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Baxter Park Dundee 1985

Where were we on this day in 1985?

Well I'm writing this in May 2023 so I guess what I mean is who can remember 1985?

I'm looking for more clues than just the odd picture.

We all know that Plastic Surgery adorned the cover of Deadbeat and Chilli Peppers would change their name.

Issue #32 had the review of the gig but issue #31 probably is best known by me as another great fake news day! I couldn't remember the name Baxter Park so I typed it up saying a gig was coming with the line up, then I hand wrote caird park. 

We were running out of drugs and were running on steam by this point. Our bodies were temples and more like those found on the Acropolis or in Cambodia than those of the modern rock n roll stars. I liked that it was "free, outdoor and great, so grab a coach and visit dundee"

We worked like dogs for the gig including two practices and a tire change. I'm sure we weren't the only Hibs supporters who heeded the advice to grab a coach.

 General Gary Joyce gave a splendid rendition on the way back of how we sounded.  Oh how we laughed.

I've a few pictures from that day but if anyone has more please forward them or just leave message on the post.

I think we arrived too late to hear the first 2 bands and I know there's a picture in #32 showing us listening to plastic surgery but to be honest, I think I was blasted.

It may not have been our last gig as I'm pretty sure we managed a song or two at a wedding I was at in the old manor in Lundin links. A short-lived affair but it certainly provided the excuse to let the band slowly decay and have me down as a 24 year old fossil. 

Reading these reviews years later you realise how far up your own arse we were and we were only in our infancy of understanding what we were doing. I liked writing songs and later on I realised I liked singing along to them but I would happily have left my ego at the door and watched. It's a tough gig limping the gear and even if you are big enough to get roadies I'm not sure the hotels every night appeal either. I'd sooner an albergue on the Camino and leave the acclaim to those more capable, although my ego did enjoy playing as pkatform99 with Rich in the Sutton Arms in London's barbican area. That ticked a box. I loved how random our songs were and how they cling onto the set list. There were many 2 minute wonder that slipped away when we started trying to fill the hour of a set. That was a shame and so my mission for 2024 will be to load a few of those up.

I loved "Stop", "double Pernod" and other quick thrashy songs. They took very little singing had a cheesy set of lyrics and made me smile. 

"She died of cirrosis of the liver, now I'm never gonna drink again with her"

Ah the rhyming couplet

Friday night May 19 2023 - Leith Depot, only 6 more days to wait!

Platform 99 - Sutton Arms

It's a bit late to do a review of a gig on 1987 but here goes.

It was 1987 our old guitarist Mark and Rich had been ensconced in London and Gordon Tucker had joined Ross Bradford in bringing St Andrews student band life support into a proper band with occasional bits of timing and practice.

The job I'd taken in 1985 saw me working more and deadbeating less. We had the money to go into the studio now as well. So life support and hawking deadbeat tapes around the A & R guys was more my modus operandi. Throw in drinking and it was mental. A lot of alcoholics went dry at the end of the 80's and good luck to them, I of course didn't.

It is to my crying shame that I never got the label started and funded more demoes but I did find a few pints. I got seconded to London to find the missing £600m around 1987 and spent Monday to Friday finding it and then flying home. 

Every day of every week involved a pub crawl home. When we moved to broadgate that involved the railway tavern but it was always the globe.

Sometimes we'd get a pint at wood street.. I don't remember it like this. It was still a pub in the great council scheme of the Barbican although by this time all council tenants had long since gone.

I love the sign saying no drinking outside. That's new in the last 40 years.

I stayed on the 29th floor and rarely used it for the weekend as I always went home.

Finally if we had the energy we'd go over to the Sutton arms. There was a guy who played there on a Thursday and we always went in.

One night he said he was of to Austria so I pitched for Rich and I to play. We brought 50 from the work and the boy was delighted. The following week we forgot to bring the work, and the rest is history!