Tufty Nuisance

I am a soldier. A soldier in an Army of many millions...and growing! A global Army, of millions of hardcore Ravers. Music, Race, Religion, sex and age are unimportant. If you can dance with a smile...you're in! We lose some battles but we win more... We are in a War we cannot lose! That's because our opponents (the miserable old cunts) have already lost it!-----------------------------------------------------Vive le Ravolution!--------------------- MyGen Profile Generator................................................... ............................................................ ............................................................ ......Born and dragged up in London in the last century. Didn't exactly do everything I was told but I have had a fascinating and special life for which I am eternally grateful. My Mother came from Islamic poshness mixed with English poshness (but not real Gentry) and fell for my Geordie working class Father because he had a heart. Something rare amongst the cold-blooded ruling class.Key events:- First day of school was my first introduction to God and Jesus; how surprised was I (as a 4 year old) to be told that I owed my life -and everything- to some chap...apparently called Jesus Christ (who had died 2000 years ago!!!!) and his dad...called God. Fuck me was I confused?! Allegedly this Jesus geezer did magic tricks like making blind people see again, yet apparently his dad went one better by -get this- moving mountains and parting seas. Bear in mind that I had NEVER before heard of these two!!! It was NOT a good start, in that that the place where I was to spend the next 10 years learning was blatantly lying to me on my first day, in fact my first morning! I was so gobsmacked that I STILL remember asking the little girl sat next to me "who is Jesus?" Honestly, I was so shocked I remember her name...Ann Broadwood and I still remember vividly later that day, looking up and asking my Mother as she held my hand, "who's God?" Her answer was not helpful either, for she told me not to worry myself about it as it was all lies. What I wished she'd have said was that the Religions have all been distorted by incompetent beings. Never mind. Bless her. The thing is, perhaps this is why I had THE most unspiritual childhood.I was always into sports but started skating (boarding) in 1975 on a Newporter my mate had brought back from the States...I still remember my first ride around the swings one evening in Pinner Park, north west London.Started smoking cigarettes aged 7. Stopped smoking 11. First got pissed and started sniffing thinners aged 11. Stumbled across the Notting Hill Carnival with my mate Tony Vickers aged 12, whilst exploring London on a Red Bus Rover (10 pence unlimited bus journeys!) We drank a quarter bottle of Pernod, got pissed as fuck, got separated, and I woke up on the pavement with my head two feet away from a fat Bass bin pumping out rude dub bass-lines. After that, I didn't miss a Carnival for years! Parents separated aged 12. First smoked Marijuana aged 13. Started playing Guitar when I was 14 but also learnt a little on keyboards, Banjo and whatever else made noises. Got heavily into glue aged 14. Started taking speed...14. By the time I left school I was taking 'blues' practically every day. Valium 15. Started injecting speed aged 16. Heroin + Barbituates 16. Mushrooms/LSD 16. My friends and I had always mocked all the local church people, to the point that in our teenage years, we had damaged or burgled all the churches in our area and even trashed one of the graveyards in a rage against the dead people who we thought were responsible the nightmare that we were living in. I know see that most of these dead people were probably lost souls but I was not a happy teenager. It was around this time that one bright autumn day I went mushroom picking in Bushey with my mate Pug and found just over 200 oversized magic mushrooms growing in knee-high grass. It was the first time I had actually picked them and had never seen them so big before(they were on average between 20-25cm high and up to 3cm across the caps). Anyway...we get back to the squat and nobody wants to take them as they are so unusual, so I say, "fuck it" and eat almost all of them with Pug eating 14 if I remember correctly.------What followed changed my life forever-----To this day, it was the single most disorienting trip of my life (and I can safely say that I have consumed in excess of 2000 tabs of Acid, countless mushrooms, perhaps 1000 E's and enough ketamine to take out an army). The thing was, I had in effect poisoned myself. I couldn't sit up, let alone stand or walk and my mind had panicked and accelerated to the point that no words were getting deciphered. I could see faces and I could hear sounds coming out of them but it was all in slow motion. All I could do was lay horizontal and try to pacify the previously unknown (and now raging) creature within me which had in this time of crisis taken control of the ship (so to speak) and which was desperately struggling to keep breathing and thereby stay alive. I won't elaborate any more on this particular experience right now but I do want to say that it was 13 hours before I could actually understand words again. That night, I learned how fragile the human mind was and saw for the first time the component parts of the human psyche. To this day I have never seen mushrooms the same but some time later I encountered one solitary mushroom of similar proportions and when I ate it it gave me a mild trip, but still enough to have visual 'traces', perhaps the same effect as 10 normal Liberty Caps. .For this reason I would estimate that those 200 mushrooms which I ate were comparable to almost 2000 normal 3cm Liberty Caps. It is worth noting that once I found mushrooms and LSD, I realised that all the other drugs (speed, coke, weed, alcohol, heroin etc.)-as well as robbing people- were shit. At this point I knew things would change for the better, even though I didn't stop injecting until I was 27 (after I had injected thousands of times). I was one of the lucky ones who don't show it. I now look back at my needles in the arm period with horror. I was too young to be exposed to the things I saw, it's a dark, desperate world that I'm eternally grateful to be free from.Found a Sex Pistols record hidden in my brothers room and turned Punk aged 14. Shortly afterwards got kicked out of home and suspended from school for the first time for dyeing my hair into an orange mohican. Discovered the 'Crass' Anarchy centre in Wapping Wall, East London and promptly left school and went squatting, aged 15 with not a single qualification...Best move of my life. First spell in prison for burglary -we robbed a bar- aged 16. It was NOT my idea. Burglary is a cunts trick, unless of course, you burgle rich thieves. Apart from my weeks in prison, I sniffed glue absolutely every day of my 16th year. I was still yet to understand the power of Karma. At this stage of my life, my one goal was to die before I became the same as all the mental half-witted adults around me. First friend -Jim- died aged 17. Half a Heroin suppository up his arse. It was his first experince of heroin and it was not easy telling his girlfriend Liz, what happened. Today more than 60 of my friends and aquaintances have died from every kind of death; hanging, Heroin, heart attack, stabbing, shooting, 2 hit by lorries, broken neck, brain haemorrage, work accident, jumps off buildings, drowning, car/bike accidents, under train...the list is long. Got my driving license aged 18. Was also fully into the punk scene until that (and various friends) died a death and just hung around London squatting, making trouble, burgling, stealing cars, playing music and getting my qualification -and working- as an Electrical Engineer which I had started following my second -thankfully short- spell in prison (for arson on a building owned by the Metroplitan Police). During this time my brother lost the plot and jumped off of a 5 story building after suffering a nervous breakdown aged 19. He didn't die but was he might as well have as that was the last I ever had a brother. He also stabbed himself in his neck and through his lung and shattered both feet and legs, smashed his elbow and couldn't walk for two years. He is still inside today after more than 20 years. Don't give your family members to western Psychiatrists! Contracted Hepatitis 'B' aged 19 and kissed death on the cheek but it actually helped. I was forced to sit still for an entire month and contemplate my life. Something I had never done before. It was also the time I realised that I actually didn't want to die. I have had Hepatitis A,B and C but fortunately am now immune to A+B and clear from C. I then tried out various things; hippy festivals, living normally, (ha ha) my luck, early Run DMC/Beastie Boys London shows, and the first Dr & the Medics Magical Mystery Trips (literally). I lived inbetween Shepherds Bush, Islington, Harrow and the gutter. In 1986 I moved to Cheshire Street off of Brick Lane and got involved with organising London squat parties which at the time were always free and only consisted of guitar music and bands, went to the worlds' first warehouse Rave; the Mutoid Waste party in Battlebridge road in 1988. The same year we introduced DJ's into our Squat venue which was situated off of Brick Lane and by this time had a fat skateboard half-pipe in it. Was later a member of THE club that transformed the London Punk/Squat scene...'Creation' in Old Street. It was the only club I was ever a member of. Before Creation(1989), London Squatters were Punks...after, (1991) we were Ravers. Started Snowboarding in 1989 and kept going to countless gigs and Raves until I formed a band with a friend, Des Murphy who later did Delakota with Cass Browne from the Senseless Things, (now Gorillaz) before Dez married Willow, Roger Daltreys daughter. Our band was called Mondo Popless and it was actually a top laugh; we toured all over Britain and parts of Europe France/Germany/Czech. We made a record and Cd's and, out of 780 or so entrants, actually won a TV show looking for new unsigned British talent on which the special guests were a band called Blur. The music was Indie-Punk but soon mutated into Indie-Groove. We were heavily snowboard/skateboard inspired since the idea to form the band came on May 6th 1990 after a day on the side of a mountain in Tignes, France... after a day of awesome riding on the 'Cosmic Mountain' under the influence of Pink Floyd trips I might add. We were in fact Britains first snowboard band and played at various early days official UK Snowboard events like Llandudno, Aviemore, Avoriaz, Tignes. We also did the first benefit gig for Surfers Aginst Sewage after I phoned them and offered our services...much to their surprise... and spent almost the entire summer of 1991 in Cornwall playing various pubs/bars/parties and raving but it all went wrong after we won the TV show for the simple reason that I didn't (and still don't) have ANY respect for the musicbiz vultures, much to the dismay of my fellow band members, some of whom wanted to be superstars. At the time (1991/2) there was a desperate search afoot from the record labels to find a punk band playing with 60's harmonies. Our contemporaries were Radiohead, The Verve, Suede etc. The labels wanted us to be the Oasis that was yet to come but unlike the Gallaghers, I do not have a small penis -which is what drives most pop stars; Jagger, McCartney, Daltrey, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, to name but a few. Anyway some of the the band wanted to be metaphorically fucked up their arses; I refused and so was kicked out of the band I had formed...that could have been a bummer, but little did I know my life was just about to kick off and start properly, as I was about to move into a chalet in Chamonix with Justin Allison, Magnus Asberg, Johnny Barr and Phil Young in the French Alps, along with the likes of Chris Moran, Chris Bailey, Pete Turvey, Babs et al we helped shape Europe's Snowboard scene. I was to live in those mountains for the best part of a year. Taking acid what seemed like every other day and going to vibrant French raves in that most beautiful environment, gave me the opportunity to reflect on my life from a afar and it was during this period of my life that I realised myself. Coincidentally, I had been at the first Teknival in Beauvais, France in 1993 and although I had been on a totally different tip, I had ended up hanging out at all the early Teknivals. I tried to resist getting spiralled but eventually I had to connect up with the Spiral Tribe...and then the Universe, before going off to travel the world and help make a lot of people think about what they're doing! Ha ha! ..not finished...much, much, much more to come...watch this space. Love and peas. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx