5. TILTING AT THE WINDMILL...

The question arose of exactly why you would want a manager that couldn't even manage to book the dates he was supposed to, at a local community centre, so you could stage your own gigs and not even ones he'd got for you. "Why have a manager anyway?" Asked I, "We could quite easily do it all ourselves." We had a suitable venue, there were already some dates booked, albeit not including the one we'd actually been due to play at, but let's give the man some credit; neither band were strangers to late night fly-posting campaigns and Chris knew all the people who did P.A. hire and stuff. Meanwhile, there was the small matter of any number of good people who'd turned up for a gig that hadn't happened. I suggested, by way of an apology, we released a free live tape, thus came "Live... And Sorry!" (C-4006) two days after the gig that never happened. The A-side contained a reasonable quality 45 minute PA recording from a previous Charles gig, the B-side featured Shona and my rehearsal from a few days earlier. The deal was you could either send us a blank C-90 and a postage stamp, then we'd dub your copy on it, add the inlay and send it back, or you could pay £1 in The Rock Box to cover the cost of one we'd made earlier. 

The cover of "Live... And Sorry!", surprisingly similar to "Mick & Chris On Acid" really, but then you can't expect miracles from a freebie, can you?

Clearly, we then needed to bounce some ideas around as to our plans for the future, so had to find an appropriate facility for the discussion of business matters; i.e. a pub. We chose The Windmill, just a few miles out of town near the village of Windlesham in Surrey. Our first meeting took place there on Sunday 17th May 1987, by which time my band had expanded from husband and wife duo to a more credible four-piece. Thus in attendance were myself (in waistcoat and jeans a-la Quo), Shona Moments (red jumper), Jay Time (the one with facial hair) and Kate Twilight (white top and matching face) from MMATT; along with Tarquin Experiment? (top left), Jacob (between Tarquin and myself) and Count Five (big shock of dirty blonde hair, ruffle and button-hole) from The Charles, accompanied by Countess Elaine (big blonde wig). Benedik was a no show, but let's not pick on him about it, at least he turned up on the right day for gigs. The Windmill was a quiet little rural family run pub in those days, God alone knows what they must have thought when us lot descended on them. However, it must have worked out quite well as it became our regular meeting venue. I have to be honest and say I can't recall a lot of what was talked about at that first get together, I politely decline to explain why, but I do remember we made a unanimous decision to tell everybody that Benedik's favourite bands were Black Lace, Abba, Chic and Fairport Convention, and that his favourite pastime was hot air ballooning whilst wearing women's clothing. The things that stick in your mind, eh? There was no doubting though that we emerged from it with a

solid plan; we would stage a joint gig on the next booked date at Frimley Community Centre, for which we would all strive to come up with ideas that would make it a unique event; both bands would create posters to advertise this 'happening'; plus we would produce a zine, the responsibility for which would initially fall to myself, the aim of which was to glue the whole thing together and give this new entity a voice. We definitely didn't just want to be 'a couple of local bands doing the odd gig together', we wanted it to be a cohesive and co-operative venture, an attitude, a way of life, something utterly non-conformist. And we would need a name - what better could there be than the title of The Charles' rousing encore; we are going against...

The first issue of The Grain zine, dated June 1987, available free from the pile on the counter of The Rock Box. Inside, it welcomed its readers to a new world of three-eyed babies, strawmen, masks and boiler suits, helter-skelters, severed eyes and lips, top hats and umbrellas. Ooh...

The first issue was a very cut and paste affair, snipping photos to desired shapes (hence the collages, rather than nice neat rectangular pictures in this article thus far) and mixing them up with bits of artwork, cut-out newspaper and magazine lettering, along with handwritten bits and a typed main body. It was intended as something of a parody of the conventional fanzine, sending up the idea of band members' likes and dislikes (though Shona really did like Wham), a spoof 'Personals' and a 'Blackmail Spot' feature which included a picture of Eddie Irwin (sadly, another one no longer with us) and Nik Morgan in bed together. Thinking about it, Nik never did pay the tenner, so that's my next web feature sorted. There was also a competition! All you had to do was come up with next issue's Catchphrase Of The Month (if you could match the stunning wit and literacy of "I saw Frank Sinatra cashing his dole cheque") and you could win all the members of The Charles and Magic Moments At Twilight Time coming to your house for tea. Well, probably not Benedik. The rear cover featured the first part of Chris' wondrously wacky "The Amazing Adventures Of Professor Quest" comic strips. Chris was a hugely talented artist with a delightfully offbeat idea of story plotlines; the first episode, for example, saw the good Professor get run over by a cat riding a penny farthing bicycle, in spite of his having sewn an alarm bell into its stomach so he could hear it coming! The News page was packed with stuff about studio dates, gig news, squat parties, picnics and, of course, The Grain's first live happening. There seemed to be a real buzz about it all, so much was going on, so many ideas. We were unchained spirits, free to express ourselves however we saw fit. Start your stopwatches! The show is about to begin...