiles of great joy. But good clean joy. They don’t seem the type to be popping the little ones or chasing the little white line.
But you never know....
The drums and bass ran like the fat kids in the three legged race on sports day. Full of joyful purpose and huge persuasion. The Fiddle was doing its best to be a calming influence on us all, but I could tell it was bursting to join the surge. The overdriven guitar waited back like the star of the show biding his time. Waiting for the right time to bust out to the front and give it to us. Total respect for his band. Totally tasteful. They were right up on my back. I broke into a run so not to be battered by the wave. Hopefully they would pick me up and wash me away with them. Rush me away to safety and an ice cold, locally brewed beer. She jumped on my back wailing a mantra of good times and self belief. “Oh my soul let it carry me” and off we ran. A bunch of kids running from the scene of a village crime.
As we tired and the moon filled, we stopped in at the first bar we came to. It was very much a wooden shack type of tavern. Full of life and hectic drunken, knees up partying. I could hear the music as we’d been approaching. They all seemed up for a good old jig, but I was no mover. We burst through the door and I expected to be greeted by a sharp and sudden silence. And by shit did we get one.
Oh no. Here we go. Strung up by our ankles and dried for four years, heavily salted and finally sliced thin and served with good bread like fine Danish salami....
But no. One huge toothy smile from our front lady set off a huge roar of laughter, and we were drafted in. I had no time or desire for the dancing. A cold beer was top of any list. So I sat alone at the bar as the rest of my new, strangely easily excited friends, danced and jigged and twisted and twirled away to the live music. A traditional folk type of instrumental. All high energy and fiddly deeing. Music you can’t help but get red cheeked to. Lannigans Ball.
“Ah fuck it, out of my way! Let me spill beer with my new friends!!” And down I jumped from my bar side stool and into the mass of grinning faces and intertwining arms.
“Mazbeth my fat perverse friend! What are you doing here?!”
“Ah ha ha ha ha!” he gravelled back at me as he threw a big old arm round me, nearly pulling me to the floor.

My experience of Three Legged Dog.
Songs – Step It Out Mary
Matty Groves
Black Is The Colour
In Scandinavia
Lannigans Ball

THE EYE OF THE FIRE WHALE - RTBH REVIEW

Well set the rats on my face and call me Shirley. What the fuck is going on here. Where the....
Last I knew I was gazing out at a rain filled sky, looking down on the depressing reflection of the grey scarred tarmac, waiting for my man to bring the tambourine and take a ride. What was I listening to at the time? It escapes me now, as does much else. Pains rush through my brain as I try and fight it and figure out where it is I’ve ended up.
Holy shit, is that the sun? Is that the sun that we are very directly hurtling towards at speeds that are totally unrecognizable and with no way of judging? My nerves sense we are travelling at speeds that we only witness in the most 70's of 70's blockbuster movies, but with such distances to cover, we may as well be, and still maybe, travelling at around 8mph. Or we could even be completely still. Motionless. Very confusing and truly trippy times.
There is an incessant whirring all around. A huge fly, wielding and firing a Tommy Gun at every one of the images he see's in every one of his eyes. He’s completely gone sideways. I put on the cycle helmet. It will do little to help, but it will surely do me no harm.
Then there it was, the drawn out notes of some fucked up organ with Bella Lugosi himself sat at the black and whites. I try to catch his eye, make small talk, but in the time between my thought becoming a physical expression, he was zapped away by the voice of a straining
Funk Father, with nothing more than a keen sense of slowing down time and adjusting the angle of rotation of the very rock we all stand upon. We risk flooding at the very least.
Seems we're caught in some kind of intergalactic dog fight. No chance of getting out of this in 4 pieces. I must man the controls myself. I’m off to find the captain.
"Sorry sir, the captain left long ago."
"Well then who the fuck is flying this thing? Tell me woman! Don’t just stand there playing air guitar like you didn’t here a god damn word I said. Listen to me damn it! Who is at the wheel?!" I was clearly going to get no sense from this woman. I have reason to believe she stole the uniform. Clearly no training at all.
Ah a guitar riff. Sounds like rock music. Drums. A repeated phrase. From behind me the voice of an elderly man offers me outside. A fist fight. I must be wrong. A fist fight, with an OAP, (who from the tone of his voice, has moves that will clear out a weeks’ worth of ruffage from my bowls), outside, in the depths of space.
PEEEEOWWWWWW!!!!
Thank fuck a gun. I’m saved from a savage beating from this ageing b-movie star. I turn to see the hero of the piece. Clint Eastwood, Eddie Murphy. No. I sank. The old man had done me. There he was, pistol in hand, firing from the hip. A shot was fired. I saw it coming. Slow motion. The bullet flew towards me with peaceful grace, accompanied by the vision of a Mexican ranch and the voice of a Civil War weary veteran offering advice and a single bullet of retaliation.
FUCKING HAVE THAT YOU OLD BASTARD!
The guitars backed me all the way, big churning filthy fuzzing guitars, set to the rhythm of the heaviest, pounding beat of a Led Zep song you imagine a Led Zep song should sound like.
A pistol whip for good measure.
My sudden act of violence upon the old man sent the ship into a stunned silence. Not one of the small party said a word. The Suit, silent. The Babysitter, silent. The Divorcee Slut, silent. The Asian Cornershop Owner, silent. The Gypsy Crane Driver, silent. The Butcher, silent. The small group of rabbits would have surely said a word if they had made it, but now silent.
The hostess dropped her guitar. It fell to the floor with all the clatter you would expect from an air guitar. Suddenly the thunderous engine and tinkering of mechanical parts snapped everyone back to life, and maybe snapped a few minds.
I noticed the sun was no longer directly in front of us, but flanking our side as if we were slowly passing by the giant eye of an outta space fire whale.
"Some bastard is fucking with me here! Who is it? You treacherous bastards tell me!" They were clearly all in on it. The smug worm in the suit called out to me. "Sit down number 4." Portmerion? Fuck off. No it’s true. He’s right. I can’t find a way out of this village. I’ve been walking for miles and keep ending up here at the bike repair shop. Maybe I should jog? Even a run?
“You want some?"
I turned from the down and out, weeping clouds of the Midlands sky to see Mazbeth slumped on my bedroom floor, eating Chinese take-away, bare foot. I turned back to the scene outside. Normality. Shit awful normality. The huge and deafening hum of deep space engine roar replaced with the asthmatic wheeze of a Training School Nissan Micra attempting to reverse around the corner.
"What was that shit you were just listening to?" Mazbeth asked.
"How long have you been sat there?"
"Long enough to see you freak out. I thought I was gonna have to put on some socks and get you to call for help"
What WAS I listening to?
"The case Mazbeth. The case. Where’s the fucking case you slob bastard?"
He tilted onto one cheek, I winced and hid my face in the neck of my sweater. Fearing the worst I turned away....
He tilted onto one cheek and pulled from under him the case.
Roused To Burning Homes was scrawled across the front, with the picture of some kind of protective headwear and goggles.
Without lifting his Jewish nose from the plastic tray, and with some kind of Cantonese radioactive slime juice smeared around his stubbled jowls he said to me, quite calmly, "That’s some fucked up shit man. The way you were acting, I thought you were partying without me. And what’s with the bike helmet?"

A review of Roused To Burning Homes
Track listing -
Solar Flare Signal System
Space Egg Nebulae
SFSS Dragaon Accelerator remix

metronome, metronome, metronome, metronome

The rhythm of the morning ritual slows my heart to a domestic beat.

....just a routine RTA Sargeant....

....more of a high speed steel smash in a dark, freezing, junkie infested tunnel, just as you thought the arsehole outskirts of a destitute Serbian town were nothing more than a terrible hallucination in your rearview mirror.
With not so much as the light of hope at either end, the only sound you hear is the echo of your own spirit leaving you for sinister times with the whore you like to call fate....

THE HORRORS LIVE: MAZBETH GETS THE HORRORS!!

MAZBETH GETS THE HORRORS!!

The smell hit me like a bale of hay to the face, or maybe a dead weight snooker ball to the dangling scrotum. No matter how many times I come to these stinkholes I never get used to that vile stench. I wondered to myself ‘can a smell really leave a lining on the oesophagus?’
My friend, of course, appears unfazed. In his crazed state, his senses and thoughts are closed to all but basic survival necessities. That and the ongoing quest to get as high as his mind will allow. Maybe higher? The flavour of the air, the bile and the stale beer, is merely a turn on for him. A free hit. Like a mask full of Vicks’ Vapo Rub to an early nineties rave mule.
I have chosen the wrong night to wear Desert boots. The flat soles causing some form of suction to this floor. Filthy, treacle tar.
We made our way to the fashionista geek in the ticket booth. We showed him our free press tickets and he let us through. The little shitbag thought we were one of ‘them,’ ‘on the inside,’ as if we were to laugh at the poor souls who had worked all week to be able to afford to come and be entertained in this place. This shit place. “Well fuck you and your cardigan.” I wanted to say. I accept the privileges of writing for a magazine - the free tickets and train fare - but I never wish to be associated with those Scenester bastards.
Our press tickets worked this time, but thirty minutes earlier, when they should’ve been at their most powerful, inspiring, and above all useful, we were left with our pants around our ankles and our thumbs firmly shoved up our arses….
….On a pointless, cold, blowing, drenched, midweek, November evening we were queuing with the uncastrated swine to get into this damn gig. Now, I defy any man, whatever his moral or social leanings, even Billy Bragg himself, to not use his resources, in our case these rotten passes, to ease himself to the front of a turgid queue, and request, with humble dignity and grace, to be let in ahead of the herd.
Maybe it was my unconfident arrogance or my friends stupor that made the ape on the door react like he did. Maybe it was just the apes lust, I’m unsure. I would love to tell you what it was that he said, but I fear, that if by some miracle, that big bald bastard should read this, he would not see that he has been portrayed as a charicature of a mentally defective, knuckle dragging shyster of a primate, but would regale in reading aloud his own words to his fellow fuckers and how he made two honest, good men, turn around at his cheaply leather clad and tin buckled feet, and make their way back down the queue. Past the depressingly fringed, unwashed T-shirt wearing, ball clenchingly tight jean suffering, skinny ankle and long shoe’d, inadequate, worthless, expensive, degenerate, sloppy drunk pricks and their attractive girlfriends, and take their place at the back of the queue. The ape had done us, and he knew that we knew he knew….
….But now, we were in, and we needed drink. My friend offered this round and I kindly took advantage. The bar was busy. Three, or four rows deep. Its hard to count the rows in such a frenzy. Fortunately my friend has excellent skills in dealing with crowds and getting to a bar. Those poor bastards are in for it. Oh shit. There he goes. An uncaged bird eating beast in a village park aviary.
Now would be a good time to tell you about my friend. He is an English Welsh-Jew. He claims it’s merely an act for the authorities and those after his accountable money. but I think that’s what an English Welsh-Jew would say?
Sober, he is a stand up man. A real locals man. Solid driving skills, always a kiss for his mother and a firm handshake for his fathers’ friends. I may have even run a few errands with the fucker? I believe that man, that good man, is named and christened Gareth.
I cant be sure of the name of the annihilated, inebriated, sky high, K-Holed, sexually aggressive schitzo being I am with tonight. There are rumours and muted musings it could be Mazbeth, but since no person, no group, no decent, coherent citizen has ever called for him to join the party or request any attention at all from the rabid beast, his name has never been truly known. Only the tattoo of the circumcised dragon on his exposed lower gut tells me it is the Welsh-Jew.
He was here to ease my nerves.
I waited for him to return from the bar before I made my first toilet. I knew he would not be best pleased with this decision.
“Why didn’t you go while I was at the fucking bar?” he spewed and foamed. His words and voice would lead you to believe he was angry, but his face was that of an emotionally hurt child. This was now a very dangerous place for me to be.
"We would’ve lost position. Here by the sound man is our best hope of covering this damn gig. After all, that is why we are here.” and with that sudden sense of responsibility now heaped upon him like an autumn’s worth of bull dung, I headed for the toilet.
I beat my way through the whores and slackasses who had formed around the Gents like a crippling dose of Crabs on the stinking arse of a malnourished Panda. I pulled a god awful and unwanted crashing manoeuvre through the door of the toilet. I was greeted by….[Burt Randolph goes on to describe in minute, graphic and unprintable detail what he witnessed. From the general ambience of the latrine, to the taunts, snorts, yells, raised hells, deals and deviance, and intolerable, nerve shredding, drawn out blasts of the hand drier. Ed]
….I returned to our vantage point refreshed, focused, alive and ready for work. YES YOU BASTARD!!
Mazbeth was nowhere to be seen. The tri-breed had deserted me in the field. I wondered if that kick in the balls I’d left him with was too much? But I know he is made of sterner stuff than that….
This meant one of two things. Either I would be forced to endure this whole jaunt alone, jumpy, paranoid and twisted. (Incidentally, this is not a drug induced state of paranoia. It is something I also have to face in my most sober of moments. I have an irrational fear that people think I am alone. When I see an innocent bystander, I ask myself, uncontrollably, instinctively , “are they alone?” so why should they not be thinking the same of me? A terrible, spiralling, dark angle to be coming from mentally.)
Either that or Mazbeth is roaming this place, completely ripped, ready to unleash his depraved urges onto a slug of a filthily willing, juiced up Devotchka. Real, true, shallow and depraved destruction. Jesus, now that would be worth covering.
BUT I am here to work. I am being paid and I am a Professional.
Just one more bar side altercation and a toilet….
….Once again I return to the vantage point. The Base. The Safe House. From here I am beginning to feel good. Secure. King lion. The big fuck off dominant male of the pride. Standing tall, one huge paw draped over the pink, fleshy, shredded carcass of a sorry Deer.
Right at that point, right as I was riding the rare crest of a high psychological wave, a piss filled glass missile shattered at my feet. My anus nearly exploding. Now where’s your fucking lion??
The last of the support bands are hurriedly packing away their gear - unnecessarily huge, heavy Fender amplifiers, snakes of leads, guitars crashing to the floor with sickening cracks. I feel for these bands. Ill tempered sound men and uninterested punters. Why do they put themselves through it? Its for the kick. The Dream. That moment you are alive and doing what you know you want to. Not even the lust filled arms of a fervent lover could drag those boys from the stage. True, raw, underestimated passion. Fair play to the little psyche rock turds.
Now fuck off and on with the show!
….Yatta Yatta Yatta (as my Mazbeth might say,) blah blah blah, more shit, more drunks, more drinks….
Finally, the headlining band walk on stage. No swagger, no bravado. The walk merely a means of getting to their instruments. It was The Horrors.
A band I knew nothing of or wanted to know anything of until I read a review comparing their latest album, Primary Colours, to greats such as The Jesus And Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and even German noise makers Neu. From these optimistic references I bought the album and yes, I can confirm, it is good. But now this is live. This is what many would say - ‘it is all about.’
No fucking around. Guitars on, drummer seated, and in. Slow and deceptively fucking loud. The growing, eerie church synth machine shocking the over excitable teens at the front. Calming them the fuck down. Scaring the living crap out of the little nipple sucklers.
Mirror’s Image builds like the reversal of death. The calm serene sounds with a heartbeat kick drum keeping you hanging on in bliss. A repeated keyboard riff snags my consiousness and brings me back round. The rest of the band stand, fidgeting, waiting for their cue. There it is. A blast. A rush. A colossal distorted chord. If I had brought my elephant net I could’ve caught half of the front row before they slammed against the back wall. Immediately, Faris Badwan morphs into Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs. A fine band, but Butler’s influence is cling film. Although fuck it, it works. The guitar is also very much that of Kevin Shields, bent and distorted into nauseating drones. Beautiful. All these sounds, the sickening guitar, Badwans frustrated drawl, a straight solid rhythm, and relentless synths and keys, build to a huge, ear splitting mantra before fading to an end.
Three Decades. Again the bent guitar sounding huge but this time fronting a more agitated drum beat. The Keys like being mauled by a Helta-Skelta. Badwan paces the stage, reminiscent of a delinquent waiting to give the headmaster some real shit. The whole thing is like getting mugged by Suicide on the last night of a deserted, blowing, New Jersey fairground. Suddenly the music breaks. A chance to take a look behind me, only to be greeted by David Lynch and the sounds of Eraserhead. Squealing steel, the drums and chiming keys chasing me to the end of the icy dark pier. As I reach the edge, about to plunge into the heavy waves I’m hauled back by Badwans call, “Forget your regrets.” I throw up on the pinball machine.
Primary Colours, and Richard Butler is on stage. Surely. My eyes and ears no longer working in tandem. The ill fated fairground trip is back, but this time only from memory, not first hand. A more pleasant and refreshed sound but still the same. Dare I say a more Eighties Indie sound? Yes I do. The Cure, The Smiths, Joy Division even Depeche Mode. Still no sign of The Jesus And Mary Chain though? Where are they? The only references I can hear are the fizzing guitars and feedback, and as we all know, as soon as that happens, you are on Mary Chain turf. They say.
To be fair the rest of the set goes much the same. Some high points and not so high points, but mainly high points. Lots more demented but skillful guitar work, more of Badwan’s petulant, gloomy drawls and a few bits of German drumming.
Despite my unenthusiastic tone, this music truly is explosive at times. Listen to Scarlet Fields. Listen to Sea Within A Sea. Listen to the depth. Its all there, writhing in your earphones. Making hard soft love to your insides. Just trust me, buy the album and go see them you idle misfit. If you like any of the mentioned, mainly eighties bands, then you’re in luck - something of that sound has made mainstream. Easy access for you sloppy media studies layabouts.
Mazbeth? Where the fuck….? One more and I’m off. I ordered a good short, washed down with two odorous but cold beers. Something to give me the strength and bravery to face this terrible November weather. Outside, at this time of year, is no place for a decent man.
The sweat drenched crowd began to disperse. Spilling through the make shift barriers and out into the skunking streets. Hysterical squeals from the boys, and girls on fruitless, sexual missions.
As the floor emptied, there he was. Drain hair in the plug hole as the stagnant water of a Sunday League full back’s bath drained away, defiantly.
I gave him a quick, sharp, loud blast in my best Chief Brody voice, “You Son-of-a-Bitch!” He looked pleased to see me. Holy shit. Grinning, pulsating, sodden, and eternally pleased. “Where the fuck have you been?” I politely asked, like a dingo to a rotting corpse.
“Oh man! You should’ve been there man! Why didn’t you come in! Man the young poon! They fucking love it!” he gargled and yelled like a victorious pest. Then, as quick as a blown bulb, his face straightened, “Lets get out of here. I’m getting the fear.” His words gave me the fear. What the hell has he done? Who has he touched in places no other man has yet to touch? This damn pervert is a menace.
I agreed and we made a direct exit.
We walked with purpose, kidding ourselves out of being drunk, straight to the train station. We waited for our train. We boarded our train. We rode the train. We got off the train. We flagged down a taxi. This is the way I wish to remember it.
In the taxi, Mazbeth decided he must make some nice destruction, so I rolled the fat pig out at the seediest end of town. A big, heavy inflammation of a man to kick out of a taxi. “Open the fucking door you fucking stupid bastard!” I burst at him. He innocently fumbled for the handle. By chance his fat man wing caught it and he fell out. Partly. His heavy legs and arse still wedged. A few firm, positive and heavy kicks with the soles of my Desert boots dislodged the mess. As soon as the suspension sprang back to the regular ride height the driver sped off, clearly not amused with the dismount. I was left in the back on my own. Make conversation. Apologise for your friends behaviour. No, it would’ve been an empty apology, and at this time of night, in this weather, I don’t want to fuck off the taxi driver to the point of abandonment.
It all washed over though by the time we stopped at the next red light and I climbed into the front seat. The rain on the windows multiplying the stop light by millions. No bad vibes in here anymore. Soothing late night, none descript radio. Nice. Though the gravely mumbles soon became too soothing, sending me off.
“Got any cd’s?” I asked, breaking the silence and trying to hide my imminent wretch.
The driver nodded to the glove box and I pulled out his stash. He leafed through the wallet, reading the faces of the copied cd’s in the passing, momentarily illuminating, orange street lights. He found the cd and fed it in. Track 2. Van Morrison. Moondance. The first verse passed with no word from either of us, just my dad’s mocking grin. My answering smile told him I knew, his smile widening, shifting as seamlessly as his gear changes into an audible chuckle. He struck my leg with the back of his hand. “Good lad! Van the Man! The Voice. The Little Fat Bastard!”