Tall But True Tales of Touring
NEW AND EXCLUSIVE! Want to peel back the curtain? Want to learn the gritty truth about life on the road with the Angel Brothers? Then you need to read Keith Angel's Tall But True Tales of Touring.
Tales Of The Unexpectorated
Or Respect to the granddaddy of Old Chesterfield Town
The back of a precariously listing spud wagon is not normally the kind
of place one would expect to find the Angel Brothers performing. But that's
where we found ourselves not so long ago, courtesy of our irrepressible
agent 'Bingo' Smith who had booked us for a star slot and the annual Chesterfield
mayday celebration in the town square. As it turned out it's not only
the famous spire of that venerable town that's twisted....
Whilst enjoying a less than fulfilling pre gig haslet and salad cream
sandwich, I was accosted by an extremely unsavoury old gadgemeister who
seemed to be verbally abusing all and sundry in between large slurps from
a substantial bottle of Aldi sherry, pausing only to spit large glistening
gobbets of spent chewing tobacco at the feet of passers by. I declined
his offer of a swig on the old sherry bottle and gave him the once over.
With his filthy demeanour, matted straggly hair and repugnant orthodontic
disaster zone of a mouth he reminded me of curious cross between Rasputin,
later period Lee 'Scratch' Perry and Peter Stringfellow. The more he drank,
the more loquacious he became, telling me that he was the one and only
Granddaddy - Boss of Chesterfield and he showed me the stumps of three
fingers he lost whilst (somewhat ill-advisedly) attempting to block off
the gun of an enemy, perhaps a rival Granddaddy, who promptly let loose
with both barrells sending the Granddaddy's digits shooting somewhere
over the horizon. Apparently the lost pinkie was the sole survivor and
made its way to a finger sanctuary run by a benevolent former leper on
the outskirts of Dinnington.
After several minutes of regaling me with his distaseful anecdotes The
Granddaddy had edged closer and even closer to me and we were now practically
rubbing noses with me as he continued his rant against the world and all
who sail in her. He then began insisting that I make an announcement from
the stage whereby I should proclaim "Respect to THE Granddaddy of
Chesterfield!" and instruct the whole audience to genuflect in his
general direction." And don't forget it's THE (pronounced 'theee')
Granddaddy - not plain old 'the'!" This suggestion made me laugh
out loud and at that precise moment The Granddaddy let out an enormous
sneeze, sending a sizeable blob of his vile saliva shooting into the back
of my open mouth! This literally took the smile off my face as I swallowed
hard, gagging on his repulsive spittle. An unspeakably noxious cocktail
of flavours immediately began to invade my pallette; sour cheap sherrym
rancid nicotine and glutinous salty mucus all combined to send me retching
into the nearest available gutter. The taste and texture was, perhaps,
not unlike that of the week old contents of a saloon bar spittoon from
a typical Derbyshire pub at the turn of the 20th Century. Given the circumstances
(i.e. May Day) one might even say that it had a kind of brutal working
class authenticity. I, however, was in no mood for such dilletantish speculation
and some minutes later as the nausea subsided the full horror of swallowing
the Granddaddy's foetid bodily fluid began to dawn on me. God only knows
what myriad bacteria were swarming in that fateful slavver-ball.
Even now, months later, I sometimes wake up in a high fever, convinced
that I am about to be consumed by a ravenous, unspeakable disease with
a deceptively long incubation period. Oh, and by the way, I did announce
"Respect to THE Granddaddy!" from the stage, just as he had
asked - but no one took the blindest bit of notice of the tragic old geezer.
He just stood there smiling his one tooth stumpy smile with the sun on
his dark leathery skin and the breeze blowing through his felted-up strands
of hair. Respect to THE Granddaddy of Chesterfield!
