1984

On 8.4.84 we did a gig at The Wellington Club with Johnny Tasker and Mr. Rudeforth - Radios, Paul Moller - Guitar, Voice, Saxophone, Mark Fell - Bass, Trumpet, Terry Parkinson and Ian Butler - Drums. We managed to find a full drum kit for Ian from somewhere. Chris Hunter was going to play with us but ended up catching the last bus home cos we went on too late.Paul Heaton came up and played Trombone for about 5 mins, Mark had met him on a film course. It was filmed but of course the video was stolen later, a testament to my reckless lifestyle for a while. This gig was a warm-up for the extravaganza that followed on 11.4.84. For this final Mato Chup Live Experience performing Gorgeous Geoffrey's Rubber Zoo we had the stage set with standard lamps and tv's etc. like a living room. Two female friends dressed up in sexy gear with fishnets and old-men masks cooked up a concoction of semolina on the stage. The rest of the band had weird face paint on at the flat beforehand but I refused, the girls went round feeding the semolina to us but I kept avoiding them (my bit of non-conformism amongst the rampant non-conformism going on). Cheryl joined in and it started getting messy, the gunky semolina brew was being flicked around everywhere. We played for over three hours and it ended with Mark sat on the floor with a pyramid cloth/cloak around him, tripping out of his skull not wanting to stop playing the bass. It was a fine, fine ending to what was his last ever gig with us and the last gig with that line-up. Packing up was fun, the P.A. people were disgusted that everything was covered in this 'muck'. The management had a smokin' blue fkn duck fit about it all and we were told to get out as quick as we could and never come back. "You're Banned!" The band fell apart after that (no pun intended). Strange things were happening. I remember Mark telling Mr. Rudeforth that he couldn't be in the group because he had never taken L.S.D. It all gets a bit hazy but I also remember a 'rehearsal' where Mark wanted 'structure' brought in and the rest of us having none of it. Any road up, that was the end of that...