In 1998 I was studying for A Levels at Lancaster and Morecambe College, trying to catch up with my peers after having left the snooty Lancaster Royal Grammar School by mutual agreement and then spending a year working in a garden centre and an Oxfam bookshop. My A Level Philosophy course was one night a week, and it kept being the night that a really interesting group would be playing at Manchester’s Band On The Wall that me and another guy, Bolt, would end up going to. Most memorable was David Thomas and Two Pale Boys. An incredible live act. I had never thought to try brass through reverbs and delays until hearing Andy Diagram. Nor had I thought to wear an apron on stage. Totally remarkable. This album is a collection of live recordings, and as such is in my opinion superior to the studio albums where you don’t get the bizarre chit-chat , telepathy and spur of the moment digressions. My parents were probably concerned to hear me playing this stuff upstairs. It’s very potent, as potent as a nervous breakdown. I remember late one night my dad shouting upstairs, ‘Daniel, can you put David Thomas to bed now?’
One More Grain supported Pere Ubu a few years ago in Islington. We just emailed them and asked and they said fine as long as we can borrow your drum kit. Perhaps our best crowd ever that night. As it had already dawned on me that it wasn’t always straightforward to make money with a band, especially with a band so underground it was at the Earth’s core, I went in to ask for some advice from the big man himself. He asked how old I was and, upon receiving the answer, told me to get out of the industry while I still could. Months later I did follow his advice, getting so far out that I was on the other side of the world.
