The summer of ’95 was a hot one. This meant the first few months of not having a job, along with rehearsing, we were able to throw a Frisbee around Highbury Fields and sunbath on the roof of the Georgian house where we lived. The house was divided into ten flats, ours being the basement, where the old servant quarters used to be – we still had their bells inside by the front door. The roof was white and had great views of North London. We were able to go up there, with a couple of towels and take in some rays.
One day when Danny and I were lying down, enjoying the warmth, a neighbour didn’t see us and obviously thought someone had left the roof door open, so helpfully locked it from the inside and went away. We only realised when we tried to get back downstairs. We were trapped. It was mid-week and not many people were around. I had to lean over when I saw someone and shout down, ‘excuse me!’ some people didn’t hear and kept going a few probably did hear and kept going. When eventually someone looked up, I asked them to ring on all the doorbells and if anyone answered, ask them to come up and let us in please. Took about an hour, it was very hot with no shade and we were stating to get a bit anxious.
3 July – The British football transfer record fee is broken for the third time this year when Liverpool sign striker Stan Collymore from Nottingham Forest for £8.5million.
4 July – John Major wins the Conservative Party leadership election, gaining 218 votes to John Redwood’s 89
The famous Blur v Oasis battle of Britpop took place in August, with Blur declared the winners.
Until a few weeks later, when Oasis were declared the winners.
One of Jess and Martin’s friends and sister of Scouse Mick, Scouse Kate was moving to Australia with Stevie B. another of their group of friends. We had only recently got to know Kate and Stevie – they were very funny and it was a shame to be saying ‘goodbye’ when we’d really only just met. There were several farewells, including a big meal at a restaurant in Clapham and a mini festival in Hope, just inside the Welsh border in Flintshire.
Someone knew the owner of a pub there with a large function room and sloping mountain garden where people could camp. Pusherman and jump-rope were invited to play, with other friends djing. Danny and I drove, giving Paul R. a lift. Our drummer drove separately.
It was a pretty wild weekend. Dry ice and red lights when we played. I kept going up to an empty microphone stand to sing and getting confused when I couldn’t hear my voice before shuffling over to the correct one. Pusherman followed us in fine style. We had all consumed a little too much though so both our sets, while excellent fun to play, were slightly wobbly. In a rock ‘n’ roll moment, Yank, the harmonica player in Pusherman, threw his microphone into the audience, everyone moved to one side and you could hear the ‘thump’ of it landing. He then had to jump off the stage to retrieve it, clamber back up and carry on.
After the live music was over, the djs did their thing and people danced or wandered in and out of the function room at the back of the pub. When at last I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, Danny and I went to our car – which was right by the function room entrance, pushed the two front seats back, got our duvet from the boot, curled up and fell asleep. The car felt like the best hotel room ever, I was so glad of it. There were some bendy mirrors on the way into the hall and my last sight before drifting off, was of Paul and Jess laughing hysterically at their reflections, Jess saying they looked like Picasso portraits.
Paul had to sleep in a tent, sharing it with our drummer and his partner. No room in our car.
Hope in Flintshire.
Realising that we were getting older than everyone we knew in bands, Danny and I both decided to clip three years off our ages. This proved to be particularly awkward at a party we went to in a bar called Mars on Endell Street, Covent Garden. I bumped into a guy I hadn’t seen for ages, Andy, he was from Camberley. We got chatting and he asked my age, without pause, I told him the ‘new’ version. ‘You went to Farnborough Hill didn’t you? That means you’ll have been in the same year as my girlfriend’ who he proceeded to call over. ‘Hey Kerry, come over here’. The girl came over and although she gave me a knowing look, she didn’t blow my cover. Thank you Kerry.
7th July The Verve played The Astoria in London. We were lucky enough to get on the guest list, once again through our Pusherman connections, another brilliant night. We knew where the band were staying, so piled back to their hotel after the gig hoping for a party. Embarrassingly, by the time we got there they had gone to bed.
Jess and Martin were particularly friendly with bass player Simon Jones and his lovely American wife, Myra. Myra came down to the reception in her dressing gown to say there was no after show!
23 July – War in Bosnia and Herzegovina: British forces sent to Sarajevo to help relieve the Siege of Sarajevo.
6 August – Pubs in England are permitted to remain open throughout Sunday afternoon for the first time.
In 1995 for the first year in quite a while I didn’t go to the Reading Festival, but instead to the Notting Hill Carnival, also on the Bank Holiday weekend. After bowling around, dancing in front a few sound systems, a gang of us went back to Amanda and Rudy‘s flat. They lived right in the heart of the carnival, on Westbourne Park Road. They also had a fab roof for seeing the sites and partying.
Here’s Danny, myself and Amanda. (Jess was working at Vivienne Westwood’s and was able to get staff discount on either black or white men’s tee shirts, like the one Danny has on. All the Pusherman crowd had them.)
Claire and I.
A Blondie remix album had just been released which I’m fairly sure we had on repeat and much fun was had.
Every year, on the first Friday of September, Michael Eavis throws, what is now called the Pilton Party, in 1995 it was the Pilton Fayre. This is a ‘thank you’ and a fund raiser to the local people and to the staff who worked the Glastonbury Festival. They usually asked the headliners from that year to play. In 1995, even though they hadn’t played in the end, The Stone Roses were invited. It was top secret, but Dodgy had also been asked to play, the bill was Dodgy ‘plus special guests’. Andy, my old boss and Dodgy‘s manager told a few of us the ruse and we were able to get tickets at the princely sum of £8.
Andy also knew a place where we could camp, in the garden of the local vicar. He had a couple of old caravans that could be rented plus people could bring their own tents. A group of us went, including Scouse Mick, Fran, Bo and Martin from Pusherman. Mick drove.
Michael Eavis had been right in front of the stage when The Roses played, I reached over and was able to shake his hand and mouth ‘thank you’ to him. It was the first British gig for The Stone Roses since Glasgow five years previously.
As everyone left the field where the gig had taken place, a bit of an altercation took place between Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream and Martin Rossiter from Gene. They started hurling insults at each other as we all kept walking and watching. Liam, Noel and the rest of Oasis were also there.
Our posse headed to the back garden / camp site where we were staying. There was a small party in our caravan. At one point Bo (bass player Pusherman) and Danny tried to light the gas oven, this resulted in a mini explosion where Bo singed his eye brows and after the initial shock, we all found this very funny. Scouse Mick and I left at one point to see if we could get any more drink, we came back proudly holding up a half empty (half full?) bottle of QC Sherry.
The Verve, had released their ‘A Northern Soul‘ album in July and now, Richard Ashcroft decided to leave the band and therefore split them up.
‘History‘ was said to be their last single.
I had been in touch with Derek McKillop, Lloyd Cole‘s manager a few years previously. Derek had organised the band I had at the time, Poise to demo a few tracks, which sadly lead to nothing. I posted him the latest jump-rope recordings, ‘Burn’ and ‘Crowded Day’ in July. My timing was good – Lloyd was playing a short tour at the end of September / early October to promote his ‘Love Story‘ album and we were invited to be the support. This pleased us immensely and we worked hard getting the set in shape.
We borrowed my parents old Rover, and being a three piece, we were able to squeeze us all plus our gear in there. The first gig was in Dublin at the Mean Fiddler on September 27th. For this one, we actually also managed to fit the drummer’s girlfriend in the car with us too. She was pregnant, and it was pretty short of space once we were loaded up and ready to go.
We got the ferry over from Holyhead and arrived in Ireland early. Danny and I had stayed at a hotel, (not unlike the one in The Shining) on a previous trip to Dublin, just near Phoenix Park, so this is where we stayed again. Large, slightly spooky rooms at a reasonable price. We tried to have a snooze in the afternoon but I wasn’t able to – I was looking forward to the gig too much.
The band played well and we then enjoyed watching Lloyd‘s set. Van Morrison was in the audience and joined us back stage with his entourage afterwards for a fairly surreal evening.
We hung out with the Irish stage crew who told us amusing and unrepeatable stories about UB40 and The Cranberries.
The next morning we were up and off, heading back to England – the tour continued at the Warrington Parr Hall on 30th. We were able to go home to London for a day before loading up the car, this time without the drummer’s pregnant girlfriend and head off to Warrington, not far from Liverpool. We were greeted warmly by Lloyd’s tour manager and roadies, who made us feel very welcome and were happy to offer us advice. (The tour manager, Mick Brown was in our lives a while later when he worked for The Flaming Lips who played the Green Man Festival in 2010.)
Indie Through The Looking Glass 
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