Stuck right up in the corner against the bar, J.A.T.T. does his best to find space in which to strut his bassy stuff at the White Hart, you can just make out Shona Moments, behind right.

       Scenario; The White Hart, Frimley, the back bar. The place was packed, wall to wall weirdos, much to the displeasure of the regular inhabitants (funkies, methinks). Mick Magic wandered in bewilderment through the crowds, garbed in white boiler suit, combat belt and a white hat with a large rubber spider on it (I didn't get where I am today by not wearing large rubber spiders on my head). Shona Moments hid shyly in a recess, J.A.T.T. nervously tugged at his red long johns (would his female following try to rip them off again for a glimpse of his wonkydoosie) and Kate Twilight, now sporting waist length extensions and a mega tacky leopard skin (fake, A.L.F., leave us alone) dress, skulked in a large gin and gin... yes, we were on free drinks! MAGIC MOMENTS A.T.T. would like to extend their appreciation to everyone who came to see us, we never knew there were that many people in Frimley! Sadly though, it did rather limit the visual part of our act as we (particularly Miss Moments) were trapped in a corner...   

Kate and I were even more seriously jammed in behind keyboards, amps and an old television. It's all changed now, it's Ye Olde White Hart these days, all knocked through to one large space.

The time was fast approaching nine. We concluded that nobody else could possibly get through the door, so we began to play... the telephone rang and the rest is history. "MMA/005/STORY X" gave the back bar regulars a taste of what to expect, and they started leaving (but knowing they're all into Mel & Kim, we were flattered, not insulted). A nice round of applause at the end of our first track proper told us we were pleasing our own following (and it is them that we care about, not funkies). Confession; okay, our set was too long... our excuse is that we had three new numbers to try out and we didn't want to drop anything else! Everyone down the front was having a great time, particularly enjoying the now legendary Condom Ballet and Miss Moments' striptease, and being decidedly wary when she decided to menace them with a bread knife and made love to it orally. As promised, we are one of the most visual bands around at the moment, not ones to just stand and play songs! Around 10:00, our set came to a close with our rousing anthem "MMA/012/ US WEIRDOS (Gotta Stick Together)", including a loud cheer from one Count Five to the line "come and see the view from The Charles' new boiler."

       The crowd at the front clapped frantically and cheers of "Blitzkrieg!" appeared in the midst of the throng (plants or what!?). So we played the bopping "MMA/010/BLITZKRIEG!" to yee-hah's and get 'em off darlings! Still, the excited gathering would not let us go and get well pissed on our free drinks before last orders were called (where are your hearts, followers?) and they called for more!? (Gosh!) But that was all of our material, so we played "MMA/012/US WEIRDOS" again... such fame is too much to take! I mean, two encores in a place where we thought we'd go down like a lump of lead... wow! So, our lot loved us and the regulars hated us... but the landlord was more pleased than our own happy following, we'd increased his Sunday night take by £300... plus we sold another five tapes (we only sold one at our first gig and that was to Kate's mum!) so we were well pleased too. What with two encores, boosted pub profits, 400% rises in gig tape sales, a record deal etc... the future looks bright for MAGIC MOMENTS A.T.T. who are absolutely brilliantly and exquisitely different, even though we do say so ourselves. Overall, a pretty fucking successful night, thanks for turning out for us, and sorry to the regulars for the invasion!

       Just to avoid bias, Nick Morgan (musical tastes; Madonna, Curiosity Killed The Cat & A-Ha) said he thought we'd died (with the crowd he was with). Well, folks, there are a few reasons why a tableload of people at the far end from where we were wouldn't get as much out of it as people who actually take the trouble to watch us. We are extremely visual, we spend hours thinking of things to put in to make our act as interesting as possible to as many people as possible, it's not our fault if you don't join in the fun, is it? Anyway, to all those who didn't like us... we really are sorry. Ideally... we'd like everyone to have a good time at our gigs. Write to us, let us know what you think, and we'll do what we can to get even better, after all... that's what it's all about! P.S. We hope you'll give us another chance at our next gig, we've made a lot of converts already from sceptics... go for it!

       Note, something went a bit wrong with our recording of the gig. A little bird told us somebody in the audience was taping it (we're not cross, flattered actually)... please can we have a copy? We'd be eternally grateful.

Mick Magic - from The Grain no. 4, published August 1987

Honestly, it's actually a bit embarrassing reading some of that again!

Ah, the egotistical fragility of a band just starting out... "Yeah, if you didn't like us, well, it's you're own fault for not standing in the right place. And anyway, you like shit pop music. Like my mum does. And she's really old! And your mum gives hand-jobs to winos on park benches for a swig of their cider anyway." Okay, look, I'm just going to go hide in a cupboard for a while till the redness fades. Actually, it brings back to mind a conversation I had with a girl at a Christ & Satan gig in Church Crookham a couple of years later. I'd been doing some comedy readings to introduce their act, she'd been saying she enjoyed it, I'd said they were great fun to work with and mentioned I was in a band too.

"Oh? What are they called?" She asked.

"Magic Moments." I replied.

"Oh yes, I know them." She said, "I saw them at the White Hart once."

"Remember it well, fun gig."

"They were awful."

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES

OF PROFESSOR QUEST...

The absolutely inspired (by narcotics, probably) cartoon strip by Chris 'Count Five' Carter, in which Professor Quest (who invented the Rainbow Machine) comes under constant attack from Zebedee the accident prone cat, ends up becoming psychotic in hospital, turns into the demonic Strawman and murders John Pryer, so at least there's a happy ending.