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!