forty

We only ever did one more gig with Stewy after that. It was at the Hind's Head, the pub on the edge of town where we'd seen Blue Murder play. And it was a total fucking disaster. Before the gig we'd smoked a few spliffs (all of us except Tony, of course). I generally preferred dope to alcohol prior to singing. Firstly, because it didn't leave you feeling bloated the way that lager did. And, secondly, the smoke made my voice more ragged and throaty, lending it a certain maturity, which to some extent masked (or so I hoped) my slightly feminine, accentless warble (the mating call of the greater-spotted, arty, adolescent).

The thing to remember about dope (apart from the fact that you'll get nicked and fined seventy quid if the police suss you're a regular user) is that it doesn't mix well with large volumes of alcohol, a fact which Stewy explicitly demonstrated on that last ill-fated gig. Before we went on stage, Stewy (whose ribs and ego had not yet fully recovered from missing the Free-Loaders' gig and coming off worse in the fight that followed it) emptied half a large bottle of vodka into a pint glass and drank it in under five minutes.

Hence, from the start, the gig was a total nightmare. During the first song when Stewy should have been playing the verse he played the chorus and when he should have been playing the chorus he sat down on the amp and took his boots off. There was a couple of minutes pause after we'd finished that song, during which most of the audience disappeared into the saloon bar and the landlord, who everyone called Sid, (because he looked like Sid James) glared angrily over at us. Stewy assured us that he was all right to carry on, so we gave Sid the thumbs up and launched into the second song, which Stewy just about managed to play. And we muddled our way through the third song, which didn't have many chord changes in it.

At that point we were hopeful that Stewy might be sobering up. However, he completely fucked up the fourth song, causing some not unjustified jeering from a group of lads by the bar, at which point he went completely mental. Stewy grabbed the microphone, dropped his trousers and pants (the only items of clothes he was still wearing, apart from his base guitar), shouted, 'eat shit you wankers,' and bent over giving them a graphic view of his 'rusty bullet hole.' He then shoved the microphone between the cheeks of his arse and farted loudly into it. And that's when things really started to go haywire.

Barry's girlfriend stepped up onto the small stage and emptied a pint of beer over Stewy's head. Stewy spat beer on Barry's girlfriend (not on purpose, he swore afterwards). Shaz walked out. Barry started a wrestling match with Stewy in the middle of the stage whilst me and Tony stood clutching our guitars and looking on in total bemusement. After a few moments I grabbed the microphone (somewhat gingerly, I might add, keeping the grilled head well away from my lips) and made probably the most obvious statement anyone could have made in the circumstances.

"Sorry folks, I think Stewy's had a bit to much to drink."

At this point, Stewy strode off stage (naked apart from his Rickenbacker) and headed for the door. As the pimply white cheeks of his ginger-haired arse disappeared into the darkness, some comedian shouted from the bar, 'Oi Stewy, come back. What about your fucking encore?' But he never returned.

Stewy was discovered just before midnight, in a flower bed in the garden of Shaz's house four miles away. He was naked (except for his base guitar which was still slung round his neck), face down unconscious in a pool of vodka and half-digested chop suey. No one (least of all Stewy) knows how he got there or where he'd been in the hours between walking out of the pub and being discovered in the garden.

However, presumably at some stage he must have staggered through the streets in that state. God knows what people must have thought he was - a musical streaker, a musician practising for an open air version of 'Oh Calcutta' or 'Hair' (or, more likely, an outside centre for Westing Rugby Football Club's second eleven who'd been stripped and dumped ten miles out of town with the Rickenbacker superglued to his hands as a 'joke'.)

Despite the fact that Stewy was in less than perfect condition when he was discovered, the Rickenbacker appeared totally unharmed by it's ordeal. This wasn't particularly surprising as Stewy used to care more about that guitar than he ever cared about himself. He would spend hours and hours cleaning and polishing the pick-ups and the neck. It really was his pride and joy.

Then one night he had this a big argument with Shaz (who'd just moved into the house). I'm not quite sure what sparked it off, but from what I could make out, it had something to do with her not liking his new hair do. They were shouting at each other for ages and ages, before they eventually calmed down, and it went deadly quiet for a while. Then suddenly I heard these horrendous bangs and crashes coming from Stewy's room. I stuck my head out of the door (more out of curiosity than concern) and discovered Shaz sitting crouched in the corridor like a miserable foetus. Her eyes were red from crying and her cheeks were streaked with grimy eyeliner. The cuffs of her black jumper were pulled over her fists, and she hugged herself as if she were wearing a crocheted strait-jacket.

I was going to ask her if she was all right, but decided not to interfere, went back into my room and watched TV, with the door slightly open, ready to leap to the rescue if things turned any nastier. But thankfully they didn't.

For the few days following that evening, Stewy did appear rather subdued. But I put this down to the fact that he was still upset about the fiasco at the Hind's Head and his subsequent argument with Shaz. However, one afternoon, the door of Stewy's room had been left open (on purpose I guess), so that, in passing, I couldn't help but notice that his beloved Rickenbacker had been messily decapitated, a jagged crown of splintered wood poking out where the neck should have been. As well as having been snapped in two, the guitar had been stripped of it's tone controls and pick-ups and the scratch plate had been ripped off. A series of cracks ran across the sound holes and the end of the body behind the bridge had been stoved in.

Stewy insisted that it had been an accident, claiming that he'd dropped his amp on it. I knew that this was obviously a load of bollocks, but I thought it best to pretend to believe him and shook my head sympathetically as he bolshily explained that he didn't care about the guitar anyway as it hadn't cost him anything because his mate had bought it mail order using a stolen credit card. I didn't think that was necessarily something to be proud of. But I decided not to say anything. Mainly because I didn't relish getting into yet another argument with him about 'all ownership being theft' and the various 'crimes against society' which he claimed were perpetrated by large financial institutions.

Soon after he'd demolished his Rickenbacker, Stewy announced he was leaving the band, saying that he fancied writing and singing some of his own songs. He stopped dying his hair blonde like Billy Idol and grew it long and orange. He also grew a whiskery moustache and a ragged goatee beard, which made him look like Catweazle. But despite our constant piss-taking he refused to shave it off.

A few weeks later, as promised, Stewy started playing on his own in pubs with an acoustic guitar. He could actually play the guitar and sing surprisingly well, but he'd become very radical, and his set was more like a series of political statements set to music rather than a collection of songs. We tried to tell him that, but he just got really angry then. He said we were apathetic to social issues (which we weren't, of course, we just didn't think that they should interfere with a decent melody).

Everything else in Stewy's life seemed to change suddenly. He stopped drinking completely (although he still enjoyed more than the occasional spliff) and after having a different girlfriend every week for years, he formed a steady relationship with Shaz, which seemed strange for him. Although it was perhaps more strange that Shaz actually remained with him through his various manic phases. I guess he stimulated her 'nursing instinct;' that all-consuming impulse that so unjustly bonds so many kind and beautiful women to so many antisocial and undeserving men (praise the Lord!)

It was quite funny really. Suddenly, as far as romance was concerned, me and Stewy had reversed roles. There was him with his wifelike girlfriend and me, after all those years with Debbie, muddling my way through a succession of brief encounters.

It's amazing the effect an electric guitar can have on an eighteen-year-old girl (irrespective of how much more beautiful than you she is). I guess the guitar is the male equivalent of the miniskirt - a length of black rubber lead having the same fetishistic effect on the female libido as the suspender belt has on that of the healthy male.

In those woman's soft porn mags (the kind you might find accidentally left in the newspaper rack at the home of a lonely aunt or indeed uncle if he is so inclined) they always have these photos of sun-tanned macho men getting their kit off in libraries, or on the tennis court, or buttocks splayed over satin sheets or floppily naked on the deck of a yacht. However, if my experiences are anything to go by, what they should really have in these magazines is a pale, slender, slip of a youth lying butt naked on a Marshall stack with guitar wires snaking over his body and a thick necked Les Paul between his thighs.

Me and Tony once went to see this hypnotist up at the college. And as part of his act he told this really nice looking blonde (who he'd hypnotised) that when he clicked his fingers she would imagine that this really ugly old guy (who had horrible wrinkly skin and brown teeth) was the man of her dreams and that she would fall instantly and irresistibly in love with him.

It was incredible. When the hypnotist had clicked his fingers, the girl blushed bright red and started to tremble all over as she eyed this old guy up from head to toe, like he was some kind of Adonis. The hypnotist asked her what she thought of the man, and she went really coy. 'Oh, he's lovely,' she mumbled and smiled, unable to stop staring into his watery old eyes. You should have seen the look of pure joy on her face when the old guy went over and put his arm round her. And when he gave her a peck on the cheek, she practically fainted with pleasure.

Admittedly the whole scenario was rather sinister. It was cruel to the girl and even more so to the man, who the audience were most definitely laughing at rather than with. But also, in a perverse kind of way, it was quite fascinating.

Maybe it's the desensitising decibels of rock music, or the fact that you're up on stage, or the wantonly hung guitar with it's thrusting phallic neck, or the otherwise-unspoken emotions of male sex and love that are conveyed by rock songs, or a combination of all those things, but playing in a band seems to have a similar, sinister hypnotic effect on young ladies.

To use a rather derogatory (but also quite appropriate) fishing analogy, normally when you're after a bit of female company it's like dangling your rod in an under-stocked river and futily waiting for a tug on the end of your line (hoping you've hooked up a nice plump trout rather than a barnacled old boot). However, if you're a massive rock star it's more like being an ocean trawler, scooping up huge netfuls of fresh fish every day, dumping the sprats and the jellyfish and taking your pick of the prime plaice. I'm not saying that being in a local band was ever quite like that. But, finding a willing pair of knickers to get one's fingers into was certainly no more difficult than netting goldfish from a garden pond.