18th Dec 2022 – Merley Bird Gardens was exactly as its name. There was a courtyard outside the entrance building and I probably came at the invitation of our local youth club leader (guitarist in the band), looking for new things to do and perhaps even meeting new people. I don’t know where the rest of the audience came from. I still didn’t really understand how things around me worked but I do remember there being lots of pretty and exotic-looking girls here though I was still retarded by my ego and shyness, an ugly punk with a bad attitude constantly smoking rollups until they tasted like cabbage. Needless to say, I didn’t talk to anyone but enjoyed trying this ‘new thing’, though for the last time.
18th Dec 2022 – Cottage Industry was the country band (may have just been solo, not sure now) of our local (Holtwood) youth club leader. As kids, we had lots of fun fucking around and fucking things up at the youth club, often getting ourselves banned for periods of time. I guess I was trying to ingratiate myself with him in some way and was also a little interested in learning about things musical as a player so I blagged a ride in the back of his van with the equipment and helped carry it in and out of the venue. I was kinda amused to be in this place, still not quite of drinking age and seemed to enjoy the atmosphere whilst not being particularly interested in the music. I had grown up through my very early years in the north of England with the local country music scene as my mum’s boyfriend was a guitar player that played a lot at the time. Mum also played folk music at home sometimes too. This Cottage Industry shit certainly wasn’t punk rock and that was all I cared about at the time. I guessed I learned something from this experience but probably didn’t recognise it at the time.
Just look at this place. I don’t know what I really expect places to look like but this just brings to mind the drabness of England. This picture contains the best of the English colour scheme. The stand-out colour in the picture is a fucking traffic cone.
Record of the week: Toy Dolls – Dig That Groove Baby, Atrox – Elitist Prey
4th March 1985 Got up at 10. Went to Wimborne. Met Sharon, Mayo and Paul Miller. Bought laces and sweets. Went to sign on. Went to Careers Office. Bought crosswords book. Came back. Just about to go see Void when Scott came round. Took him along as well. Void were pretty boring. Saw Wayne so gave him the tape. Got back at 10.30. 6
5th March 1985 Got up at 11. Farted around for most of the day. Started doing crosswords. Played Toy Dolls LP – it’s pretty good. Went on common and climbed a few trees. Trying to improve my singing. Went down Youth Club. Everyone was in a pissy mood. Going down to see Pete’s group tomorrow. Came back. 5
6th March 1985 Can’t remember what happened during the day so I’ll tell you what happened tonight. Pete gave me a lift down to Parkstone. Met the rest of his band. One of them told me that Madisons holds a musical workshop every Monday. They played pretty well. It wasn’t my type of music but it made a welcome change. 7
7th March 1985 Oh shit, what happened today? Oh yes. I went for interview in Corfe Mullen. Bloke said I could start on the 18th so I said I would. It’s doing painting and decorating. New programme was on tonight called Street Hawk. It’s great – typical US trash. 6
8th March 1985 Sent off for Internatione PEACE Benefit double LP and 3 Maximum Rock N Rolls. Went down Youth Club – it was piss boring. Took some records down that no one liked. We can’t do our trick on the pool table anymore – which is a big fuck off. 6
9th March 1985 Everyone went down Poole – so I went. It was OK at times but got boring after a while. Jasper was pissed off cos he wasn’t the leader. Met Justin, Ratty and Midge down there. Let off smoke bomb on the bus. Played Spotlight this evening which was quite a good laugh. 7
10th March 1985 Went down Wareham. Got train to Dorchester. Practice was really good. Met Tony on the way down. He came along. Got back about 7. Watched telly all evening. Done my back in though which isn’t very pleasing. Night Court was good. 8
1994ever 