Knee Deep in the Craic
2 AM on a Thursday night in 1993. Mr. Bad Cop and Mr. A Bit Naughty Cop were emptying the contents of the Misery Machine onto a road just outside Felinheli, North Wales. This was an ongoing occurrence, every week, sometimes twice a week. I had gotten to the point where all my documents were under the sun visor, ready to go, as I was becoming on first-name terms with the station staff every time I got a producer to go show my details.
I couldn't work out why we were of such great interest to them—a bright orange Transit van with two multi-haired, scruffy guys driving around late at night. A bit obvious if we were criminals, maybe it was a double bluff, maybe we were peacocking drug dealers.
So on this occasion, they were pulling up the stained carpets, throwing everything out, going through the dash, and they spotted a pack of Rizlas with the corner ripped out. "Ah-ha," they thought, "we've got you, you reefer madness hippy." They asked me, I explained that I don't smoke. They made me empty my pockets, a pack of Marlboros came out, I explained they were my girlfriend's.
At this point, a small white van went past, which actually did look to be up to no good, and Starsky and Hutch peeled off into the night, leaving me to throw the contents of the Misery Machine back together.
One day, while transporting some large PA gear as a favour to someone down a narrow road, a policewoman came speeding around the bend in her Panda car, forcing us off the road. "Uh oh," I thought, "this will somehow be my fault." She sped off, we continued for about a mile before she appeared out of nowhere to pull us over. She ranted, she blamed, etc., etc., then she got down to the nitty-gritty of checking the van. My documents in hand, we opened up the back of the van. We were then bombarded by questions: "Who does this belong to?", "Do you have receipts?", and on it went. She even called for backup. After one hour of this, she eventually gave up.
On and on this went, so it was with great determination that I stood in front of the band Headbutt, insisting that under no circumstances should they be carrying any form of drugs or other illegal paraphernalia whilst travelling in North Wales. There'd be no arrests on this tour.
How the whole tour with supporting Headbutt came about was through a friend of a friend whose cousin knew a man, etc. The 'Dead Girl Opened' tape had been doing the rounds and doing quite well. Headbutt had been offered a small tour of Cork and Dublin, then back to London and Northampton, and we had a van and a two-piece band.
Phone calls and arrangements were made; we even threw together a stop-off gig in Bangor to bridge the gap to London. We threw what little gear we had, as many clothes as we could wear as this was January, and headed to London to pick up Headbutt. The usual drudge of driving the Misery Machine—top speed of 50 mph, no heater, no stereo (it had been nicked a few weeks back and surprisingly the police were of no help). Games of I Spy turned into "female drummers you'd bang" and eventually we arrived in Kilburn, in the fair city of London.
We met Keith, the main singer in Headbutt, and the next few hours were spent collecting the other four members and gear around London. We bundled them all into the back—no home comforts here—then back on the road to North Wales to catch the ferry to Dublin.
With no sleep, I was the only driver and struggling to keep awake. I rolled the Misery Machine into Holyhead port. A quick once-over by those in charge and some much-needed sleep till we got to Dublin.
That morning we met the promoter for the two shows, a rather intense guy, who I had a sneaky feeling might be on a lot of speed due to his many frantic and rapid outbursts. Maybe he was just excited, who knows. So now there were eight of us, three upfront, and the other five holed up in the back of the van with all the gear. I'm guessing living conditions in there weren't great, but upfront was no better. The promoter was navigating and his rapid outbursts were putting me on edge whilst trying to get us to Cork for the show on time. The roads were horrific, potholes like craters, lack of decent sleep, being on edge with the unpredictable promoter, and trying to get us there on time was taking its toll. Eventually the Misery Machine must have felt my pain, and decided to just die on the road. We coasted to the side. The van was dead as a dodo. Nothing. It was getting dark, and here we were in the middle of nowhere in Ireland, just fields of fuck all. No traffic, no phones, no breakdown cover, no mechanical knowledge.
Someone spots a light from a house, and off they go to get help, or be murdered, who knew.
Ten minutes later he returns, followed by a tractor, and what I can only describe as a mountain man of a farmer gets out. He was huge. He sets to work under the bonnet, he starts pulling and pushing bits and wires with his meaty paws, and then points at me to turn the ignition. It roars into life! Everyone cheers and lavishes thanks on the farmer who still hasn't spoken. Being a skint bunch of bastards, we had no cash to give him, so God bless Headbutt, they find the largest fit T-shirt they have and give it to him. He seems happy and off he goes into the dark. I always hoped that he'd just be out there cutting crops in the bright red Headbutt T-shirt.
Now, running behind, we floored it for Cork and made it without any time to spare. I think the venue was called 'The Village' and I remember it was an amazing place. Gear all unloaded, time to soundcheck. This would be the first time I had heard Headbutt as I only had a rough idea of what they did. They were down a member but said five people would work. Two played drums/percussion and three played basses, and Keith did the singing. It was intense, brutal, and like someone kicking the air out of your lungs. Any form of tiredness was expunged; they were amazing. Our turn to soundcheck. As usual for us, a four-track recorder of backing, guitar and amp, and vocals—keep it simple. The drum machine came blasting through the PA and sounded huge; we ran through a song, and I'd never been happier of how it sounded than then. Everybody was happy. Keith was relieved, as if we had been shit it would have mired the entire tour.
At this point, I had driven over 800 miles in 36 hours with about 2 hours sleep, but nerves and excitement were holding me together. Showtime. It was a good-sized venue, and the good freaks of Cork had come out for the night. The drums fired up, the dancefloor exploded, and for the next 30 minutes, it was a wash of flying dreadlocks, floor pounding, sweat, and good times. I felt the most alive I had ever felt. We finished and just immediately started chatting with everyone, people buying us drinks, offering us places to crash for the night. I wanted to move to Cork, these people were epic. Headbutt got up to play, and the energy just kept flowing. The night came to an end, everyone was buzzing, even the promoter had a manic smile. We headed to sleep on someone's floor that they had kindly offered us, but had a quick look around Cork first. What a place. Lots of religious imagery with neon halos.
The following day was another long trek back to Dublin for the next show. Potholes and spinal injuries were broken up by stopping for a quick pint of Guinness in a small local pub, who were quite bemused by eight dirty-looking buggers with funny hair.
At some point the wing mirror fell off—not the bolts, but a huge piece of metal that it was attached to just fell off. Now, if you can't fix it with gaffer tape, it can't be fixed. One roll later and we're back on the road.
The venue in Dublin was a bit bigger, the soundcheck went okay. The audience, though, they were of the "too cool for you" brigade, so required a huge amount of work to encourage them. They mainly stayed on the fringes looking fabulous. We did what we did. By the time Headbutt's set started, I was crippled with tiredness, so I found a small shelf behind the stage to sleep on. The throb of drums and bass gently rocked me off to sleep. I awoke an hour later, being told to shift gear and open the van. A quick stop at Abrakebabra for food and back to the promoter's house. He spared no expense in telling us we would likely have the van robbed in the night, so two of us had to sleep in it. Cold, and with a constant dripping of condensation bouncing off my head, I pulled my sleeping bag over my head, randomly shouting "Fuck Off!" whenever I heard the door handles being twisted.
The following day, dirty, cold, and not in the best of moods, we bid our fond farewells to the promoter and headed back to the ferry and back to North Wales. Luckily, a gig in Bangor meant I could have a much-needed shower and fresh pants at home before we did the gig. We arranged for Headbutt to crash at a squat a friend of ours was staying in. I don't think the alternative crowd of Bangor were ready for Headbutt, but we and they enjoyed it.
Fresh from a good night's sleep and cleanish clothes, we headed to London for the Bull & Gate show. We had barely made it 15 miles out of Bangor when the blue lights of a strip search lit up the mirrors.
We pulled over, panic set in as we still had four people in the back with no seats. The officer sauntered up with a smile; I already had my documents in hand. He smiled, "Happen a lot, does it?" he asked. "Yeah," I replied. With a quick check of the paperwork, he goes, "Fair enough, let's check the back." My heart sank. I explained we're on tour, just been to Ireland, etc., etc., and he seemed genuinely interested. I opened up the back; the smell was fairly overpowering, a mix of sweat and damp. He takes one look, turns to me and says, "Jesus, there's loads of you. Anyway, safe trip and have a good show," then toddles back to his police car.
Dumbfounded, I closed the doors, got back in, and started the van, still confused and still awaiting a strip search, but it never came, and we eventually made it to London.
This was Headbutt's stomping ground, so it would definitely be a good show. It was. We blasted through our set, more in shock to actually play to a crowd in London. It was a good, fun set, but to be honest, nothing was going to beat the Cork show. Headbutt went full on with even more percussion, fire extinguishers, bedpans—pretty much anything and everything, mostly procured from skips. The crowd loved it. On the tour, they told us they once collapsed a stage; having watched them, I could well believe it.
That night we stayed with Keith; finally having a proper chance to talk, we discovered he used to play in a band called Bastard Kestrel, who we loved. Jim, one of the percussionists, had previously played in Psychic TV, and it kind of showed. He had also waited until we got back to London to inform us he'd been hiding his speed collection in his underpants. They had one more show in a few days in Northampton they wanted us to play, but at this point, endless driving, damp, and cold had given me a severe case of tonsillitis, and I just wanted my bed, so we declined and made our way to Bangor. In those few short days, the Misery Machine had covered over 1,500 miles, held together by farmer engineering and gaffer tape. I had no idea how it kept going, but grateful that it did.
Eventually, we had to sell the Misery Machine as we could no longer afford to keep it on the road. So a friend of ours bought it to transport his PA gear around in. I think he made the mistake of trying to fix it, not realizing it ran on neglect and petrol. I did hear a rumour that eventually it ended up on a farm somewhere, being used as a potting shed, which made me very happy. It had earned its retirement.
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