…the lows
To date I have mainly focused my wee stories on the elements
that made my career in music a relative "success". It wasn’t all sweetness and
light though. There was always an undercurrent of melancholy to our music
despite our stage presence being slightly different. As musicians Al and I had
severe limitations. We would mask this inadequacy by maybe dressing up in Pavarotti
and Sergeant Pepper outfits. Or buying bubble making machines that ended up
leaking all over the place in a sticky goo making playing the guitar even more
treacherous.
To settle the nerves we would sometimes frequent of an
alcoholic beverage or two. Or three or four, or five or six, in Al’s case most
of the time. At least this way we would ride through our subsequent balls-ups reasonably
unperplexed. But as any good musician will tell you, playing anyway inebriated
is just not the thing, unless you happen to be Keith Richards, or Joe Perry,
who Al certainly thought he was. This raised a difficult issue given we had a
backing minidisc player that held all of the beats and samples, mixed down
exactly as the song was recorded. So if you missed the starting point of the
song the chorus would swing in, and you’d still be on the verse. Al did this a
lot. This resulted in me either having to re-adjust mid-song, or restarting the
song. I’d have to explain this to the audience, and I know my incoherent
ramblings are the stuff of legend. I’d get to the end of our 30min sets
sometimes in absolute bits because the gig had been a fucking nightmare. This
typically would happen when we would play to bigger crowds. Perversely, when
there was hardly anyone there, we would be magical and flawless.
One particular shitshow was the night we played a rammed Katy
Daly’s as part of BelFest. I popped my wee minidisc player onto a wooden barstool,
on the wooden floorboards and the vibration of the beats caused the wee bugger
to skip and stop repeatedly. It was only when the soundman suggested cushioning
it that we got somewhere, but it probably too little too late. I always let the
frustration get the better of me and anything would come out of my mouth.
My relationship with Al was never particularly that great
truth be told. Having said that, he was my best friend and moulded me into the person I am today, no question. He was always so cool in school, his hair, how he walked, his
demeanor screamed cool dude. I wasn’t the most aggressive person, could be either
socially awkward or else the middle of the show. I REALLY wanted to be a rock
star, so did Al, so we got on that way. But he was permanently distracted by
other things and particularly other people. Typically dangerous people that I
would be afraid of. His onstage persona was ebullient and cocksure. Which is
odd because he was actually the one of us with shyness, unless he had a drink,
then it was showtime and not always in a nice way. When we would jam, he would sometimes
be two sheets to the wind. Sometimes I would rock up to Belfast for a jam
session and we wouldn’t get out of Bob Cratchit’s bar in time, or without him
being too argumentative to do anything of worth. The seeds of discontent were
really eating away at me, but how could I go it alone? I needed Al like Dumbo
needed his feather. What would I call myself? Hmm, what would I call myself? How
about Foamboy? I was the boy in Foam. That made sense. The more I thought about
it the more I liked it.
We were like The Beatles in that we released 2 albums a year
for our limited duration. Al was like John Lennon in the fact he was a
maverick, had a tendency to veer down roads I would never venture and had a
different outlook from me when it came to expanding your mind. I was more like
Paul McCartney. Reserved, focused, channeled and a control freak. I also held
the lock to the box with the tunes. It was me who did all of the admin work in
the band, burning off the discs, making the covers, putting together the CDs.
Sending them away. I did all the gig booking and dealt with the promoters and
the soundmen at the gigs. I am certain I came up with every single song title
too. Though given some of our song titles I should probably not claim the glory
for that. Like John Lennon, Al had now also found himself a Yoko Ono. His
girlfriend had moved into his Belfast apartment, and she was getting in the
way. Like physically interrupting our jams getting in the way. I was resented
as I took Al away from her. I resented her as she was taking Al away from me.
During the 98 World Cup, we decided to try something
different. I bought a nice sunburst Epiphone Dot guitar and we changed our name
to Roque Junior. The tunes we made were scratchy punky and throwaway. I allowed
my fixation with Royal Trux take over and Al went along for the ride. We
somehow managed to get a slot at BelFest playing our first ever gig in The
Empire bar. Now this is a beautiful and legendary venue. I’d been to countless
gigs in there so playing that stage meant a lot. At this point in time, I had
my hair down to my shoulders and figured a new outfit would be the ticket for
such a prestigious show. So I bought a white suit. A. White. Suit. I still
remember the soundcheck with legendary soundman Dee. A burly bloke who after
years of taking shit from eejits like us, had created a no-nonsense persona of
not taking any shit from eejits like us. The microphone on this occasion was
presenting electric shocks to anyone who attempted to get too close to it. The
band warming up before us were cheekily ordered “don’t go dying up there!”. I
just set about having more than my usual one or two drinks to negate the pain.
The venue was reasonably filled out and we got up for the debut Roque Junior
show. We were shit. Far too well-oiled and Al was apparently going for it
behind me, goading the audience with two fingers and all sorts of gestures. I
was struggling to play guitar as I usually played bass and we hadn’t rehearsed
these punk songs enough. I remember ending that gig rolling the stage, in my
white suit, and screaming. I got a call the next day from Shep, concerned that
someone had told him I had a nervous breakdown on stage. Was I ok?
That was the last gig we would play together. Not long after
that, I got up early after one of our jam sessions, grabbed what gear I could,
and left Al’s apartment. He threw whatever was left, including my white suit
down the waste disposal shaft in the apartment. I didn’t go near him again.
Foamboy was officially going to happen. I met Al in the street several years
later. We spoke briefly like we had never really knew each other. He was going
on about being a golfer or something. I’ve never seen him since. Anyone we knew
mutually hasn’t seen him either. That’s the way of things sometimes though.
People move on. So here endeth the first chapter of my tales. From now on, it’ll
be what happened next for my solo projects. Note I said projects…
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