'Martin and Neil'...the touring years

Well now that the band has split up I thought i would share some sordid tales of touring life with you...

'Martin and Neil' were on tour for most of 2004, it was here that the rows started and I tried to change the name to 'Neil and Martin' on many occasions but the other one wouldn't have it being as he was "more charismatic". We spent the days not talking to each other while we were on the road. The tour bus almost had a divide line drawn down the middle and it effected everyone that worked for us. We couldn't rehearse together, we had to do seperate soundchecks and would only appear on the stage together for that ninety minutes every night. The gigs were getting smaller profile too...it was only three years previously that we played to 100,000 people in our free gig at Central Park NY, the flower children certainly came to play that day...there was enough weed and groupies to satisfy an army. We shared this huge Harem tent as a dressing room and lay on silk cushions whilst admirers fellated us in turn...those were the days, ...and here we were just pulling up outside 'Wyndham Whippet club and Victory Hall' to play for a 60th birthday party for Agnes Bunklethorpe.

For fun I used to piss into Martin's beer and i never found out what he did to retaliate... but my donner kebabs always seemed a bit squishier than they should have been. I sneaked on to the tour bus one day whilst Martin was having some groupie action with a young lady from Carlisle and I overheard him as he confessed to not being able to 'get it up', so the next night I wrote a new song and put it into the performance to Martins suprise..i seem to remember the title of the song was ' you know you're getting old when you can't get it up with a groupie'...oh how i laughed, but after turning the colour of a really ripe plum Martin never ever spoke to me again. I used to spend my time on the tour bus snorting coke off a copy of Big Boy monthly and generally lying there, unwashed with genitals in hand, but the public never saw this side of us. We always had a clean cut image and were the 'beach boys' of the new era...our version of 'Nights in White Satin' is still played today, mostly at funerals and at old peoples parties , but never the less played.

I remember once Martin caught me on the tour bus rogering his dresser, a nice lad from Bournemouth who in a drunken haze had thought that sleeping with me might have got him the stardom that he longed for...how wrong he was, all it got him was a screaming rage from Martin and a naked walking experience on the hard shoulder of the M5 after he had been thrown off the bus with nothing to hide his dignity, apart from the cap of a bottle of 'super lube' that was now dangerously spilt all over the tour bus floor.

Another Martin tour bus story was when he was persued by a young lady fan from Chipping Norton who happened to be blind...she won some sort of fan competition to be on the bus for a day and really fancied Martin even though she could not see him...Martin did not think her attractive at all so was not sexually interested. The day went on and she got more and more high on the old 'green' with a smattering of vodka and decided that she should like to sleep with Martin...so what did martin do?, he worked her up a bit until she was ready and then got one of the roadies to shag her while he stood next to her making all the right noises. He then wrote on her in felt tip...he told her he was signing his name for her..in fact the writing said 'Easy blind girl for rent, ugliness no object' and after dressing her in her clothes the wrong way round, he sent her on her way...that was the sort of guy Martin was...

Until we split up as a band we didn't realise how much we liked each other as ordinary people and now we are very good friends once again...who knows...anyone for an anniversary reunion?
Piddy77 x

*Ladeez 'n gennelmen, this may only be a fictional account, nothing deflamatory is meant,it's all written in the sense of bad taste and humour. names have not been changed to protect the innocent. Thank You.