INs & OUTs November 2012

IN's

·         Your arse is on your head, your arse is on your head, you arse is on your head (bring back bald footy players and refs)

·         Cantinas

·         Saspirella

·         Tony Bellows Big gash

·         Pete shelleys muzzy

·         Padding out your lunchbox/package with rice pudding

·         Oxtail soup toasties

·         Sucking hard on an oxo

·         Placing a plaice in yer mates hood

·         Smoking rice crispys in a doobie

·         Putting a rice crispy in your bosses top pocket

·          D.L.T perms

·         the D.L.T IS INNOCENT campaign.

·         Beiing suspicious,

·         smoking fresh air,

·         sly kicks at pets,

·         knowing what blind scouse is,

·         snitchin on snitches,

·         reading echo obituaries before your mar has,

·         not understanding family etiqutte,

·         still enjoying pub quizs

·         not knowing any hard cases at all and enjoying that fact

·         remembering Kojaks watch

·         Coal

·         Bartering with butter

·         Putting hot dogs in your mates ma’s central heating cupboard

·         Dicing with Dench

·         Giving your nan a butt plug for chrimbo

·         Providing an example to Example…before hastily flinging off the 14^th Floor

·         Coffee butties

·         Curried cotton

·         Playing cricket on your own

·         Dreadlock’d pubes

·         The Systematics

·         Punching a pygmy

·         Slapping slid

·         Chinning a Chris Malone

·         Giving yer boss a cheeky kiss on his bald head when you’re clocking off, 

 

OUTs

·         Being Liverpool

·         Knee length testies

·         Mark Lawrenson

·         That mad firm at the buzzcocks gig (50 yrs olds in sheepie’s in a mosh pit isn’t a great look)

·         Steve Diggles dodgy theatrics

·         Lushwives

·         “Hurr hurrr hurrr” laughs

·         BRodgers self portrait

·         You STILL wearing hoodies? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

·         wearing your lads north face

·         jimmy saville rinses,

·         talking about lines all the fuckin time

·         saying totally agree mate, when your thinking get me away from this boring fuck being stressed,

·         stressing out,

·         stressing over xmas menus

·         the word stress,

·         not being stressed out

·          not recognising stress,

·         stress related cardigans

·         refuting things

·         having a cat as a mate,

·         whistling soft porn tunes,

·         not remembering,

·         concentrating ,

·         the word bugle,

·         having a cousin who’s a loon

·         shouting medication time on the train

·         robbin’ rembrandts.

·         Stealing steak

·         Nicking Nike

·         Pickpocketing Police

·         Taking teak

·         Getting a tit nudge off yer nan

·         Young pups passing on wisdom to you

·         Having a spat with China,

·         Kicking fuck out of a sausage

·         Ball bag beards

·         “Dickcember”( leave your dick hanging out your zipper for the entire month of December for charity)

·         Polishing your elbows

·         Frying a frozen fritter on a Friday

·         Diced coffee.

 

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By Mick Potter & Phil Jones

 

Its nearly Christmas 2012 and you can still buy The END BOOK and see more  lns & Outs, mad letters, good poems, shite poems ..and fuckin millions of spelling mistakes and bad grammar, as the book reviewers (poncy southern, ex student types) keep pointing out.

There’s a limited amount of signed copies in Waterstones on Bold Street and in the Liverpool 1 Waterstones store... and of course you can still get it on line here.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/were-you-a-big-fan-of-the-end/">http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/were-you-a-big-fan-of-the-end/

Buzzcocks (The Systematics & The Thespians) at Erics

The Buzzcocks – The Thespians – The Systematics.  Erics, Liverpool November 16 2012

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This was my first foray back into Eric’s since it closed back in the late 70’s.

After meeting my old mates, and occasional End Contributors Paul Need and Joey Lowry, we decided to get fuckin drenched as we headed to Mathew Street and entered that  other famous cellar full of noise.

It was really eerie once inside..The memories literally came flooding back (including those from the soon coming Part 2 of my Madness Memories). Just mad long forgotten memories,  like meeting Toyah Wilcox when she was supporting the damned, and Mick Talbot (from the Merton Parka’s and Later style council and Dexy’s Midnight Runners) coming over after the merton parka’s set (nahh) and stealing off with a girl that my old mucker Steve Rotherham (MP)  had been buying drinks for all night (we later wrote a song about it ha haa) …but enough of the past, what of Eric’s Present? Oddly enough it hasn’t really been improved visually, there’s only a couple of the seats remaining in the old seated area’s and there was no sign of the jukebox room, left of stage, where I discovered reggae and herbal medication back in 78…. but it was all very comforting and it felt like a good venue.

The feel good factor was massively complimented by the background noise and the visual feast on the stage upon our arrival. We had walked in after the band had already started so we assumed they were the support act named on the tickets as The Thespians. ..but it turned out to be The Systematics.
Now I don’t want to come across like a lecherous old Sid James here, but we couldn’t help but fail to notice the stunningly beautiful peroxide blonde, punky, singer, Roxanne Collins, centre stage, drooling something along the lines of “I really feel like getting naked” ..Its safe to say the audience at this point was about 400 in number and mainly male, so the band had the audience attention right in the palm of their hands. It’s also safe to say Roxanne slips onto and enlightens the list of glamorous and talented female bass players being the object of many a male fantasy (joining the likes of Gaye advert, Kim Gorden, Suzy Quatro, Kim Deal, Mellissa auf de maur , Charlotte Hatherley etc etc ) But I have to hastily add that it would be massively unfair to say that it was only the sight of the gorgeous peroxide pixie that had our attention.  This band were tight, noisy and captivating in their own right.
From what I can recall there was a punky / bluesy/ rockabilly  feel to the songs (think The Breeders, crossed with Detroit Cobra’s crossed with Transvision Vamp crossed with The Cramps). Its not often a relatively unknown support act captures the imagination of an audience who have come along to see their heroes, but the Systematics more than pulled it off. The songs were punchy and loud. Roxanne can play the bass with the best of ‘em has great stage presence to match her fine vocals  and to her left you had one of the two excellent guitarists, George…..a hulking big man whose vocals and antics were the perfect counterfoil to Roxanne’s. I don’t know the song titles but amongst the last 5 songs I remember 2 song titles that stood out from the rest “Beat up my Brow” and “you’ve been shot” .....and there was another song about Bela Lugosi …thats the one that reminded me, a little, of The Cramps. Excellent stuff.  I’ve had a listen to a couple of songs on their web pages since the gig (not often I’ll do that) and (via my speakers crappy sounds) the recordings don’t match the power of the live set, but I look forward to getting me mitts on a CD to have a proper listen when they have something tangible to get me hands on.

I wholeheartedly and unashamedly recommend this band...Try and catch them live if you can. They have a facebook page (just search The Systematics, and you can find out more about them here  https://www.reverbnation.com/thesystematics   and listen to some of their music here http://soundcloud.com/the-systematics  Here’s a clip of them performing at Eric’s on the night;-

 

After The Systematics had warmed us up, we just wanted The Buzzcocks, to be frank. However after much tinkering The Thespians were next up...Ok so lets hope these can live up to the opening act.

After flopping on stage the singer, a poor mans Johnny Borrell (and the real Johnny Borrell is annoying enough! Thanks very much)  announced something along the lines of “we’re gonna get on your fuckin nerves”. Unfortunately he was right…mainly due to him, as the rest of the band seemed like a perfectly nice bunch and were clearly talented. But “Borrellalike” was just downright annoying…. Tons of posturing and seemingly well-rehearsed rock star poses (just like Borrell) and he seemed to think saying “fuck” or “fuckin” a lot would make him seem like a rock n roll rebel, but to be honest he just came across like a middle class tosser. Musically they were all over the place.but rather than drag it out I’ll say they reminded me of Razorlight trying to sound like the Libertines crossed with Aqua...and even failing that  miserably. The last song summed it all up for me. Musically it was the best of the set by a mile, quite punky and full on, but when he announced “This is our last song, and its called ‘We don’t care’!” ..or was it “I don’t care” ?….(I couldn’t care less to be honest) . I just burst out laughing. It was like indie Spinal Tap.  Shut up, move on.

After the thespians had shut up and moved on, the audience were in desperate need of a lift and tonight only one band could provide us with the right medicine. By this point Eric’s was absolutely rammed full, from stage to bar. I must have been to Erics hundreds of times back in the day but I can barely remember it being so packed as it was tonight. It was uncomfortably packed to be honest. Even before they came on, the realisation that it would be impossible to get to the bar and back to our spec, with ale, rendered us beerless for far too long on a Friday night. This was exacerbated by the constant to-ing and fro-ing of (like myself) fat bald men. I have never been rubbed up by so many moobs in my life.

As luck would not  have it, just as the Buzzcocks came on a 6’8” Australian man stood right in front of us (we spoke to his partner, That’s how we know!) . He stood out like a sore thumb (directly in front of our stage view) ..denim vest, two naked, tattooed, muscle bound arms aloft ..doing that 2 finger rock salute you see at metal gigs. ..he was like that monstrous fuckin motorbike bounty hunter in Raising Arizona!.  But anyway, On came The Buzzcocks! I could only see Steve Diggle at this point due to our Aussie buddy..and they ripped straight into Boredom, Autonomy and Fast Cars……fuckin breathtaking stuff. By the time Fast Cars had started the front of the stage had become a giant mosh pit of  sweaty, snarling 45+yr olds. I have no idea who this firm were, but given Steve Diggle kept on giving sly winks, nods  and call outs, I would hazard a guess they were mancs. It was quite surreal and a little shocking seeing so  men of my age in a mosh pit, and even odder given that a few were wearing late 70’s style sheep skin coats in this unbearable heat? Lots of females and Ian Mcnabb were seen escaping the front before it got too out of hand.  Thankfully when  our Aussie mate joined the melee he was pleasantly accepted without too much of a challenge, so I got to see a bit more of the band! ....That is until about 3 songs later, when an extremely aggressive female version of our Aussie mate stood right in front of us and whose fat arse made viewing  and standing still extremely uncomfortable for your humble narrator. She seemed intent on starting a fight with a peaceful group of normal sized girls enjoying the gig, so the next time her gigantic arse bruised my groin I accidently poured the last of my whiskey & coke down into the cavernous hell hole at the top and rear of her skirt ...and then casually blamed her for spilling me drink when she turned around with murderous intent in her eyes. She and her feller soon moved away. As for the Buzzcocks, they did most of the hits and crowd favourites that you would expect- Stand outs being What do I get, Promises, Harmony in my head Love you more and Noise annoys. But in I have to admit that there were a few too many Steve Diggle, overly long, guitar solos and songs for my liking (sorry Steve, but its not what I paid me £20 for). My mate commented at one stage, “Its all gone a bit Green Day”!?  and he was right. The man is clearly talented and was having a fuckin ball, but I go and watch the Buzzcocks to hear snappy, punk/pop perfect 3 minute love songs.

Listen The night and the atmosphere was brilliant and the Buzcocks were on brilliant form. But I wanna hear Pete Shelley’s manc-y nasal laments at a buzzcocks gig.Thankfully for every one of Diggles indulgences, there were 4 or 5 pop/ punk classics to keep everyone happy, They finished of all too quickly with the excellent Orgasm Addict and the predictable Everybody’s happy Nowadays. I’m happy to have seen the buzzcocks in Eric’s after only having seen them at the Empire and Mountford Hall previously but I would like a bit of room to breath, move and drink next time I see them..Methinks Erics needs to keep better tabs on the attendance in future.

Verdict, when they were good, they were glorious.

Roxanne from The systematicsurges Diggle to end one of his ten minute guitar solo's



Lardies in da city- JOE WAGGs Tale

Lardies in da City- Joe Waggs tale

Why has our fair city of late ( too fuckin long ) been taken over by heffers from the north east? and i don,t mean hen parties from Kirkby.

Ohh Mama

Did you spot the cunningly hidden clue?.. the H word. (not forgetting goons with balls ,chains, tats and too tight t shirts… this is a genderless rant ) .

Pricks

We have enough problems with our own rat bags and now it seems the nations, surely, very soon to be divorced are partying hard and we are the lucky recipients. The subtle yet witty Learner bride outfit wearer followed by a pack of mooses, shouting “calm down”! just makes the blood pressure go up a notch.

Hannah's Bar, Liverpool 2012(Geordie girls invade)

What have we done to deserve this ? "Who are ya " Divvies, high on crushed Paracetamol swagger and leer. Is it any wonder our cuddly doormen sometimes don’t turn the other cheek? In this era of nations striving for independence, there is only one answer INDEPENDENCE! ….A referendum on scouse automomy is the obvious solution in the long term. My quick fix ? A huge fuckin moat around the city, rounding up wools and wooles,ess to be detained until sober, all monies taken toward the scouse solidarnos election fund. We need to act before its too late! Many of our treasured drinking dens are now a definite no no. Swindon might well be a place worthy of birth and death but do do we need to hear tossers, veins bulging through tattooed necks, screaming it ?
Fri/Sat night our fine city centre resembles a blag Armani zoo, where Jeremy Kyle contestants compete to see who can be the most vile, and you know who the winner is? ………..A TIE COS THEY’RE ALL FUCKIN ‘ORRIBE. (a part from the Welsh firm I made a few bob on...... that, as I say folks, is another story).

Hannah's Liverpool gets a lesson in Geordie class

Yours, in sport and contradiction, J. WAGG.

_______________________________

You can still buy The END BOOK for Christmas 2012 and see all the original Joe Wagg tales, lns & Outs, mad letters, good poems, shite poems, Dossa, Mick Mills, Billy Bull, letters from Steve Rotheram M.P. the Derby Lunatic Fringe and fuckin millions of spelling mistakes and bad grammar.

There’s a limited amount of signed copies in Waterstones on Bold Street and in the Liverpool 1 Waterstones store... and of course you can still get it on line here.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/were-you-a-big-fan-of-the-end/">http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/were-you-a-big-fan-of-the-end/

Tales of MADNESS (updated and corrected, 2017) Madness Memories- End Fanzine co-editor, Phil Jones, puts pen to paper to recall some of his own Madness recollections (part 1)

Madness- its gonna be rougher, its gonna be tougher.

Reading Mick Potter’s recollection of the Suggs one man showhttp://the-end-fanzine.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/potters-tales-pt-279-suggs-one-man-show.html  brought back some Madness memories of my own

Madness at Erics- supporting the Specials 1979 (part 1)

I first heard of Madness during my post punk and pre-skinhead phase. I dressed like a fuckin welsh miner on acid…hair (yes, I had hair once!) spiked upwards, donkey jacket covered in punk badges, military shirt, drainpipe kecks and Beatle boots. What a fuckin knob I was!...anyway…I read a few minor reviews about chaotic gigs in the east end of London and of the impending release of their debut single …a tribute to Jamaican Ska legend Prince Buster, The Prince (b- side, a cover of prince Busters old Jamaican classic, “Madness”). It was to be released on the then relatively unknown Two Tone label. They hadn’t gone national yet and I had to order it (without ever having heard it) from Probe, where I was surprised that, the fountain of knowledge, Jeff, hadn’t even heard of them. About 10 days later I popped into probe like the excited teenager that I actually was, to pick up my potential shit or brilliant 7” piece of vinyl. As luck would have it…my faithful shop servant in probe that day was Pete Burns. ( of “Dead of Alive”). I asked the charming assistant with the 3ft high lacquered black hair, 5” long chin and microscopically thin lips if my order had arrived and his response was something along the lines of, “ee yar,… it’s fuckin shit”….

He was wrong of course, it was fuckin brilliant…it was far removed from the original Jamaican ska I’d gotten into as a skinhead…but I loved it! It was more vibrant, had a real DIY feel to it to give it a current (a, la ‘79) UK  feel….I played it incessantly, got all me mates into it (it only took one listen).

Within a few weeks I found out they were playing Eric’s…So, me and my old mustacheo'd mucker, Steve (Rozo) Rotheram (yes THAT Steve Rotheram, Labour MP, Mate of Jeremey Corbyn and ex Liverpool Lord Mayor etc.) went down to Mathew street on the Saturday afternoon in question, to hang around outside the Eric’s stage door on the off chance we could  help whatever band was playing carry their gear in and to try and blag our way on the guest list.

                                                    Alan Bastard,  Steve Rotheram. MP.

Steve and I were both doing our bricklaying apprenticeship at the time and I had drummed into his head that there was more to music than the Beatles and constantly taped new music for him and regaled him with tales of how me and another old friend used to go down to Mathew Street every Saturday afternoon, hang outside Eric's stage door and offer to help whatever band was playing, to carry their gear in. I banged on and on as to how it meant that not only would the band offer free entry to the gig, but it often led to drinking and socialising with bands, such as The Damned,  The Undertones, Angelic Upstarts, B52’s, Human League (and in the case of the Gang of Four, becoming actual friends for a couple of years). Intrigued at the idea of becoming a mini ligger, Steve made this his first trip to Eric’s stage door! (I must add that about month before this gig, Steve and I had started our Mod fanzine, Time For Action and were selling a couple of hundred fanzines at Liverpool gigs).

(Steve and myself 3rd and 4th respectively on the back row, back in our Time for Action days)

Madness were supporting The Specials. The Specials were becoming big news….they were right on the cusp of breaking through to the big time. Although they  hadn’t released an album at that point…they’d  had some chart success with brilliant single, “Gangsters”.

We didn’t have to wait long before a, rag arsed, minivan pulled up and one of its young motley crew asked, 

“This Eric’s mate”? …..

”Yeah mate….are youse “Madness”??? We enquired……….. 

“Fuck off yer cheeky cunts!..we’re The Specials"!

The Specials soundcheck at Eric's (if anyone knows the photographer let me know please)

We helped them in with their stuff and got our name on their guest list (they weren’t overly friendly or talkative to be honest)….But an hour or so later our lesser known heroes finally arrived!  There’s nothing surprising to say here...they were exactly how you would imagine them to be….Friendly, fuckin' hyper, dead excited, dead chatty, full of youthful confidence and banter .....and funny as fuck. 
They were taking photos of Eric’s and the (very few) Beatles references that were around  in those days (an old Cavern sign …on the right side of Mathew street, opposite the doppelganger version of the Cavern that exists these days) and they also took a photo of Steve and myself with a couple of band members (to this day, I've never seen that photo). Again we helped them into Eric’s with their gear and again blagged our way on to their guest list (in case The specials fucked us off).

They immediately asked us to join them for a drink, and we all headed to The Grapes. All of the band, (minus Lee and Chas ….in fact, I don’t recall if Chas was with the band at all for this gig?) Joined us in the pub and were looking after us with lots of drinks.

We introduced some members of Madness to one time Beatles manager Alan Williams, and we shared address’s. phone numbers etc as the bass player, Mark Bedford pleaded with me to sell him my pointy Beatle Boots (acquired from the *"Jew Shop" on London road). *anyone know what that shop was really named?. 

After a  couple of hours and quite a few pints of happiness, the conversation suddenly evolved into the following; 

(Madness members) "Can we kip in yours mate?"...........

(me) “errr no….its a crappy 3 bedroomed house shared by me ma, two sisters, a brother in law and a new born nephew”.

(Madness)  “ahhhhh, Cam’ on, mate. we can’t drive now, were pissed” etc. over and over.

They didn’t let up and I was slowly relenting, and giving in to the heavy duty peer pressure..... right up until a separate gang of cockney skinheads turned up. Probably around 20, west ham supporting, friends and fans of the band including their then roady “Chalky”.

To be honest, they were all perfectly nice fellers at this point. Proper turned the charm on, especially chalky. The pressure to persuade me to allow the band and their now 20+ strong entourage was now even more relentless and after I was plied with copious amounts of beer and vodka, I caved and agreed.

oh shit!!……how was this gonna pan out? I was having visions of a Fight for your right to party scenario occurring at me dear old mums house….10 years before the Beastie Boys had even released that song and vid.

As luck would have it  / or the curse of The End, depending which way you look at it …(and let's face it a Madness party on Canny Farm, featuring the actual band would have gone down in history!)  Fate stepped in.

After a few hours in The Grapes, our nutty heroes and their mates headed to Eric’s to do their sound check, whilst me and Steve “went to the local health bar for falafel burger and carrot juice….or was it to the chippy for a battered sausage and curry half and half? Can’t quite remember?

We headed back to Mathew Street around 7.30pm and returned to the Grapes, feeling refreshed and smelling wonderful.

Around that time I’d become friendly with some lads whose paths I had crossed with at many a gig, and many a Liverpool and Everton football match. (back in those days I’d sometimes go and go to Goodison Park  on a Saturday with my bluenose mates when the Reds were away)..the football / music connection was to later connect us to The End fanzine….amongst these people were future End Staff, Peter Hooton & Tony McLelland….plus there was a smattering of EFC and LFC up and coming  music and fashion loving EFC and LFC scallies like Phil Robbo, Dean Quantrell, Gary Allt, John Gargon, Eli manc and Eli Kirkby  and too many others I should not care to mention, for legal reasons. Everyone was in fine spirits and fine spirits were in lots of us. We trundled up to Eric’s about 8.30pm like the excited little urchins we were!

The Madness gig was amazing. Not so much musically (though they were impressive enough) but it was just the instant joy they brought to the night…we all danced that stupid nutty dance for the 1st time ever and that, in itself, was joyous (at last! a dance I could actually participate in without looking I had metal rods criss crossing down me back and legs, through to my heels and limiting me to shuffling from side to side like a teenage robot)…and at the encore, me, Rotherham  and an old schoolmate (who I haven’t seen since that night) Michael Walker…were up on stage doing that very same nutty dance that Madness were later to become world famous for…knees a-flyin and elbows and fists a pumping…just absolutely exhilarating!

Madness at Eric's (again, if anyone knows the photographer, let me know so we can credit him) 

The only down point at the back of mine and others minds were the increasing  chants of West ham / hammers type stuff from those, now dead rowdy,  cockney skins that I’d met in the Grapes earlier….and also seeing them trying to boss the dancefloor, getting louder and more leery and  aggressive as the drinks flowed.

After the Madness set Steve and I went on an autograph hunt.

There were a few local celebs in to see the specials so, as well as getting half of Madness and The specials signatures, I was able to get Elvis Costello, (who later produced The Specials first album) Gary Dwyer from Teardrop Explodes, (Julian Cope flat out refused to sign and was shouting, angrily,  at me for some reason that was so boring I cannot recall). It should be noted here that when we spoke to Elvis Costello and told him we had started a fanzine, he was so impressed, he called us into the Eric’s dressing room were he was about to be interviewed by Record Mirror. Elvis then proceeded to go into a rant about the shitty state and  cliquey attitude of the southern based music press and told the Record Mirror journalist to button his lip and let some real street kids ask some relevant questions. Well we sure showed up that journo with biting, political insightful questions like;

Where abouts’ in Liverpool did you Live Elvis?

What school di you go to?

Who do you support ? (LFC of course)

Though, after seeing the utter disappointment on his face, we did turn it round with tales of poverty and unemployment and a Maggie Thatcher rant about how she was strangling our beloved city and he responded in kind with a massive rant of his own about Maggie……but back to the Madness tale..

Most interestingly and, dare I say it “romantically”, the Eric’s flyer was signed by both Suggs and  Deaf School’s Bettie Bright…who were later to marry and still remain happily married to this day…I imagine this must have been the very night they 1st met….altogether now….ahhhhh. (see signed Eric's flyers below) 

Next on stage came The Specials!..Those sullen un-talkative guys from earlier that day came on and, to be honest, blew Madness away! …..I only knew one song, but I swear to god I couldn’t help but dance to every fuckin song in the whole set (and I was NOT a dancer, believe me!)…but I swear….you could not watch these bands and not dance…it was (and still is) impossible. 

I also got to join The Specials onstage for a medley of old ska songs that, if memory serves correct, was a mash up style of, Skinhead Moonstomp, Long Shot kick de bucket , liquidator…..and another one that escapes my memory at present.

It was one of the best nights I had ever experienced at that point in my young eventful life. I could have gone home at that point as the most contented and smug teenager ever, after having met both bands and danced on stage with them……..but shit! the thought  that Madness and their drunken skinhead mates were gonna be kipping in me ma’s struck terror in my mind!...how the fuck will that work? I was very aware that those Skin’s from The Grapes had gone from being charming to being completey loud & leery, beery dickheads.

There was only one course of action,…get the fuck out of there! No way can those cunts come to me ma’s! (the skinheads, not the band)

I told Steve I was going to slope off,  and as I was explaining “I’m not having them dickheads staying in ours”,one of the cockney Skins / dickheads shoved a young local lad to the floor in front of the stage and he cracked his head big time. Hmmm.

No real conversation occurred to be honest, there was just a collective rush forward from like-minded souls to aid and repel….madness ensued (sorry about the pun) …and a pure clockwork orange dance occurred. 

I won’t glorify it other than to say we educated and repelled those cockney boys good and proper and at one point, Madness themselves came running out the dressing room to help their cockney collective, only to see the mayhem that was occurring.  
They stopped dead in their tracks, like a scene from the keystone cops, all crashing into one and other and did a quick about turn and ran straight back into the dressing room.* Steve, of course was not involved in any roughneck shenanigans!

No real damage was done, as the surrender came really quickly….but thankfully, for me and me ma, I now could legitimately say to  Madness, “look fellers, there’s no chance you’re staying in ours now”!... blame yer knobhead mates!”.

So that was that, for the night. Some letters were exchanged between Woody and Mark from Madness and myself, and I was invited to come along to meet them the following year when they were playing Liverpool empire

……sounds like a cue for Tales of Madness Part ……back soon with that.

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You can still buy The END BOOK and see other such tales as well as some  lns & Outs, mad letters, good poems, shite poems ..and fuckin millions of spelling mistakes and bad grammar, as the book reviewers (poncy southern, ex student types) keep pointing out.

There’s a limited amount of signed copies in Waterstones on Bold Street and in the Liverpool 1 Waterstones store... and of course you can still get it on line here.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/were-you-a-big-fan-of-the-end/">http://www.sabotagetimes.com/football-sport/were-you-a-big-fan-of-the-end/