A Drive by Shooting in Weymouth

We were on the A354 on the way to Weymouth when the fear of no windscreen wipers took hold. 

It was 1993 and we had embarked on a short tour as we often did, spreading the word in our untrustworthy Ford Transit, the original 'Misery Machine'.

We had been in London the previous night playing a gig at the Kentish Town Bull and Gate, which had gone ok even though we were the first band on and failed to drag in many bodies, but this is how shows went, some good, some bad. As long as they were never indifferent.

We also had a brief second meeting with a potential record company which I'll cover in another story.

So fresh faced and full of hope, we set off for Weymouth.  (A few things I should point out about The Misery Machine; it was bright orange, a proper workhorse, but riddled with problems.  It had no heater and wouldn't go faster than 50mph, even downhill. It was not comfortable; the back was kitted out with a second hand carpet we had got from a skip, and when we were bored we would play guess the stain. It had a large Union Jack cushion and a poster of Sharon Stone, I couldn't tell you why as I really didn't know)


About half way through the journey, after a brief petrol, pee, and no doubt a dirty magazine purchase stop, we encountered our first problem.  The driver's wiper blade failed. No issues; we were used to getting McGuyver on things. We swapped the blade from the passenger side over and left the other arm sticking up. Yeah, we were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.

The rain got worse, but we headed on.  Next the wiper blades decided they didn't like going side to side,  they felt that just going once was enough.  We pulled over again, and in the pissing down rain discovered that with a bit of a pull, the wiper arms would work.  

So we fired up the theme to A Team and got to work. With all the ingenuity we could muster we tied some cable to the blade, fed it through the driver's window and into the back of the van, where my partner had positioned himself on the Union Jack cushion.

We headed out again, and with a rhythmic shout from me: "PULL!", my partner would pull the cable and the wipers would dutifully work, before settling back into their broken state. "PULL"....."PULL" and so it went on. 

I think we had made it a whole five miles in torrential rain, until eventually, on a dual carriageway about 20 miles from Weymouth, the final pull sent our much needed windscreen wiper off down the motorway, never to be seen again.

So there we sat, on the hard shoulder, minus windscreen wipers and any hope of getting to Weymouth for the show. Cold, wet and miserable. With no breakdown cover, we sat and waited, and eventually the rain stopped, the clouds parted and the sun appeared.  We cheered and fired up the Misery.

As we drove into Weymouth I was struck by its quietness, like a smaller calmer Blackpool.  The streets were quiet, and the whole place felt sleepy. I figured we would know that society had finally failed; when there was a drive by shooting in Weymouth.

We arrived at the venue to a rather dumbfounded bar manager who explained that the local advertising had cocked up by promoting the gig for the following night, but since we were here we should play. Great. Then he revealed we had to play two 30 minute sets.  We had one 30 minute set prepared.

Not to be discouraged, we unloaded, set up and sound checked . A minimal bar stage with some inhouse sound-sensitive disco lights, and we were good to go.

Not to be deterred by adversity, we headed out to the streets to drum up some interest. It was quiet. Too quiet.


Eventually we secured some nice gentlemen from a punk band called 'Haywire', who came in to support us. Well, two is better than fuck all, so we started. A few folks drifted in and we did what we did (made noise)  After our first set, we decided our second set would be a repeat of the 30 minute set we had just finished. 

The bar manager ushered us over, informing us there wouldn't be much point doing a second set as there were four people in the audience

Deflated, we started to pack our gear, but the punk lads wanted more, and in a last minute of saving grace, a big alternative crowd of folks arrived. 

The bar manager stuck with his original decision. I got that feeling he wasn't feeling the music if I'm honest.  So I asked him about our fee (a whole £60). He replied that since we only played one set, we would be paid £30. I protested that we were promised £60, only to be met with "You can either have £30 or fuck all".

So we loaded the van, helped by the punk lads. They helped so much they put the disco lights from the venue into the van. We all agreed this was the right thing to do since they had stiffed us £30. Morally and legally a grey area, but on the mean streets of Weymouth, street law prevails.

We hot footed it from the venue, having agreed to give our partners in a crime a lift home to say thanks.  The drummer was pretty intent on grabbing his drum kit and coming on the rest of the tour but we only had three dates left and we really didn't want to come back to Weymouth. So we bid our fond farewells and headed into the night.

Deciding to put as much distance as possible between us and an angry bar manager missing some disco lights, we ploughed on.  If the police had been informed we were unlikely to outrun them.  We were tired and cold, but at least it had stopped raining.  I was convinced I was hallucinating when I saw a large glowing deer on the side of the mountain, but it turned out to be the Babycham factory in Shepton Mallet.

Eventually we ended up in Bristol, found a Safeways car park and settled down for a cold night's sleep on the weirdly stained carpet.

Yeah, this was the rock 'n' roll I had heard so much about.

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