Author: Bob

Newquay 94.

Classic times. Coming of age holiday on a shoestring. Blind Melon on the stereo. Tents pitched at Sandry’s. Tattoos. Piercings. Scrumpy. Grunge nights. And a fair bit of sunshine! In fact, one of these sunny days, after dyeing his hair red, Chris decides he is going to attempt to emulate a negative of Phil Anselmo’s famous “UNSCARRED” tattoo on his own midriff using sunblock and sunburn. Or maybe it was permanent marker, can’t quite remember. We are all fully supportive of this quest, and watch intently as he starts writing it across his body… U, N,(swig of cider) S, (Cig Break), A “awww shit I missed out the C!!! HAHAHAHHAHA, Oh well…” and on he went, changing the word to UNSACRILIGIOUS instead, which was so long it ended up going halfway round the left side of his back! Much to our amusement.

Later we went into town for real tattoos. Chris did not enjoy his in the slightest and spent the duration of the inking grimacing, contorting his lips, threatening to walk away and repeatedly asking Steve when he was gonna finish. Afterwards, he swore never to have another tattoo. Here’s a worried before pic…..

Carmel College, 23rd September 1993.  The 1st proper public performance of our band Necropolis BZ.

It was a college band night and the place was buzzing, 200-300 people altogether, mostly students.  The nervous energy was in overdrive.  We had been rehearsing 4 of our own tunes (I think that was probably all we had at the time) and we thought they were AMAZING; surely a record deal and world stardom was just around the corner… err, yeah ok, haha… The naivety of deluded teenage dreams.

The event management (some disorganised students) kept telling us “you’re on next” and then changing their minds and pushing us down the bill, it must have happened at least 4 times and we were getting angry about it because we kept getting psyched up towards going up on stage and then having it pulled out from under us.

As it turned out, we ended up playing right  when the crowd was at its peak in terms of size and energy, and we blasted our way through the first three tunes, at about twice their normal speed and we were loving it.  On the count in to the last song we got told that time was up and we had to get off stage.  Gutted.  I remember looking out into the lights and the crowd, knowing they were loving it (probably not as much as we were) and said “Awww they won’t let us play”… a quick whip round of glances round the band later, it was back on.  No way were they gonna tell us to get off OUR STAGE, “1,2,3,4….” and off we went.

Can’t remember what tune it was, but what I will always remember is halfway through it Chris suddenly had some kind of jazz attack, stopped playing, slung his guitar down on the floor centre stage, and started doing a flailing red indian style war dance round it for a few seconds, with the rest of us watching open mouthed as he then looked up and launched himself off the end of the stage and into the crowd, surfing briefly before going under and out of sight.  Rock & Roll!  We wrapped up the tune without him, and at the end I followed his lead, diving into the crowd who managed to part just in time to let me fall pretty much untouched from 10 feet high onto my arse and back.  Due to the adrenaline rush, I just bounced right up and ran off (limping) to find the boys backstage.  We were buzzing for weeks afterwards.

Somewhere, somebody has a grungy old VHS tape of this gig.  Matt Halliwell or Dazzy T maybe…. Hope it survived!  Would be ace to stick it up on here.

This rather unremarkable snapshot is from 13 March 2011/Boys night in at Mark & Maria’s old gaff.

Me & Chris drove up together a while after the other boys as we had dad duties to attend to.  Not seeing each other often due to 1 thing & another (mainly as I have been in London for the last 10 years) we had a really good, quiet, sober 1 to 1 catch up on the journey, and for old times sake listened to Amorica by The Black Crowes for the 1st time in years; both of us blown away about actually how good an album it was.  *Confession* we raided Sarah’s room at Murphy towers for this and 1 or 2 other CD’s before we set off.   Which reminds me….

After picking Chris up from his wee cottage, we drove to his Mum & Dad’s to pick up a box of bits, bobs and memorabilia belonging to the original landlords of The Gypsey Tavern, so Chris could hand it all back to Ste.  We popped out to the Murphy shed – which was a real blast from the past, considering that a few of us practically lived there during our late teens.  Out came the box, and he starts sifting through the items showing me stuff, he pulled out a boddingtons bar towel and a mouse jumped up and scared the bejesus out of him.  I nearly wet myself with laughter as he squealed like a girl and said “f*** this, I’m off, you empty the box!”  and disappeared back into the house.  Charming.  So I slowly took everything out piece by piece, no sign of the mouse though.  Anyway, eventually he came out again “done it yet?”, “yeah just about” and then he picked the bottom item out of the box and the mouse jumped right up and out of the box.  Chris jumped twice as high.  Pure comedy.

We got to Mark’s, the lads had already had 1 or 2, Ste Whitt feeling a bit amorous was getting the old frisky wobble in his legs and kept repeatedly kissing me on the dome.  AND I saw Andy awake after midnight for probably the first time this century. Quite remarkable.

Anyway, after a night shooting pool in Marky G’s garage, must have been 2 or 3 O’Clock, Chris decides he’s gonna feed us all with Mark & Maria’s bacon.  That’s him working the grill in the photo.  Someone offered him the tongs after we saw him sharply letting go of each piece of hot bacon whilst trying to turn them with his hands.  But he declined, and to much mirth proceeded to continue dramatically burning his fingers with bubbling bacon juice, muttering complaints to himself until the butties were done.  And much needed they were too.  Nice one Murf 🙂 Bro