It was 1985 in Leeds, England. With a year to kill between high school and college, I answered an ad' in the Yorkshire Post: Something about drummer, touring and wages. Before going to the audition I remember being hopeful that it was a young band with a new record deal and the world at their feet. But underneath that was a sneaking suspicion that those wages were gonna be earned by something more than just playing the drums. Sure enough, when my father drove me to the Haddon Hall in Burley, i was greeted by a balding cabaret singer in a Hawaiian shirt. Keith Viner as he called himself, was the singer/guitarist and leader of Witticombe Fair. He lived around the corner and drove a Jaguar.

I set up my drums in front of his PA system and played along to his recordings of some of the hits of the day. I think my rendition of Whams' "Freedom" clinched it. I was given the job on the spot. I had 'spunk' he said, but I would have to exchange my Chrome Tama Imperial Star for a Simmons SDS7 to play in the band. The Simmons electronic drum kit had pads of the flat, hexagonal variety. The sounds could be manipulated along two parameters; pitch and white noise. Being a fan of hard rock and what was at the time called 'positive punk'this was the first of many affronts to my embryo of a belief system.The carrot for me was the prospect of touring abroad. Some of my friends were spending their year out in faraway places and if I couldn't go to India then Europe with a covers band would do.

I was given a train ticket to Falkirk, Scotland, to watch them play a new years eve show at a social club. Commencing with Roman Hollidays' 'Don't Try To Stop It', the band whizzed through the chart hits of the day over two sets, mixing their sound on stage and controlling a lighting rig from a series of toggle switches mounted onto a wooden box.
After the show a drunken argument escalated between Shaun, the bands' bassist and Keith. Shaun stormed out and took his gear and the lights back to Yorkshire. After a quick stop to pick up a bass at the local music store, we arrived at Peterhead the next day. Keith's idea was that Dave the guitarist play the new bass and i mime on Daves guitar for the show. I point blank refused to do so, but here was my introduction to the crazy world of Whitticombe Faire. A band I tolerated for a whole 8 months.
My apprenticeship began in the North East of England. We would typically drive up there from Leeds early in the week and stay at Graces' Pro Digs, a bed and breakfast in Sunderland. From our hub we would perform at the several working mens clubs in the area, returning to Sunderland that night. At Keiths insistence, our post gig shenanigans would start at the Barbary Coast, a night club frequented by the local criminal community and some really ghastly looking women. If he was feeling fancy we'd go to Fino's which was slightly more upscale and if you were lucky you'd meet a girl with all her own teeth and hair. After a couple of hours of watching Keith try to pull, we'd retreat to Harveys, a restaurant in town with a late night liquor licence. He would then sink a carafe of white wine whilst abusing us verbally, then call his girlfriend Diane in Leeds to abuse her.
One night off in Newport, South Wales, we decided to hit the local night spot for some action. Keith was fiercely anti drugs, but had a penchant for Amyl Nitrite. After my upteenth pint of lager, Keith insisted I inhale some of his 'poppers'. The rush sent my head spinning and i promptly threw up on the way to and in the bathroom. After 30 minutes or so of getting it together, I returned to the bar to find Keith in another argument, this time with Dave Major, the keyboard player. It seemed to revolve around who was the 'hardest' of the two of them, got heated and spilled out onto the street. As the debate wore on we neared our lodgings, and a bus shelter. Whoever could smash the window of the shelter would be declared the winner it was decided. The two of them took turns punching the window and on what must have been Daves' third or fourth effort, it finally gave way, shattering into thousands of tiny shards on the floor. Raising his bloodied hands in victory, we then returned to the guest house, with the pair, friends for the time being. By now Daves' badly cut hands were bleeding everywhere, as he stumbled into the dining room, reached for the lights, grappled with the bannister, climbing three flights of stairs, going into the wrong room, peeling off all his clothes and getting into bed with the proprietor and his wife: We were never allowed back.
It was an unrelenting schedule trawling the 'workies' of South Yorkshire and Teeside in the height of the miners strike, with the occasional glamour gig at somewhere like the Batley Variety Club. My parents were very proud to watch me follow in the footsteps of Shirley Bassey at that one. They still joke now about how the club refused to let me in because of my youthful appearance until I pleaded with them that I was playing the drums in the band. Another time my dad rode out solo to the Swillington Miners Club, strolled in, cigar in mouth, took a look around the now packed club, exclaiming; "Enough money for beer and fags though 'aven't they?"

We eventually made our way to Europe, starting with a two month stint in Norway. Their entry to the Eurovision Song contest; Bobbysocks had just won for the first time in their history, so everyone was pretty energised by the idea of live music.

Here we would play four, forty five minute sets in anything from a village hall to a roadside cafe, travelling in a Ford Transit van over the tree line and the arctic circle, up to the Russian border and back; Keith's behaviour becoming more and more unreasonable. I of course still harbored ambitions to play in a band playing their own songs and to put my stamp on the musical landscape of the day. On one journey back to Leeds from Newcastle, I excitedly turned up BBC Radio 1 upon hearing my friends' band The Passmore Sisters on the John Peel show. "Turn that fucking student crap off!" he bellowed, and did just that, leaving us all in an awkward silence.

At one point during my tenure, Keith decided it was time to get a bit of 'tit and fanny' in the band. And who better to fulfill that role than his own tone deaf girlfriend Diane?
There was an 'audition' during which she attempted to sing Katrina and the Waves' 'Walkin' On Sunshine'. It was so bad I never heard anything on the subject afterwards, although i heard he got his wish after I left the band.
As the summer approached I was looking for an out, college was looming and i had snook down to London to audition for The Cult who had fired Nigel Preston.
Whitticombe Faire were in Germany, on a NAAFI tour of British Army bases along with a comic from Liverpool and a dance troupe from Bradford. One night Keith had picked yet another fight, this time with a huge squaddie, who was about to deliver a beating. Intervening, I tried to convince the soldier that Keith was drunk and in fact an asshole, who should be ignored rather than eliminated. Keith failed to see that I had perhaps spared him this humiliation and proceeded to deride me as a 'done nowt' 'student'. With tears of frustration in my eyes i walked out of the club, and drunkenly tendered my resignation along with a few choice words to my tormentor later that evening.
It was a very quiet and sheepish breakfast in the Gasthaus the next morning but i (conveniently) stood by my decision.
I didn't get the Cult gig (after being shortlisted it went instead to Les Warner) and I saw out some notice to allow Keith to replace me before college. He responded by not paying me my last months wages for a considerably long time but for some diligent pressing.
I often wonder what became of Keith, who in spite of some seriously bad behaviour did me the favor of handing me my first professional gig in music.
I sometimes worry that I have turned into him in some small way. To Keith everything seemed to have happened in 1974 when his band competed in a British TV talent show called New Faces and it all looked like it was taking off. Similarly, when asked about my band Spacehog the default year always seems to be 1996, when 'In The Meantime' was in full flight and anything seemed possible. I shudder when i think about that period now, but in retrospect it taught me a thing or two about one particular aspect of the music business.