The boys in the support band

Apart from the constant sexual harassment by the MD and his bumtastic   Jonathan King type colleagues, being on a major label weren't all that bad. The recording industry is a corrupt beast, backhanders and sexual favours the common currency within its nefarious machinations.

For a spankingly handsome band like ourselves this can have it's advantages.

 I'm not exactly sure who blew who, what grimy wanks and sordid fiscal buggerisations went down behind the scenes but almost overnight we spunky little Love Reactors went from playing The Grim Smegma rock bar in Camden to supporting super big rocktastic rock band The Motor heads on their  Orgasmatron tour.

Now I wouldn't say I was a particular fan of The Motor heads but I found   the singer, a Mr Kilminster's badass persona quite endearing.

Mr Kilminster had contrived a kind of WWF good bad guy kind of image, cowboyish with a heavy dollop of biker camp thrown in for extra sauce.

It was a good look, a lot of people thought it was real, but I'd been to art school so naturally I could spot a poser a mile off.

It takes one to know one as the saying goes.

Mr Kilminster was a decent chap. I knew he would be, a little old fashioned in his gentlemanly manners perhaps, hence the bombastic nature of his public disguise, but a genuine fellow of sorts, all the same. 

I noticed a slightly feminine side to Mr Kilminster that is not often remarked upon, his immaculately turned out tough guy image which ..r inspection turns out to be a tad more Alan Ladd than Clint Eastwood. The neatly pressed kerchief, the immaculately ironed cowboy shirts and tight rayon pants, not to mention the intricate detail of the fancy Mexican boots, the dyed hair and sideys.

A little more line dancing than desperado if you know what I mean.

 I think possibly dressage would be more appropriate than riding the range for this sharp dressed man.

But this is by no means any attempt to detract from the mans natural abilities at the rocking and the rolling, most if not all great rocking and rollers have a whiff of the Lavender about them, just look at the girly outrage of Ms Jagger for instance and the tonsorial extravaganza that is Ms Little Richard. 

It never fails to amuse me how this aspect of heavy rock music is always overlooked by its hordes of fiercely heterosexual aficionados.

During the early days we supported quite a few of these faux-macho superstars and not one of these muscular dandies nor their audiences for that matter used to find anything slightly suspect about their bigboy heroes prancing around the place in bulgy spandex screaming out their soprano operettas about neurotic sex.

Guns and Roses for instance, Axl  belting around the stage in a pair of extremely tight leather trousers with the actual bottom part of them cut out. 

"Do you think he knows what he looks like?" A perturbed looking Stargazer queried from the side of the stage 

"What do you mean?" I  answered, knowing exactly what the uncomfortable guitarist was talking about as he stood as far away as humanly possible from such a distatsteful display of male arse "The cheeky trouser thing" I continued.

"The sodomy chaps, yes" Came Stargazers gruff reply, wondering exactly what kind of band these Guns and Roses fellows were after all.

"Oh Axl knows what he's doing" I reassured my forcefully heterosexual guitar player "Apparently very young girls and gay men share remarkably similar tastes in sexual matters'

"What, fisting!" Spluttered a shocked Cobalt, spraying manly beer all over the place.

"No, no, good fellow, not the fudge packing business dear boy, I was referring to the  display element you silly sausage. The things our homosexual friends consider attractive in a young man, cute bottoms, tight jeans, you know, like Take That, that kind of thing appeals to teenage girls as well so I'm told"

"Take That didn't wear trousers with no arses in them" Cobalt retorted, still not convinced.

"Oh I don't know, maybe it's something to do with all the Lithium the poor boy takes, I understand the lads a little unstable" I offered, trying to placate the beefy guitarist

"Nobodies that unstable.." Harrumphed strait-laced Cobalt stomping backstage to find his hairspray.

Not all the bands we supported had bottomley tendancies however, though thinking about it, Iron Maidens He-man outfits, sort of Conan meets Rob Halford they kind of….hmm yeah, well, enough of that.

Paul Dianno for instance, no one could level any shirtlifterish accusations at that colossus of rocktasticness, his heterosexual credentials were up there with the Yorkshire rippers.

Of all the acts, Alice Cooper included, that the Love Reaction supported, Mr Dianno beyond any shadow of anyones doubt was and is by far the most impressive on any level anyone cares to mention.

Paul Dianno quite simply is rock.

The man truly does not give a fuck, about anything or anyone, including, especially including; himself.

Forget your erstsatz hard livers like Audie Murphy Lemmy and Guns and   Axl, Dianno was the total bollocks, rock with a capital C.

It is quite criminal how this mans awesome talent has been neglected over the years, I personally believe he possesses one of the greatest if not the best  rock voices ever, up there with Mr Ian Gillan and Mr Robert Plant .

Mr Dianno possesses something that the career rockers, the hired tonsils like the David Coverdales and the Bruce Dickinsons will never have.

 Soul.

A corrupt, genuinely demonic soul, but soul all the same.

Mr Dianno in the truest and most old fashioned way genuinely has and some would say still is paying his dues.

And I'm sure if you asked him, the battered spitfire himself would tell you if you could get anything resembling a coherent sentence out of him that is, that that's the way he likes it.

Of all the bands we've had the privilege or the misfortune to support I think it was Paul and his band Killers that were the only ones that really won our respect and downright admiration.

The rest I'm afraid, even the Motorheads, compared to Mr Dianno  were as Paul would put it fucking lightweights.