Andi Optic

When your getting ready to give up, it's hard to remember why or when you started. For me it was The Beatles! I bought a book in a sweet shop that went by the title of The Story Of Pop. I loved the pictures of the guitars and the way the band changed from clean cut to world worn in a short space of time. My sister was into some band at the time called Dr Feelgood, and one Saturday she told me to watch Angila T.V at 3p.m because they was gonna be on the box. Some wannabe Jimmy Turbuck anounced the band and bang! that was it...life changed in an instant." Mum can I have a guitar? ta! now I need an amp and some leads, its only cheap look! battary powered by Vox." Poor woman had no money, but she bought me all I needed to start (much to my brothers's disgust).Time for a band; school mates seemed the best option, so I got Black Nelson in on Drums which I got from one of honkey Tonks famous sales where you sleep outside the shop for a night and exchange a loaf of bread for a hoast of clapped out shit they was gonna bin anyway; just saves them the time of taking it to the tip, and you got to get it back to Southend on a No1 bus. Andy Bartlet came in on Vocals and John Clark on insults. We called ourselves the Cruisers and played in a lot of front rooms round by The Bell in Prince Avenue. It didn't really take off and we only had two songs; Queens We Will Rock You(that was because we only had a bass drum and snare) and something I wrote called High Rise Living (high rise living it aint no fun, they put you up there to hide you from the sun, when you get home and your works all done, your find out that it aint no fun)Like all good bands at the top of our game,we split up. John went down Hadliegh to dig for old bottles, Andy wanted to fight at football matches and Nelson just wanted to grow.Time for a rethink. If I was gonna get real about this I had to learn how to play. So I pretended I had agrophobia so I didn,t have to go to school. It worked, the doctor signed me off and I stayed in for a year or so learning my craft. The thing is if you stay in for a year you really do get agrophobrick and you end up not knowing how to spell.There was some noise about a new wave called punk. Now I stay in for a year and watch crap T.V. all day (when I'm not doing Wilco chops in front of an art deco mirror) And the one day I go out at 6 pm to buy some Fanta is the same night the Pistols do the Today show.I soon got to hear about it though the next day, and felt a strange sensation when all the old folks moaned about this shocking new thing called punk inbetween talking about the price of veg.I now had amassed a Aladdins cave of broken down equipment. Word got round and soon armed with my Steve Hooker boot T shirt and green dayglow socks from vic shoes, I was the talk of Fairview Drive.Steve Miln came knocking on a Monday eve, well that is to say he climbed over my fence and was banging on the coalshed door where I was hiding under a mound of old N.M.E mags. Was he here to hit me with a big rock he found in his garden? or just steal my bike? Do you wanna join this band i put together he asked? oh no does that mean we got to rob the newsagents again for their return bottles I replied, Na you fucking queer! its a punk band and you got all the stuff so your in, but you gotta sit in the corner and shut the fuck up while we practice or I will hit you with this great big rock I found in my garden, oh and where's ya bike you wanker!!In Eastwood school assembly hall I watched as they set my gear up and started to run through the same three nunbers over and over again(Mongoloid,Clash city rockers and Jilted John)There was this small drummer who kept grinning(Dee Dee) a guitarist who kept tuning up(Mark Cooper) and a singer who looked like he wanted to go to toilet(Clive)Someone said "give the boy a chance" so I plugged in, hit a chord ,gave it my best Wilco and run straight off a three foot stage and landed on me knee's,.Ladys and gentlemen..."The Psychopaths"To see what I did next check out Alex Oggs book No more heroes, or look up www.southendpunk.com.Look up the Psychopaths.The Decibels,The Shocks.Capt Strange.The Convicted.Puppets Prey.The Prey.The Burning idols.Anorexic Dread and the Vulture Squadron. See also Steve Hooker.Bif Bam Pow! and a return to form in The Optic Nerves.