early! But yeah, write about what you know, that makes sense. Was there much in the way of political intent with Lethal Dose?
Chris Carter We had an anarchic tendency which was fed regularly by our idols. Crass, Discharge etc.
Chris Carter Rob and Martin did most of the research on that. I just read into Lenin
Magic Moments At Twilight Time So, one more Lethal Dose track before we move on, ready to rock, Rosie? This one is "People Over Power", think we're still waiting for that little wish to be fulfilled...

Chris Carter A nod to Wolfe smith. Very crass.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time We liked Foxie... :)
Chris Carter Ohh Foxie
Chris Carter The funny part about the song was the 'shit' word. Consequently it was not able to be played on the radio
Magic Moments At Twilight Time How times have changed.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Ah, that was fun. Now, your next band was Panzer Korps, I remember hearing some via the Encyclopaedia Obscurica that was Eddie Irwin (was there ANY band he didn't have a demo of?), but I'm buggered if I have any to play now. Any fun memories of PK you want to share with us?
Chris Carter It really was a spin-off from Dose. We all knew each other from school actually and then I put the band together. We got into a film called Mark, it was supposed to be shown on channel 4. But never did
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Him and Rosie are headbanging again... ;)
Chris Carter PK lasted for a few years and featured Martin on bass and Jamie Aberthel on a second drum kit.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time So I'm guessing Lethal Dose and Panzer Korps were the first couple of real bands you were in, how did the two of them come to an end? Short lifespan seems to be a problem that plagues so many young and hopeful bands.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Original MMATT four piece lasted a year, for example.
Chris Carter Lethal Dose kinda had it’s day, we got pissed off with the extra hassle of dealing with addiction problems. PK was having issues around transport ie me not being a driver. The main part of the band lived in Woking
Magic Moments At Twilight Time It was a tragedy with Martin, of course, heroin is pretty nasty stuff, seems hard that you have to die for youthful misadventure. So, let's move forward a bit to The Charles, coz that's where we come in too. I still remember that first gig Eddie brought me too, it was quite an adventure, I was like 28 years old, office worker, just trying to make life interesting again and I couldn't tell you just how out of place I felt at first. Then you came over, grabbed the MMATT demo off me and stuck it out over the PA. I wanted to hide in the toilet, but Eddie wouldn't let me. Before I knew it, you were saying 'we' (there really wasn't a 'we' then) should support you. What was it about that tape that got to you?
Chris Carter At that point in time music was changing so fast, the Charles had been trying to break the mould and we needed something extra terrestrial to dangle in front of the goths. It’s all a matter of time travel. You were different and we were looking for change
Chris Carter Plus you didn’t have a drum kit to mess around with
Magic Moments At Twilight Time We were different, I don't suppose anyone would deny that, but you had quite a different thing going yourselves at the time, I'd never heard that kind of blend of gothic punk before. Well, Eddie had to tell me what the music was called! You had a very striking visual image too. This is pretty much what I saw that first night, while Shona and I were just the 'husband and wife duo from north west Surrey'...

Magic Moments At Twilight Time And here's some of what I heard that night, where did the inspirations come from for these wonderfully eccentric characters like Professor Quest (complete with a snippet from The Grain Festival on the front)?

Chris Carter We really wanted to break into the festival scene but give it a new sound at this point

Julie Howell Imagine being 15 and the first up-close live band you saw was The Charles. Changed the trajectory of my life forever.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Mine too.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time This was one of my favourite live numbers of yours. That was the thing we always envied - we may have had the tech - but you guys on stage - wow.
Chris Carter It’s a lot of hard practice and effort as you know, the mind bending effect of which means you just get up and perform. We kept it really simple so the control was in our hands. Professor Quest the Strawman etc gave us access into the imagination and that was important so we could write crap and still create
Magic Moments At Twilight Time What was the concept for your live performance style?
Chris Carter It’s what happens when you pick from all your favourite things in music. But the most important thing was watching our followers and using their dances to influence our own. Silly but true. That’s how the Strawman was born.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Hmmmn...
Magic Moments At Twilight Time I think you've just answered that. Of course, the beginnings of The Grain came about due to a certain incompetent manager of yours at the time, let's not embarrass the man, let's just call him John Pryer. If he hadn't screwed up that first booking we were supposed to play with you, so much wouldn't have happened. As luck would have it, Professor Quest turned into this guy and took him out... ;)

Magic Moments At Twilight Time I love Ian Merrick's bass on this. Now this isn't gothic, it's not punk, it's kind of borderline experimental. How much did you have to do with the writing of this one and what were the influences?
Julie Howell I always thought of psychedelia. (Naan bread is going in).
Chris Carter Like all good Victorian dramas the good has its dark side and the Strawman, based also on a visual we saw at a Cardiacs show, was this amazing reversal. It was the wobbly in what was potentially very normal. Lol.
Magic Moments At Twilight Time That as well. The psychedelia, there's definitely no naan bread in this track.
Chris Carter Ian and Ben did all the music, I just sang along. We were indeed influenced by sixties psychedelia and 80s prog rock. Punk gave it punch. There can be no denying it. I just did not have a clue about music
Rachel Ball So many memories
Elayne Astrid OMG.. yes such brilliant crazy amazing times.. EPIC :)
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Ah, yeah, makes sense again. There was an element of Victoriana about the look you had (almost proto steampunk), so the Jekyll and Hyde thing kind of fits. So we began working together, first getting together to record that monster 23 minute epic of "Acidic Heaven", then put out the joint Charles / MMATT album (as featured on "The United World Underground Collection" recently) and got The Grain underway. Let's put the track on in the background (well, a 10 minute excerpt of) and talk over, it's a bit long to lay silent over.

Magic Moments At Twilight Time What do you remember about the recording session?
Chris Carter I remember it was important to dress like Mozart for some reason. I also recall not having a clear idea of what I was looking to do
Magic Moments At Twilight Time Memories...

Magic Moments At Twilight Time I don't think either of us really did. I had a kind of musical map in my head for it, set of words, but so much was improvised too, especially all your little bits about dropping tabs in the garden...