And to make it worse, a voice kept coming over the station public address system, with the sole intention of making people paranoid. The voice was nice; female; a pleasant presence in the ear; until I realised it was saying ‘unattended luggage will be destroyed.’ How odd. You leave your bag alone for a minute and a police marksman takes a potshot at your underpants; or the army does one of those ‘controlled explosions’ so a passing pigeon suddenly finds he’s wearing your socks just after hearing a rather loud bang. I guess it’s all down to the climate of fear due to the War on Luggage launched by America after 9/11. And the other announcement, which comes over the tannoy, involves the other threat to civilisation and world peace. The voice says, calmly so as not to start a panic amongst the sort of person who wears short pants past the age of four, ‘attention; skateboarding and riding a bicycle is not allowed within the station.’ Oddly enough, this announcement comes with three times the frequency of the one which threatens to blow up your bag. Perhaps they should split the difference and say, ‘attention. Skateboarders left unattended will be grabbed by the balls until we find an unattended bag to blow the bejaysus out of.’

That way, the skateboarders will police the station, ensuring there are no unattended bags, and the pigeons won’t suddenly find themselves wearing a shirt and tie with a smouldering copy of the Daily Mail up their arses; again. It will also free the security services up so maybe they can help out behind the counter of the Kentucky Fried Chicken branch.

What is the delay? Are they giving the chicken the last rights? Are they back there tied to a pole with a blindfold on and having a last cigarette? This is taking so long Colonel Saunders will have been promoted to Field Marshall by the time I get to the counter. Are they… holy Christ! What the fuck is going on over there?

My attention had been caught by a young couple sitting on a bench. The girl was leaning across the front of the lad and was… well… she seemed to be sucking his face off. Surely that isn’t kissing. The last time I saw anything sucking that hard it was in Kansas and Dorothy was crapping herself as she and Toto became illegal immigrants in Oz. maybe I should intervene and prise her off him. Mind you, I’d only get my shoes wet with the flood of saliva if I interrupted her in mid suck; and I don’t want to lose my place in the queue. I watch, fascinated and vaguely appalled, as the suction created by the efforts of the girl turns the boys head into a vacuum and, slowly, unattended bags start sliding across the floor of the station chased by men with sub machine guns, eager for a controlled explosion… and… oh dear… the lad is turning blue… I should run and help… but wait a minute… the queue shuffles forward and I’m one step closer to my chicken so sod him.



I shouldn’t actually be here at all. I should be down the road in the Star and Garter. I’m reviewing the band night. I had to leave the venue because my batteries ran out. Well, not mine; my camera. I bought some fresh ones on the way down but the manufacturer, Panasonic, inadvertently packaged them without adding the words, "these are shit. As soon as you sit down with your cold pint of Stella and slip them into your camera, they will reveal themselves to be dud. Buy some Duracell instead. We, at Panasonic, do."

That’s right. I had been sitting in the pub before realising the camera needed batteries. I was gutted at the thought of having to go out into the cold again but it had to be done. I had arrived at the Star and Garter in plenty of time, wanting to make a few notes before the evening started. I had got the back of my hand stamped with an ink impression at the door, like you do. I had got my pint and a nice seat in a room with a crackling fire spilling lovely heat that snuggled into my cold bones. It was with more than a little irritation that I downed my Stella and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The night was bitter; and so was I. I schlepped over to the train station where the shops were. The only thing that served to lighten my mood were the two young ladies sitting in a car, parked beside my route as I walked by.  One smiled. One winked. The cold wind didn’t seem so cold anymore.

I got the batteries but had my good mood somewhat lowered a notch when the chap in W. H. Smith pointed out that Panasonic batteries were on sale; two packets for the price of one. I declined naturally, and that’s when I detected the smell of Colonel Saunders Giblets; the odour of chicken reminded me that I hadn’t eaten much that day; couple of slices of toast in the morning; four biscuits; one Montana bar and nothing else. I was suddenly ravenous and so went up to join the queue and watch the floorshow consisting of the face sucking exhibition.

Eventually, when I got to the counter, a harassed looking young lad asked, ‘can I take your order, please!’ as if I’d been the one who kept him waiting. I asked for three pieces of chicken; anything would do; a leg, a wing and a beak; I didn’t care just so long as it was covered in the Field Marshall Saunders' special blend of herbs and spices.
    ‘Sorry. We only have two pieces of chicken ready,’ said the bloke.
    Okay; I’ll make do with it's nuts. I was eager to get back to the Star and Garter and another pint. I was also worried about missing the first band. As the reviewer it would be a bit of a let down if I missed it because I was eating chicken. What could I do? I’d have to fake the first review. What was the first band like? Well… it was hot. Went down well; bit greasy though and gave me indigestion. Not wanting to miss out on the action I ate as I walked; burning my lips and my fingers. At one point, in my ravenous state I bit into the chicken leg and pulled with my teeth. The skin slipped greasily off the meat and dangled from my lips; it was at that point when I passed the two women who had smiled at me earlier. Needless to say they didn’t seem as impressed the second time round as I hurried past with the skin of a chicken hanging from my teeth, flapping on my chin.
    Some females find this attractive in a male but only if (a) they are on heat (b) a raccoon (c) a little bit odd (d) all of the above and somewhat peckish.

Fed, and a little greasy, I re-entered the Star and Garter and had a quick wash. I usually end up shaking hands with somebody or the other when I am out reviewing bands, and doing it with a greasy hand is considered bad form unless you are a Mohican in which case being covered in bear grease to keep away the mosquitoes is acceptable; you can also get away with it if you are about to swim the English Channel for charity as some people do; seeing as I was doing neither, I cleaned my hands and face having an odd flashback to a time when my mother used to spit on a hankie and wipe my face for me; the human equivalent of a lioness licking her cubs I guess; bit tricky though holding a hankie in a clawed paw. I have to admit though, that my main concern with having grease on my hands was that I didn’t want to risk my pint slipping through my fingers.
    Just as I was about to leave the gents, and I know you're not going to believe this, but I heard a rather peculiar sound. I stopped; just for a moment, and then continued on my way. What I had heard, or at least thought I'd heard was the sound of a chicken clucking. Ridiculous, I know. I thought that too, so I ignored it.

Up at the bar, I got a pint of Stella. I waited for it, standing beside a poster with the names of the bands on. The bands were,

The man who knew the answer was downstairs. Whilst I sipped, happy not to be greasy, Nik Logan, The Promoter for the Out Of Town nights and the MD of LEFTFIELD P.R, was counting heads. Nik was the promoter for the night, and the brain behind The Slovak Night. This was the worst time for him. Each time he put a night on, as a promoter he risked his reputation and also a considerable financial input to bring bands from the four corners, to the stage upstairs. But there was more than that at stake tonight. He had, rather randomly and on the spur of the moment, decided to go across to Czechoslovakia for two weeks on the following Saturday and the proceeds from this night would be paying for it. So far, the night wasn’t so much as paying for the flight, as the taxi fare to the airport and a muffin in Starbucks. Taking one last look up and down the dark street he wondered if, perhaps he should have called the night, The Departure Lounge Night.

I saw Nik Logan and Phil Poole, along with the irrepressible Leigh, another former Pilot wander into the bar. This was about half an hour later and I was sitting off to the right in a corner so they didn’t see me. Despite Nik being on tenterhooks, people had slowly wandered in the closer it got to nine o’clock, when the first band would take to the stage. I was happy to sit unobserved, taking notes, drinking beer, soaking up the atmosphere. I’ve been to a lot of band nights around Manchester and even London on occasion but I have to say this is my favourite. The atmosphere was a warm bubbling broth of mumbles and laughter, a bubbling hubbub of excitement and different groups of friends huddled in alcohol softened circles, talking and occasionally looking up at the empty stage, awaiting the first of the bands. It’s such a warm vibe, rather than this been a band night put on my Nik, it feels more personal than that; it’s sort of as if Nik threw a party in his living room and all his mates, and the friends of his mates, and the chums of his friend's mates turned up. It’s a bit like Niks House Party only without Noel Edmonds beard or Mister Blobby; well, not unless I have too much to drink and the Viagra starts to wear off.

Phil and Nik joined me at the table. Phil slumped up against the wall in a manner that reminded me of a discarded Guy Fawkes doll, except for the delicate fingers slenderising a roll up. Nik chatted with me for a while, surreptitiously checking the time. It was approaching nine, and the first band wasn’t making a move toward the stage. One of the concerns for Nik is that the evening didn’t run over because of the licensing laws. He hadn’t run foul of them yet, but only because he had his finger on the pulse as time ticked away. It was just one of the things he had to deal with during the band nights. At least he didn’t have to take tickets at the door though. He had done that previously and it had been a real ball ache. He had trouble with people turning up and wanting to get in for nothing, just because they were mates of a guy who used to go out with a girl who went to school with a boy who once saw a poster for one of the bands.
    ‘Usually you get some contention over the running order of bands', Nik told me by way of filling me in on some of the nights difficulties. ‘At least one of them would announce, on the night, after being told they would be on at eleven that they had to go on first because they would miss their train if they didn’t'.
    Did you get anything like that tonight? I asked.
    ‘Yeah, The Tonics needed an earlier slot.’
    ‘You sorted it out?’
    ‘I let them sort it out with one of the other bands so they could swap round. I don’t get involved in rearranging times anymore, not after what happened last time. Some bunch of fucking spoilt Carl Barrett, wannabe shitheads, The Bootleg Poets,’ suddenly decided their timeslot didn’t suit them. I can understand if people need to do one; plans change, but there is no need to be an arse about it. After all I let everybody know beforehand when they are on, and that is what they agree to well beforehand. Now if there’s a problem, the bands sort it out themselves. I’ve got to say though, apart from that one episode, I’ve not really had any problems with bands on the night and they all really enjoy themselves, which is great for all of us.’
   
I’ve never heard Nik be anything but supportive and full of praise for any of the bands involved in the nights he promotes, so they must have really taken the biscuit, and shat on it. Nik looked at his watch again, and then peered over once more at Thee Neerly Men. They had colonised a table beside us and were collectively known as Thee Neerly Men. It’s the kind of name you expect of a group of Morris dancers. I peered over anxiously, when they finally got up and headed stage-ward. I wanted to see if they had bells around their ankles and sticks. If so, I would have just enough time to run and hide. I bet the Zulu nation were terribly embarrassed to discover they were defeated by a nation that has Morris dancing festering away in it's folk history. The folk dancing of some militant tribes can make the blood curdle. Morris dancing, on the other hand, makes cheese curdle.


As it happened, Thee Neerly Men didn’t have anything in common with folk dancing. The rather engaging frontman, looking like the kind of actor who would have a walk on part in an American sitcom as a theology student, fair haired, intelligent looking, and bespectacled, introduced the band as, ‘we are Thee Neerly Men. We’re from Preston but don’t hold that against us.’ The bass player, incidentally, had strategically curly hair; a natural perm, despite which, he managed to look like the rugged outdoor Australian type; the kind of person who skins kangaroos with his teeth; and then kills it with his stubble. The drummer was hidden behind the kit, so let me just say by way of description that other than having a groovy countrified shirt, the top of his head was quite charismatic. If he ever got scalped, not that Preston is known for that kind of thing, his thatch would definitely go to the top of the totem pole.

Their set was a clean limbed, muscular collection of songs with a rockabilly spine. Hell, the drummer actually had on the kind of shirt that line dancing cowboys from Bolton favoured; even though the band was from Preston. Thee Neerly Men were the rockabilly outlaws and we were the posse, following in their tracks which were straightforward and easy to follow. That isn’t to say it was boring; far from it; whilst not leading the kind of chase that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid might have led us, I thought they were great; the perfect palette cleansing entrée to the night's music; a tight combination of clean guitar, crisp snare cracking away and a melodic bass pumping away between them. Personally I’d say it was more akin to Preston Americana Punk Rockabilly, because that was the vibe I got, and Nik had already used the phrase ‘Buddy Holly on Acid…’ which, if true, could explain the tragic plane crash. I’d also say they reminded me of the Pogues, stripped down, sobered up, and given a PhD.


Nik Logan headed toward the bar as the next band clambered up onto the stage. He was relaxed now, after such a good start to the evening. Thee Neerly Men had been well received with a cracking set; and the next band had sounded really good when Nik had checked out their stuff on MySpace. The audience had swelled to a respectable size and it felt good to have pulled them in. This feeling however started to slip when he noticed the band on stage seemed to be one member short… now where the hell?
    ‘Sorry mate…’
    Nick paused in his rumination to let a pleasantly pissed punter past.
    Hang on a minute.
    That was no punter; that was the missing member.
    ‘Hey… shouldn’t you be on stage?’ Nik asked.
    ‘Wha…? Oh, shit!’ the guy staggered off to the stage and Nik had a certain sinking feeling about what was to follow.

     The name of the band was The Tonics and to be brief, they weren’t. When they kicked off I wasn’t immediately engaged by it. I looked for positive points. It was melodic and the singer had a good voice, a great voice in fact for rock but there was something wrong with the whole thing. It was sloppy. You could hear all these good ideas but it was like something had nudged it a little bit and jarred everything slightly out of place; but what the hell, it was the first song. Let them settle into it. I became intrigued by the bass player. He was stick thin, all angles and elbows and looked perfectly wasted and aloof; visually an absolute treat, all angles and elbows and arms as thin as the neck of his bass; but he had a perm that looked like it was set in golden concrete. I decided not to mention it in the review in case he was a bit sensitive about it… and obviously changed my mind. The song crashed out and the frontman said, ‘we are The Tonics! This is our twenty third gig in Manchester, and we are… completely pissed.’

  True, I thought. That explains the element of Oliver Reed in the performance. They launched into the second song, and again you could hear how good it should have been, but because of the booze it just wasn’t. Sometimes drink adds to your performance; loosens you up but this just wasn’t the case here. I felt like The Tonics were a good band, with good songs, but they just went on stage and ritually disembowelled them in front of us while they had a good time amongst themselves; as if they were having their own private party. The audience slowly filtered away from the stage. I concentrated on my notebook, searching for something a little more positive to say; imagining what it would sound like if either they were sober or I was drunk; it would be pretty powerful stuff; played aggressively and with attitude instead of this drunken latitude that loosened it to the point of them being a parody of themselves. I hate writing anything bad about a band, but it would be unfair to the other bands on the night if I didn’t tell it as I saw it. I was half bemused by them and half irritated. If you listen to ‘Wire’ on MySpace, with it’s interesting discordant intro, and the gallop on the toms leading to that ringing crack on the snare that opens up for that great voice then you’ll see they can deliver the goods and are well capable of having an audience headbanging with the best of them, but they just didn’t get it right on the night.

When I looked up from my notepad, I was alarmed to see the golden concrete perm had migrated onto the head of the singer… oh God; it was alive! Perhaps it was boring through his skull as I watched; or maybe it just needed a drink and was just trying to reach his liver. I needed one myself and so went to the bar. When I came back they were coming to the end of the set and were indulging in what, for a sober band would be some anarchy on stage, but now just seemed like drunken buffoonery.

I settled back down to write my verdict which was; The Tonics when relatively sober, good songs, good voice, good musicians, good stage act; but pissed, beyond musical redemption, they lock out the audience and have a members only gig for the band.

The band is currently alive and well and based in Wigan.

The wig is currently in hiding somewhere in Bolton.

A Bolt on is what happens when C3PO gets a hard on.

A hard on can be difficult to hide...

Which is what I'll quite possibly be doing, when the band reads this (hiding, that is, not having an erection) though saying that, The Tonics were graceful enough to send Nik an email about the performance, mentioning the word ‘shoddy’. That, to me, sounds like a band who know how good they can be when they get it right.


I turned around in my seat to see the wig had managed to find another victim. I picked up a chair to hit it with, and then realised it was Leigh  (right),  ex-Harem Pilot; one of the frontmen. The hair was his own but on him it looked alright; he’s got a licence for it and did a seven week course in advanced curly hair control. He was there to give his support, in particular to Phil from Dirge is Dead, also an ex-Harem Pilot. I thought it would be good to speak to Phil before he went on stage so I looked around for him. He was sitting in the same corner where I’d left him earlier. It occurred to me that he looked like he’d been drawn as an idea for one of The Gorrillaz characters but had gotten up off the page because he needed a little time to sit in a dark hole to brood over the noise chalk sometimes makes on a very, very black blackboard.

Dirge is Dead, doesn’t actually exist. That’s what Phil said before he went on stage. I was leaning over the table, (soaking my elbow in some beer) listening to him explain the idea behind his new incarnation.
    ‘The name is just a pocket, with me in it, and depending on who is around before a gig, they jump in with me. Tonight, we’ve got Rhodri, (another ex-Harem Pilot) on drums, and Beds (from Sirkus Saigon) is on bass.’
    ‘How many rehearsal have you had?’ I asked.
    ‘Three.’
    Jesus. I wouldn’t want to go on stage after only three rehearsals for a new set, I thought. I even like to rehearse my ad libs; fuck it; I’d rehearse my rehearsal if it were possible.
     ‘You’ve got a lot to live up to, because the Harem Pilots were such a cracking band. Are you nervous?’
    ‘Nah,’ he said,’ I wouldn't say nervous. Apprehension, yeah; I think the difference between the two is that being a little bit scared of fucking up makes the adrenaline work and that helps you. Being nervous just puts you in this little box and makes you timid. Also, after having only three rehearsals I’ve got no major expectations. I just want to see what happens. It helps though, having Rhodri and Beds up there as well because they’re cool; great musicians. I know I can depend on them. It anything fucks up it won’t be them’.


Phil hung onto the mike stand for a few moments, looking out into the foggy light off stage; staring into the light. He couldn’t see the audience because of it and looked like he was having some sort of mystical, out of band experience, drifting away, oblivious to everyone. I felt like shouting ‘don’t walk into the light!’

Then he stepped back, head went down, lank black hair hanging down like a hairdressers lynching. The thin fingers that had earlier been rolling the delicate cigarette paper clutched the neck of the guitar in a vice like chord and he smashed a power chord out of the amp. It hung in the air, a rude crash of sound that Beds pumped some bass under, and Rhodri deftly pulled them together on the drums.

Leigh stood in front of the stage clutching a pint, watching his mate, looking well pleased for him and I was too.

The first song was locked in, dynamic, a lot of space in it with a low vocal that was almost a whine. The vocal is listenable because of it’s distinctive quality rather than for the melodic intent. The chorus, when it came forced you to listen as if you were stuck in a lift with it; I liked it a lot.

I indulged in taking pictures for the next two songs. Three rehearsals was obviously the magic number because it was tighter than a camel's arse in a sandstorm. By song three I was busily scribbling away my impressions of the performance. The third song was locked in by minor keys. The melody slipped under the door, with a chorus that was almost an insolent drone that laid back to let the bass run past with a melodic riff.

Most of the songs are short. There is no danger of them hanging around until the audience gets it. You're on the bus or you're standing there with dust and gravel in your mouth wondering what the fuck you’ve missed.

At the end of the third song Phil asks, ’is Leigh here?’ There is a cheer, and Leigh, still standing in front of the stage, hidden in plain sight by the stage lights, goes forward. Phil, says, ‘I need a beer mate.’ Leigh hands over his precious pint.

That reminds me of why my right arm was wet. Putting beer in plastic glasses is a terrible idea. If you’re carrying three of them, you have that dilemma of just how tightly you should hold them. Squeeze a little too tightly and the side of the pint pot go in and the beer spills over; if you compensate and hold them not so tight, they slip through your fingers. I think the logic behind it is that plastic isn’t as dangerous as glass, should it be dropped. If someone slips they can have quite a nasty gash, which reminds me of a documentary I saw on sexually transmitted diseases… but that’s beside the point.

The next song from Dirge is Dead, was a slow dirge itself, for about a minute, unwinding like a clock, ticking away until it burst into a fucking loud dirge as the chorus smashes through the door like Jack out of The Shining, looking at the audience with a mad bloodshot eye. There were other songs, other moments that come to mind as I write this; the eye contact between the band, filling in the gaps left by so few rehearsals by reading each other's body language, a synchronicity of intent on songs that were cut to the bone; nothing there for me to pick at. Some of the songs were melodic with a melancholic vocal to give it depth; but others were coming from the dark, paint peeling rooms of music, where songwriters cut a musical vein and colour the song with their creative flow; the melody slipped into something louder and insistent and discordant and discomforting but somehow quite fascinating; an instant where the frontman and the band and the song hit the nail on the head as if it were their own tuning fork; the performance resonated with something I can’t define, other than to say the band used light and darkness, musical drama and major chords that were then gutted by minor chords on stage for all to see and I was well impressed.

I was so impressed, as a matter of fact, that I didn’t actually want to see the next band. As much as Dirge is Dead had played a cracking set, which revived the vibe in the venue after The Tonics (bless 'em), I was left feeling oddly introspective after Dirge came off stage. I wanted to sit with the feeling, in a dark room possibly, just me, and maybe some more of that greasy chicken from down the KFC down the road. I certainly didn’t want to hear anything that could be less impressive than Dirge is Dead. As a serious music lover, a person who is passionate about what he likes and the intellectual divergence of the eclectic taste of the masses… oh, hang on a minute. There’s a rather attractive, very, very strawberry blonde girl getting on stage.

Colonel Saunders can go fuck himself. But first, I dashed downstair to the gents for my second sojourn of the evening. I drained the weasel, washed my hands and headed once more for the door.
    Hang on. I stopped at the door, like I had done earlier in the evening. Once again I heard what sounded like the cluck of a chicken. It was coming from one of the cubicles. Now I have to say, I've never done this before in my life, but I tiptoed back to the door and listened. There it was again, a sort of... worried clucking. Baffled, I thought, I need to get to the bottom of this, and so squatted to peer under the door. I got as far as seeing, to my absolute amazement, a pair of chicken legs with a small pair of boxers, pooled around the ankles.
    The door of the gents began to open. I stood up so fast the air around me whip-cracked and ricocheted round a u-bend and skinned a rat that was reading an interior decorating supplement he got in a lifestyle magazine. He was so shocked, he fell off his turd.

Back upstairs, I put all thought of what I'd seen behind me.


The band were getting 'jiggywidit', whatever that means. Something good I presumed. The band was called RickeR and they rocked with some stomping Ska being chased along the musical scale by the ghost of punk. The main vocal was a white guy with glasses and dreads on guitar. He had a peculiar line of banter with the crowd. At one point I heard someone (who turned out to be Leigh) shouting, ‘I love the relationship between the bass and the piano!’ You have to admit, it’s not your usual banter is it? I felt like an intellectual dwarf standing there with my notebook.

Before launching into the second song, the dread guy said, ‘this one is about the decline of the textile industry!’ He had a great big grin like a banana boat, not taking himself, us, the beer or anything seriously except for the rising tide of delicious, refreshing fucking laugh out loud sense of fun from sun soaked…eh…Bolton. And all sung with strong Northern accents. Actually, it’s harder to write about RickeR than any of the other bands, because of the fact that it was so easy to listen too and had such a good vibe; nothing jarred with the music and you didn’t need to be jarred to enjoy it which is good, but I was pretty sober. I would put them alongside one of my favourite bands of the eighties, The Beat.

Of all the bands, RickeR were the ones that drew people up to the stage to dance. They are musical pied pipers. Rats would be hard put not to dance to them; not that Ska dancing is actually dancing; they couldn’t have made Saturday Night Fever to it. John Travolta would have looked like a tit doing that manic jerky ska dance thing to something so out of vogue and yet so good. He would have just got a punch in the nuts two minutes into the movie; which was where, incidentally, the Bee Gees got that strange falsetto from; at least, I hope so.

RickeR even threw a guest vocalist into the bag whose name I didn’t get. She sang ‘On My Radio’, a cover from ‘Selector. They had drama when the guitarist broke a string. They had great trumpet solos that sounded as if it had been dragged out of a Mexican cantina and spliced with the DNA of Buster Prince, Joe Strummer and that funny looking black guy who didn’t seem to do much in The Specials, but turned up in all the photographs and waited for the royalty cheques.

I really enjoyed RickeR as I hope you can tell. It was the perfect antidote to Dirge is Dead, and a great end to the night.

I felt really good.

Well, until the guest vocalist came up to me after the gig and asked, ‘who are you writing for?’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘just myself.’

She looked disappointed. Perhaps she’d been hoping I was somebody, but anybody who knows me, knows I’m nobody but somebody who hopes everybody loves somebody sometime…eh, that wasn’t what I wanted to say… what the hell’s going on? All I can say is it must be some peculiar side effect of me feeling I was musically loved up by RickeR, Thee Neerly Men, Dirge is Dead, and even The Tonics. Okay, I know I gave some harsh comments on The Tonics but I do think I caught them on a night off. After all, earlier on, I had been seen walking around Manchester with a greasy chicken carcass hanging from my teeth and if you were to judge me on that one incident then you'd think I spent my spare time rummaging around in bins. I'd like to think the same is true of The Tonics, and they too, were having a greasy chicken moment.

All in all, the Slovak Night was Finger Riffing Good. Buzzing but famished, I put my notebook away, and my camera, and headed out into the night. I crossed the road, walking toward the train station and Colonel Saunders. I didn't get too far. I remembered the chicken legs in the cubicle.
    Fuck it. I had to go back and see if it was still there. I'd be having nightmares otherwise. So, turning round, I instantly leapt back in fright because there it was; right behind me, wearing a little pair of boxers.
    It spoke.
    'Please don't be alarmed!' it said, 'I come in peace.'
    'Who the... what the fuck...,'
    The chicken held up a wing and said, 'Just listen. I don't have much time. My name is Ralph, and I'm with the Chicken Liberation Front. My brothers and sisters are being held captive by the military. They are being held under the most inhumane conditions without legal representation. They haven't been charged with anything and are being held indefinitely. We suspect they are being covered with a special blend of herbs and spices in an effort to make them talk.'
    I said.... 'ehhhh.... okay. Sort of a Guantanamo Bay for chickens?'
    'A what?'
    'Nothing. Was that you in the toilet back in the Star and Garter?
    'Yes. I've been following you for weeks.'
    'Why didn't you speak to me sooner?'
    'I was trying to cluck up the courage.'
    'You were scared of me?'
    'You seem to forget that I'm a chicken.'
    'Oh. Right. Well,  what do you want me to do?'
    'We're looking for the man in charge of the Anti-Chicken Military Espionage Bureau; a Colonel Saunders. Have you heard of him?'
    'Yeah. As a matter of fact I have. He's dead, actually.'
    The chicken, or Ralph, as he called himself looked shocked. He looked up into the night sky for a moment, and then sighed.
    Relieved, he said, 'thank God. How did it happen?'
    'No idea, but he died a long time ago. I heard his family had him covered with a special blend of herbs and spices and then cremated him.'
    Ralph considered the implications of this and then said, 'so that's it. It's over. Chicken-kind is safe. I can go home, back to the wife and eggs.'
    I didn't have the heart to tell him that the world still wasn't safe for chickens.
    Taking a deep breath, and standing tall, he lifted his right wing to me, and said, 'well, thanks for your help, mister...?'
    'Geetan.'
    'Geetan? That's an odd name for a human.'
    'About as odd as Ralph for a chicken.'
    He chuckled, and I felt an immense flood of affection for him, this plucky young chicken who had been following me all night. I took his wing tip in my hand and shook it. With that he turned away, and walked across the road. I too, turned away. Then it occurred to me, perhaps he could answer a question that had bothered me for years.
    'Ralph!' I called, 'why did the chicken cross the road?'
    He turned around and said, 'oh that's easy. It was because....'
    SKWACAWHUMP!
    That was the sound I heard  when the truck hit him.
   
   
    Oh well...
    Waste not, want not....

    Geetan
    23rd November 2006



For information on the next band night click the badger... you know you want to