“You should be playing stadiums…you c**t.”
September 9, 2021
“You should be playing stadiums, you c**t.”
Dave#2
I’m listening to All of the Above (red vinyl) as I write, forgive the self-indulgence but I’m just checking once again to make sure that what Dave#2 said a couple of days ago as I cycled past his home here in Cliftonville, is accurate.
It is.
It’s also quite a big, bold statement and it’s not exactly the kind of thing a ‘struggling’ artist should, or can ignore easily, unless of course it’s uttered by someone who HAS to say it, like your mum. (Mine, not yours obviously.)
I should point out that if my mum had in fact spoken in such a reverential tone, I would have been left speechless, primarily because I don’t think she’s ever sworn in her entire 89 years on this planet and also because she has no idea what my music sounds like. (Or, perhaps more pertinently what constitutes stadium-filling potential as far as a rocknroll band goes.) Obviously if you’re Jack Osbourne and you mum is Sharon, then yeah, I’d probably not ignore her, or maybe I would, she’s a bit of a twat if you ask me, anyway, I digress. Lets just agree that my mum knows nothing about her sons attempts to gatecrash the sordid and unforgiving world of the music ‘biz as his midlife crisis continues unabated with a trajectory equaling her own, cruel slide into full-blown dementia. By which I mean there is not going to be a happy ending for either of us.
Sharon Osbourne knows quite a lot about selling out stadiums and also the midlife crisis ‘thing’, so does Dave and that’s why the decision I’ve had to make over the past few days has an added sadness to an already unhappy state of affairs as far as Hightown Pirates goes anyway.
(btw, If you’re listening ‘god’ I think you’re a C**t as well for inflicting dementia on people, along with all the other horrible illnesses you foist upon humans in the ‘mysterious’ way you go about your ‘work’ demonstrating your love for us all.)
Who’s Dave? I hear you say.
You?
I’m assuming more of you are reading this than have brought tickets to see the band, so ‘you’ might be interested to know that it’s not our six-string maestro Dave#1, but my current second favourite Dave in the entire world who’s surname is still a mystery to me. Dave#2 lives just round the corner from me and over the past few months I’ve observed him (that’s what us ‘observational’ writers do btw, we watch you from the other side of the street) slowly repurposing the shopfront that comes attached to his home here. He has erected a scaffold outside, that he wheels to and fro each day, a few feet this way, a few feet that way, as he pretends to do a day’s work renovating the exterior of his home. I know a little about the tactic of making an hour’s work look like a day’s graft, ask Becky, she’ll tell you it’s my modus operandi every time I step foot in the back garden here, so I can spot a fellow loafer a mile away in much the same way as I can also spot someone who doesn’t approach life in a ‘normal’ manner, which is also Dave#2 in case you were wondering.
Dave#2 has clearly led an interesting and colorful life, it’s obvious within a few seconds of talking to him, he is, what in old money, you would call a character. He reminds me of my dearly departed and very much missed friend, Graham, or mad Graham to give him his full title. I like Dave#2, I liked him before I’d ever spoken to him, I liked him ‘cos it was both fascinating and funny observing him pretending to work but really just waiting for the next person to get within chatting distance so he could pounce and engage in a spontaneous swearing competition masquerading as conversation all day, almost every time I strolled past on Northdown road. Dave#2 will tell you, well, he’s told me numerous times that he thinks most people are c**ts, but he also clearly likes talking to most people, which is the self-made conundrum he faces every day and therefor something I identify strongly with, hence probably why I like him so much.
Oh, that and the fact that before he moved to Margate, he was Ginger Bakers drum tech as well as working for Peter Gabriel and a host of other 70’s/80’s rock ‘titans.
(If you have to look-up who Ginger Baker was, you might as well go home now)
It’s fair to say that Mr Baker was certainly one of the most respected purveyors of the ‘hitting things loudly in time if possible’ dept when it comes to ‘rock’ drumming, a title he refuted vocally at every opportunity preferring to describe himself as a musician not a drummer. It’s also true to say he was quite ‘difficult’ in much the same way as Diana Ross has regularly been described as ‘difficult’. He was in that same rarified atmosphere, of prodigious talent and definitely a ‘bit’ of a c**t. Miss Ross is of course a ‘Diva’ and not a C**t, although I sometimes think it’s the same thing, but then again I would ‘cos it’s probably true, eh?
Now the reason I don’t hesitate for a second to dispute Dave#2’s previous employment is because it wasn’t him who’d told me, it was angry Mark who’s known him for years and who also thinks most people are c**ts but likes talking to them anyway as well. After nearly 6 months of observing from the north side of Northdown Rd, I ventured over to Dave#2’s side and introduced myself as a ‘friend of angry Mark’ mate, nice to meet you.
“Ain’t seen that c**t for months mate, I heard he was dead, the c**t”.
“No, he’s not dead mate, he’s moved to Dover.”
“Same fucking thing hahahaha, want a tug on this joint?”
I try to briefly explain why I don’t want to get stoned these days, which is a task you’d think I’d managed to have mastered by now, but alas Dave#2 wants to trade a few war stories involving his own heroin addiction as a bonding exercise so yeah, we’re chatting for a while.
“Yeah, I got off the smack by learning to grow decent Jamaican weed in my cellar in the 80’s, way before all these cunts started with all that skunk bollocks, makes you fucking nuts that stuff.”
There then follows a ‘bit’ of an awkward silence as I visually pretend to agree with him without raising an eyebrow in a “Have you looked in the mirror recently?” kind of style.
“Anyway, what do you want you c**t, can’t you see I’m busy here?”
I’ve learnt a bit of useful stuff over the years and would include the ability to know when to be liberal with the truth in certain situations, this being one of them. So instead of saying, oh I tend to gravitate towards the apparently unhinged more readily than ‘normal’ people, I just tell him I’m a recent arrival to the area and was fascinated by angry Marks assertion that Ginger Baker had once employed him.
You obviously know what his response was.
“Now, he was an absolute c**t, if ever there was one, but at least he was honest about it, you knew where you stood with Ginger, not like these two-faced c**ts today.”
I knew he was going to say something like that but feigned mild surprise anyway and asked him who else he’d worked for.
It turned out he’d worked for a veritable ‘who’s-who’ (but sadly, not the actual Who) of rocknroll ‘royalty’ back in the day, but what I found really interesting was his explanation that he was one of only two black men working in that industry as ‘crew’ for years.
“It was fucking great, they’d get me to sort out all the drugs but never expect me to carry them through customs ‘cos I’d get a ‘tug every fucking time cos I was black, and it was the 70’s, know what I mean?
I nodded in a ‘I obviously don’t know what you mean, as I was a white child in the 70’s so I can only imagine the difficulties you must have faced and of course I’m not patronizing you in any way mate etc.
He then tells me a story about the time he told Ian Anderson the ‘bandy-legged cunt’ from Jethro Tull, to fuck off leading to his dismissal from the American tour his was working on at the time.
I immediately tell him I’ve met the ‘Tulls ex-drummer Barriemore Barlow ‘cos my band have recorded in his studio a few times.
“How is the miserable old c**t these days? I think he got sacked the same night as me and we both went on a bender in Chicago for a few days, not sure how we got back to England.”
If you know anything about me, you’ll know that I LOVE hearing shit like this, call me a saddo, if you will, but I’m a fully paid-up member of the ‘things ain’t like they used to be’ brigade these days and I could listen to Dave’#2 for hours, in much the same way as someone who studies dangerous psychopaths might listen to recording of speeches by Hitler or Mrs. Thatcher
Dave#2 asks me to send his regards to Barry and also to drop him off some of my band’s music on CD, which I duly do the following day cos lets face it, I’ve got fucking thousands of CDs nobody’s brought and Dave#2 lives a few minutes away so easy peasy lemon squeezy.
A couple of days later I’m cycling past and spot Dave#2 stood on the scaffolding outside his, with two decent sized speaker cabs blasting out some music, VERY LOUDLY, my music, Girl from the Library, to be precise.
A couple of the local junkies/alcoholics are attempting to dance as Dave#2 conducts ceremonies, spliff in mouth, beer in hand.
Now, given that he’s seen literally hundreds of gigs, by some of the most successful and influential bands of all time, what follows next is actually as good an endorsement as I think I’m ever going to get. He might be a ‘bit’ unhinged these days, but most of the people I admire are similarly afflicted, that’s why I like them. He clearly doesn’t tolerate bullshit and speaks his mind without any hesitation to ‘check’ whether he will either entertain or offend the recipient of his utterings.
Which in this instance is me and I am not offended in the slightest, he’s seen the best there ever was or will be afterall.
“YOU SHOULD BE PLAYING STADIUMS YOU C**T”
He’s right of course.
But we won’t be, certainly not anytime soon anyway.
Hightown Pirates were due to go out on tour in October, in venues smaller than the dressing rooms Dave#2 once worked in.
I said from the day the tickets went on sale, that unless there was a significant amount of pre-sales, the tour could not go ahead.
I don’t have any money, we don’t have any managers or a label, I’ve funded everything so far, entirely myself with the help of some good people who have listened and agree with Dave#2.
I regret to inform you that the tour has been cancelled, I’m devastated but it’s become impossible to continue at present.
For my own sanity, Hightown Pirates is now on hold until spring 2022, when we shall see what the ‘new-normal’ really looks like and if, by that point, people are willing to buy tickets to see Dave#2’s new favourite band.
Thank you for getting this far.
I sincerely hope this is not the end, so does Dave#2.
You C**ts.