July Deadbeats

While my daughter goes off in search of Juliet in Girona, or is it Verona, its certainly Italy, I'm left organising that first anniversary or is it 30th anniversary party. Now that Kieth's confirmed its either Friday evening August 17th or during the day on Saturday 18th, its just a venue we seek.

What a clever plan to try and find a venue during the Festival. So while I'm contemplating my navel, it'll be great to all meet up again, and thanks for all the kind comments Jeremy, once I learn how to respond to comments I'll thank Gary, Evan etc as well, in the meantime I'll concentrate on a venue. The Oxford Bar saw many a Deadbeat glued together and is in the centre of town, how difficult can it be to choose a venue, I'll ask Keith I'm so decisive nowadays, but back to the July Deadbeats.

I think issue 15 is the one with Pavlov Orange and that film maker who once stood with the Mic in hand for the  Skids, arghh, my brain freeze continues, he had a stripey jumper in the issue and his usual mop of fair hair, he wasn't singing 'Into the Valley', but yes. Richard Jobson, phew, I really am struggling today.

Issue 16 with Strawberry Switchblade was the one before Evan and Co put together the flexi disc in issue 17, and was July-August so will definitely qualify for a July Deadbeat. It was the one with the interview from Inverness ice rink when Keith and I went up to see Echo & the bunnymen and then got stranded as the last train was after we returned to the station. We ended up walking through Inverness, and to paraphrase the Prats, 'what a mess' we were. We went to a party somewhere and then were emptied onto the streets when the host turned out to be somebody's child and we were in the wrong place at the wrong time as far as the parents were concerned, aw, how times have changed, now I send my daughter to crash at Keith's in London and he comes home to find she's partying in his flat.....but we made it back from Inverness (not really a mess, just us) and having waited from 3am in the habit of the station dweller, got the 6am and poured ourselves out at Waverley clutching some more returned issues that would fill the back issues no. 14 shelf.

 After another year had passed we had surpisingly done only another 10 deadbeats. Definitely an omen, as by 1985 we'd only managed another 4. Either the drugs weren't helping or we were running on empty.By 2012 all we'd managed was a blog about what we didn't manage.

This issue had the June Brides, a band I really liked. It also had an interview with a band called Dormannu a band I didn't really like, but I felt it compelling to talk everything up so I did. We were running out of white letraset at the time and didnt have a capital "A" for August so made the issue July - Sept and slept for an extra month. It was amazing how simple decisions can be. As you can tell from the printing I'm now the printer and there are a few things I am and most of them were words related to parentage, personal habits and printer wasn't one. Thankfully I've only put the cover and not the page inside it which was frerquently glued to the one before owing to a build up of ink commonly associated with shit printers using shit print machines. Stevie had shown us in previous issues how difficult too much black was and so from that moment on we started taking pictures of bands who wore bright colours.

The ideal solution was to use black and white spread out as in the Happy Hints page, as you can see from the quality, the printing was so easy even a halfwit like me could do it without too much smudging.

So issue 31 is missing. I'll away to the garage and try and find it. Issue 32 was clearly Sept - Oct 1985

Just like June the curtains are closed....

Ah, yes, June, the summer, end of school term, start of oblivion. Summer festivals should clearly have been the thing that got the Deadbeats out of neutral and started hyping and we did, eventually. There was oblivion to do first and when I chat to fellow parents I'm suprised how many forgot how much oblivion they indulged in, I'd go further, I wonder why we have chosen to bin these irrelevant radge moments in our life instead of embracing our stupidity, or the learning process that adolescence is. Keith & I were to be found blindly bumbling around the Hoochie Coochie Club in the summer of 1982 and Allan Campbell's BLAM! was the prompt that made me think, we could do this and by 1984 George Orwell was being lauded louder than the two tribes that seemed to be going to war, and I'm not talking about Brian Blessed's encounter with Picasso, talking of which I as lucky enough to get a good look around the museums in Madrid recently and I will shamelessly stick on a cartoon I so enjoyed from, the gallery that has Guernika

2 months later the first Deadbeat arrived and it was terrible, like all of them to be honest, but with a huge amount of pride I'm delighted to say there were bits we were really proud of. Its superb after all of these years that there is the time to chuckle over it. The Deadbeat years were superb years but like everyone else, its because they were our formative years. I loved them. We had to make value judgements that even now are as stupid as they were then. We were interviewing the Clash in La Sorbonne and then choosing not to publish on the basis that it was the right thing to do. I had met the band in Paris having been given a backstage pass by the tour manager at the top of the Tour'Eiffel, in September 1981, in exchange for a fun sized mars bar, other brands are available. I say the band, as I was stood dumbstruck, there was Joe, Mick, Mick's partner, Topper and Paul, oh and me. There was nobody else, I had my backstage pass, I had no questions, no conversations, just admiration and  a huge appetite so I made my apologies and explained I had really enjoyed the gig, was in awe of them and starving, possessing as I did a permanent hunger.

Back to the Deadbeats. Issue 14 was Tracey. Issue 26 was in July. Who has control over these pictures.

There was a great picture from the gallery which I have reproduced without permission, I hope its ok.

I'd suggest you go to Madrid and see it for real as its really really special close up, one of the good guys on the right of the picture is clearly not chosen for the job.

So time for a cartoon

I thought this was a superb cartoon and for me symbolises the Spanish Civil war as the cartoonists tried to explain to the world further afield what was going on. I think it is such a good cartoon it doesn't need me to add any more words, but I will! There are great ways of describing the good being led by the corrupt or the bad encouraging the perpetuating of others madness.

Just like June the curtains are closed....and all I can sayis this picture reminded me of that moment in Roddy Frame's Aztec Camera classic.......although they are opened occassionally.... you could of course argue that this is Jeremy Thoms at his finest, thank you for the comments Jeremy, once I work out how this correspondence works I'll email you! Keith and I are meeting in August to celebrate 30 years since the first issue, I live on the Southside, he's morningside, so at present its likely to be the Waiting Rooms - I also turn 50 in December which is when I've got a venue to arrange and people like yourselves and the Dancing Bears to book!