Episode Twenty Five

God comes down in the rain and the crop grows tall
This is the country faith - or a load of balls

We left you at the height of midsummer, thrilled at the gay and carefree rites that our heroes had been engaging in up and down the land. Since then, a bacchanalic season has passed and only now, as the leaves begin to wither and the nights to draw in do we find we have the time to draw a breath, take a step back from our hungry revels and say to ourselves “Yes. It has been good. Summer has been kind, but now it is time to work again,” and so with heavy, reluctant trudge, the scribes return from their basking on the fragrant quadrangle to their hard tall stools in the copy house, therein to scratch and doze beneath the foreman's eye, and scribble down this tentative memoir to the sonorous beat of the ticking clock luring them ever on to slumber.
Get a move on you lazy bastards. I want this finished by four o'clock.
Easier said than done, as so much has happened, and so much water has been passed under the bridge (and in other places) since last we met. Let us, then take up the threads of our discourse back in July, where the only gig the band did was at the Boardwalk in Sheffield. To be honest, nothing out of the ordinary happened at this one, unless you count the fact that the support band wandered off to the bar and forgot to shift their gear offstage. Never mind. We are used to such gaucheries, and TDL is no stranger to the gentle art of unceremoniously dumping someone else's drums in a skip when they haven't the basic good manners to move them offstage themselves.

July is famous for one other epic event on the Blyth calendar - Tallington, of which so much will be spoken elsewhere on this site, that we will simply gloss over it here with a curt memo to the effect that it was a cracking do, we lost the ashes utterly to C from BS, and it took place (for the benefit of those of you with anal date fetishes) on the weekend of 25th-27th.

August dawned in the company of the gentle and courteous Fish Brothers, with whom we cruised round Chat's Palace in East London. It was a positive hoot my dears, and not even the sight of McGhee in his traditional nylon pants could dampen our enthusiasm for a wild night of rock mayhem. Always a pleasure, although apologies to those who were misled by the information on the update e-mail. This is because one of the transcribers in the typing pool managed to confuse Chat's Palace with City polytechnic, and informed the world that the gig was happening near Whitechapel. Much egg on face etc etc.
That was August 1st. Imagine our delight on August 22nd when we found ourselves in the company of another fragrant band. This time it was Eastfield, and this time the destination was the frozen North. Jockside we went, to pay a visit to our old chums at the King Haakon Bar on Skye, and to go 'Ooooh' and 'Aaah' at some mountains on the way.
Now, it should be noted here that Mr Porter has a stark and determined hatred of mountains, stemming from an incident on a previous tour of Austria when a former band member suggested that as he had his nose in a book and was not admiring the scenery he ought not to it in the front seat, but to allow someone more attuned to the delights of rubber-necking at lumps of stone. Being a polite and well-mannered individual, not to mention a benevolent and enlightened employer, Mr Porter refrained from telling the FBM where he could stick the mountains, and has since allowed the incident to fester and fuel one of the many grudges upon which he relies for inspiration. Their name is legion. They are many. Not unlike the mountains of the West Highlands, which are also many, and which the enraged Porter described, as the van slowed to a crawl behind yet another camper van full of gawking pillocks, as 'piles of crap.' That he also described the scenic pleasures of Glencoe as 'toilet wipe' may be regarded as a sign that his stock of expletives had been exhausted by sheer weight of demand, rather than an indication that his usually imaginative control of invective is on the wane.
Anyhow, the van rendezvoused with two thirds of Eastfield in Penrith, the other third being en route via Kettering with Mr Breedon and his lady wife, who were driving up separately to partake in leisure pursuits in the Highlands -i.e. drinking and sleeping. Thus it was that our journey forward to Motherwell was enlivened by Mr Jessi Adams, who is fun and a half at all times, but on this occasion was fun squared. We were greeted by our hosts in Motherwell with a warmth and humanity normally absent from gigs in the UK, and so it continued for the duration of our stay in that fine town. Thanks to Jimmy for putting on the gig, for the amazing hospitality afterwards, and for taking Steven onto the Motherwell football pitch, an experience that seems to have affected him almost as much as a visit to Toton MPD might affect a normal person.
Saturday 23rd was spent in the broiling heat of high summer in a van with a farting vegan crossing the West Highlands. It took a very long time. Who's stupid idea was it anyway? Some silly arse had crashed their camper van near Crianlarich, which added an hour and a bit to the journey. If only they had kept their eyes on the road. If only the idiot in the front seat had kept his nose in a book instead of nudging the driver and pointing out yet another identical shapeless lump of rock. 'Ooooh look, there's another one...'
By the time the van reached Kyle of Lochalsh, there was a unanimous anti-mountain sentiment on board. Rest assured that if Blyth ever seize the reigns of government they will turn the West Highlands into a car park. Fortunately there was a dirty great Class 37 in Kyle station, which calmed TDL down enough for him to submit to the expense of the toll bridge with only a mild tantrum and a minute or so of wringing his hands in despair. Arrival at Kyleakin was on time, and once again lavish hospitality was expended on the undeserving Eastfield, and the righteous ones of Blyth who should have their tummies filled and their bummes wiped wherever they chance to go. The gig itself started off in some confusion: Blyth played a set to some bemused backpackers, then Eastfield played, and by the time Blyth came on for a second set, the ice was broken and there were enough drunk people in the venue to allow for a wild night of rock. Thanks to the boss for the bunkhouse, which had been kitted out especially for our arrival. Hope we left it fragrant...
If anything, the mountains, and their teeming fan club, were even more annoying as the van wound its way South the following day. Some of them looked positively smug, and could be seen preening themselves as the tourists weaved and swerved all over the narrow roads in their frantic attempts to see them. See them? How could they miss them? How hard can it be to see a bloody mountain through a car window? Why does one have to slow down to 5mph and veer drunkenly from side to side to see something that big? There ought to be a law - or a motorway. Needless to say we were all jolly pleased to see Newcastle, and a fine punk rock evening was had in the gentle presence of The New York Scumhaters, who did their 'I Love Ramones' thing, and delighted us all with their quaint Norfolk heckling and impressive rubber Bin Laden mask.
Last gig of the weekend was at The New Roscoe, in Leeds, with Nowhere Man also on the bill, and what a fine and jolly evening it turned out to be. So jolly in fact that Ben Eastfield (no, that's not a mountain) somehow managed to knock flying a bass amp so heavy that it usually defies any three members of the band's attempts to lift it. It turns out, in fact, that it is not a bass amp at all. It is, in reality, a tangible incarnation of time itself, and as such its presence is remorseless, its density limitless, and its mass is the mass of eternity itself. We didn't realise this when Bambi bought it, and to be honest I think Johnny Forrester might have mentioned the fact to us at the time, but never mind. We have learned to cope with it, although the handles wear out with astonishing rapidity, and its supernatural qualities do go some way towards explaining why it made such a dent in the PA amp when it landed on it.
The band's diary simply says, at this point, 'Went to bed. Stayed there. Bollocks to mountains.'

Ever gluttons for punishment though, it was off to Wales the following week. The band was down to play in Worcester on Friday 29th, so TDL and Annie took Madame Chairman down for a visit to the country estate at Neuadd Faddog, where Artemis holds sway amongst the hills with a large gun and a pair off deerhounds.

After the date in Worcester, the whole band returned to the estate to stop over, and a pleasant day was spent shooting clay pigeons – or in the case of TDL, shooting the air next to clay pigeons, for the despot was far too angry over the state of the FTSI to concentrate on the matter at hand. Thereafter the band decamped to Llangollen for the second of their three engagements at The Sun Inn, which was this time enlivened by the arrival of a hen party in full spate, the members of whom were drunk enough to find the band to their taste. A wild night was had by all.
Finally, in this catalogue of care, we come to the Otley Folk Festival, whose enlightened organisers have booked Blyth before. Strangely the balance of their programme was not upset by us. Funny that. Up Yours Cambridge. Thanks to Jason and Fiona for their assistance at this one and thanks be to God that there are no mountains in Otley – although Pool bank is pretty lofty. The chaps foregathered the night before in Harrogate, as there was an inhumanly early start. Arrival in Otley was at around 12.30pm, only to find a number of people with an improbable amount of identical-sounding stringed instruments sound-checking them painstakingly. It took ages. Blyth managed to finish their soundcheck with five minutes to spare before their first set of the day, which was 2.00pm in the main room at the Civic Hall. All went well, despite the raked stage, which was sloping at such an angle that we were hard put to keep the keyboards upright. The bass cabinet, with nought but a tiny chock beneath its wheels, loomed menacingly behind the drumkit. TDL said he felt like a skittle. Everyone wanted the demonic bass cab to run away and send the drumkit crashing over the front of the stage, but alas. It was not to be.
That was it until Mr Porter's solo set at Cork's Wine Bar, which was well received although it had been billed as Blyth Power. Imagine TDL's surprise when Mr Stephen Carlisle called him on his cellular telephone while he was seated upon the lavatory enjoying a quiet read. 'They want you to start early,' Mr Carlisle informed him. 'They seem to have forgotten to leave any changeover times between acts.'
Final set was in room 4 at the Civic Centre at 10.45pm. The sound was horrible. They upset the balance of our programme. Enough said.