My Interests No 2 Music - My brief career in bands

When I was at school, say aged about 10, if you would have asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said 'Lead singer in a rock band'. However, around the same time I came to the painful realisation that I am tone deaf and cannot carry a tune in a bucket. So I quickly revised 'Lead singer in a band' to 'In a band'.

In 1979 when I was 15, I bought a Roland SH-09 synthesizer for £180. In today's money that would be about £600 which is alot for a 15 year old. I joined up with 3 friends who lived close to mine, Rob Holden Guitar, Rob Merino Drums and Richie Davies Bass to form a punk band called The Castrators. The only song we ever wrote was called 'Snot Is Green' Sample lyric -

I went to the park the other day
Where I met my local DJ
And he said
Snot aint red
Snot is green, snot is green, snot is green!

We then decided that as this was 1979 we had perhaps missed the punk boat and none of us were really into punk music anyway. Plus we were all middle class kids (I could afford a £180 synth) from Childwall one of the posher parts of Liverpool. We decided to mutate into a Space Rock band because we were all into Pink Floyd and Hawkwind. This suited me fine as all I ever did with the synth was make weird, spacey, electronic noises. We played a combination of covers Astronomy Domine, Floyd, Master of The Universe, Hawkwind and some originals about time travel and space flight. Sample lyric from a song I wrote called The Depths of Space -

We Have flown past planets
We have flown past stars
We have flown past Venus
Now we are flying past Mars

We rechristened ourselves The Richie Davies Band because we rehearsed in Richie's bedroom and we thought it would be cool if we were named after the Bassist which is quite unusual. We rehearsed alot but soon problems started to emerge. Richie had mental health problems and is a paranoid schizophrenic. Of course as 16 year olds we did not understand this and we just thought that Richie was a weirdo. Richie became very difficult to be around and you couldn't even hold a simple conversation with him at times. I personally started to think of Richie as our own Syd Barrett type character but Rob Holden was really freaked out by him and said he was leaving. Rob Merino then decided that Space Rock music was 'B*ll*cks' and left to join a Joy Division influenced band. That left just me and Richie and it got to the point where Richie would come round to my house and sit in my bedroom for hours saying absolutely nothing. I have not seen Richie in 25 years.

In 1982 I formed a synth pop duo with an old school friend called Pete Stiles. This will shock alot of people who know me because I now detest synth pop. What you have to remember is that in 1982 Gary Numan, Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark, The Human League, Flock of Seagulls were all huge. I totally transformed myself by getting my long centre part rock hair cut into the then trendy wedge style and I started wearing big round red coloured glasses. We called our duo The Spastic Robots. I added a drum machine to my synth noises and Pete sang and played 1 finger tunes on a Casio keyboard. Sample lyric from our song Suburban Nightmare

The Autonoms slowly wander
While society heads squander
Money, health and wealth
Through undue sneaky stealth

Again we rehearsed alot, this time in Pete's garage. The split this time came when Pete announced he was gay. I did not have a problem with that but his macho Father did. His Dad came home drunk one night and gave him a right hiding for being 'Queer'. For his own safety Pete immediately moved to Manchester to live with his elder brother and that was the end of The Spastic Robots.

It was also the end of my music making career for about 20 years. I lent my synth to someone back in the 90s and never got it back so I bought a new synth, a Nova in 2002. I have recorded hours of stuff on my own under the name of Gus but I have not done anything on my own for awhile now. I just seem to be repeating myself and I miss working with other people. In 2004 I joined up with my then girlfriend's brother Charlie and we called ourselves Strange Angels. Charlie's Mum has an Apple Mac and we used a couple of music making programmes along with my synth and Charlie providing vocals. Sample lyric from Blah Blah Blah Muthaf*cka

Blah Blah Blah
Blah Muthaf*cka
Blah Blah Blah
Muthaf*cka Blah Blah

It actually works really well in the context of the song! Unfortunately Strange Angels are no more. Charlie is a drug addict and I recently learnt he is currently in prison in London. This is an incredible shame as Charlie is one of the most gifted people I know. He writes fantastic poetry, is an excellent artist, his drawings are great and in Strange Angels he was the 'Beat Master'. I just hope he sorts himself out one day.

My Interests No 1 Boxing

I haven't spoken about my interests yet, so that is probably what I will do in my next few posts.

I am a fan of boxing, well watching it not doing it. Now I appreciate that to some people it is totally barbaric and if you break it down to Boxing is basically 2 men trying to beat each other into unconsciousness, they probably have a point. I however, find boxing and boxers, fascinating.

I first became interested in boxing as a child when I watched Muhammad Ali's great fights with my Dad. No, I don't mean Ali had fights with my Dad, I mean I was with my Dad when we watched Ali's great fights with Frazier, Foreman and Norton. I lost interest when Ali retired but I got back into it when ITV started showing fights featuring Larry Holmes, Marvin Hagler, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard in the mid 80s. I even used to buy Boxing News every week, but my mate Mick reckoned I only used to carry it round with me to try and look hard.

I do really admire boxers. The dedication and determination they have to show to be successful is incredible. My friend Colin Dunne used to be a World Champion boxer so I saw up close the dedication and hard work he had to put in. It was only when he started being slightly less dedicated when he discovered Guinness and started having girlfriends that his fights became harder and harder. Eventually he lost 2 fights in a row to boxers he would have easily beaten in his prime and thankfully he retired immediately before he got hurt. He wisely has not even considered making a comeback which some boxers foolishy do. The boxers who I admire the most though, are crap boxers. They get in the ring and get pummelled from pillar to post for a pitance. That makes them either very brave, or very stupid. I think they are brave.

Boxing now is in a pretty poor state. The main problem is there are too many versions of the 'World' title. This means that the best boxers in a weight division very rarely meet each other. All the decent boxers win a different version of the title then just defend against poorer fighters. Oh for a return to the golden age of boxing, the 70s and 80s when there were great fights between the best in each division on a monthly basis.

My Inner Demon

If you ask most people who know me what I am like, most will say something along the lines of I am laid back, I don't worry, I usually seem happy etc etc. Now generally that is true but unfortunately I do have an inner demon that so far in 42 years has raised it's head 3 times. 3 times in nearly 43 years my not seem like alot but the intensity of my fury has left the witnesses somewhat shocked.

The first time it emerged was in the Summer of 1991. At the time I was still living with Angela my ex fiance' but we were no longer together. She was seeing someone else and I was seeing Andi who lived 150 miles away in Devizes. It was a sunny Saturday night and Guns and Roses were live on Sky from Paris. Andi was at the gig and I was watching out for her in the 150,000 strong crowd. Now you will see a pattern of sorts emerge here as I can recall virtually nothing of what happened. I remember the concert had got to the encores and then nothing. I know I totally trashed the flat as the next morning the furniture was over turned there were CDs and tapes everywhere and my beloved Lava Lamp had been smashed. Angela says I did not hit her but she was sufficiently scared to lock herself in the bathroom, the only room with a lock on the door. I then apparently went out and I must have fallen over or something as I had bruising to my right hip and elbow. Angela went to look for me at my Mums and Sisters but I was not at either of them. When she returned I was sat on the doorstep as I had not taken my key with me. She tells me I went straight to bed and the next thing I do remember is Angela waking me up and saying you are due in on overtime in half an hour.

The second appearance was in 1996. At the time I was seeing Janet. Every Sunday afternoon we would go to a pub quiz in the Red House in Old Swan. The quizmaster nicknamed me Crazy Horse because I had very long hair and wore a coat that looked like it was made out of an Indian blanket. Anyway, we were on our way back to mine and we had just been to the chippy. Again I have no idea what set me off but I apparently damaged a street sign and threw the chippy meals away. Janet is not easily intimidated and her sense of humour is more one of laughing at people rather than with them, so she found it quite funny in a strange kind of way but she said I went 'absolutely beserk'. I then refused to answer her phone calls for a week.

The most recent incident was in Paris with Nathalia. We had had 2 great days sightseeing and on the second and last evening, Nathalia's birthday, we had been for a lovely posh meal. We were on the way back to the hotel and again my recollections are fairly hazy. I know we were crossing a busy road which in Paris scared the life out of me as the Parisian drivers seemed mad and did not follow normal driving conventions, when again I went beserk. I said some stupid things that I cannot remember word for word and Nathalia was crying and no matter how hard she tried I would not calm down. Worst of all I pushed her away too. As with Janet I continued to act like an idiot and would not see sense for about a week afterwards.

Now I have confessed all that I suspect anyone reading this will now give me a wide berth. The most worrying part is that each time there was no warning or build up and it was totally at odds with how I act 99.99% of the time. One of the reasons why I stopped drinking all together in the late 90s was in case that was a contributing factor. On all 3 occasions I had had something to drink but in reality I know that trying to blame alcohol is no excuse. Its me and me alone.

The Origin of the Species

Gus The Cameraman? Well, that's not my real name obviously. On my birth certificate it has my forenames as John and Paul. John is a family name for the males, my Dad was called John and his Dad was called John. Presumably his Dad was called John too. It now seems unlikely that I will father any children, so the family name of John will probably die out with me. The problem with John as a family name was that there were too many Johns around. (Too Many Johns - sounds like a US sitcom about a toilet cleaner) If my Mum (Mrs Gus) shouted 'John' we never knew if she wanted my Dad or me so my family have always called me Paul.

I was born on 12th February 1964 at the height of Beatlemania. That day The Beatles played at Carnegie Hall in New York. It was the second concert on their first ever trip to America and it was 3 days after their famous first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I already had the John (Lennon) so my middle name was Paul after Paul McCartney.

In 1997 I went to work at Butlins in Pwllheli in North Wales and this is where the name Gus comes from. I went there to work on a twice daily live TV show called Up In The Attic. It was broadcast via cable to all the chalets and caravans on the camp. The programme was done by just the presenter Rob McNally and me. We wrote the programme between us, Rob presented it and I did the camerawork and the sound and vision mixing. The shows were an hour long and we switched between the live studio and pre recorded stuff on tape. The show consisted of cartoons, adverts for the bars and shops on the camp that we filmed, pre recorded interviews by Rob with the various celebrities that appeared on the camp like Alvin Stardust, Bobby Davro etc, live in the studio interviews with Redcoats and camp entertainers (No, they weren't gay they worked for Butlins!) and some spoof weather reports from Gayle Force, who was Rob in drag. In the Gayle Force segments Gayle was a grumpy, alcoholic Weather woman who was always arguing with her cameraman who was called Gus The Cameraman and voiced by me. The character of Gus was expanded because when we did not have a live guest in the studio Rob wanted to talk to someone and as I was the only other person in the studio, he had to talk to Gus The Cameraman. With me doing the camera work and the sound and vision mixing I obviously could not appear in front of the camera, so we told the viewers that I was too ugly to be seen. The show 'Up In The Attic' was supposedly done from Rob's Mum's attic and Gus was kept permanently chained up in there. The studio which was tiny and used to be a stock room was brilliant. Rob's desk was the water tank, you could see the ladder up to the attic and behind him was a brick wall with all cracks. So all I did was work as Gus on the show and I was never seen. People would see me every day around the camp and knew I worked there but they would never see me working. When Redcoats etc appeared on the show they found out what I actually did. When anyone asked them 'Who's that weirdo who we always see around' they would reply 'Oh that's Gus The Cameraman' so everyone only knew me as Gus The Cameraman. Everyone who has met me for the first time in the last 9 years knows me as Gus. I quite like the name Gus because everyone remembers it. It is unusual and whereas most people know other Johns and Pauls they rarely know another Gus.

I am new to this

Hi my name is Gus. I am 42, I live in Liverpool on my own in a flat. I have never married and have no children. I am not usually the kind of person to have a Blog. I have never kept a diary for instance. Keeping a Blog suggests that you think other people are going to be interested in your life and I cannot really see many people being interested in my life, which is fair enough.

The real reason for starting this Blog is because I want to join in with the Moon Project that a friend told me about, but knowing me if I do get into keeping a Blog, I will really get into it and I will probably be unable to stop writing. That is normally the way with me, when I get into something I really get into it but I can then have periods where I cannot really motivate myself to do more with 'it'.

Anyway that's about it for my first Blog post. Next time I will tell you a bit more about myself and my interests.