Issue 1 August 21st 1982 & no. 2 Sept 10th 1982

'I want a piece of this action', I thought as we waited in a queue one night and watched the guest list go whistling by. "The band was going nowhere, start a fanzine, Yes", one minute nightclubbin the next bleary eyed  photocopying, "Yes, this is the life". Deadbeat was born as a free sheet of A3 folded in half a couple of times. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, take a bow Allan Campbell. His BAM that put the Hoochie Coochie Club's best foot forward was our starting point, a pass into his nightclub and a place to celebrate Scottish bands was our immediate target. From Smash Hits to the NME we nicked ideas with glee. We were teenagers, we wanted to be crass and anarchic, we screamed," look at me, dont judge me, look at me, talk about me, its all about me, isn't it?"

Of course it was, all the older siblings had had their turn on stage. Paul's brother was playing drums for the Scars, my brother was now playing sax with Mike Scott's Funhouse. I remember a couple of years earlier helping with the gear at some Fire Engines gig in the Pollock Halls, it was time to stop carrying the gear, although some suggested it was probably time to stop taking it when out of the blue I shouted

"People put down your amps, pick up your pens, pockle your paper, prime your printing machine, we have work"...and so we begun.

Issue 1 had the help of Jim Marr our nightclubbin sleaze, Alan Mackie our artistic drunk and a few others. Keith and I knew it was shit but it showed what you could do and the only way was up. We knew so many bands who had started off with a hit single and then disappeared. We were in for the long haul so we started off badly. We weren't part of any establishment and were typical onlookers of the music scene,  we might've hung out in Coppers or the Wig'n'Pen in Cockburn St when underage drinking was punctuated by 18th birthday parties at your local, three years after you'd started drinking there, but this was a new beginning. In the best tradition of Edinburgh we looked but didn't involve ourselves too much, until we started Deadbeat and grew up a little.

The Bucks Fizz review was inspirational. It took us to a new place. Keith had said they were bad and we had slagged him for going and forced him to write a snooze review. Never mind the Booze cruise, this gig reminded everyone why we had an alternative music scene and the cartoon was a belter. When you look at the picture its hard not to laugh and not just at Keith for going to the gig. What had started out as an excuse to get into a couple of nightclubs was just starting to be a lot of fun.

How it looked back then when colour printing was only a dream. The pictures always came out badly many printers told us and we did wonder why we took our pictures in colour. 29 years on when you take a picture of this grainy picture of Paul McLaughlin (whose single Party Girl was reviewed inside issue 2, and it looks a bit better, well a bit better than Paul looks now probably, but that's another story, all the best wherever you are Paul!

Other highlights of issue 2 were the review of Pillar to Post by East Kilbride's finest, Aztec Camera, and Dundee's The Blush and Lorenzo Marques.

There's also a review of pubs, but looking at it now, I think it was just a pub crawl that turned into a review when the anticpated post bag was empty!