And so we come to the climax of my tale. It’s a bit of a ramble, (so get your slippers on and boil the kettle) but it’s also the meat and potatoes of what this is all about: THE JANITORS LIVE.

The County, South Shields, 22^nd of October 2005.

It was a really cold night. Colder than the sweat running down a grave diggers arse crack on a December half shift. Colder than a muggers smile as he takes everything you have, including your laces. Okay. Let’s dispense with all that Raymond Chandler shtick, it was just cold okay. South Shields, being on the coast, was probably colder than most places.

I had been at work all day and because of the work I do, I was filthy, coated in dry sweat and probably humming like a swarm of hornets. I didn’t have time to go home and the showers at work had been locked and the guy with the key was probably sitting with his feet up in front of his fire watching “Strictlywifeidolswappoplotteryfever”. I thought I would have to turn up for this first gig in my current disheveled state. Then I remembered that Shields had the Temple Park sports centre and they would have showers. So I eventually found Temple Park and…. it was closed. I couldn’t believe it. I thought this was a very bad omen of what was to come.

I know heavy metal is meant to be satanic and everything, but I was beginning to think that dabbling in the evil pool of punk rock was having an adverse effect on my very existence. Some THING did not want me to play tonight. Or if IT didn’t mind me playing, IT was at least going to make me do it with the demeanor and smell of a small slurry silo. The evening was saved when the ticket taker at the sports centre, admittedly probably alarmed by the fact that I was banging my head on her glass while jumping up and down on my bag, asked me what was wrong. When I explained that all I wanted was a shower she sent me down to get one, “They’ll be about half an hour cleaning up, don’t take any longer.” Thinking that the next thing to happen would be the classic, “Locked in the locker room” sketch, it was the fastest shower ever.

I was still in the car park of the County 15 minutes before the arranged meeting time and so stuffed my face with a pasty, a banana and a snickers and washed it down with some fresh orange. I had just finished when my ‘phone rang. It was Andrew.

“Alright mate, all ready for tonight?”

Out of nowhere, without any aforethought I said,

“Aye, am smashing, err… what’s happnin the night like?”

“It’s the gig tonight…errr…where are yea?”

“God the gigs the night? Am still in the house, ah thought it was the morra night”

Silence. In that split second I knew I had Andrew on the hop. I could sense all the tension and apprehension he must have been feeling brought to a head in his worst case scenario. The Hippy had forgotten. I could feel that he half believed what I was telling him as he spoke with a voice that barely concealed his anger and terror,

“Naw mate it’s the night.”

“Shit! What time have ah got to be there by?”

“Err.. as soon as possible….you are kiddin’ right…?”

I couldn’t hold the pretence anymore, I felt terrible for having done it already.

“Yea I’m kiddin’ am in the car park ‘round the back. A’ve just watched you drive past”

The air suddenly turned all Bernard Manning as obscenities streamed out of my ‘phone.

When I got around the front, Mark, Dave and Andrew were all standing outside the van and immediately started having a go at me and saying that I was out of order. But they had smiles on their faces and it had broken the ice and when Andrew went in to see the manager both Mark and Dave couldn’t wait to tell me what an excellent wind up it had been, “You should have seen his face it was a picture!”  Minutes earlier they had probably all been calling me an utter knob. Backstabbing bastards!

Just as actually remembering how to play the drums had been a chore, so the reality of a pub rock band’s life on the road came back to me in one horrific tidal wave of lifting heavy gear from the cold into the warm smoky interior, up two flights of stairs, along a corridor and up onto a “stage”. And repeat until the van is empty. Next. Move tables and chairs, sort out boxes, move other things around, get in each others way, lose things, forget things and have to drive home for them (yes, that actually happened), talk rubbish and eat a Halloween muffin each (green with a jam/blood centre). Throughout this set up time the room remained devoid of punters. We sound checked with some of the more well known songs as the guy who had let us in said that sometimes the customers downstairs would come up if they heard something they liked. Nobody came up.

Again, just like the first rehearsal I’m pretty sure The Janitors were a little nervous. This I can understand as they had an unknown quantity sitting behind the drums who had had two rehearsals and a week to learn thirty songs. They also had an empty room to play to. I was apprehensive but not exactly nervous. I figured I didn’t really have much to lose. I hadn’t played a set with a band for fifteen years so if I fell flat on my arse I had a pretty good excuse…

By the time we were supposed to be going on stage there were probably twenty or so people in the room. We waited a bit longer and as luck would have it a gang of about twelve very drunk but very happy local lads turned up and pushed some tables together right at the front, but just to the right of the stage. We started with “God save the queen” and when we had finished there was polite applause from around the room but mass hysteria from the headcases at the front. Immediately they started shouting for some of the more well known “punk” tunes, none of which The Janitors did. They didn’t seem to care though as we did a couple more songs, including “Babylon’s Burning,” which also garnered riotous applause from the nutters. They were having a great time as several other people who were obviously NOT having any kind of fun at all, left the room. Up on stage, I was quite enjoying myself through the terror. I was doing well and the band sounded together and tight and so far nobody had dropped any major clangers.  Andrew started having some crack with the loonies and although I can’t remember any of it I do recall laughing loads at his patter. This was the first time I’d really experienced Andrew’s stream of consciousness nonsense and the bloke should really be a comedian. Not one of those comedians who hones their jokes to perfection, coming out with the same material every night but one of those clever comedians who works the crowd, feeling their way as they go, letting the mouthy bastards in the audience write the script for them.  Andrew could be like a slim, punk, Johnny Vegas.

I do remember one thing that became a running joke throughout the night because my mate Chris (who was there) had not long before been telling me about the South Shields Bermuda triangle. This is an infamous, semi-mythical area of South Shields which sits happily between three pubs. Men are known to have disappeared within this “triangle” usually for three days; four if it’s a bank holiday weekend. It apparently starts on a Thursday night when most of the “victims”, having just got their payslip, pop into one of the pubs for a “swift one” on the way home. Without knowing where they have been or what has happened to them they wake up in their front garden some seventy two hours later in a state of partial undress, missing at least one shoe and all of their possessions. They are usually penniless, sporting a black eye and have vomit down the front of what is left of their shirt. It’s a mystery. Anyway, these balm pots at the front had obviously recently escaped from “The Triangle” as that’s what they kept shouting about. Andrew was obviously oblivious to the story and thought they were talking about the much loved primary school percussive musical instrument. This as far as the nutjobs were concerned, was the funniest thing they had ever heard. So the gig progressed and I thought we did very well considering. One thing that sticks in my mind is Dave leaning over to me when he noticed we were about to play, “Something that I said” which has a small drum break in it and saying, “Kev, it’s ‘something that I said’ next. But no pressure or anything mate!” Thanks for that Dave. I got through it great anyway but only coz Andrew indicated to me where to stop and start. Andrew had spent so long talking to the lads at the front about triangles that we had to cut the second set short. We had scared most of the people away by this time anyway but the crew at the front had had a great night. During the last song they decided to have a piggy back race through the room, up the corridor and back. Using somebody else’s table as a finishing line, they crashed into it and sent punters and glasses flying. Andrew turned to me as this was happening with a look of pure glee on his face as if to say, “Look what we’ve created!”  

And that was it. My first gig for a decade and a half. It wasn’t easy. My arms were aching and I was easily the sweatiest man in sweaty town and we still had to strip the gear down and face that freezing Shields air but it had been a bit of a laugh. My adrenaline had obviously been tapped into as well because I couldn’t sleep that night. 

The Three Tuns, Gateshead, 29^th of October 2005 (Supporting Roots Radicals)

The next three gigs that I played with The Janitors were my favourites. This is the first in that un-holy trinity. It was a 45 minute slot supporting “Roots Radicals” who it turned out were a very tight and rather excellent “Rancid” tribute band. Again it was a cold night but this time we were using other peoples gear and didn’t have to carry any of it in. Hurrah! I arrived early again and was delighted to see that the bass guitarist in “Roots Radicals” was a chap called Roy Ash. I went to school with Roy from the age of 5 and although this sounds stupid even then he was a really nice bloke. We had passed each other musically a number of times since leaving school, never actually being in a band together but hanging out with similar company. I hadn’t seen him for years. I was amazed when he recognised me and we had a really good catch up. It was great to see him and know he was doing well in life. Another surprise was the drummer whose gear I would be using turned out to be Ada from legendary Felling punk band “Left for Dead”. He also played drums for “The Star Spangled Chest Wigs”. I had never actually met him before but he turned out to be a totally smashing geezer, very laid back and in possession of a splendid drum kit. He is also a fabulous skin thrasher. The next surprise was bumping into “Bob” another spiffing fellow that I lived in the same street as when I was younger but hadn’t seen for years. Bob has always been a keen punk and has always dressed accordingly and kept his passion for the music very much alive, irrespective of fashions and trends. For this alone he deserves to be saluted. (He appears in some of the photos from the next gig in the gallery of this very site.)  There was very little for us to do on this occasion so we just hung around waiting to go on. I plied the band with more baked goods, this time cookies which my daughter had made. It’s amazing how quiet the Janitors go when they have sweet things to eat. The crowd that “Roots Radicals” had managed to find was a little different to the one at “The County”. These people were hard core old school punks. Most of them looked like they had been in their teens when they got into punk in 1976 and had possibly been wearing the same clothes for the last thirty years. It was quite a sight to see.  

So we went on and….it was fantastic. It was the best surprise saved for last. After every song the crowd roared, and I mean ROARED! They were totally into everything The Janitors played. They obviously knew every song and greeted each one like a long lost and much loved brother. They seemed genuinely thrilled and astonished at the choice of music The Janitors were pumping out as though they had never heard some of them live and never thought they would. Especially not from a local pub band.  I could tell Andrew, Mark and Dave were over the moon. I was just in a state of shock. I don’t think I had ever experienced adulation like that in any band I had ever been involved with. Andrew set up his banter with the crowd and again I can’t remember it, but as usual it was highly amusing and drew the crowd in even further. By the end of our set we were all drenched in sweat and the crowd was jumping up and down and having a great time. The adrenaline reserves had definitely been tapped this time. I was already high as a kite. Andrew told me later that as we went off stage the guitarist from “Roots Radicals” said to him, “We have to follow that…?” It was glowing praise indeed but as I said earlier “Roots Radicals” are an excellent band and from what I saw later, the crowd went even more nuts for them!  

The Three Tuns, Gateshead, 26^th of November 2005

Here we were back at The Tuns. The day after my 39^th birthday and I’m in a diseased lung of a pub about to play thirty year old songs with a punk rock band. What was I thinking?  

How was I to know that this would be the zenith, the very acme of my short lived career with The Janitors?

If we compare the six gigs I did with The Janitors to the six “Star Wars” films, this was our episode three. And I know this is controversial, but by that I mean it was the best. Yes I know all you old twats out there can’t let go of the feeling that episodes 4-6 are the best, but you have to, because they aren’t. The new trilogy, viewed as an adult, is far superior to the originals. If you go back to being eleven again, without doubt episode 4 is a life changing experience, but for ruts sake let it go. It’s ancient history, so stop harping on about it in thousands of chat rooms, you sad old bastards. Just accept that whatever age you are, episode 3 is the superior film.  

So here we were back in the cantina at Mos Eisley space port on Tatooine. 

I don’t know what I can tell you about this gig. It was probably, to my memory, the best one I have ever been involved with. And I mean, ever. The crowd that had come to see “Roots Radicals” had come back to see The Janitors do two full sets. This was very nice of them as from what I can gather some of them had come from as far as Sunderland. They had also brought some of their mates and the place looked like what I imagine the 100 club might have looked like in the days of the “Bromley Contingent” in 1976. The small room was packed to overflowing with eager punks ready to be transported through space and time by the Janitors. They didn’t let them down. 

We went on and got the same blazing reception that we had back in October but this time everything felt even better. The band played the tightest we ever had or would together. I can’t remember a single mistake from anybody apart from me, and Mark and Dave saved the day by moving quicker than they ever had before to come in on time and cover up my error perfectly. For one night only we were almost telepathic. The crowd/Andrew interplay was just incendiary with certain members of the audience, it seemed, just waiting for the gaps between songs so they could goad Andrew into yet another hilarious flight of comic nonsense. My arms grew stiff and tired and sweat flew out of me. But that adrenaline was there again, and I was soon flying high once more, but this time during the gig. The crowd were relentless and I can’t imagine anybody there that night having not had a great time. In the end we played the whole two sets and about four encores with Andrew so wiped out he had to lie on the floor to sing. We didn’t come off until about 11.40. 

I’ll not quickly forget the smile on Mark’s face right at the end of the night when we had totally finished and in a very weary voice he said, “That was the best ever….” 

The Iron Horse, Newton Aycliffe, 3^rd of December 2005

I’m pretty sure that at some point near the end of the night of 3^rd of December 2005 Mark probably said in a weary voice, “That was the worst ever….” 

This is the “Secret” gig that you will not find any other mention of on The Janitors website. Go on, have a look in the list of past gigs; it isn’t there. That’s because this is The Janitors’ Altamont. This is the gig that never was, the one I had to fight to be allowed to tell you about, the one you are not allowed to mention in front of Andrew. This is The Iron Horse….. 

It’s hard to believe that this gig took place only a week after our triumph at the Three Tuns. It’s still one of my three favourites, but as you will see; for very different reasons.

As a special treat and because this gig was way down south, in deepest, darkest Newton Aycliffe I was collected from the house in the Janitors van and whisked direct down the motorway to the venue. The crack in the van was excellent. It centred around Mark’s mum telling them off, after overhearing a lot of swearing from those naughty Janitor boys when Mark had forgotten to end a call on his ‘phone to his mum. Oh, those little punk tinkers! Reduced to being six years old again by the wrath of Mark’s mum. So we reached the pub and upon entering were told where to set up and that the manager would be out soon. The “stage” was a very small corner, almost a corridor in fact, between the toilet and the fruit machine. As we set about rearranging the whole pub to fit any equipment in, the manager came out. He was massive. He looked like Desperate Dan but bigger, with loads of tattoos all up his arms, and a head roughly the same size as a bull’s. But they say never judge a book by its cover and he was in fact a thoroughly smashing bloke. And most apologetic, because, as it turned out, when he’d booked the band he had forgotten that it was the night one of his regulars was getting married and as a consequence it was very unlikely that anybody would be coming. We looked around the empty bar and then at the 20 or so people in a group in a corner, “What about them?” we asked. “They’re going to the evening do. They’re just waiting for the mini bus.” As if by magic the bus appeared and we were literally left alone in an empty pub. We set up and a few people drifted in and then we sound checked and most of them drifted back out.

But this is the reason I loved this gig so much. We waited so long for ANYBODY to show up, that we spent most of the night chatting and making each other laugh. Well, actually me asking them about how they’d all met and them then making me laugh with their tales of musical debauchery. Dave came out with something so funny that it will stay with me until the day I die. Unfortunately I just cannot get it to translate to the printed word, so I can’t tell you. I guess you had to be there. Sorry. The point is, this was the first time we had actually had the opportunity to do this and it was a great night out in the pub with the lads. I nearly coughed a lung up laughing. I wish we could have had the chance to do it more often. The evening was only ruined in my opinion by the fact that we had to go on and play.

It was about 9:45 by this time and there were about 15 people in the pub. The first song was “Automatic Lover”. I gave the band four sticks and away we went, but all I heard from Mark was a horrible metallic “KLOMPPINGGG!!” and then silence. I looked to my right to see him standing looking very bemused and red faced with his E string hanging from his bass guitar. It had snapped. We had to stop. Andrew murmured to the crowd(?) that we would have to take a short break(!) and Mark and Dave set about trying to find a replacement string. They thought they had one but when Mark used the tuner to try to get it in tune it was tuning it to a different note. It was obviously not an E string.

Some people left.

A chap from the pub came over and  kindly offered to go get a spare as he was a bass player and only lived around the corner. By this time however they had just about sorted it out. We resumed at about 10:00 and it was the polar opposite of the previous weeks’ festivities. (As Mark said, “imagine if that had happened last week”.) Andrew was so subdued that he didn’t even try to talk to anybody out in the pub and his despondency rubbed off on the band, or certainly speaking for myself, on me. I just didn’t feel happy at all. Mark tried to hide behind a short panel that was in front of him.  

Some more people left.  

I think at one point Dave may very well have been playing the fruit machine instead of the guitar, nobody would have noticed, that’s for sure. That’s not a slur on Dave’s playing, it’s just that nobody in the pub cared. 

Some more people left.  

There were now about 4 people in the pub. If just one more left, there would 25% more people on stage than in the audience. But God bless him, there was one lad that clapped his heart out all the way through, after every song. He sounded like a performing seal. I was tempted to throw him a fish. It was a very sad sound. It was twenty to eleven when we finished the first set; we did two or maybe three songs from the second set and stopped. The lad who had been clapping turned out to be the bass player who had offered his strings. He thought we were great and assured us that on any other night we would have gone down well. The manager said the same as he manfully handed over the fee he had promised for the gig. The brewery accountant would later kill him.  

The Tyne, Ouseburn, Newcastle, 29^th of January 2006

The penultimate show. The Tyne is a lovely little pub and one which I’m sure would lend itself well to a “Steeleye Span” tribute band, but not to an edgy, forceful and sonically brutal punk band. The barman said that they always had blues bands on a Sunday and that the manager must have thought The Janitors were a blues band, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have booked them. You could tell by the audience that he was right. The women all looked like they’d spent most of the seventies in cheesecloth blouses and Janis Joplin crushed velvet skirts spouting utopian theories at stoner parties to blokes who nodded sagely but actually just wanted to shag them. Every man in the place looked like Eric Clapton. There was one exception. A couple who looked like they should have been taking cocktails in The Dorchester had somehow landed here and their expensive clothes and too much makeup looked very out of place amongst the beardy weirdys. I felt right at home.

My work mate Dekka showed up as well. He was totally paralytic and he really enjoyed the night. He was just so drunk he didn’t know why. To be fair there were a couple of punks in the bar and they also enjoyed themselves. There were also a couple of lads from another punk covers band there, checking out the competition I suppose.

So we went on and played, and the hippies seemed to be enjoying themselves at first. Andrew gently took the piss out of them, asking why they weren’t at home watching “Heartbeat” and then cleverly telling them that one of the songs we had played was the B-side of Nick Berry’s first hit. It was subtle for Andrew but this audience were too intelligent to not understand subtlety. Either that, or they were so terrified by Andrew that they thought they had better laugh at anything he said. A lot of people left but I think they didn’t really want to. You could tell they really liked Andrew’s patter but just couldn’t put up with the music in between it! Other younger people came in to replace them and by the end of the night there were a few people up throwing themselves about and even taking the microphone off Andrew to sing.

I thought we played really well that night and I was getting to the stage where I didn’t need to worry too much about where I was or what I was doing in the songs. I could relax a bit and enjoy myself. But that’s when complacency slips in and I think that is why I didn’t enjoy the last gig as much as I should have.

The Three Tuns, Gateshead, 25^th of February 2006

And so we come to the last gig. Back at the Tuns. Whilst I had been in The Janitors I had been growing my hair with the sole intention of having my wife shave it into a Mohawk for the last gig. I had hoped to have it done, turn up with a hat on, and then spike it up in the toilets just before we went on. In the end that proved impossible. It took ages to spike the thing up and so I had to go along with it already in place. It certainly went down well with the band and I’m very pleased I did it, I can cross it off my “50 things to do….” list.

Everybody was really relaxed for this gig and in hindsight certainly for me that proved to be fatal. I was happy with the Mohawk, happy with the songs and the band and our collective ability, and when loads of punks started drifting in, confident that we could pull off another amazing show as we had at the end of November. It was about as full as it had been last time, but there had been a gang of about 15 or so people that I remembered from the two previous gigs which weren’t there this time. This was a shame because it was packed as it was. We may have broken some sort of attendance record if they had shown up!

I seriously cannot remember very much about this gig at all. All I remember is the problems with the P.A. and that I made loads of mistakes. Every little drum break or intricate part that I had, I cocked up. Nobody seemed to mind within the crowd which was again very appreciative, but I knew, and it ruined that last night for me. Overconfidence and complacency. My two evil nemeses. One thing I do remember is hearing a crash right near the end of the second set and looking up to see about 10 people in a heap on the floor after some over exuberant dancing. The crash had been caused in part by them knocking over all of Andrew’s drinks.  

And that was it; the end of my Janitorial career.  

I feel I’m going out with a whimper rather than a bang, but that’s just the way it was. At least I did have some “bangs”. As I said earlier The Three Tuns gig in November was, as far as I can remember, my favourite of any gig I have ever played. Just being around The Janitors has been an honour. They really are some of the funniest and nicest people I have ever met, certainly when dealing with bands, because there are some right arseholes out there. Believe me; I used to be one of them….    

Epilogue.

If you have been reading this and have little or no interest in punk music but are now thinking, “This band might be worth going to see…” Do it. Go see them. As you will have no doubt gathered I am not the biggest supporter of punk music in the world (Or even in my village. One of the youngsters wanders around with “The Damned” painted on the back of his leather jacket) but The Janitors are worth going to see at least once. And Hey! If you like them, go see them again.

If you have been reading this because you have seen The Janitors (especially last November) and are a fan of punk music you will already understand what I have been yakking on about, but just to spoil it all at the very end, I’m going to be serious for a minute… 

In my opinion The Janitors reignite the spirit of the punk era before John Lydon tried to bring it to a close at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, January 14^th 1978. I can understand why he tried to do that but happily, he failed. Punk rock, and perhaps more importantly, its massive influence and attitude, carried on, and does to this day. But it will never again achieve the fire and passion, the filth and the fury, or capture the imagination of a galvanised youth as it did in the U.K. between 1976 and late 1977. 

The Janitors have tapped into that original punk ethos and when they get up in front of an audience of people who appreciate where they are coming from, it’s as though they have gone to Lord Tools, hired a time machine, and transported those happy few back to the summer of 1977. You might not get a silver jubilee street party but you CAN forget the outside world for a couple of hours and feel that passion and spirit and fire rise in your chest again. You will never get the feeling you’ve been had at a Janitors gig.