Leading up to this years small series of gigs I am again doing a blog but you can find it here instead of on MySpace (more configurable!) http://stevedrewett.blogspot.com/ instead.

Look forward to joining you there, though heaven knows what i'm going to write.

Steve Drewett

Just a quick line to say thank you all for following this blog. It was intended to be a narative that took in the preparations for the Harlow Square warm up gig and mine/our Wasted 2006 appearence.

Like the gigs the blog has now finished.

Cheers,
            Steve Drewett

Back in the dressing room everyone is ecstatic, both the band and the crew has worked hard to put on the best show possible and it had born fruit.

Now it was time to relax and party but before I could do that, there were some fans outside that wanted a word and I wasn't going to leave them waiting.

I return after receiving much praise, backslapping, hand shaking and photograph taking.

A guy called Ken who is the new partner to a friend of ours, Carole, was completely knocked out by the band. This meant a hell of a lot to me because he had no knowledge of the band before tonight and I don't think he had any interest in punk previously. If we managed to wow him then we must have made a hell of lot of new fans tonight.

But its all over, we have achieved all we set out to and more. A two year exercise in rediscovering our music has lead us to the biggest most successful gig the Newtown Neurotics have done in England.

For me it was a personal triumph in many ways not least because I once thought that when my health had recently taken a turn for the worse I physically would never be able to do what I have just done.

In doing this reformation we proved that we are still a very powerful band and a force to be reckoned with. We also made a lot of people happy on the way, that can't be bad.

The following day everyone got together for a drink and relaxed. We were waiting for the box office of the Winter Gardens to open so we could collect our money. These quiet moments are as important as a successful gig itself. It's a chance for us to take a moment to rest on our laurels and feel the pleasure of no longer being under pressure. It is priceless.

Once everyone has been paid they start the long journey home. But not for Clare, Rosa and I. we have decided to stay an extra day to give Rosa a donkey ride, some candy floss, ice cream, a paddle in the sea and some sand castle making, all the things kids love. The sun came out too and it was a glorious day. Her four birthday was coming up in a couple of weeks and she was already getting excited about it. Bless!

I gazed out to sea and wondered what was out there. Ireland first then America. Hmmm.

I then realised that I still had to finish my blog and that it was probably going to go on for another week before concluding.

I thought hard about how I was going to end it. I imaged myself at home at my computer tapping out the final lines and I imaged it would end something like this...

2005

Once we tumbled off of the stage we gather up our gear, such as it is and push it over to the bar where we can order drinks and keep an eye on it at the same time. Simon and Don have decided to stay for the whole of the all dayer and book themselves into a nearby hotel, they will make their way back tomorrow. For the rest of us, we have got to go soon as Clare and I have a friend babysitting Rosa and she will need to be relived as soon as we can get home so Colin and Chris our engineer will have to return with us.

I have to deal with the money before I can snatch a quick drink so I ring the promoter and we arrange to meet at the box office downstairs. I leave the boys eagerly waiting for their wages and go to collect it.

I am paid cash placed in an envelope. After signing for it and leaving the room I approach the doorway into the main hall.
It is now full of people and a band is in full swing. As I pass through the doorway unbeknowning to me I am also passing through the only fight of the evening. A punk on my right was in mid retaliation and had just aimed a huge steel toe capped boot full force at someone to my left, just as I walk through.

The boot smashed into the fingers of my right hand and the envelope full of money was knocked loose from them and went flying through the air seemingly in slow motion. I could see the shape of the envelope tumbling through the air silhouetted against the lights on the stage.

Noooooooo I shouted in a low register slow motion type of way with both my arms out-stretched in a vain effort to catch it.

No chance, it fell onto the floor in-between the feet of a group of dancing people. At this point I felt like Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where in the opening sequence he is poisoned and then the antidote gets kicked around the floor by dancers in the ballroom. He chases the vial all over the hall in a desperate attempt to take it before the poison kills him. For me it wasn't that desperate but I don't think the lads would be too happy to find out there was no money for our night's performance because I'd lost it.

I dive through a forest of legs, the envelope gets accidentally kicked and it skids across the surface of the dance floor. Unlike Indiana Jones I am lucky, it skids towards me not away. I grab it and stand up, as I do so I am knocked by a group of pogoing punks back onto the floor.

I'm alright, but I am now gripping the envelope like there is no tomorrow. Thank god I thought, that this money isn't loose otherwise there would have been a scramble in the middle of the room and in a moment it would have all been gone.

I could hardly go round to everyone in the room and say Excuse me but I believe that at least a tenner in your pocket belongs to me

No it would have been lost!

I finally get back to the lads at the bar, visibly shaken and with a bruise already evident across the back of five fingers of my hand. We order a round of drinks to calm our (mine) nerves.

Finally, it was time to call it a day so we packed up the car. I sat in the front and relaxed, that was the end of the Newtown Neurotics re-union tour and very fulfilling it was too. It was very hard work sorting out the gigs, rehearsing the band,sorting out promotion for the gigs online and on the radio, proof reading artwork for both the Kickstarting a Backfiring Nation CD and the The Long Goodbye DVD. A DVD that I had also edited and created the navigation on the disc too. All this and holding down a full time job and being a parent. I was knacked.

Ahead of me there was nothing more to do than sorting out what to buy for presents for everyone. Rosa has made Christmas magical again so I am looking forward to relaxing over the festive period, just me, Clare and the little one.

As we pull out of the car park, it begins to snow. Wow, for a moment as we drove through a large snow flurry I thought I was being taken home on a sleigh.

Ahhh, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

2003

I do two things, I arrange to have a course of reflexology to help to reduce my anxiety and encourage fast healing of my injuries.

Secondly I book an appointment with a doctor as soon as I could make it.

I'd worked out what was happening to me and when I got to see him (a different doctor to who I normally see) I give him my appraisal.

My mother had died of cancer and soon after that my daughter was born. The joy of being a parent had interrupted the grieving I should have been going though. I had become depressed and with overwork had become run down. This allowed a virus to stike me down and gave me vertigo. Being depressed I had focused on everything negative about this until I had worked my way up to a state of high anxiety and stayed in that anxious state for over six months. It wasn't vertigo that was debilitating me but panic attacks and I could not heal until I am no longer anxious.

The doctor listened, and then said, what do you suggest? How can I help you?

I said I need some sleeping tablets as I'm fed up with staying awake at night and I need rest. I need to go on anti-depressants for a while to get me out of this rut and I need some counselling to help me come to terms with every thing that has happened to me.

Okay, he said, you've got it.

And there, after all that time, I self diagnosed myself and pinpointed the treatment.

I took the anti-depressants, (never needed the sleeping tablets as feeling more chilled meant that I now fell off to sleep easily) and slowly over the ten days off work, my physical wounds started healing too. The attacks in the middle of the night stopped and all I was left with was some background dizziness.

The counselling was very good and cleared the way for me to complete the grieving process over my mum.

The final day of counselling coincided with Clare, Rosa and myself going on holiday to Southwold The councillor concluded that considering what I had been through (and there were other issues not mentioned in this blog) she was amazed I had come through it as well as I had.

Sadly, Pete Brown had recently died and his funeral was taking place whilst we were away. We could have come back for it but I still felt fragile and the last thing I needed at that time was a funeral. I sent a card of condolence and at the time the funeral took place I lifted a glass of beer up and toasted him.
I then started to relax and enjoy life.

After a while I returned to being completely normal. Well, I say that with a proviso that I dont know what normal is but it felt good to me. I must say though, my days on merry go rounds and roundabout etc are over for me, they would now make feel completely sick.

2004

A double CD set called The Stortbeat Collective has just been released which contains music from Harlow bands throughout the Eighties. I was asked to contribute a couple of Neurotics tracks and agreed but I took a while to warm to the project. When I heard it and saw how lovingly packaged it was I realised that it was a fantastic product.

I have been asked time and time again over the years to re-form the Neurotics and I just wasn't interested. It was something that I did that I was hugely proud of but I believed in moving on and not revisiting the past. I had done a lot of interviews loftily proclaiming that I regarded reforming as an ultimate sin. But this is what happened

I was approached to reform the band to play at a gig at the Square to launch the Stortbeat Collective CD, I laughed, like that's ever going to happen?

But I had second thoughts, because life is too short and at this moment in time, I reckon I would be able to do it.

I'll have to explain one day why I changed my mind.

8.20pm 12^th August 2006

When the Oil Runs out, written twenty seven years ago is now finally coming into sharp focus. Only now as we have reached the peak of global oil production are the powers that be worried about our reliance on oil. What do they do? Plough millions of dollars into researching renewable energy? No, they just invade a sovereign country privatise the oil industry along with the whole of the rest of the countie's resources and hand it over to their neocon friends, with our support of-course.

The Twentieth Century was defined as the century of cheap oil, the Twenty First Century seems like it is going to be defined by fighting over what is left of it. In between will be everyones standard of living. Dont forget, you heard it here first.

"What are you gonna to do, what are you gonna do, When The Oil Runs Out!"

We then play Fighting Times to remind people that giving up is not an option and then its time for Colin Dredds appearance.

Although a lot fitter now, at the time of discussions about reforming the band Colin was very ill indeed. The amount of energy and commitment that would be needed to bring the band back to life was far greater than Colin was capable of doing. So we drafted in Don Adams to play bass for us.

Nonetheless we were determined that Colin should be present with us to do a couple of numbers, he is a long time friend and we still appreciate his bass playing, vocals, influence and hard work that he has given the band over the years. He has performed his cameo apperance at all bar one gig since our re-emergence and we especially wanted him along side us on this one .

He steps on to the stage and does Blitzkrieg Bop and Hypocrite to great applause, it was so good to see people pay homage to his contribute to the band.

Agony was next up and the whole of the front section of the crowd (at least!) were singing along  with every word (they singing to every song we played I am told, but on this one I really plugged into it).

Then came Living With Unemployment, our reworking of the Members Solitary Confinement. The place went really mad at this point and there was the pleasure of letting the crowd take over the backing vocals towards the end.

It was so loud; it seemed that everyone was singing it, right to the back of the hall, I swear.

Pure magic!

As the song rockets along, it builds and build and builds and builds until both the band and the audience had reached a fever pitch of excitement. We all arrive together at the same place, at the same time.

The roar is deafening and they will not let us go. And so they shouldn't.

I come back on stage and shout, what do you want to hear?

Now a strange thing happened. All through our careers we were tired of people calling for 'Kick Out the Tories', it was a number we eventually dropped but people would always call for it, it was so predictable. Why always that number?

But this time we had audience we always dreamed of, they were all calling out different numbers, their favourites and Kick Out the Tories was being drowned out.

We had especially included it to end the set but ended up with a debating society down the front there for a moment!

What do you want to hear? More multiple number shouting.

It wasn't really a choice, I had anticipated everyone wanting it and it was a way of introducing it. I got it wrong, so I changed tack and gave the number a different introduction and then sang, Lets Kick Out the Tory!

It didn't matter, as any Neurotics number was a Neurotics number and this would do fine.

Again at the end there was more fantastic audience participation and we extended the length of the number to accommodate that interaction.

"Don't believe, every thing that you read in the press. Don't believe, every thing that you read in the press. Don't believe, don't believe, don't believe what you read."

It is a hypnotic chant and it has a strange effect. It is a reminder that we are kept in our place by misinformation. A propagandist  song? Of-course it is, and everyone loves it because of that.

By the time we finish, the atmosphere in the hall is electric and hot through the dancing of fans in the mosh pit.

For me I am cleansed of something, I am delirious, I am in another state altogether, I could not have asked for more. 

This energy I am tapping into is pure soul, it is an essence of me. All my hopes, dreams, frustrations, desperation, jealously, pride, greed, humanity, the lot, stirred up into a quintessenal charge of rock 'n' roll.
Music is at its best when it is not going through the motions, it's best when it is a window into the soul. Either of the songwriter or your own or both.

This is our final gig and our finest moment, we are burning as bright as a cinder and will soon extinguish, disappearing unseen into the night.

Just how I wanted us to.

2005

The set is dynamite, and the sound is fantastic. We so rarely do a 30 minute set and that has forced us to distil the essence of the Newtown Neurotics into that short space of time. It is a great discipline and I think this is the best played gig this we have done this year.

Trouble is, there wasn't much of an audience to see it. With the first band overplaying in the other hall and our set only being half a hour, by the time people have surfaced into the main hall we are just finishing. It is disappointing but I not too bothered. I think we have achieved all we set out to this year and this one was a dry run in a way.

Simon and I hadn't played a large stage for twenty years and I dont think Don ever had. You do need to know how not to get swallowed up by it, there is a knack of exaggerating to fill it and being confident to command it. So this could be considered practise for the future.

We have been asked to play Wasted next year, this could have been a gig of preparation.

We shall see.

2003

One good thing.

I have been forced off of the treadmill. No matter how much you love your work, if it is constant and unremitting then its a treadmill.
I was reluctant to go off sick because I didn't want to think that vertigo was getting the better of me. I didn't want to be considered too ill to work.

Now I have no choice, for ten days I am going to do nothing but rest and heal and it is wonderful. I have time to think and thinking is all I am doing.

I am determined to use this break to turn my life around but I don't know how.

I am very worried too, one of the aspects of having a vertigo attack is that I don't know were to put myself so I fidget, jump up, sit down, throw my arms up in the air, rub the hair on the top of my head, sit down again.

If I wake up in the middle of the night with an attack it will be like waking up panicking in a metal straight jacket full of spikes. One little move and bang, intense pain. Luckily so far it hasn't happened.

I am sleeping on my own in a bed in the living room whilst I heal, and I can only sleep on one side of my body so I have cushions propped up behind me to prevent me from turning over.

I lay on the bed all day reading, listening to music and dozing and at night I lay awake thinking until I finally sleep, If I don't get much, it doesnt matter because I can catch up with it during the day.

I think about me, what I used to be, and what I am now. I am the furthest I have ever been from the guy that used to play energetically in the Newtown Neurotics. I am the furthest away from being able to perform again. I am the furthest away from being able to inspire people again.

And yet, paradoxically I am the nearest I have ever been to all  three of these things for twenty years.

I have a revelation!

I know what is wrong with me and tomorrow I'm going to start to fix it!

8.00pm 12^th August 2006

I hurriedly set my gear up and realise that I have lost the strap to one of my guitars. The strap on my main guitar, a Fender Esprit, is almost locked on so that it doesn't come loose as I throw it around during the performance.

I quickly realise that although I have a back up guitar it would take too long to swap over so I mustn't break any strings on the Fender, this has got to last the course.

A quick line check and we're ready.

I stand with my back to the audience and begin playing the single repeated stabbing note that is the intro to Wake up. The notes fly out like cupids arrows piecing the hearts of all in the audience.

You will love this band!

The lone guitar sent shockwaves out into the hushed darkness of the Empress Ballroom.

To the initiated this was the intro to our first album Beggars Can Be Choosers, an album that had been so close to their hearts for so long they hadn't realised how close it was. Now it stirred something very special inside them, this was no longer just music, it was much, much more. But wait a minute, hadn't it always been? 

To the uninitiated it was a very unusual way of starting a set and very powerful.

They stood waiting to make a decision on whether to stay. They had watched 999 and were intrigued by what the Newtown Neurotics were like, if it wasn't much good, there were plenty of other stages with great bands on, they'll just wander off to them.

But they were already hooked, staring at the stage they looked like they were gazing up at a UFO that had descended from the nights sky to hover over Blackpool Tower.

Once the band fully kicks in, the rhythm will catch them and won't let them go.

The single stabbing note is like a ball thrown into air by a tennis player, it hovers for a moment and then the full power of the players arm is put into play to propel the ball to its target.

And so with us, the band kick in and the point is made in the ears of this huge audience..

The point?

The Newtown Neurotics are back! With a vengeance!

At this point I realise I am not wearing my trademark shades, I like to wear these because I need total concentration on what I am doing and find the audience distracting. I consider putting them on after the first number and then decide no, I want to witness these people, this is going to be a special night and I want to be fully plugged into it.

And for the first time in twenty six years, I play with my eyes exposed taking the whole spectacle (pardon the pun) in.

Energy is roaring through my body, I have enough for the gig and plenty to spare. When we are the headline act and we have the time we usually play for an hour and twenty minutes or more, tonight is only fourty five minutes. Its a breeze to what we can do but I have been exhausted all the time we have been here, being a parent and performing too.

The band are shit kicking hot too, the boys are rising to the occasion as I knew they would.

My guitar feels light, that tells me how much energy I have, when we are in overdrive this piece of wood, wires and steel turn into lighter than water balsa wood.

We finish Wake up and the crowd go mad, you ain't leaving now, I think, as we immediately thunder into The Mess with the appropriate chorus of I'm wasted, just look at the mess I am in.

We indulge in a little foreplay by slipping into Newtown People to give light and shade to the set. Our music is slowly painting a picture of people trapped by the powerful and by that very fact they are now the powerless. It is reminding people that they are ultimately in charge of their own destinies and if they turn their backs on that power, it will surely crush them.

Whilst we are not crushed, lets reach out and save people who are about to be. Why? Because together we are stronger and we can make a difference.

I believe that is the core of the enduring power of music. In a world where people reluctantly join in a common cause, a band is a symbol of solidarity, it is a group of people coming together to create something that is greater than the equal parts, and when done well, a thing of triumphant beauty.

We slide up a notch with Life in their hands and then Mindless Violence, two songs about how the threat of violence keeps us in our place.

Then we come to When the Oil Runs Out, for me the single most important statement for us all. Why? Because we will murder for it! 

2005

I pick up my guitar and make some finally adjustments before we start, Simon is settling into his drum stool and Don readies himself with the Bass. We eke out the last minute, waiting for the audience to appear in the room, a trickle comes in but we can't wait any longer we have a stage manager with a gun to our heads.

I stand with my back to the Nottingham Rock City main stage area and begin playing the single repeated stabbing note that is the intro to Wake up but its having trouble finding much of an audience.

2003

Crunch! My body hits the concrete with a sickening crack and slides for several feet along the cycle track. A metallic clatter of bike then follows as a fast moving frame of tubular steel cracks me on the head and an ear meets a pedal as it was never intended to.

I come to rest and lay for a moment too stunned to take in what had happened.

I slowly stand up and gaze at the open wounds in my hands. Placed out in front of me in an attempt to save my body from as much damage as possible, they took the brunt of the impact. I look at the open flesh, it is at the moment just before blood rushes forth.

I check my body for broken bones, I can stand, my legs are alright, I can move my fingers that's good but then I move my arm and I feel a crack. Thats the crack I heard as I hit the floor.

That's my collar bone busted I thought.

Blood begins to pour from my hands and legs.

I look up to the sky and say, noooooo, not this, not this as well. Can anything more happen to me? I can't go on like this.

I feel wretched and fall back on to my knees, I'm in shock and my vertigo is now going crazy. Oh I feel sick, nauseous.

At that moment some people working on their allotments run over and help me over to a tap to help wash the grit from my wounds.

I am bleeding all over my mobile as I ring Clare.

Honey, I've had a bit of an accident.

Later in the day we leave together from the hospital, I have a broken collar bone which to my amazement is left to repair itself, I have my arm in a sling I have extensive bruising all over my chest, and wounds on my hands and legs.

It's stupid, although I have travelled down this steep cycle track nearly everyday for five years, today like an anal cyclist, I decide to signal that I am about to turn right whilst I was going downhill at speed.

I therefore only had one hand on the handle bars when the bike hit a pot hole the road and bang, here I am.

This has got to be a turning point of some sort, I promise myself.

6.00pm 12^th August 2006

The band have all gathered at the hotel and we have agreed to get to the venue a couple of hours before we are due to go on so we order a taxi.

We arrive and head for the venue.This is the first time we have walked into the Winter Gardens together and it feels like us against the world, all for one and one for all. That sort of feeling.

The venue is rammed solid, its Saturday Night and we just gotta rip it up!

Ahead of me various Neurotics are helping carry the guitars and behind me Clare has the buggy with Rosa in and a bag of guitar stands, leads and set lists.

As we make our way through a seething mass of people l look back and can no longer see Clare and Rosa. I don't want to get separated from the rest of the boys and they are fast disappearing into the crowd too, so I make a decision to continue as I know that Clare knows where we are heading for and how to get backstage.

Someone comes up to me and says they are really looking forward to our set, "I've been playing your stuff for years and now I am finally going to get to see you live. I cant wait!"
 

I've been getting people coming up to me for two days saying similar things, sometimes it is someone who saw us once, years ago, loved us and never thought they would have the chance to see us again.

This is great, but it is a constant reminder of how much pressure there is on us not to disappoint. I tell them that I am really looking forward to it as well, but the truth is that the gig is almost upon us and I feel shattered.

We get back stage and drop off the gear, I hang around and Clare and Rosa fail to appear, I wait and wait. No sign! I start getting worried and agitated, the crew sense this and go out into this huge complex to help find them.

After a long while they return shaking their heads.

I can't stand it any longer. I should be chilling backstage before we go on but instead I plunge back into the sea of punks and go searching for them myself. As I climb stairs and traverse various hallways and venues, hot and bothered, I begin to wonder if I will have any energy left by 8pm when we start to play.

Finally just as my anxiety levels were hitting the ceiling I find them being helped by some friends that had just arrived.

With a sigh of relief I join them and I lead them backstage.

One of our friends asks me if I am psyching myself up to be the confident imposing figure I usually am on stage and I reply that I'd like to but I'm absolutely knackered having not slept properly for two nights. Then Clare suggests I get a bottle of Lucozade to give me a bit of energy, great idea, so I go and buy one.

999 are playing and the huge Empress Ballroom is packed, nerves and Lucozade fizz through my body, its almost time.

Its almost time, its almost time, its almost time, 999 have finished.

It is the time!

I stride into the dressing room and say to the boys.

"Alright! They're off, were on."

I take my guitars on to the stage, suddenly exposed to the audience in the hall but I haven't looked out yet.

With the audience haemorrhage that happened straight after Attilas set still in my mind I am scared to look, but I have to.

I do.

No-one's moved, the hall is packed.

And they are waiting.

For us!

With a new found confidence I walk back into the dressing room and say

We have an audience, lets do it!

2005

Two minutes

I am getting cold outside and decide to walk back into the hall. I know that by doing that, the PA crew will think I return bearing news but I can't freeze any longer outside.

They look to me and lift their eyebrows.

I shout, they're be pulling up any second

It was a bluff, but it'll buy me another minute at most.

One minute...

I was a good bluff because arrive they did and with a blink of an eye the roadies had whisked the drums on stage and whilst they are being set up, the promoter gives me a bunch of drinks vouchers and his mobile number so that I can contact him in this huge building when we are ready to be paid.

We're ready, we do the sound check and it sounds fantastic, so good in fact that it takes no time at all for us to be satisfied and the next thing we know we are standing at the bar. Our start time has been delayed by ten minutes until the band in the other part of the building has finished and the audience free to move on.

It seems like only moments before I was waiting for the band to arrive and now I'm saying...

"Well we don't have an audience at the moment but lets do it!"

2003

Yeah, it's back with a vengeance.

It takes me three wretched days of nausea and dizziness before I feel anywhere near what I was before and now I am really depressed.

The optimism I had of being helped by the specialist and then his confidence that my condition will fade has been crushed by feeling as ill as I did six months ago. I know that this condition is known to re-occur but it hits hard all the same.

I now have no options left for improvement, I have exhausted all avenues.

I am left to grin, bear it and live with it. As I talk to people about vertigo I am surprised how common it is as many people have had it or know someone who has. But it can be something that can last a couple of days or a lifetime, there are so many variations of it.

I am in a dark place. I'm thinking of death all the time, I think of Pete Brown, still hanging on somewhere out there and hope he is not suffering too much. I think of Diane and how the loss must be unbearable for Brian. I think of Rosa and how innocent she is, how unaware she is of my distress.  I think about my death and how distressed her little soul would be it that would happen. I never want her to be hurt, ever! I think about my mums final days.

I think about all this, at intervals, all day, everyday.

But, hang on, I'm not dying am I? No, but see how I've lost my sense of proportion.

I am now hostage to my own raw emotions and self loathing, being swung this way and that by negativity.

"The specialist said A happy frame of mind is essential for the healing process to take place".

How am I going to get happy?

I now get anxious at bed time, I am terrified of the night. Clare gets me to kneel on all fours and teaches me some yoga exercises to calm me down.

To my surprise it works, I get off of my hands and knees feeling calmer and I say "I'll have to do that regularly, I feel a lot better".

But it would be the last opportunity I would be able to do that for some time. 

As I rode my bike downhill on my way to work one lovely sunny morning I sighed and said to myself. "What lovely weather, I really should to appreciate this". I will try to stay in a positive mood all day. After all "A happy frame of mind is essential for the healing process to take place."

Thud! The day was about to take a turn for the worse (or better?)

5.20pm 12^th 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

5.15pm 12^th August 2006

I do some last minute tuning of my guitars and then take a shower.

Showers and Wasted, hmmm, it takes my mind back to the first Wasted Festival I performed at last year. I had agreed to do it solo as I was still adamant that I would not reform the band. It was in Morecambe and the acoustic stage.

When I arrived, I went backstage and was shown two dressing rooms that were to be shared by the artists. They both had amplifiers in which was great because it meant that a bit of last minute tuning could be done just before taking the stage.

I placed my precious guitars down in one of the dressing rooms, mentally noting that it even had a shower and went out into the venue to watch some of the acts on before me.

After a while I decided to go and check the dressing room to see if my gear was alright there.

When I opened the door I found two boys and a girl in the shower. Now these kids were not brightest young things I have come across in my time. For a start they were pissed stupid and had gone out onto the Morecambe sands at twilight in t-shirt and jeans and rolled about on the mudflats. This, no more that a year after a crowd of Chinese cockle pickers had lost their lives in the very same bay.

Now having dragged themselves out of the mud they needed to clean up and as one of them had performed earlier at the Acoustic stage, they had a pass to get them back stage and to the shower.

I asked them what they were doing in the dressing room and when one of them explained and showed me the performers wristband, I sighed and said ok, but hurry up as the dressing room will be needed soon.

I went back into the audience. Time passes and as usual I am getting as nervous and tense as hell,  these are times I do not need to be bugged!

I went back to the dressing room and opened the door, the room is hot as an oven and the two boys and the girl were still in the shower but are no longer washing themselves but each other. Some parts of their bodies had been cleaned multiple times.

As much as this is funny and could be viewed as very 'rock n roll', I really need a quiet room to prepare before I go on stage and the dressing room is there for that function not orgies that I keep intruding on.

I start to get angry and tell them to get out of the shower and to free the room up for the performers. I can't remember what I said but I was getting wound up just as I should be chilling.

I speak to a couple of people connected with running this stage and they just laugh, they think it's funny, they think its 'rock 'n' roll' and  they are not taking my complaint seriously.

Time passes, I go back. I need to prepare now, I will be taking the stage very soon.'

I open the door, the room is boiling, you cannot see the far wall because there is so much steam, the floor is covered with several inches of water and Morecambe mud has been thrown all over the walls. It is now dangerous to plug anything into the supplied amplifier, my guitars are safe thankfully, but I have had enough.

They are so drunk they can barely stand up and I let them have it with both barrels. This is not 'rock 'n' roll', this is blind stupid vandalism, a total disregard for other performers and the property that the Wasted organisers had rented for this event.

I say "Look at all this water you have put on the floor! How can any other performer now use this dressing room you selfish little shits!"

"Dont worry man, we will clean it all up" said the little moron pulling paper hand towels out and dropping them into the water.

"oh great, so when you've used all the paper towels up and the room is still swimming with water how is anyone going to dry their hands?

The girl then sidles up to me. Shes soaked through, young and pretty. She looks like she has taken part in a Wasted wet t-shirt completion (before you ask, of-course, they don't exist).

She stands too close to me, invading my space. Like the room, my blood is boiling, I can smell her pheromones. Desire and disgust swirl together in me to make some murky mixture that I have no name for.

She looks drunkenly into my eyes and says.

Be nice!

I explode! My mind is racing to think of a really cool come back but I am as angry as anyone can make me and adrenaline has taken over my intellect.

I pull out a loaded sentence and screw on the final word like a silencer.

I take aim.

JUST FUCK OFF YOU CUNT! I seethe.

I am overcome with relief and disgust in equal measure, I like the word cunt. I only use it occasionally but I don't like to use it to a female. But there you go now, I've done it. That's how angry I was.

At this moment Attila The Stockbrocker comes into the room, I rant to the ranter about what has happened and he suggests I move to the other dressing room as it is free now.

The stage manager has arrived and is ejecting the sodden morons out of the dressing room. There were no cleaners on duty so the manageress of the venue had to take a mop and bucket and clean the walls and drain the floor. She's not happy!

I move my guitars into the other dressing room, it is cool and quiet. It is heaven!

I am due on stage soon and inside I am raging, upset and stirred up.

I plug my guitar in to the amp and I'm  just about to tune up when I hear a noise from the small toilet cubicle next to me.

Then, some whispering rising to speaking volume.

Aaahhhh, oooooohhhh, thats goooood, yeah fuck me, ooohh fuck me, yeah etc...
 

Oh for Christ Sake! I dont believe this.
 

2005

2 minutes.

I have familiarised myself with the inside of main Rock City  hall now and realised that I have no idea of what the front of this place looks like. There are punters in the building but they are down at the smaller stage somewhere else in the venue. Our bit opens in three quarters of an hour so that's all the time that is left for the band to do a full sound check.

My hand fingers my mobile nervously, no point in calling, I've just done that.

Where is the rest of the band?
 

2003

I am now taking Sudafed to try to clear up the infection in my Eustachian tubes and have moved into a new stage of my torment.

I can't sleep, I am so terrified of the explosions in my head that happen during the night that my body is scared to sleep at all.

My system seems to view dropping off to sleep as falling off a cliff and pumps my body full of adrenaline whenever it is about to happen. I lay in the darkness, my legs shaking, my face twitching. It is like I am forced to confront every unpleasant thought and negative feeling I have inside me. I feel like my head is being held and my eyelids kept open like that scene in The Clockwork Orange.

This happens night after night after night, I am now sleeping (or trying to) in the living room as the bedroom is too airless for me and my tossing and turning is disturbing Clare so she is not sleeping well because of it.

(She is not that well either, she seems to experiencing a milder giddiness and a certain disturbed state of sleep).

I now get three hours a night (and that's with the aid of herbal sleeping tablets). I then have to go into work in a giddy, exhausted state and do a demanding job.

Every three nights of this and my body's had enough and I get six hours.

And so it goes on.

Whist I lay awake the long hours, my life stumbles past me like a demented somnambulist.

I know I gave up being musician years ago but I am upset at the thought that I would no longer able to perform even if I wanted to. I'm in my fifties and my health has taken a dive. Thats not an unusual story. I just hope that it isn't true.

I would like to play on stage again, if only to prove that I could. Life's too short.

I feel really awful.

I go to my sisters sixtieth birthday party and dizzy it up there. Diane has been invited. She has been very, very ill. The type of 'ill' that is very hard to appreciate without being that person and no-one wants to be. She is very brave and manages with the help of her wonderful husband Brian to make the party.

She comes into the room in a very fragile state and barely looks like the bright young thing that my parents used to try to pair me up with when I was a little boy.

I remember her little sticky out ears and bright blue eyes, she looked like a cheeking little mod back then. I could have been her husband now if the pairing off had worked.

But no, it wasnt to be and it is Brian who is now her beacon shining a little light still into her darkness.

People with terminal diseases. These are the true ghosts. They walk their final days in the world but have no future within it. They watch people talk about tomorrow, next week, next year. People making plans that stretch off in to the future. Where the ticking clock counts down to another party, or appointment, another train to catch but never to the final destination. Not yet.

I sit on the same sofa, I am still the same articulate person I have ever been but I am struck dumb, I dont know what to say to her, I am terrified that I may use a sentence with a construct that uses a future tense.

I am miserable and ashamed.

Eventually I see her helped slowly down the stairs by Brian to return to the hospice.

I never she her again. I see Brian again, at her funeral.
 

The parson taking the service says that although Diane is no longer with us, Brian is blessed to have had and known that love.

I speak to Brian as we leave the wake and remind him of what the Parson said. I remark that as comforting as that may sound, it can't ever be enough.

He shakes my hand warmly and says "No it's not enough, its shit!"

I feel really awful.

4.37pm 12^th August 2006

Clare, Rosa and I leave the Winter Gardens to go back to the hotel. We decide to catch a tram back; we have a soft spot for them.

We stand by the concrete road, rails and wires, built for the trams way back in the distant past when it had no competition from motorcars. The wires look like tight ropes suspended between Blackpool Tower and a massive Big Dipper way off in the distance. The sun is muted behind thin slate black cloud, casting a light promising summer but disappoints nonetheless. Although I have never been there, this place reminds me of Coney Island. Funny how you can make a comparison with something you've only seen as images.

Blackpool is like a big smile through clenched teeth. It has a warm heart and will doggedly try to entertain you with its faded glories because it believes that if you are here, it's what you are expecting. It is both defined and shackled by its own past. It wants to modernise and remain the same, as the world moves on around it, it doesn't know what direction to move in, like a tram, it faces both directions at once.

The donkey man lifts yet another child on to back of his little group of four legged employees totally immune to the charms of excited little innocents getting the ride of their lives. He, like the donkeys, move slowly along the beach, yet one more beast of burden. His flat cap and clothes sand blasted by the wind coming in from the sea. His skin, hard and wrinkled like a treasure map with no gold to point to. His head down, gazing at the footprints of the last time he came this way.  Only a few minutes ago.

It's the modern day equivalent the Myth of Sisyphus where a man is condemned to roll a rock to the top of the mountain and when it rolls back down the other side, he has to start all over again. For eternity!

It's almost as though when he was a young man working his pitch with the Tower Gypsies selling lucky heather, he had cursed himself. He is now condemned to give children donkey rides, with each squeal of delight and "look at me Mummy, look at me Daddy, I'm riding a donkey" stealing part of his soul until he shrivels up and is blown off of the beach by the sands of time.

The bottom of the hour glass is indeed filling as we arrive back at the hotel, we have little less than an hour to get ready before the band and crew head back to the Winter Gardens, the Empress Ballroom and the event we have  been building up to for months. My lack of sleep is getting to me, for a moment there I thought I'd left my donkeys unattended on the beach.

This isn't right; I should feel like a rock star!

I will, later.

I hope.

 
2005.

I minute

I walk back into the Rock City venue and with as much confidence as I can muster tell the PA crew that the band will arrive in a minute. The pain in my chest nags me for the umpteenth time today but I put it out of my mind. Not long after we complete this sound check we actually take the stage. It is really tough being the first on at any gig but it does mean I don't have to hang around fretting for hours on end. I up for it, I'm ready to go, where is the rest of the band?

2003
 

Now things get darker still.

My cousin Diane has been admitted to hospital with unbearable headaches and she has been diagnosed as having a tumour in her brain.

A while back she had had a mastectomy and had beaten the cancer, much relieved she went back to live a normal life. Now this, this is not fair, this is not something that should happen to a good loving person such as her.

But it only serves to remind me that whether your entire family is wiped out in the desperate race of superpowers for the acquisition of a dwindling resource, or a beloved member of the family suddenly succumbs to a unknown battle lost in the darkness of the immune system of the body, it isn't fair and someone, somewhere is in real pain because of it.

Now what is happening to me has become a kaleidoscope of possible terrors, different every time the imagination shuffles the reflected pieces. I am having trouble anchoring myself to other facts that are more positive. For example, I am not vomiting (in fact I eat well), I am not unbalanced, I am not incapacitated, but I'm also really not right and all of these facts can be dismissed in one word,

Yet!

I see my Doctor and express all these fears to him. I don't care, I'm not proud. My soul is for him to peer into, Doctor-Patient confidentially Ok? It's not as though I'm putting it into a blog right?>

He's really good, he once said that I suffer from what is known as 'Free Floating Anxiety'. I took it with a pinch of salt at the time; I know that, that's why I called my band Newtown Neurotics. It did however give me an idea for a new album title should we ever get together and record some new stuff. Hmmm, yeah the 'Free Floating Anxiety' album, I can just imagine receiving a Sony Music Award for that.

I do seem to have an over active imagination though don't you think? Anyway, I'd need to reform the Neurotics for that. Fat chance, I said I'd never do anything of the sort.

Fact is, I dont think I could stand on stage and sing anymore, I'm too ill for that.

My Doctor suggests something really good. If I'm worried about a serious balance disorder like menieres disease, he will arrange an appointment for me with a specialist. An Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.

This is really good news, I am to see a specialist! Although it is a specialist I have only heard of before in stupid jokes.

I am still looking for some tablets to get me out of this hell. Every day and every night I am plagued and tortured by myself. It is like I am slowly pulling my own fingernails out, very slowly, very painfully and I can't seem to do a damn thing to stop myself.

When I jump out of bed dizzy, disorientated, terrified and sweating profusely. I see my torturer in the bathroom mirror staring malevolently back at me.

STOP IT, STOP DOING THIS TO ME, YOU BASTARD, YOU BASTARD, LEAVE ME ALONE, WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DISERVE THIS.

WHAT HAVE I DONE?

I was saying earlier about getting some tablets to stop this?

It isn't that simple. 

The earliest I could get an appointment with the specialist was SIXTEEN WEEKS.

Welcome to the NHS, I knew what it was like, I've heard the horror stories. I was now experiencing it for real.

2.30pm August 12th 2006

I watch as Attila the Stockbroker and Barnstormer play the most professional set I have ever seen them do and the huge crowd is lapping it up.
Great I think, this particular venue is really happening, the atmosphere feels warm and close, it's exciting!

Attila finishes his encore and that's the end of the set. The audience disappear in moments, the atmosphere evaporates immediately and it's not exciting!

Phew, that was quick!

It left a very entertaining, plucky little band called 'Captain Everything' to play to a small crowd at the front of the stage. We stayed and enjoyed.

We're on after 999 later, I just hope we don't have an audience haemorrhage like that before we go on.

We then go to a cafe/restaurant in the Winter Gardens to have something to eat. I have a vegetable curry, not so much to enjoy as I'm far too nervous to really taste things but I know this will be the last time I will be able to eat this day. I will be shitting myself too much to eat before we play and too distracted to bother eating afterwards. I'll pick up my appetite tomorrow. In five minutes we'll have to start our way back to the hotel to get ready for the gig. We are getting nearer to big moment.

2005

I finished what I could do with the Rock City PA five minutes ago and there is still no sign of the rest of the band. I know they are on their way but we could be loosing the chance of the one sound check that will happen this day. Five minutes isn't long in reality but sometimes it can really stretch out.

Let me give you an example...

2003

The night time disturbances have reduced a little but not enough to feel a real change. I don't know what the normal pattern of this affliction is and it could be different for everyone.  I have read on the internet that Vertigo comes and goes.
You could be free of it for five years and then out of the blue it strikes you down again. It is evident though, that my version of it is, at the moment anyway, by no means the worse that can affect you.
Although I have the night terrors, feeling of nausea (which never leads to vomiting thankfully), visual motion sickness and a feeling I am going  to pass out at any time, I do not have a balence problem???
Bizarre I know, but I am still going to work each day on my mountain bike and as everyone knows, you need balence for that. That is strange, as a common term for my conditition seems to be a 'balence disorder'.

One weekend I try to chill out by going on a bike ride down to the Town Park where there is a music event taking place. Clare and I set out (with Rosa on the back of my bike), on a beautiful day. We do a long ride stopping off at a friend's house for a little while and then continuing on to the park.
I was begining to feel peculiar as we got closer to the park and I thought if it starts to worse, I will stop and take Rosa off of the bike. That wasn't necessary, I was fine until I got to the park.

Then it hit me. I felt so, so ill. I was now on my knees and sinking lower. Clare couldn't help me because Rosa was running excitedly around the bandstand amphitheatre and needed someone to protect her from harm. Meanwhile I am reluctant to cry "SOMEBODY FUCKING HELP ME". I should let myself just collapse and get taken to hospital but they are not particularly healthy places to be in these days and I could pick up something I didn't have before.

I fight it, and I fight it, but I'm running out of energy and I am about to collapse in public, I'm only kneeling on the grass for five minutes but it seems like forever.
NO, NO, THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I drag myself up, abandon my bike and make a bee line for the little cafe area. I burst in and say to the owner, "I don't feel well, I think I'm going to collapse, I need to sit down, I'm unwell, I have vertigo, I'm unwell"
"I don't know about vertigo" he says "but you're dehydrated, I can see it in your face. I'll get you some water and a little something to nibble at and that will bring you round.
I'm not convinced, I know I am unwell and this is more evidence of it. I am beginning to suspect that my Doctor had got it wrong and so had the cafe owner (althought he had done army survival training, he tells me!).  I have another illness as yet diagnosed making me have a turn for the worse I'm convinced.
Clare comes into the cafe after gathering up Rosa, she leaves her with me momentarily whilst she gathers up the bikes.

For nearly two hours I drank water and eat some toast. I do improve a lot, enough for us to slowly cycle home with Rosa now on Clare's bike.
It's been a while now since I saw my Doctor and it's not getting better. I am freaked and need to see him again and talk this thing through.

I am haunted by death and by Pete the Meat's immanent demise, I have never been this ill for this long, and my head is getting increasingly FUCKED UP. I have the most wonderful support from Clare but I can't stop from sliding   into   something     I     don't    want    or      under    stand,  I      feel    like    I    am     loosing    it,    I              am                     looosing                                     IT!