Maniacal May - a month with much to like

Apart from during Deadbeat days it usually meant my mania was at its highest. Promising and delivering frequntly diverged during May. The biggest obstacle was whether I was going to sit the exams at Uni with any aim of passing them or if I would save it for later and just do them in August and enjoy the Mayhem associated with end of terms.

The latter was the usual decision although in 1981/82 I had done a crash course 1st and 2nd year Psychology and this had held my interest for the full year, a rarity during my adolescence, oh, and later life. By 1982/83 I was preparing to be evicted from Uni having spent all my time in Dundee doing Deadbeat. The idea had been to get into gigs, get free records,  get some publicity for the band but by May 1983 Life Support were rarely mentioned as I realised there were so many good bands people should see. then in issue 13 we published the first interview New Order had done since Joy Division, 2 days before Sounds, NMW etc had their own versions as the band finally decided to do interviews. We didn't realise the importance at the time, it was a day later when every copy of Deadbeat had been sold that we thought we better put another one out faster than usual. Derek was a Big Country fan and his interview with Stuart Adamson summed up the total fanzine experience.

Looking back 29 years later its fantastic to see it was right place right time, at the time we were confused why issue 13 had gone so well, especially when 14 and 15 didn't sell so well. Fans of Hey! Elastica will of course say it was nothing to do with New Oeder or Big Country and I agree!

I remember trying to work out if Da Vinci was more important than Lou Reed. Was the Mona Lisa better than Perfect Day. Or should I be comparing Andy Warhol with Da Vinci, or Picasso;s paintings with Reed's Berlin. Well of course its like comparing Turnbull's Tornadoes with the Famous Five team or even my Great Grandad's team that won the cup in 1887, but as I look back, I seriously wanted to debate the issue in 1983. Nowadays I can see Simon Cowell trying to get comparisons with Andy Warhol, but at the end of the day Da Vinci is a bit more than the Mona Lisa. Perhaps comparing Picasso's Guernica with with Paul Weller's down in the tube station at midnight might've got us some way down the road of where we were going but that's for another day. Manical Mays. Maniacal Deadbeat Days in the maniacal month of May. Madness, its just, madness.

By 1984 it was all about Pop Wallpaper. We really tried hard to support Evan and the band and there was some modest success but by 1984 punk had long gone and people were getting involved in studio and bigger words like production as these things had started to become affordable and offered an amazingly intense distraction from just getting out and performing. Many band floundered in the studio as the hard work associated with repetition and interpretation of what sound they really wanted struck a dischord, not least the Happy Family.

1985 saw issue the 2 year anniversary of our New Order interview and so the April issue doubled as May, that or its when "my drinking became a proper stinking". Paul King is either making a comeback or a number of producers have reached that age when they feel they can put the bands from when they were 15 back on the radio, Crucial Xylophones need to get better connected as their music does deserve another airing. That Deadbeat tape was really representative of Scotland with Les Gaff's Rhythm System pounding out some excellent sounds.



My head as I said was always all over the place and Deadbeat had got to issue 15

April Deadbeats

As the daffodils fade, the sweet scent of the April Deadbeats were upon us. Easter holidays meant working and earning some dosh to go back to St Andrews with, well it did in 1983 for issue 12, I earnt enough to take Deadbeat to London and put it in Virgin in Oxford Street and Rough Trade. In these days of surfing for downloads its hard to comprehend what a massive step forward the Virgin megastore was. You could trawl through the racks for hours, flicking your fingers, much the same as we glide through the touch sensitive screens of 2012. I'm chuckling as I remind myself that A Flock of Seagulls were releasing 'nightmares' and I'm reliving some as I read the reviews, not least Life Support. Happily Peppermint Pig by Cocteau Twins and Alphaville by the Monochrome Set survive the patchy reviewer's ear, and The Marine Girls, LP "lazy ways" warms us up for the summer of 83. There's a review of U2's gig at Tiffany's in Glasgow and interviews with Friends Again, APB and Pop Wallpaper, other reviews include Club Feet in Dundee where I said it makes Edinburgh's Hoochie Coochie look like Wigan, obviously not everyone was drinking the same stuff as me, but I did like the way the DJ followed "Rip it Up", with "Boredom". 22 Beaches, Wild Indians, Sleep Detectives, Tears for Fears and Fun Boy Three complete the issue.

Issue 24 in April 1984 was another of the great additions to the racks of Ripping Records, Record Shak, Tayside Bar, Groucho, Virgin and the other fine stockists of Deadbeat. Interviews with Dancing Bears, Morrissey, Kirk Brandon Del Amitri, Danse Society, there were loads.

Have I got Scottish music 2, aka Deadbeat's second tape was finally released. The incomparable Dancing Bears with Ritchie Lambert's superb dancing songs a lasting memory for me. He's still gigging down south and last summer somebody sent me a youtube link for a video of a gig at Roslin. If I ever get a Deadbeat reunion organised the Dancing Bears would have to be there. I'm 50 in December, seems like an idea.....if not we could have a Deadbeat Tapes Karaoke.....Jo Doll must be well up for reliving some Circus of Hell, Jeremy Thoms doing some Strawberry Tarts....Martin Stephenson and the Daintees....Hey! Elastica, Josef K, the Cubs,..

Back to April 1984, Morrissey was indeed a charming man. After their gig at Clouds in Edinburgh he gave us a quick brush off but asked us to send some questions through to him. As sceptical as we were, a week later they all returned with answers. Popstars back in the day were so much more friendly. Like Gillian Gilbert in April 1985 after the New Order gig at the Barrowlands. She was absolutely superb and I discovered the tape of the interview in the garage last month. The chuckle factor is huge as I asked one stupid question after another. Thankfully Gillian interpreted them successfully so the answers negated the need for me to print some of the questions, phew!

Paul King adorns the cover of Deadbeat with our new letraset, Deadbeat's experiment was close to the deathknell as we seemed to spend more time printing than publishing. It was an experiment, a bit like the rolls I was making at my mum's roll shop, the picnic basket, opposite the pear tree pub in Edinburgh. As well as selling Deadbeat's I was selling Chicken and Avocado rolls, Brie and Apple, and this experiment was far more successful in 1985 than changing the letraset. The problem with working though was taking its toll on the interviews and the energy to put another issue out. There is however some gems and the Paul King and Gillian Gilbert interviews ensured that an issue needed to be produced. The review of the Crucial Xylophones was also another driving force in getting the issue published. We had also finally completed Deadbeat Tape 3 and The Government, Men Men, Rhythm System, Relations, Pulsebeat Plus, Swirle, Crossfire & Splash me I'm Drowning deserved to get their music out.

Oh and of course, the reviews of the Immaculate Fools at the Dance Factory in Dundee were superb. So good I have to remind you all especially the DJ!!

Mad March Deadbeats

The most beautiful woman I ever met was Annie Lennox. I'm a teeth man, and when I saw Annie's smile I was smitten, sorry! I was seriously sent sideways when she agreed that we do an interview and it was fantastic. There are places and times that people remember - meeting Annie with Hilary in the hotel opposite the Dance Factory was one of them. Eurythmics had played at the larger Barracuda rather than the usual Dance Factory venue that night and the sound problems that plagued them hadn't been the best but we had happily traipsed behind them to their happy home for the night at the Hilton. Keith had given me loads of really good questions, being a smart boy, he'd seen my past interviews and knew that a little bit of assistance was the minimum required if we were to get a good interview by Deadbeat standards. I on the other hand was smart enough to let Hilary do the talking and the question relating to 'Green' from Scritti Politti was a beezer. I'd never have thought of that. Mine would have been more like - who's that geezer in the background on...., but Keith was a natural and ensured if we did get to chat to Annie it would be worthwhile. Lest  I offend anyone, that first sentence was not completed, The most beautiful woman I ever met was Annie Lennox, obviously except, everybody who might take offence to that!

That's why I kept my mouth shut. Guys have that tendency to think that praise is a good thing. It can be an excellent thing, but not when it means that I've now insulted every other woman I've met and said at best they're number two to Annie, but I was young, stupid and not much has changed.

Issue 11 was written and out the door before we had time to blink. The Higsons issue had gone well, and for Annie's issue we printed over 600. Small quantities by website hits nowadays but the important thing for us was just trying to make sure we sold an issue so we could print another. It was as simple as that. We spent £50 printing it so selling 500 meant we could print another, selling 600 meant we were partying all night....one day each issue....

The end of February 1984 was the end of the Tav, or the old Taverne, in Dundee, as it made way for the motorway that proudly stands there today. Issue 10 was the last it sold, but the 20 copies sold were much appreciated, well the £2 was surely swiftly spent. By March it was no more...

Issue 10 also had an account of our adventure to Paris; ".......as Dieppe opened it arms, legs and banks for our passing francs those for which us tourists are so renowned....." re-reading it now I think I'd also been listening to too much Soft Cell, "...the real story of nightclubbin and excellent cuisine, cheap'n'nasty service for percent 15, Sexual harassement and dirty flics...all the glories ensure a nation's capital ticks" we love a rhyme, although in 1984 much more trouble spelling rhyme...

By March 1984 we were into issue 23 and we'd run out of most back issues.  March was clearly a good month for interviews, or at least the interviews from February that made the March edition. The mailing list had swollen to about 35 names, back issues were running low not least the flexi issue and the New Order one, but room on the shelves was sparse as we had printed 2000 of issue 22 and not sold them. We did however send them to over 50 record companies DJs and the like, and we got tons of records, our own wee mini harvest. We hadn't worked out that you didn't need to review every piece of vinyl sent, but the notes from the archives are hysterical. "sent tape to Karen, New Zealander, just moved to Scraborough from London" why that's relevant then never mind now I've no idea, but they wanted a Deadbeat Tape and we wanted to oblige. We wanted some of the bands to get signed but ifthey didn't then at least they got some airplay in some record company or radio station's back room.

Malcolm Ross was a joy to interview. He had a great corner flat back then near the meadows, in Edinburgh's own "Iron building", on the southside. He had played around Edinburgh all the time I was watching my brother blow his saxophone there seemed Josef K, Fire Engines, Scars and Another Pretty Face gigs every other night, although the memory's waning like my Mum's, although at 79 she's entitled to be wandered.

March 1985 was the same as February, issue 29, it seemed to last forever, probably because we were listening to all the music sent to us! I still chuckle at the cartoon. My Mum was only 52 when she was running the Picnic Basket, in her prime, a whirling dervish as she sliced through the rolls, nowadays she'd take her hand off. What that has to do with the music or Deadbeat is neither here nor there, but at least she had a good birthday the other day and the old man paid for the meal. When she turned 52 we probably had a meal of cheese and pickle wholemeal rolls (traditionally a bad seller in March)

Feb Ded's or a Deadbeat February

With snow on the ground a February issue was rarely a big one although no. 9 would go down as one of our fastest selling covers. We ran out of no. 9's in 1983 within a week of printing them.

I think by February 1984 we'd arrived in Liverpool, London, Norwich, Newcastle and other places south of the border but in 1983 it was only Scotland for issue 9 and we were dumbstruck. Numbed by Guinness and the snowballs we took ourselves off to see Charlie Higson and his troubadours, got an interview, thanked them very much and got another issue out. 10p might not seem a lot but when Guinness was 50p that meant I only had to sell 5 Deadbeats every 20 minutes.

Issue 22 in February 1984 was a different animal - going from being 20 to 21 had taken its toll on the body while Thatcher had taken it out on the economy.  I now needed to sell 7 Deadbeats for a pint of Guinness. I decided 6 Deadbeats for a pint of Tennents represented good value so changed my drink. How are the life changing decisions made. I have purified 2000 pints a year since and will be consuming my 60,000th pint in time for T-in-the-Park this year, the annual get together with fellow micro purifier systems. I often think my body's a temple but years of purifying lager has rendered it somewhat closer to the carcass it looks like from the outside. I even tried a 500 mile walk across Spain drinking tinto de virano to cure myself. Having said that, Tennents drinking's the only thing I've stuck at in my life so to give up now would be churlish, and just think what would happen to the Wellpark Brewery, it might go the same way as Ravenscraig and the other rusty vessels described in issue 22.

Ah, yes, issue 22 February 1984. I'd forgotten about King Kurt and the fun we had amid the mayhem of the Playhouse's nite club.

Shamefully I was plugging Life Support Upstairs at the Waterloo bar, but the truth behind that is we wanted to do a 24 page issue, when I re-read it I think it was more to do with getting £200 for Ads!! I must've been skint after Christmas or it was to buy a tape to tape machine. We'd sent the deadbeat master tape off to get 100 copies made and my local barman was delighted they'd sold out, so after settling my tab, I bought a tape to tape and coined 50p a time when I sold anymore. Liquid Royalties to the bands were paid in full, I'm sure...

Ah, the Dancing Bears, there's a good link to 1985! They were the outstanding Band of the Deadbeat tapes for me. I liked all of them but there was something about the Bears simplicity that worked well.

Issue 29 with Lloyd Cole on the cover straddled feb/march as Deadbeat lurched from one excuse to the next. The truth was being printer was a step too far. We could do the gigs, interview the bands, write them up, collect the demos etc but the couple of days we got off while the printer did his stuff became a week when we were printing. The issue would be printed by me very slowly. Firstly we had gone from 500 to 2500 issues, which meant we were printing 12500 sheets of paper, not 2500. That's a lot of paper. We had to buy the paper, which wasn't always the cheapest around, although now I think about it, we did get a great price for it. As gullible as I was even Deadbeat readers could tell we changed our paper supplier from issue to issue. Sometimes 80g sometimes 90g and then the thinnest 70g paper. 80 gsm - or grams per square meter meant that a standard deadbeat weighed in about 60g, but the bigger issue 22 was 72g. Those on the mailing list were always gutted when we used the heavy paper, like the one in issue 29. The Royal Mail would put a "too heavy cash to pay" stamp on it and leave them a few pennies to pay on the doorstep. You could wallpaper with that issue it was such high quality.

I remember printing the cover page. Every 30 sheets you had to stop the machine because the ink was so thick on the page one would get stuck and rotate around the drum. Pause the print, peel it off, try not to lose a finger, engage, ink up, scrap three pages, print 30 then pause, peel it off, etc. The cover took hours to print. By the time I was on my 8th tin we'd about 700 covers. All night long, to quote Lionel Ritchie, I finished about 4am with 1900 covers. Only another 9 more, hopefully they weren't as ink-centric, I mused as I collapsed into bed.

As you can see from Hiccups and the Deadbeat cartoon, thankfully not all the pages required a gallon of ink. By the end of the week the issue was finally printed and the easy bit of marrying them up, stapling them and going around the shops could begin, collecting the cash and getting wasted in the Tayside Bar, or through at Night Moves, yes I'd succumbed to the charms!

The back pages are the easiest way to jog my memory, and in the case of issue 29, I know exactly where I was in February 1985. I was proving that I couldn't and shouldn't draw while working in my mum's sandwich bar in Nicholson Street opposite the Pear Tree in Edinburgh. I was toiling for a present for her Christmas this year so as tight as I am, I put this in a frame. God bless the parents, she said she loved it and its now on the wall. There's not even a picture of me on that wall. Dont you like it when, even suffering from Alztheimer's she's still able to exercise that inherent parental duty to her 49 year old son, to say how much she loves it. That's parents for you, they never stop believing in you even though many others have tried to show them the light!

I even recognise the black eye. Keith and I were in a taxi coming down dalkeith road and this vespa pulled up alongside at the commie pool. I laughed at some story Keith had just told while looking at the two of them. Next thing the driver was giving it big throttle, the passenger jumped off the back, opened the cab door and lamped me. I've never laughed so much. A case of mistaken identity or just a belting thing to do on a friday, go out and lamp the bourgeous in the black cabs. It was one of the funniest things, made me chuckle all night, although the shiner did shine!

Happy New Year - January Deadbeats

Optimism, that's what January brought 29 years ago, although by the unpublished issue 34 in 1986 I think it was alcoholism that was running the show!

Issue 8 was a belter, I didn't realise that we made note of Chas & Di's first born but there it is in Keith's outstanding review of the year just gone - 1982 - that was the year that was. 1983 was somewhat poisoned by the jingoistic election and the music divided into light and frothy or a greater bit of urban decay.

By 1984 Orwellian thoughts were evident in some of our musical musings The Cocteau Twins were on the front cover of issue 21 and the drunken ramblings of a Vinny who had also just turned 21 demonstrated for all to see, was in need of help from somebody from trainspotting. The Deadbeat tape got 5 stars in the sounds review, I thought all the bands on the tapes were superb but Sunset Gun, the Strawberry Tarts, they were pretty special for different reasons. We were selling 1500 copies every month by now and so attempting to do poll didn't seem like a bad idea, ho ho ho. 3 responses and they were from the guys sitting next to me in La Sorbonne. Probably with the guys from Burlesque - how good is that line, 1984 and SLF the Clash and Burlesque have split up!

but by the time January was complete and by issue 29 and 1985 brought us Lloyd Cole and a new Deadbeat logo - it was rubbish so we ditched it later.

A Deadbeat Christmas

December Deadbeats were a popular Christmas present, they must've been as I dont have many left, especially issue 6, from early December 1982.

We were so busy writing, printing, collating, stapling and then getting on buses around Scotland that there was no time to think what was going on and the next issue was out before I could dye my hair blue. I seem to remember being thrown out and heading back north, doubtless with a few issues to pay my way in that snowy winter of 82.

It was a cracking cover and although we only printed about 600 they sold well, so quickly we had issue 7 out by mid- December and had already started planning issue 8. You'll notice that the band suddenly dont get mentioned. Deadbeat was a much better gig than Life Support. We'd still only managed to get one interview with Roddy Frame but we were getting on more guestlists and that always helps when you need contributors. I'm still being reminded by Garry Joyce that his review of King Kurt from the playhouse is on the way.

Big Graeme Peters was a huge fan of The Durutti Column and after the gig in Dundee's Dance Factory took the well worn path back to the hotel across the street and while Fran took the pictures he asked the questions. Francis' pictures were superb but sadly we were unable to replicate them owing to our incompetence, or the printing limitations of 1982.

Its got to be the worst time of year to sell Deadbeats and after failing to sell one in the Dundee Art College to Billy Mackenzie, I realised that was about as close to an interview as I'd ever get with the great man so wrote down the dozen words and chucked it in for a laugh.

12 months would pass by and as I sat down for my 21st birthday we were writing issue 21 and our brass necks were gettingus in all sorts of bother. It was as Stu the Aztec Camera roadie had  suggested been a year of sex'n'drugs'n'sausage rolls. I got a half share in an Amstrad for my 21st which explains the changing type face although as many of you may know I dont have a twin, so why I only got a half share of an Amstrad often puzzled me, especially when the other half was my mum's and her half had residency as I would find out later, when the #Deadbeat typeface would change again!

Many issues in such a short space of time is not how it felt at the time. When issue 20 came out in November it had the first mention of Dancing Bears and Crucial Xylophones when their tapes arrived in the post. These bands worked for me but one that I'd screwed up on were the Cocteau Twins. I gave a bad review to Lullabies earlier in the year, something that was wrong and said more about my state of mind , it just shows what happens when you lose the plot. The point was however, that I listened to it later and I thought it was superb so dont quite know why I wrote such a scathingly bad review, you cant blame everything on the drugs, I think just the general meltdown of the moment. What upset me so much at the time was that we always found someone who liked a band to do the review and as a result rarely did you see a bad review in Deadbeat. It was almost an apology when we put the band on the cover of issue 21 having reviewed head over heels in issue 20.

You're short of cash when unemployed so when in doubt start selling ads! This was the start of a big push into geting some cash in and the number of ads we sold would grow over the coming months. We could've saved ourselves the bother and put the price up but it had somehow become sacrosanct. The ads would be the death of Deadbeat as we spent more time chasing them than writig content and along with the printing it would keep us busy. By the time Christmas arrived in 1984 we had only done another 7 issues and it would be February before issue 29 would come out.

We'd bought the print machine and I was printing it after work, with each sheet taking an hour to print 2500 and needing time to dry (or not as many issues would show), and my other hand being used to hold my glass it wasn't a recipe for putting an issue out every 2-3 weeks.

By Christmas 1985 issue 33 was being printed with the Alarm on the front cover, there was ALARM all over the Deadbeat depot but we were deaf to it. Issue 34 got started on numerous occassions and a freesheet produced in the summer but the game was a bogey, we'd had oor chups and they were braw!

Issue 19 - Spear of Destiny 1983