More on the ‘umble coach written by my good self from Steroid Abuse fanzine many many moons ago. Beware kids, there’s a wee bit of swearing thrown in for good measure. Turn off now if you’re easily offended! Just click on the image above to read the article.
Yesterday I was up at the ungodly hour of 4.50 am to get my son ready for his school coach trip to Belgium, which got me thinking…
Years ago in the Midlands was a travel company who would charter out their coaches for next to nothing. Word got around to the local punks who took advantage of the offer. Out of town gigs were now easy to get to and dead cheap, so the coach trips were well popular! Also, the coach was always driven by the same bloke who didn’t seem to care what went on and the punks used to turn a blind eye to his antics as long as he got them back home in one piece!
Some of stories will go down in Punk mythology. Like the time when the windscreen was “bricked in” in some sort of inter-town rivalry. The driver muttered something about “I don’t want to get the company involved so I’m not going to ring the AA” and had the bright idea of driving them all back without a windscreen as it was only ten miles down the road. Trouble is it was a winters night and it was snowing, madness!
Once on the way to a gig after everybody was picked up from the pub meeting point, someone on board realising the coach didn’t have a loo had the bright idea of popping into his mums house to using theirs as it was on the way to the motorway. His mum and dad must have been well happy when their son turned up at the door with a coachload of punks dying to go to the loo behind him. I bet there was a few net curtains twitching that night in the cul-de-sac!
Legend has it at one gig the driver got a bit over-excited, had a few drinks and even went down the front and done the “punk kicking dance” (as demonstrated above!) At the end of the night the punks were so worried that he wouldn’t get them home alive, a couple of them forcefed him coffee from his vacuum flask until he sobered up and then took him outside to “get some air” before the drive home. The sight of two Sid Vicious look-a-likes either side of an older bloke in a smart blazer and cap walking around a car park must have been bizarre. How he didn’t get stopped by the police on the way home I don’t know. Absolutely mental!
I’ve really been caning the Bar Keepers Friend since getting a bottle the other month. It’s bonkers stuff!
Work surfaces, old burnt pots, the kid’s trainers, old coins, anything I can get me hands on gets given the BKF treatment (I’ll probably find out now it’s well unhealthy for the environment). The greatest breakthrough is using it to get the many layers of indelible felt-tip off those plastic reusable seed labels (just a little on a cloth, a wipe and a good old rinse and it’s gone!) Now you can clearly see what you’re growing!
Thanks to Dr Strangedub for including the dub to the above (Mad Professor – Fast Forward into Dub) on this week’s Echo Chamber on KFAI which made me post the original here. A lovely tune!
Also found the above on youtube the other day, a great bit of live mixing by the King (Jammy) himself. Two to perk up those dark winter nights!
It’s the nearest Saturday to Guy Fawkes night (aka “get rid of your garden rubbish in one big bonfire and the neighbours can’t complain” night) and the big pile of clippings which have been taking up space at the bottom of the garden were planned to go up in smoke tonight. Even a cheap pack of Fireworks had been purchased from Lidl to add to the effect too. It’s now mid-afternoon and it’s chucking it down, typical! Now the sun’s come out…
Ta again to Dr Strangedub for linking us up with another music maker/gardener. This time it’s Martin L Kennedy from the excellent All India Radio from Melbourne, Australia. AIR make some great chilled tunage which Dr Strangedub has been playing on the echo chamber for a long while now.
Thanks to Martin for getting in touch with us and for sending us some photo’s of his mother’s back yard, which is a quality garden featuring some lovely planting!
Here’s what Martin wrote: Here’s some pictures of springtime in an Australian back yard. This is actually my mothers garden where I grew up. Amazingly many of the same plants that were planted when I was young (over 40 years ago) are still growing. Some of them were gifts to my parents, bought from the school fete or nicked from the neighbours gardens!
Great stuff Martin, looking good! I still can’t get my head around that it’s nearing the end of the gardening year here and in Australia it’s just beginning. Great stuff!
Weeds up to me knees 