TAKE ME TO THE OTHER SIDE

I found my old band diary for 1988 in the attic the other day.

I must have started writing up some details of my time in the Perfect Disaster at some point just in case I started to forget the order of things.

Or for posterity, I forget which.

Anyway, I’m glad I bothered.

After all, it was my youth and it only happened once.
I used to keep a diary all the time in those days. I recommend it.

Even if, on reflection, things aren’t particularly earth shattering, at least one day it might give you an insight into your younger thought processes.

I’d loved music above everything else up to that point and to take part in the making, recording & releasing of original songs was something of almost desperate importance to me.

Looking back at these diary entries I think you can tell that.

But if you read it and you think it’s over detailed or of little consequence in the greater scheme of things or you think; “So what? Everyone’s in a band now anyway”, then just tread carefully for you tread on my dreams.

Someone once remarked that comedy is just tragedy plus time.
Well, all this happened a long time ago.

PREFACE; BEFORE THE BEGINNING.

We were The Velvet Underground’s country cousins but where Lou Reed sang of Dirty Blvds, methamphetamines, S & M and hustlers, our singer Phil Parfitt sang about hiding amongst boxes from people called Frank, Austin A40s and cucumber sandwiches.

The VU came from an environment of beat poets, lofts, sidewalks & skyscrapers, while we were surrounded by Brussel sprouts and Bedfordshire cabbage fields.
According to Wikipedia, the traditional nickname for people from Bedfordshire is ‘Clangers’.
It’s somehow fitting. The Perfect Disaster certainly clanged a lot.

Me? I was from the first Garden City. Letchworth, Hertfordshire.

Home of the worlds first purpose built traffic roundabout.

It was like a different world.