5.20pm 12th August 2006
I'm showering, getting ready for the big Neurotics gig and thinking of the solo spot I did at the previous Wasted
Ahhhh, ooohhh, yesss, fuck me, fuck me, yesss.
The couple in the cubicle are enjoying themselves seemingly oblivious to the fact I am now standing in the dressing room putting my guitar on.
I plug it into the amp and start to play, it makes no difference, the sex continues without interuption.
I practise a reggae chord chopping sequence from 'Never Thought' which I will be playing tonight but it ends up sounding like a 'Carry On' version of "Je t'aime... moi non plus" by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin
Ohhh that feels good, aaah, aaahhh, ooh missus!
I am still furious about what has has just occurred in the other dressing room but I have no more angst left to vent off, I submit to the fact that two people are fucking two feet away from me as I prepare to take the stage.
I can see in a crack in the door a bottom going up and down, and I suddenly feel like a peeping tom.
Hang on a minute, I'm meant to be preparing to go on stage in this room and that is what I am doing. It is not meant to a place where musicians get sexual relief. I shouldn't feel like I'm intruding on them, they are intruding on me.
The dressing room door opens and a friend of the man in the cubicle shouts towards the toilet,
John? (as in, John Doe, so as to protect the name of the guilty! Not really, I can't remember his name but he had done a spirited if empty performance earlier)
(JohnI nterrupting sex ) Yeah!
(Friend) Were going now!
(John) Errr, can you hang on a minute.
(Friend) How long?
(John) Errr, Ten minutes
(Friend) No, come on were going now!
(John) But I'm shagging!
(Friend) God, ok hurry up, you've got two minutes, then we're off.
(John) Oh alright!
All this has happened without the slightest acknowledgment from either party that I exist and am standing in the same room as them.
The door shuts, they continue shagging, I continue rehearsing.
I would like them to get out of the room so I play faster, the shagging gets faster. I play a bit faster still and the shagging gets faster still. I play very fast and the shagging gets very fast.
At this point I wish I could play 'Sabre Dance' like that 60's group Love Sculpture used to do as that got really frantic at the end, or play something something by Lawn Mower Death, that would do.
Then as if from nowhere, a disappointing silence and a shuffling of clothes.
(John) Alright?
(Female companion) Yeah?
(John) I'd better be going.
(Female companion) Do you like me?
(John) Err, yeah, you're alright.
(Female companion) Fancy meeting up later for a pint?
(John) Yeah, maybe, I got a lot on though, we'll see.
At this point its breaking my heart but I've got to go, it's my turn on stage. I never see them emerge.
Attila announces me.
Steve Drewett of the Neurotics!
The applause dies down and I say "Thank you, this is This Fragile Life."
As I start the opening chords I think, these people have no idea what I have just been through before stepping up here.
Ahhh, rock n roll, dont you just hate it!
Talk about taking the stage, I'd better get out of this shower and get on my way to The Winter Gardens!
2005
Three minutes.
I am pacing and pacing so I decide to pace outside, It's freezing and Colin and Clare are out on the street hoping to catch a glimpse of a car full of lost souls hurtling around the one way system. As soon as that happens much arm waving will ensue in an attempt to draw their attention to the obscure car park at the back of the venue. The sky looks full of snow, the car park's full of vans. I'm not even sure they are going to have enough room to leave the car here.
Oh well, we'll worry about that when they arrive.
Where is the rest of the band?
2003
The months roll by.
I had some bad news, the appointment with the Ear Nose and Throat specialist has been cancelled and re-arranged for a later date.
I didn't need that.
In desperation I had turned to Chinese Herbal remedies to ease my condition and had been brewing a foul concoction from herbs boiled for half an hour, two or three times a day.
I could have had acupuncture which has been effective on me in the past but it's too expensive so I go for the herbs option.
I feel uneasy about this as its like seeking private heath care and its costing me money. Meanwhile I have to wait forever (it seems) to get my moment with the NHS, something I have been paying into for years.
I give up on the herbs in the end, fed up with having to prepare and drink an aniseed tasting potion and the fact that the herbalist's English is so poor I'm not convinced he actually understands what I am suffering from.
It could therefore be money down the drain.
Its not a slight on Chinese therapy, I just picked the wrong guy, they closed the business soon after I left.
By the time my appointment with the Ear Nose and Throat specialist came round it was nearly six months since I had been struck down by this condition.
It had now lasted so much longer than my doctor had envisaged that I was convinced it was Menieres desease.
I come to the hospital with my head bowed low, I was desperate and beaten.
I had become quiet and withdrawn. My movements were slow and deliberate so as not to cause too much dizziness.
The night terrors had stopped, thankfully, but I still had constant dizziness and I had so much trouble sleeping that I was always exhausted. (I was advised by my doctor not to rely on non herbal sleeping tablets as I could get addicted to them and the herbal ones didn't seem to do much).
My lovely little daughter Rosa didn't help, she always wants to spin me round in circles. Kids love the sensation of dizziness, they seek it out so when she holds out her hand and I take it lovingly into mine, she then runs in a circle and make me feel sick. It take me ages to recover.
The first part of the treatment was to be a hearing test.
A hearing test! Pardon me?
My god, over the years I have punished my ears constantly. Performing with bad PAs and shouted conversations by fans into my ears in front of bad PAs. Then there are the years of Walkman punishment and the loud Hi-Fis, the list is endless. After some gigs, my ears would ring for days.
Could it be that playing rock n roll has caused me to suffer in this way? I don't want to suffer for my art!
The test.
I had to click a button if I heard a sound on the left or the right. The sounds were quiet, I heard them but over a deafening wall of silence type white noise.
I then went and saw the big specialist who asked me a series of questions and did some peculiar specialist things like ticking me with a feather under my eyes (or was it under my nose, I can't remember) It was bizarre!
He then said since you started suffering from this condition would you say It has got better or worse?
I said, over the six months, a little better I suppose.
He then replied "I dont think you have anything serious going on here and you have very good hearing for your age so I think this condition will eventually fade".
I was gobsmacked.
After all I have submitted my ears to on stage, I've got good hearing? My condition is going to fade? I haven't got menieres or any horrible balance disorder after all?
I still don't know why this is lasting for so long, but he is right, it is a little better.
He also said a happy frame of mind was essential for getting over this as quickly as possible. This is where I have been going wrong I think. Hmmm, a happy frame of mind, how am I going to achieve that?
I came away from the hospital with a spring in my step I hadn't had for a very long time and it was the beginning of a Bank Holiday. Yippeee, I feel alive again.
Two days later.
MY HEAD, MY HEAD, MY FUCKING HEAD, WHATS HAPPENING TO ME!
In my ears...ssssssssssssssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssss