My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 11/06/02 - The Princess Charlotte, Leicester

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Those with a KEEN EYE will have seen that the gap between stories has suddenly grown massively, and that's simply because I didn't do many gigs at this point. There were several reasons for this, including an attempt at house buying, the business of LOVE, but mostly the FACT that we were recording an album full of home-made samples, string sections and double-tracked euphoniums. That sort of thing takes TIME.

As stated previously, one small addition to the time taken was just how GRATE it was working with Mr Kev Reverb. He'd always have a tale to tell, whether it be buying Limes for Andy Williams, touring with Crazyhead in Germany, or being on the road with Iggy Pop, and there'd always have to be a break to admire his massive collection of Club Band Promotional Pictures, my favourite being the fabulous RAZZLE, featuring a husband and wife team with more than a HINT of mascara covering black eyes. For both of them.

One of Kev's finest moments was around this time when I popped in to do an emergency mix of our World Cup Single. We'd originally released this four years previously and had decided to have another go this year with a re-written and re-recorded version. Someone had heard that Simon Mayo was having a competition for World Cup songs on his radio station, so I hastily booked a session with Kev to finish it off so we could get it send in.

Next day I was stood outside the building where Kev's studio was based, and happily greeted him as he walked along the road. "Hello!" he said "What are you doing here?" "Er... meeting you to mix a single?" I said, panicking suddenly. "Fucking hell Hibbett", he said, not for the first time - the people who worked the reception desk for the building seemed to be chosen mostly for the youth, how much they liked Conference League Punk Bands of the late 70s, and how closely their IQ matched the number of eyeholes in their boots. MANY MANY MANY were the times I'd book a session only to turn up and find the feckless children on the desk had been too busy discussing Peter And The Test Tube Babies b-sides to actually bother to WRITE DOWN OUR BOOKING, and this was on of those occasions.

Kev, however, was an absolute hero. We RAN upstairs, switched the desk on and RACED through, getting the whole mix pretty much finished within 20 minutes, at which point the band who'd actually booked the session arrived. Kev did the final mastering later that day in his own time and, bless him, burnt it to CD and put it into the post to Mayo for me.

It never got played and nobody ever bought it, but that's not the point. Mr Reverb, he was a HERO to us.

The only real downside of this was that we convinced ourselves that Kev's benign approval of our works meant that we were as ROCK as he was. At that time he was part-time bass player in Zodiac Mindwarp (this was when they'd been taken up on a Lordly Whim by Alex From Blur, and when they WEREN'T doing gigs for London Literary types it was Kev who took over the four string) and, as they'd got a gig coming up at The Charlotte, we thought it'd be GRATE if we could do the support gig.

This was clearly a mistake.

Things got off to a pleasant start when we arrived to find the Mindwarp doing their soundcheck. Kev was slumped over his bass in the traditional Fed-Up Semi-Session Player pose, but when he saw us he immediately perked up and went in to FULL ON ROCK GOD mode, much to the surprise of the rest of the band who had never seen him move so much. That, however, was the last fun we'd be having for a while as, even during our own brief soundcheck, we quickly realised that in actual fact we really didn't rock at ALL, not even a little bit. The nice thing was that the audience were so CONFUSED by this complete absence that they couldn't even bring themselves to be nasty to us, so either filtered it out of their minds completely and had a chat instead or went away for a drink. There have been several occasions - not THAT many, but more than I'd've liked - when we have absolutely DIED on our ARSES, and this was one of the worst, with the almost total lack of reaction from a pretty sizable crowd only rubbing it in harder. After us a Proper Heavy Metal Band, the sort that in happier times I would openly SCOFF at, came on and threw themselves around, YELPED as if their lives depended on it, and generally showed us how, in this particularly MILLIEU, it really ought to be done.

By the time Zodiac Mindwarp came on those of us who were sticking around had taken comfort in BOOZE, and so were ready to enjoy ourselves. We did, although it was a little odd at times, as they'd finish their hit song "FUCKED BY ROCK" with a massive ZANG, we'd all applaud, and then they'd do it again. And again. And again. Or maybe their hits all sounded the same when filtered through BEER, I don't know, but it was certainly very ROCK. At the end of the set they STORMED off stage, Zodiac arms aloft, egging on the visibly excited crowd, and slammed the door behind him. The room went wild, there was shouting and clapping and general RACKET for several minutes, with no sign of them coming back onstage.

"What a SHOWMAN!" I thought as the crowd noise built up again in response to the no-show, stamping their feet and shouting for MORE MORE MORE. Again, nothing happened, and it was only as the encore calls began to ebb that we started to notice a rhythmic banging noise. I was stood near the edge of the stage, and realised it was coming from the Fire Exit... which the whole band had STORMED out through and were now locked behind.

I opened the door to reveal a ruffled, rather deflated Zodiac Mindwarp. The crowd looked at him, he looked at them. He raised his hands in the air, shouted "ROCK!" and ran BACK onto the stage to do an encore of one of their massive hits.

It was "FUCKED BY ROCK" again. It was FANTASTIC!

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