|
October
Hello peeps, Marlow here
Well it’s October which means tour time for my old Canadian
mates and guess what? Because of me increasing the ponces
readership of this sad little site by nearly twelve hundred
squillion per cent, they done got me a ticket to go along to the
big ‘fuck off’ Arena down Sheffield and see the lads. A
couple of conditions of course, I have to spend the entire
evening handcuffed to Dean, with a pair of his recently soiled
underpants stuffed in my mouth to stop me screaming for help and
I have to promise not to write anything about how they behaved on
the night. I have assured them I won’t (well not for a month
anyway) Chris even brought me a copy of Snakes and Arrows in to
listen to. As soon as I get something to play the fucking thing
on I’ll tell you what I think. Although it will be difficult
to listen to the first ever Rush album that I haven’t played
keyboards on I will try and be objective.
Anyway, another absolutely true story from the time when I was best mates with them honest and anyone who thinks I am making all this up can just go and bugger off.
It was the summer of 1982, and after working hard early in the year to get Signals released, we were having a ball of a summer doing the European festival circuit. This particular episode took place at the ‘Pink Pop’ festival in Holland. As well as us gracing the bill, Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Sammy Hagar, Judas Priest and a whole bunch of other massive bands were engaged and to be honest it had been fucking great, with Saturday night drawing to a close and all the paying non famous plebs safely back in their tents knocking back cheap Cider and heavily cut Leb, it was time for us big time celebs to get down and get wasted in the V.I.P area.
Just after midnight we got a massive fire going courtesy of fifty beer crates, three marquee canopies, most of the backstage furniture, two of Hagar’s Explorers and all of the promoters clothes, before settling down, skinning up and watching the night go by. If I remember correctly there was me , Ged, Alex, Neil, Dave Lee Roth, Ozzy Osborne, Sammy Hagar, Robert Plant (who was just ligging and to be honest getting on everyone’s tits) and this twat of a fortune teller who was with Plant called Irving. Rob Halford tried his bollocks off to get in but Geddy wouldn’t have anything like that knocking about near Alex. Here’s how it went.
Alex
– “Geddy, come and listen to this, they’re all
smoking those funny fags that make you talk silly, it’s
ace.”
Geddy – “Alright son, you should be in bed soon
though”
Alex – “Aw just another ten minutes… listen
he’s best” (pointing at Irving)
Hagar – “What we gonna talk about then”
Roth – “Ain’t talking ‘bout love”
Irving – “I see the future man and it’s fucking
awful”
Alex – “Ha ha ha haaa”
Plant – “Irving sees the future man.”
Osborne – “Fuck off ‘Stairway’ boy,
you’re not even famous any more and you were crap at
Knebworth”
Roth – “My love is rotten to the core”
Hagar – “What do you see Irving?”
Irving – “Horrible man, bands full of boys with nice
hair who don’t play any instruments, TV shows with members
of the public in a house and everyone watches and votes for
them”
Osborne – “Fuck me I think he’s overdosing”
Alex – “Haha haaa … no instruments, public,
he’s brilliant”
Neil – “A hot and windy august afternoon has the trees
in constant motion”
Hagar – “What else Irving?”
Irving – “Tiny little phones with no wires, no peace,
ringing all the time, all the cars look the same man, loads of TV
channels with nothing on, girls with short hair”
Alex – “Hahaha no wires, let me stay up till two Geddy,
I’ll go early tomorrow”
Geddy – “Half one”
Alex – “Ok”
Osborne – “Pass me that, Irving mate, I think
you’ve had enough”
Plant – “He might be right about the TV. They’re
on about launching a Channel 4 back home”
Osborne – “4 channels, that’s never gonna work
man, they struggle to fill 3”
Promoter – (sticking his head out of the shower block)
“Where’s my… you bastards”
Geddy – “Planty you’d better get Irving home,
he’s obviously losing it. Nice cock Mr Promoter”
Promoter – “Fuck off, how am I supposed to get back to
the car park?”
Geddy – “Sorry mate, couldn’t give one and tell me
to fuck off again you won’t have a cock or any more Dentist
bills. Come on Planty, let’s get sorted”
Irving – “I haven’t got to the best bit yet,
Hagar, you’re going to nick Roth’s band off him and
have a massive hit single called ‘Why Can’t This Be
Love‘ ”
Hagar – “Yeah right, like I’m not big
enough.”
Irving – “And Ozzy, your lass is going to be
massive.”
Osborne – “Yeah right, she’s a fat ugly fucker so
that’s bound to happen.”
Irving – “No no, she’s going to have loads of
plastic surgery, become vaguely attractive, hook up with a funny
little Irishman and a puff called Simon Cunt and then have a
massive show telling people who can’t sing that they
can’t sing.”
Osborne – “Look Robert I’m really sorry about
insulting you earlier but if you don’t get this twat out of
my face inside the next fifteen seconds you’re going to
think that the bat got off relatively lightly. All I’m
trying to do is get stoned and have a pleasant conversation with
my peers, which incidentally you are currently not one of and I
am having to put with your twat of a friend here making the
future sound thoroughly unpleasant and spoiling an otherwise
lovely evening. Here Sammy, have a bang on this mate”
Hagar –“Cheers Oz, mmmmmmmmmmmm … splendid”
Osborne – “You ok Sammy”
Hagar – “Wwhhhhhooaaaaaaaaaaa, here it comes - that
funny feeling again, winding me up inside every time we
touch.”
Roth – “Nice song man”
Hagar – (going a bit red) “Er … thanks Dave”
Geddy – “Come on Planty, Irving’s been very
entertaining but he’s starting to piss people off just a
tad, so best get him not here as quickly as possible, let’s
not get me to the having to raise my voice a bit stage, nobody
would enjoy that, not even me”
Plant – “Sorry Ged, we’re off now, come on you
stupid bastard, you’ve gone too far again, back to the
fucking tent and you’d better not have drunk all the
Woodpecker otherwise you won’t live to see the bastard
future. Thank fuck you stopped short of predicting Rush on Top of
the Pops”
Irving – “You have the gift too, Bob”
Plant – “Fuck me, come on”
Neil – “A modern day Warrior, mean mean stride,
today’s Tom Sawyer mean mean pride”
Geddy – “I don’t know what the fuck you’re on
about Peart, come on Master Lifeson, beddy byes, ‘Top of the
bastard Pops’ … as if…”
Come to think of it some of Irving’s other predictions were Rap, equal pay, global warming and Celebrity Love Island, all of which seemed totally ridiculous at the time. The last we heard of him, he’d changed his name to Richard Branson and was trying to get a mail order record company up and running, don’t know what happened to him after that.
Anyway the ‘Free Marlow’
campaign appears to have fallen flat on its arse since the summer
recess. Can we have a little more enthusiasm and unpleasantness
shown towards the ponces at any upcoming gigs on my behalf
please? Also some correspondence would be nice, let’s start
with an ‘are you a boy or a girl’ campaign. Simply
email Pod and say my name is ....... and I am a boy/girl.
Absolutely pointless I know but it means the girly twat then has
to sift through loads of mindless, annoying emails to get to the
ones that are saying something nice about them, which will really
piss him off and waste loads of time that he could have otherwise
spent doing his hair, which in turn will make my miserable
existence that little bit more bearable. When he gets fed up with
that we’ll think of something else to annoy him with. Oh and
thanks for the polite enquiries about what happened to Pod the
mouse. He actually fucked off as soon as my Kit Kat was finished
but occasionally pops in to se if I have knocked a half eaten Pot
Noodle over in my sleep, he’s quite big now and to be honest
a bit fucking scary so I can’t say I miss him much.
Anyway that’s me for another month, next time, by popular
demand the return of "Ask Marlow" but really rude and
some other stuff that I haven’t thought of yet. If
you’re off to see the real Rush this month, give them my
regards and apologise for my absence due to circumstances beyond
my control. If you’re off to see the ponces at all, never
mind, we’ve all had a shit night now and again.
Speak
to you soon
Marlow
