Happy Birthday to us!

Yes its 40 years since we first hit the shelves and while next year will be the 41st anniversary it will be the 40th anniversary of the Pop Wallpaper / Wild Indians flexi disc issue Deadbeat is .........40.............40...........happy birthday Dudbutters..........you are 40..........40..........

Really true its 40 years since issue #1. Its hard to believe. We are 40......40.....which means.....I'm 59 and some of the gang are 60

Its hard to believe. I think its called living a life and then looking back to when it took 40 days to clean the ink off your hands. It still only seems like yesterday to me. When people say nice ink, its not a tatt, its just residue. If truth were told I learned to stop running around naked around this time. I'd been a natural naturist. I always felt hot and loved getting my kit off to run free but printing naked was madness. The naked printer is not a book title and I'll tell you why. It's a complete madness. A flight of fancy and if getting your rocks off is being naked dont do it while you're printing a fanzine using real ink, splurges fly off at all angles and I'm just saying, I'm no Jackson Pollok but if we had mirrors... in those days, ah'm just sayin..... Dementia has a wonderful way of making your childhood a lot more colourful than the monochrome set of Deadbeats!

Issue #11 and #13 can be read in full, click on the tabs above, and I highly recommend both. Karen's interview with New Order was the first the band had done that was published. We sold out in both Virgin stores within a day. We went into Edinburgh daily that week and didn't make it through to Glasgow until later in the week to be greeted by "Where have you been. We tried to contact you." It was our one and only big news day. Apparently the music press had done interviews with New Order but whether they were too slow getting it to press we had inadvertently landed a scoop. I think we had collated, stapled, folded and distributed all the copies within 3 days. Never had I got up so hungover and worked so hard. If you did get a copy with an upside down sheet or 4/13 wrong way around, that'd be me and its now a collectors item, just check ebay or wherever fine nostalgic nonsense is fenced. One good issue doesn't always make for another good one. All this drunkenness leads to better interviews and reviews but it also means they go missing. It was bad news for issue 14 as the £7 I got from Virgin in Glasgow, as they weighed me in and I gave them more, meant I got slaughtered and slept on someone's floor in..... Pollockshields I think. Clark Kent rings a bell. Well.... that night it was me ringing the bell. I barely remember stumbling about at a front door. Saintly people they were. Were the Rutkowski sisters there that night or am I just merging different trips. It may not have been the right house but they took this drunk in, let him sleep and I fucked off in the morning in search of the cure, so the perfect tramp I was. I can just picture the picture today as some 47 year old tells their 80 year old father, "Daddy remember the time we took the young homeless guy in who'd been pestering you at the gig in Glasgow,..... was ringing the wrong door bell, .....lying in our hedge,,,.....". Isn't it funny how our memories come rushing back, especially those that raise our emotions. Our emotions are everything. It's what drives us. They drive us to feelings that seem insurpassable, until the next tme when its even better. That's when you know you're still living. When that buzz of existence, that spark of life that sends us routinely into ecstasy. From browser bargain hunting to great gigs and loves. It's like having access to those jump leads that put life into the battery and regularly accessing that emotion is now for me. I'm fresh off a few different bouts of adrenalin rush and the latest left me digging tatties like I was in someone else's allotment. I kept saying calm down, this is your site, nobody is going to nab you. Before I knew it, I knew that twinge. Its the one where you down tools and start howking wae your hands. I'd typed hauns, but I used ma hanz. Its an east coast dialect and one of my bastardisations of language. It was like Deadbeat, I'd used Dundee, Fife, Edinburgh and a wee tad of the west in most paragraph if no the same sentence. I picked someone up, by the way, for using 'dinnae ken' in a sentence spoken by someone fae the west. I said, d'y'know ken that the only ken in Glasgow sings for The Bluebells. They dont use the word 'ken' like we do. I think they use Boabby the same as us, but no Ken! Who knew The Bluebells to be useful linguists, we knew they were cunning songwriters....

Ah, the emotions, if only we could bottle it and overpower the lingering stench of the economy. When I look back over 40 years the whole industry behind emotions is phenomenal and music is centre stage. I walk that camino to the sounds of new songs I write and old songs I sing. All of them are wrapped in the glorious glamour only the camino can bring. You only carry 3 shirts so it takes a bit of improvisation to make it work but you can have fun with it. I was going to talk about an old cashmere jersey that has expanded with me over the last 40 years. It's now a tank top, well closer to a crop top. It's like squeezing into my hibs strip from 1973, quite simply wrong. Whats really wrong is that twinge led me to a sair back. I was howking away as I knew straigtening up was not an option. By the time I stood golf was not an option either and now I'm pogoing in my bed, aka swimming like a mermaid as I cant stand up.

I'll just plug my spanish stroll website. Fatal-bananas.blogspot has my Pamplona to Porto walk. I'll be joined by the legendary Life Support, Ruby Suit, Carbona not GLue and currently S.A.L.T. bass player Simon Kettles. Mostly along the camino de santiago, through the vineyards of the Navarre, Rioja, Duero before we jump a train in Ponferrade and head for the Galician port of Vigo.

From Vigo we wander down to Porto and then wander a few days around the wonderful Portuguese coast. Simon and I did the 500 miles stroll in 2007 from St Jean pied du Porte in the French Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela and I often look back at our 500m.wordpress.com website to work out why I stopped working and started walking. Quite simply I found my spiritual home. Its a simple life, eat, drink, sleep, wake, walk, sing, drink eat sleep, yes repeat. Its like a new song you're taking on tour.

It is a tour with just slightly less gear. We never did tour but the idea that each day you wake up in a new town. Each day you walk out of town and do your stand up to a new audience.

Sometimes its the same set to the same audience, but the same jokes work. The venues vary from the top of hills in the sunshine to huddled around the fire in wet wet rooms. But that's enough of the camino. Before that journey I've got to slaver on about the 40 years that got us from #1.

It was a bizarre start but hats of to WM. I'd worked in the post room after school and during breaks from uni. When it came to printing a fanzine, after hours in the print room was perfect. When it came to mailing copies to record companies, the franking machine did the trick. It became all consuming. Going to clubs, getting records, getting more diverse content. It wasn't long until we were at issue #5.

Roddy Frame, Campbell Owen and the drummer that week for Aztec Camera at the Dundee Dance Factory. Stuart Clumpas knew a thing or two about putting shows on. Every band that played the Dance Factory were in Deadbeat within the week. We pushed at doors and the ones that opened did so with aplomb. We saw Swing Club perform the Sloane Square Malady. I'd forgotten who that was by but I'll remember it shortly, and now I have so I'll type in Swing Club. I'm picturing myself inside the venue. Smoking like a lum, me and Hilary not the venue and balanced between pillar and dancefloor. Hilary, hand in glass or glass in hand, reminding me it was worth dancing to this stuff. I'm mesmirised by the fact that the band not only know how to play, they all seem to be playing the same song. It's intoxicating and yes, you asking.... ah'm only dancing.

The Daintees were in almost every week in the autumn of 1982. I think we interviewed them and lost the notes once. THe would appear in issue 4 and 5 and anytime I got a chance to say something about MArtin Stephenson and the Daintees I'd be there. I loved the album and little red bottle is a popular song on the camino. I cant sing it enough and should ask if there's a spanish translation. My Spanish is, like me, barely functional but I do manage to get a bed, drink and meal most days. I bought the tape of the Daintees first album as I did with Aztec Camera. I usually got the LP's free from their record companies but I confess, I was a ghetto blaster kinda guy. It was mental how fast it went from issue #7 and John Peel Christmas review.

#8 was already out. 1982 was ending but we were already working on #9 I went to two things in the Festival on Tuesday and I needed a rest. I had a game of golf on Thursday then went to one show and needed a rest. Living was feeling like yet another test.

I needed to slow down............................... I needed time to write a review................... Time to think it all through...................... Time to type it too............ Time to stick it with Uhu................. Yes that was what went through my head....................I needed another camino as this place was getting busy. I love the vibe and then suddenly I get claustrophobic, like fuck off terrets style out of ma city..........then I calm myself and say why dont you just fuck out out of their party you old bastard.........even the hippies were only in their 20's when you were 18...........

Caitlin went into another show and I'm just thinking how to write it up. My mind drifted back to #6 and Hilary's great cover................... The drawing of Siouxsie Sioux is still a masterpiece now. There's a lot of really good comedy around just now. They're all my daughter's age so I never wander far. She keeps me on one of those leashes so its obvious. For most its obvious she's just looking after me. For some in Edinburgh they think its a fettish thing. Its only in August, but back to NYC's Mary Beth. You dont want to give away any of the punchlines.

Mary Beth came out with a great show. Fantastic wise cracks and great continuity stories. I love a comedian that layers a joke.............its like the way I layer words or dots to make the picutres look like they're in the right spot. The obvious thing to do is learn the blogger language and stuff but instead, I just do dots..................but back to the layering of jokes......... Each time they come back to a subject it just gets a bigger laugh............. By the time of the crescendo, if really gets the full lift off............ Like any good gig the loudest applause is at the end..........and that's what Mary Beth did at the Pleasance upstairs........she likes her parents and most of us are their age so its not like we're in 'no persons land' and will take abuse for it......and as I'm a Sagitarius apparently my daughter tells me I'll not know what's going on.........strangely enough we're usually in the kitchen at parties....................searching for food or drink.......... This year I appreciated the multi media................

I think the audiences appreciate it, I know I do. Using a TV lets you put some of the show out in your social media advertising too......and if you get really smart about it you can start doing product placement in your advertising.......so Rob Madge, Mary Beth, any chance you could photo shot a copy of Deadbeat into one of those old videos, I'll pay handsomely with reviews and plugs...... As with the 5 star Rob Madge, Mary Beth used the old footage well. A brilliant use of all the videos from proud parents. The "See Me" nature of performance really benefits from the documentary angle old videos provide. When comedians explain their journey and the manufacture of VHS cassettes you feel old. Its like the plant of the long haired person in the conrner in the Young Ones tv show back in the 80's I think the gig was they were a leftover from a house party. I always thought it was a bad disguise for the person operating the camera or props. The 1980's like any decade from the past had its moments. We printed articles and glued pictures onto the proofs then got plates made. We were splattered with glue, ink and no small amount of paper snippings. When we had printed the Deadbeats it was time to take them to Groucho, Virgin or wherever. I used to joke soon we'll be able to get our readers to print their own at home. But how would they staple them, I'd think. So tomorrow I will raise my glass to 40 years.

I'd like to thank everyone for their contribution. From Hilary, Karen and Keith, Lynne and Kath, Roy Terre and Julie who all got the party started. We need another party to show us all how much the Oxford Bar has changed. It would be a fitting sight to see us all in the Tayside Bar but sitting in that roundabout might be a tad dangerous given the amount of zimmers and wheel chair users there are. Let's just go for a day out in Dundee, maybe the park. I remember a gig there, mostly because people took pictures. I like pictures. I'm not got a placing them correctly but I do like them. A Big thanks to Budgie and Stevie who printed it To Gordon Gurvan who's contribution is all over the site. To Alan Mackie and James Marr for their input in #1 To Gary Joyce and Gordon Tucker for the reviews he never wrote To the Nikki and Jill at Virgin and all the shops To all the bands and particularly Jeremy Thoms who not only performed my favourite track but also recorded extra copies of the tape on his twin deck casette back in the day as well as setting up the club The Front, see issue #27. Once we sold enough copies I bought a similar tape to tape and was able to make copies but Jeremy was the master mixer after the great Peter Haigh had put them onto the tapes at Pierhouse.

To all the pub/club owners and Stuart at DF and the guys from Regular who usually gave us the advert to allow us to pay the printer to buy the paper. and of course all the Fans who read it. Wherever you are put in Deadbeat tape #1 Listen to the Strawberry Tarts Talk to me about their 2nd track "Walking in a straight line" Its a camino classic.

I play it about 50 times every camino. Click on the link to hear it or go via discogs. Deadbeat (3) is the label name on discogs. http://www.mediafire.com/?zjmyy68licz44zm Link above to Deadbeat 1 - The bands and where they came from and if I have an address for you - as if you cant google it yourself..... Strawberry Tarts (Edinburgh) http://www.myspace.com/jeremythoms Twisted Nerve lots on discogs Burlesque Life Support (St Andrews/Dundee) Sunset Gun (Glasgow) (Louise and Deirdrie Rutkowski and http://www.louiserutkowski.co.uk) or see the releases on CBS during 85-88. Sluaghterhouse 5 (Glasgow) Wild Indians (Edinburgh - https://youtu.be/hsh8FOJypIQ ) bonus track from the Rhyme Tray - Newcastle's Paul Milner plays gigs in London now and teamed up with Derek Anderson (aka Roy Terre) who lived at the corner of Bell Street for this scratchy accoustic tapa dish. They changed their name so sometimes I wrote the new or old name on the tapes when I sent them out. Also not all the copies have the bonus track as it was only when we realised that side one was shorter than side two they offered to squeeze their 59 seconds in! Deadbeat 2 Dancing Bears (Edinburgh) http://venuesandbands.com/bands/Richie_Paul Napalm Start http://www.myspace.com/napalmstars and also Circus of Hell (Dundee) Kitchen Raiders Autumn 1904 The Very Thing The Invitation (Edinburgh) Monument 14 Strawberry Tarts Deadbeat 3 - I have a digital version that Gordon Tucker did for me. I've managed to whatsapp it but never managed to upload. I'm notoriously slow even when I raced I cant catch my ponderous pals The Government Rhythm System (Les Gaff, Glasgow) The Men Men (David Wells & Graham Samson, Glasgow) TheSwirle Pulsebeat Plus (Dundee) Crossfire The Relations (Perth) 2 of 3 on youtube https://youtu.be/TJtbcyS3e3I https://youtu.be/tBHOJUOaynw Splash me I'm Drowning