VICTIMS FAMILY/DRIVE/YARDSTICK
The Den, Wigan

Totally refreshed and revived this morning. and hit the road pretty soon. My car seemed to be ok again, to,o which was quite pleasing. Unfortunately, as I pulled into a service station just above Birmingham, the gearbox decided to go! After an hour or so of waiting for the RAC, they turned up to say “Nothing I can do, mate!” In fact, all he could do was take it to the nearest garage, which was 200 yards away in the services! Wow, that’s cool, I thought, but aha! The bloke down in the garage was a real ignorant, arrogant fuck, and said the best he could do was about 3 days time! Oh well, without much option, I left the car there to be repaired in the hope of returning sometime on Tuesday.

There was nothing for it except to stick the old thumb out in the wet and cold, and hope! Ok, it wasn’t raining but it sure was cold. After about half an hour, a car pulled up – to let someone out! About twenty minutes later, a van pulled up and offered me and this other guy a lift.

People always say to watch out for weirdos when hitching, and this couple were weird but, luckily, in a nice sort of way. They asked where we were going – about twenty times! They also didn’t know where they were. They said they’d left Birmingham to go to Weston Supermare, but took the wrong motorway and thought they’d go to Manchester.

Anyway, they decided to go to Blackpool instead (I’m not sure they knew where it was, though)! I got off at an exit for Wigan and walked into town to the venue, where there was no one waiting.

I walked around to Alan’s record shop, where I met Alan, who looked totally different to how I imagined. As I was walking into Wigan earlier, I was trying to picture Alan and put him down as having black hair and a tache. Of course, no tache and blond hair! The shop was packed with people and I saw a whole slew of records and stuff that I couldn’t afford. I did purchase a copy of the Touch & Go fanzine and headed back to the venue, which should have been open by now.

Unfortunately, the keyholder hadn’t turned up yet but I did meet Mel and Sean (Tabby Cat Village), who were also waiting outside. The Victims Family van turned up a few minutes later and I managed to blag a lift off them to Birmingham tomorrow. I went off to seek food and drink in the meantime. On my return, there were loads of people waiting to get in (a few already inside too!). I was really surprised by the amount of people here, but as Alan explained, Wigan is an easy place to get to from Liverpool and Manchester. More of a surprise was the amount of young people here and the amount of girls. One person quipped about being back in the youth club.

As the people piled in, I met a guy who had been to the Newport and Stoke shows, who, it turns out, plays in Kismet-HC. I also met my old bandmate Paul Simmons (currently in Manchester), whom I hadn’t seen for about a year and a half. We chewed the fat as the first band, Yardstick, played. They were unimpressive from where I was standing, but I do admit to not paying much attention.

Drive were on next and plenty of people went down the front. I was surprised to see they have a new bass player and drummer, but they seemed to handle everything well. I’m not a big fan of Drive but they sounded ok tonight.

Victims Family hit the stage at about 10.15 and most of the 200 people there packed the dance floor and the band turned on an even better set than in London. The couple of mistakes they made (yeah, they made a couple!) were compensated for by the sound, which was great down the front. The crowd went apeshit for a while with plenty of friendly stagediving (which annoyed me, I’m afraid and things were going well til a bit of over excitement by the crowd landed the microphone full on Ralph’s nose (Ouch!). After a brief rest break, it was full steam ahead. The band played a couple of numbers as an encore but were cheered back for one more, to which the crowd went totally ape, and a piece of wood across the ceiling didn’t survive the stage diving. Phew! A good night all round.

After packing up and food nourishment, we returned to Mel’s place, where Tim quickly found the porn channel on satellite, but we watched MTV for about an hour, which, naturally, featured Nirvana (who MTV seemed to idolise) amongst the totally wishy washy shit of Bryan Adams and 2 Unlimited. Pretty soon, everyone fell asleep (funnily enough).

Before I forget, Ralph was tickled at the graffiti in the toilets at the Den, which read “I’m the devil, me!”

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WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE FOODS & WHAT PIZZA TOPPINGS DO YOU HAVE?

Ralph: Mexican, Indian, Chinese hot & sour soup. Any meatless pizza is cool with me. I’m sort of into rocheese  (rotis?) as well.
Tim: Mexican food, pasta and pizza. Cheese, mushroom and olives.
Larry: Indian, Mexican and Italian. There’s a place in Vancouver that makes a veggie pizza with spinach and feta, that rules!

WHAT DOES THE HC SCENE HAVE TO OFFER THE “NAIVE CHILDREN” OF THE WORLD?

Ralph: Well, that song was written for this insufferably snobby booking agent we had one tour, and it’s basically about how sick the whole music biz bullshit makes me. HC offers an alternative to that, but I see the same kind of crap in the indie scene as well. HC (or DIY) offers people a chance to really be creative if they just use it.