Part 16: The Filth and Trying to settle down…
Touring with the Filth was fun. We were all around the same age group and had known each other from parties and gigs for years. They had filmed part of the ‘Weep Woman, Weep’ video at Dudley Road and we’d always go to their gigs. I can’t even recall how many years I worked with them for! One day, I’ll head round to Raddies and check his photo albums…one day.
My fave places to go were The POD in AK, VALVE in Wellies, FRAMPTONS in the Mount, RIVERBAR in Gizzie.
In between gigging (ligging?) with the Filth I’d get drunk and go to gigs in NP to see Nefarious, 1080, Namrepus, Wrath and whoever the fuck else was playing. I was a slamdancing, stagediving, drunken fool! Floors were wiped with my victims as I hurled myself offstage like some leather clad Angel of Death! Of course, I’d pick them up after wiping them out….These were the days of vodka and listening to Johnny Milano’s metal collection.
I’d gone to see Anthrax, Metallica (twice), Danzig, The Cure (I used to get free tickets off Wafer for driving a van load of people to gigs at the Supertop…wicked!),Sacred Reich (fucking wicked!), Sepultura (twice), Iron Maiden, Ministry, The Cult, Suicidal Tendencies (twice…still have my crew pass somewhere gave the first one to Cornbeef, which he lost…), Slayer, Bad Brains, Pearl Jam (she made me go!).
I’d met a girl and she had a cute lil daughter which I taught to shoot, kill, hunt and fish (just joking…) but we did have fun doing family type shit and going to parks and stuff. I’d also scored a job at the Council decapitating shubbery and other small, inoffensive flora as well as planting crap. Which, like all jobs, cut into my gigging but still I soldiered on. I moved out of Molesworth and got a house with my family and attempted to settle down and do normal shit (fool that I was!). Still, The Filth were doing gigs and I was still roadie for them as well as Poodle (He is the roadie machine! He even did a course!).
Domesticity does have a price. Nothing lasts forever and one day, after a couple of years, her and I split up and I waved goodbye to the kid. Her last words were ‘Slammy, I want chew to come wiff us’… ‘Can’t kiddo, seeya round ,huh?’ Ah well…
I launched myself into a debaucherous limbo of homebrew spirits and vodka, joined the NP SKINS, and vowed never to trust a female ever again! Dark, horrible days…I’d scored a part time job collecting money for a guy and he gave me some names. The first guy I ran into at a party here in NP. After telling him to ‘pay up’ he took my invitation to come outside for a chat. He came at me and got me down and pinned me! I knew I’d have to pull a cunning maneuver (it was at a party and, of course, everyone was watching!) so I flipped out of his arm lock and got on top of him and started pounding his face in. Then I gave him the VOICE…’PAY YOUR FUCKING BILLS CUNT OR I’LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND PISS DOWN YOUR THROAT!”…After that, he surrendered and left, promising to pay up asap. The bouncer at the party was a mate of mine from the skins club so there was no bother there.
He paid his bill and so did the other people who owed this guy money when they found out I was ‘collecting’. Not very satisfying really…I’ve never really liked fighting for money.
The Filth were playing gigs at biker pads a bit. The pay was good but the atmosphere at biker pads is a bit ‘tense’. Fuck being somewhere where you have to watch your back. At gigs there are always people you know, at pads, it’s all their friends and fuck all of yours. I did go to the Outcasts when the Filth played there. A mate from the old days was pretty high up in the hierarchy and had asked if I would come along. I let it be made known to the crew that I wasn’t really into bike pads. The end was near…