What a difference a day makes.

(This story will only be up for a short while as it will be redrafted and included in a collection of short stories that should with any luck see the light of day in 2014)

Friday - 2.35pm.

Shelley is holding me tight. So tightly that the breath is being squeezed out of me.

A brief need for a quick embrace and peck on the cheek before heading for her car has become something more.

She doesn't want to go.

It's really that simple.

A day away is fine and she takes it in her stride, but anything that extends our time apart over the twenty four hour mark is something that doesn't sit well with her.

There's no fear of abandonment, no suspicion that the mice will play while the cats away, and she knows that on her return she won't find me standing in the ruins of our home saying 'I can explain this' either.

The reason she is never keen on us being apart for longer than a day is because when we are together life just makes sense.

It's always been that way.

From the moment we met it was Mr Hand meet Miss Glove.

We are our very own mutually assured comfort zone.

When we close the door on the world and it is just the two of us then the daily stresses of life just slip away.

As a couple we are perfect together, nauseatingly so. Others describe us as being made for each other, and who are we to argue.

Of course I like to play the macho partner in the relationship, but we both know that when she leaves I will just be putting a brave face on it because I will miss her as much as she will miss me. From the moment her car turns the corner and slips out of sight I will be counting down the hours till I see her again.

So this parting is a bit of a game we play. She holds me a moment longer than is needed and I squeeze her back and whisper that she is being silly and before she knows it she will be home.

It's a semi-comforting routine that we go through.

Her eyes are a bit glassy as she looks up at me and replies “but it's a full weekend. Virtually four days of team building with people I'm not keen on in the arse end of nowhere masquerading as an outward bound centre. There's no phones, no internet and they have already said mobile reception is patchy. It's going to be crap.”

She is probably right, but saying that won't help, so instead I dig deep and try and look like I'm finding it funny and with a smile waffle on a bit about how when she comes back she will probably be a black belt in some martial art.

One that lumberjacks invented and if I ever forget to do the dishes she will be able to tie me in a knot and squeeze me into the cupboard where we keep the tomato sauce and tins of tuna.

My levity chases the dark clouds away, and with a smile that makes my heart ache a little she laughs and with a promise that she will text, or phone if she can, she whirls around, swings the rucksack on her back - that she packed with more equipment than Scott of the Antarctic would take on a year long around the world adventure - and staggers to her car.

With her commenting cheekily that chivalry must be dead she hoists it into the boot, slams the lid down hard, and with a comical salute to me waves goodbye before she climbs into the drivers seat.

Without looking back she eases away from the kerb and makes for the end of the road.

It's only as she reaches the junction that she looks in the mirror and raises her hand for a second. The final, and expected, last wave goodbye, and then she is gone.

I stand there for a few seconds looking at the empty street and waiting for the crushing feeling that comes along with the acceptance that without Shelley with my weekend is going to be about as much fun as a root canal appointment at the dentist.

9.20pm.

It dawns on me that Friday night entertainment on the television must be funded by pubs and clubs.

Every show seems to be designed with the intent to have the viewer reaching for their coats and rushing off to seek a safe haven from it in a local hostelry.

I'm bored. So very, very, very, very bored.

I'm also already making inroads into a second family sized packet of onion rings, and there's less than a litre left of cola in the two litre bottle I cracked opened less than an hour ago.

If the rest of my weekend continues in this gluttonous manner then the next will involve a treadmill and a heart monitor in our local accident and emergency department.

Well that’s if they have a heart monitor. It’s possible they lost that in the last round of cuts and if that’s the case then I’m buggered.

I've been expecting Shelley to call, and even been working out how long her journey would take while adding on an hour to get settled, but I still jump when my mobile bursts into the start of 'Should I Stay or Should I go' by The Clash.

The display confirms it's her and with a bit of a fumble I manage to get it to my ear and feeling a bit foolish with excitement I manage to giggle out a “you have reached a lonely man craving attention so please leave your name and number and I will get back to you as soon as possible”.

The phone buzzes and splutters electronic noise but little else.

Just as I am about to ask Shelley if she is there I hear a click and a voice says “enough of the bullshit. We have your wife. This is not a fuckin joke. No police or she dies. Got it? Do you understand me?”

And with those words time loses all structure. It simultaneously rushes by in seconds as it stretches out into hours.

Nothing makes any sense.

'This is a joke' jumps unbidden to the front of my mind and is instantly slapped down as I instinctually know that it's not.

It’s simply not.

There's no reason for it to be a hoax, a silly prank call.

It's real.

In my gut that is already knotted I know this is happening.

A days worth of questions, and half a days worth of answers, rush about inside my head in a fraction of a second and ultimately everything jumbles together into an internal scream.

'This can't be happening' beats a mantra in time with the blood that I can feel pounding at my temples.

The room begins to tip to the side and then I realise that the room hasn't moved, but I've instead slumped involuntarily to the side and I am close to tipping clean off the couch onto the floor..

“Don't hurt her, please don't hurt her”, echoes back from the phone, and then I recognise it as a strangled version of my own voice babbling on autopilot.

“You aren't an unintelligent man so you will already know that I can't promise that. You fuck up and she gets hurt. The bigger the fuck up then the more it will hurt. If you fuck up completely then she's dead. That's the boring shit out if the way. All I need you to do now is say you understand. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” It still doesn't sound like my voice.

I'm bathed in sweat and it feels like what I have always imagined drowning would be like.

I'm immersed in fear and it's filling my lungs and there's a blackness creeping towards me.

No light at the end if the tunnel, but instead an enveloping sense if nothing.

Concentrating on not blacking out I repeat “yes”, and add “I get it. Don't hurt her.”

A terse “expect a call in an hour” is all the response I get and the phone goes dead.

Clutching the phone tightly to my chest I make it to the bathroom and in a rush the onion rings and cola erupt from me into the toilet bowl. Gagging hard, more comes until my throat burns and my eyes water from the force expelled as my my stomach emptied itself.

All equilibrium has gone.

My world is a storm lashed ship and I cling on with my free hand to the bath and pray that I won't be cast overboard into a sea of madness.

With brutal force the realisation that I have never known what real fear is pushes me to the floor, pulls my arms and legs into a shaking foetal position and draws guttural sobs from my very core.

I can't lose Shelley. I simply can't lose her.

10.16pm

I'm in the chair with my mobile phone sitting on the coffee table in front of me.

Fundamentally I know that I will do whatever it takes to get Shelley back. There’s no question of that.

Once I had left the bathroom I considered all the options and thought about how I could prepare for the return call and what would be asked of me.

Next to the phone I've got my bank card, our joint account card and a pile of cash that amounts to three hundred and twenty pounds sitting.

The cash is our holiday savings that we have both been salting away in a jar.

If it's money he wants then this is everything we have apart from the house and Shelley's car and he can have them to.

I sit in silence.

To my right the digital readout on the front of our old DVD player flashes the hour and minute and my index finger taps in time with it.

11.20pm

The mobile starts in on playing the Clash and I wait a beat and then snatch it from the table.

Trying to remain calm I get the first words in clearly and concisely “I will do what you want, but you must not hurt my wife. Is that clear? You will not hurt her. I have all the money we have and it is yours. Just give me what ever details you need to and we can resolve this.”

I can't believe that I have managed to remain sounding calm and controlled.

“Do you understand me. You will get what you want, but only if my wife remains unharmed.”

For the first time the sense of not being in control abates a little, and then the connection is cut off.

My stomach twists tightly and the realisation that instead of assuming control of the insanity that is now my reality I have instead gambled with the life of my wife, and for what?

All the options that had been considered in the cold aftermath of having what could only be described as a full on meltdown in the bathroom have been nothing more than delusional crap disguised as rational thought, and now the enormity of my crass stupidity was sweeping away the foundations of the only hope that I had.

From somewhere tears flow again. I had thought that it would be impossible for my body to dredge up anymore, but no, that was just another thing that I was wrong about.

“Christ. What had I done?”

If I had been left to contemplate it then the vacuum of not knowing would have driven me insane as I imagined one horror after another. but before I lost it completely the phone burst into song again, and for a second I couldn't see it and panicking I followed the sound of the ring tone to where I must have dropped it.

Pressing it to my ear I say nothing.

“It would seem from the previous call that you were mistakenly under the impression that you had some sort of leverage, and maybe even thought that you were assuming some control.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yes, I'm sure you are, but that doesn't change the fact that you fucked up, and I did tell you what would happen if you fucked up didn't I?”

All this was said in a calm and measured tone. No histrionics, no upset, and so casually put that he could have been discussing the weather.

“I understand.”

'No. I don't think you do.'

“I do. I’m sorry just tell me what…..”

Click.............silence.

And then the phone vibrates in my hand and chirps the signal that an image has been received.

It throws me off guard and with fingers that that seem overly large and clumsy I manage to hit enough buttons for it to download.

It's a finger. The tip of a finger

A photograph of my Shelley's finger.

At the tip it's a neatly trimmed fingernail. A fingernail that fails to maintain any attention as the blood, ragged flesh and splintered bone draw the eye.

Shelley's finger. Broken. Detached.

Somewhere internally a voice is asking why I'm not screaming while another coldly starts rationalizing how a person can simply shut down when overloaded with stress.

Closing my eyes I take time to breathe, to gather the wings of panic that threaten to take flight.

“Did Shelley have nail varnish on this morning.”

I say it aloud, and with my eyes still closed I repeat it over and over trying to visualise her hands because if she was wearing varnish it's not her finger.

I see her throwing her rucksack back and freeze it in my mind.

No nail varnish.

Definitely no nail varnish.

Looking at the phone I know it will start to play the Clash ringtone again soon enough, and as if by my willing it, it does.

“Shears from an 'everything for a quid' shop. Just the little rose pruners. There's duct tape in the same aisle and everything else that someone like myself would need to get a job done. Even a large plastic sheet that a body could be rolled up in. For less than a tenner I have the tools that will get me whatever I want. Do you fully understand the position you are in now?”

This is all said casually. So casually there appears to be no stress involved at all. Ths is a man who is used to hurting others, used to getting his own way. It is also the tone is that of a man who knows he has my undivided attention.

“I want you to listen carefully now because I'm going to ask you a question and your answer will change your life one way or another. Believe that. Are you ready for the question?”

I whisper “Yes.”

“Would you kill to get your wife back? It's a simple question.”

Money. I thought it was going to be money. Even though we don't have much I hadn't considered anything else.

“Yes, yes I would.”

“Too quick. Think about it. Would you kill a person you don't know to save the life of your wife. This person might be married, could have kids, pillar of the community sort. Is your wife more important than them?”

“I don't care. I don't care who it is. I just want my wife back.”

“Okay. I like an honest man. Tomorrow morning at nine you will get the call. All the details will be given to you and when you do the job I ask of you then your wife comes home. This isn't complicated. You do anything between now and then to fuck up and I start cutting your wife up.”

With that, it's over. The time on the DVD player flashes more numbers.

11.23pm

Two hours.

Two hours is all it takes for the sky to fall in on a life.

Saturday 9.00am

“Good morning. My name is Tony and I am phoning some select numbers in the area to offer”......I hang up.

The rank smell of sweat and fear - my own - hangs in the air. Nerves that are already stretched to what seemed like breaking point are tugged on harder.

If Tony was here I'd fuckin' kill him and not lose any sleep over it.

Just as I think this the phone competes with the shaking of my hand and I quickly look at the number and see that it's Shelley's as I press the button to take the call.

“This afternoon, at two, you will go to the Golden Triangle snooker club. Do you know it?”

“I do. Snooker and pool place in Thomson Street.”

“Good. You win a prize. Outside it there will be a blue Corsa. A man who will look very probably pissed off will leave the club between five and ten past. He's got blonde hair, shoulder length, bit of swagger about him. When he opens the car door and goes to step in I want you to stab him in the throat and do it right. Is that clear? Make sure that you kill him. Leave him in the car. He needs to be found there. Have you got that? Dead and left sitting in his car. Anything that deviates from that means I start in on your wife.”

“What if I get caught?”

“I don't give a shit. Your wife goes free regardless. You getting away with it or not means nothing to me at all.. Tell me back what you need to do?”

“Just after two a blonde guy leaves the Golden Triangle Club and I cut his throat as he gets into a blue Corsa. He must be dead. He must be left in the car. Then you release Shelley.”

“That's the idea. Simple isn’t it?”'

“Everyone has a name, but his doesn’t concern you”'

Click, and he is gone..

10.30am

The woman in Morrisons is cutting tomatoes, slicing into onions, chopping at some green herb, and all the time providing a running commentary about how the knives will never need sharpened and come with a lifetime guarantee.

Not once does she mention if they are suitable for cutting a throat but I take a set and put them in my basket next to the yellow rubber gloves, iceberg lettuce and sponge scourers. The latter two are props as my paranoid mind thinks if I just buy a knife and gloves the woman at the checkout will look me in the eye and know that I'm planning to kill a man, and in her knowing she will have no other choice than to scream murderer and point an accusing finger at me.

The choice of using a self service checkout, or one where a person will cheerily serve me, seems too complex a question to ask myself. Everything throws up multiple options that need navigated.

On one hand the automated option will not accept my buying a box of knives without an alarm sounding and a member of staff needing to check if I am over eighteen. Yet on the other hand I'm not sure if I can deal with maintaining a natural conversation with a woman on a checkout. “So how is your weekend sir?” “Well not so good. My wife has been kidnapped, one of her fingers has been cut off and if I don't kill a man I don't know then I will never see her again, and if I do then there's a good chance I might only see her as long as I'm chained to a table and guards are close by.

This is a nightmare. A real waking nightmare.

I also have to factor in that I must look as if I am losing the grip on sanity and people in general don't like to sell sharp knives to sweating and twitching maniacs.

Taking a deep breath I make a decision and head for a young girl who has just finished serving an older couple and refuse to make eye contact with her as casually as I can.

It's a blur and next thing is that I am outside. I'm not sure if she spoke to me or even if I paid by cash or card.

2.00pm

A blue Corsa arrives outside the Golden Triangle club and a blonde man climbs out of it.

This is it.

He slams the door closed behind him, looks up and down the street - but not at me - and then walks into the darkness of the entrance. Simultaneously my bladder spasms and I feel a warm squirt of urine escape as my body confirms that you can actually piss yourself in fear.

I clutch the knife in my pocket with my rubber encased hand and try not to shake too obviously.

It's not ten, or even five minutes, before he reappears and the speed he strides out means he very nearly catches me out.

He's feet away from the door with his keys in his hand before I can even move, but like an automaton I do move. One foot edges off the kerb and the other follows as I draw my hand from my pocket.

He has his back to me and the door is opening.

He's already slipped in and sitting down while pulling the door towards him as I get to the side of the car.

Pressing my body into the gap it forces the door to spring loose from his grip.

He looks up and I thrust the knife into his neck, pull it back and do it again, and again, and again.

He may have made a noise, maybe not. All I can hear is a rushing noise in my head that reminds me of standing too close to a large waterfall. Everything surrounding us slips away and all I can see is him looking up at me as my arm thrusts back and then forward again into his neck.

His expression goes blank and then empty.  

Blood pours from him. It's everywhere. Not spraying like in a film, but running from the wound like a tap has been left on. His hands didn't even come up to clutch at me. Nothing. He looked at me and then his surprised focus just turned off.

One second alive and the next dead.

I step back and bump my hip on the door to close it.

No one is in the street, no cars have passed and everything is eerily quiet. All I can hear is my own laboured breathing.

I strip the glove off and as I pull it down and inside out it slips over the knife. I pull the other off and push them both into the Morrison's bag I pulled from my pocket and walk away.

Looking down I am surprised that there are only a few small splashes of blood, and none that obvious to anyone who would be walking past.

3.05pm

Home and sitting watching the mobile.

I should feel something, but I don't. It's as if my feelings have been shorted out, overloaded and the fuses blown.

The television is on.

Nothing has been reported yet although I have heard sirens. As long as Shelley is okay I don't care what happens.

In the hallway I hear the sound of keys in the lock, and as I rise the front door opening.

“Hi honey. The weekend has been called off. Hoorah. Weather problems. Brilliant eh? I would have called but I can't find my mobile. Did I leave it here?”

I say “No, you didn’t leave it here” and before she can put her bag down I take her in my arms and hold her.

Tears slip down my cheeks, but I’m smiling as I hold her.

I’m still smiling as over her shoulder I see two police cars draw to a halt outside.

It doesn't matter. Shelley is okay.

Shelley is okay.  

Dixie Fried - A Ways to go

For some reason that no one really understands it's a bare bones fact that Scotland has a deeply rooted love of American roots music.

From Bluegrass to the Blues there doesn't seem to have been a year that passes since the sixties where musicians haven't gravitated to the sounds that our transatlantic cousins have been making with the intentions of emulating what they hear.

I would personally say that much of the music mirrors our own working class environments, and this is why we have such a warm affinity for it, but I digress and while that could be a debate for another day, because right now, right this very second, I have Dixie Fried on with their 'A Ways To Go' CD grinding out the sound of the Delta, and it's pretty sublime.

There's no attempt to make this release a polished affair, but instead it would appear that the intent is to look to create a more organic testament to the long standing sound of the Blues.

If that is the case then the duo have certainly managed to do it, and do it without sounding like mere copyists.

From the beginning to the end there's a push to maintain some sort of honest authenticity to the over all sound.

Not that this means that they are trying too hard to make it all a facsimile of music fashioned decades ago, but instead that they comfortably securing the heart and soul of whatever the blues is within the songs in the present.

A harder task to do than say.

The most honest critique to make is that it's all about how it feels, and let's be honest about this, it's concentrating on how the music feels rather than how it sounds that allows musicians to put some magic into the grooves.

Very often people complain about the dearth of good music that is out there in the world, but they are wrong, and it is this sort of release that I often direct them towards to counteract their misjudged views.

In the parlance I can say it's dang good.

Website - http://dixiefried.co.uk/

Bandcamp - http://dixiefried.bandcamp.com/

Girlschool/Raven/Purple Valentino

With this one it's a real blast from the past.

The mighty oestrogen fueled purveyors of what was the New Wave of British Heavy Metal are coming to town.

So lock up your sons, brothers, uncles, fathers, and okay, just lock up anyone with a penis, as I doubt that the ladies of Girlschool are planning on taking any prisoners.

As the Motorhead tour has been postponed this is the next best thing.

In support is Raven so I expect that rock fans of a certain age, a refined age, an age that like a good bottle of wine should be respected, are going to be digging out their torn denims and slipping into their leather jackets to relive some glory years.

However that's not all.

Opening for these road warriors are Purple Valentino who are playing their very first King Tuts show.

Click on the poster for details of how to get some tickets at a reduced price.

In conversation with Jim Dead.

Tell us a bit about yourself Jim.

Early days are always the best place to start.

So when did you first feel drawn to music, and how did that then move on to you creating your own?

I guess it’s an old cliché, but I remember flicking through my parents’ record collection … it was quite an eclectic collection, too. I don’t suppose that I really became immersed in music until my early teens.

Then I was obsessed.

Spending hours putting together mixes for friends, when not sifting through the tapes and LPs that belonged to my parents and liberating the best tracks from their obscure and often disappointing albums.

I was the one in school preaching music. While I was sorta like the weird kid who liked ‘Heavy Metal’, folks were tuning into the mixes I was giving them.

We started hanging out together and eventually we got a band going.

We were dreadful. Couldn’t really play, but we stuck with it and we made quite a noise.

When you did start performing did you have a clear idea of what you were wanting to do, or like so many others has your experience been one that flows and reflects your own personal current tastes? The reason I ask is because I know so many solo artists who initially started off in pop punk acts as teenagers and then as their tastes in music widened they gravitated to more introspective ways to express themselves?

It’s been quite a journey to get to this point. I sang and occasionally played guitar in a fair few rock bands since 1997.

I was influenced by pretty much all of the alternative rock that I had been discovering since Nirvana.

Blind Melon, Screaming Trees, Jane’s Addiction etc.

Among the racks of CDs I had some Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Johnny Cash and Tom Waits and I started paying a great deal of attention to alternative Country around the end of 1998 or so after a friend had introduced me to Whiskeytown’s Strangers Almanac, American Music Club’s Mercury and Richard Buckner’s Bloomed.

Soon after that I was hooked on Joe Henry and soon that became the music I was immersed in.

That was shaping how I wrote songs and I brought that influence in to the bands. Lyrically I began exploring different themes – telling stories … telling my story and such things. It would be fair to say that I started going down a different path.

I wanted to create something dusty. Just strip the songs right back.

So far you have been self releasing your music. How is that? Do you like the level of artistic control it brings you?

How about financially. Does it feel restrictive in a sense?

I really don’t think there is an alternative. It’s a very rewarding process, really. Even if it does have some challenges. Being able to release what I want is, well, pretty nice. I mean, I could sit on the floor in my kitchen and record something.

Water running, some pots clanging and me telling some story and have that on an album and EP without any worry that someone somewhere at a label has decided to make an executive decision and discard it as useless.

It can be a challenge, though.

Especially from a financial point of view, cause I’m not really business minded.

That whole budgeting for recording, printing, the distribution, etc … it’s tough. I don’t think in terms of how many days I need in a studio, I think about how many songs I have. But I’ve been lucky enough to have met folks who have been willing to give their time and talent, too – I don’t reckon Go Tell, Ten Fires and I’m Not Lost would have turned out like they did without others investing in the projects as much as I did.

The last six months has seen you play some solid shows that are drawing some attention your way. Are you pleased about this?

Absolutely, yeah. It’s nice to know that there are people out there who not only appreciate what I’m doing, but actually get it.

They can buy into it.

Maybe it’s because I’ve played the right gigs, I don’t know.

Over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to meet folks who are passionate about music and they’ve become real supporters of what I’m doing and they’ve been kind enough to write some generous words. I’ll not throw names at you, but these folks know who they are and their words mean a great deal. Cause I know that there’s integrity behind them.

Do you have a loose career plan? I hear people saying things like I am giving it five years and if I get nowhere them I am done. It sounds very much like it's not so much about the music when it is put like that.

I wouldn't say so, no. I haven't thought about making a career as a musician since ... well, I'd say since the early days of being in a band. I think it last crossed my mind in the early 2000s with my old band.

We were very much riding a wave for a while and talking about getting a label, etc. But we recorded an album and I don't think any of us was motivated enough to do anything with it.

Hell, we didn't even take it to sell at gigs.

I wouldn't say that going out on my own has never been about a career though.

I started doing this thing as a way to get stuff out my system and it evolved from that.

I've been lucky enough to stumble into some great opportunities - my songs have found their way into the right circles and at a grassroots level I've picked up some good reviews and supporters along the way - but, it's exhausting trying to make people listen.

I know that's an issue for a lot of musicians I know.

Maybe because of what we do? I don't know.

It's difficult to gain an audience. Don't get me wrong, I like to play these songs, but I can't always rely on friends to come support me all the time ...

So, while I don't have a career plan, I guess I kinda have something. I'll continue to write and record, but I think I need to think long and hard about removing myself from playing to an audience.

Have you any plans for touring? Does the idea of slinging your guitar on your back and heading out into the world sound appealing?

It's something I thought about, yeah ... and I was very close to putting it together last year.

half did.

Some emails to venues down south went unanswered and I kept looking at other venues.

Then other things cropped up and I started writing and recording what eventually became I'm Not Lost.

Right now what do you think about the musical landscape locally? There's been a great deal of discussions among artists and those who work in venues about how tough things are getting. Do you agree that live music is becoming an increasingly hard sell, and if so what are your thoughts?

I don't know. I've never been convinced that Glasgow had a great live music scene.

Let's be honest, there's this great tradition of having live music in pretty much every possible nook and cranny within the city, but whether people are actually interested enough to listen is another matter.

Most of the time there's a chance that the music just aint that good.

Does that constitute what's always considered as a vibrant musical landscape?

Don't get me wrong, I've heard a load of good bands and solo folks and some of my favourite acts are indies.

There's also a few great nights out there that you know you can rely on for a solid line-up.

But I don't think the landscape is in good shape.

It needs a shake.

I don't have the answers. I have ideas. But I've seen a few folks try to create something unique and see it crumble because there's too many free mediocre nights out there.

Nights where you can hear Paul Weller off-cuts, Wonderwall or Brown Eyed Girl.

Website - http://www.jimdead.com/

Merch - Music - http://jimdead.bandcamp.com/

Entitled

Before reading this I would like to say that it's unedited and the result of twenty minutes of rattling out a rough story.

It's guerrilla writing and of the moment.

So there you go. Get in about it. :) 

Panic and fear have a smell.

Everyone knows it.

Even if they don’t immediately think they do.

It's a combination of sweat, piss, and something metallic that's reminiscent of the taste of blood.

I know all about it as right now I am fucking panicking and shitting myself in fear.

In a matter of seconds I have become an expert in what terror smells like.

I reek of it.

I’m soaked in sweat and my heart is beating at a rate that doesn't seem physically possible to maintain.

At any second the pressure of the blood pumping through it will reach a critical stage and it could explode leaving the contents of my rib cage ravaged by the force generated outwards.

All I can do is force myself to focus on breathing deeply and I cling to the sound of the air easing in and out of my lungs as internally I try to talk myself down from the ledge that I feel that I am mentally swaying on.

The main reason that I am so terrified is as simple one.

I don’t know what the fuck is happening.

My last memory was of drinking champagne and laughing at a terrible joke that some young rising star of the Conservative party was sharing with a party of banking executives of which I am one and the next wakening up in absolute darkness bound to a chair.

I can’t move, or even draw in anything from the blank emptiness of my surroundings, and that is quite frankly freaking me out, and when I say absolute darkness I mean the absolute absence of light.

There is nothing that allows me to gauge distance and it’s terrifyingly discombobulating.

I could be sitting on a chair suspended hundreds of feet in the air, or in box buried so deep down that I will never be found.

Initially I told myself that I was the victim of a joke being played on me and the rising hysteria was easily dampened down, but when no answer came to my outwardly calm request to be untied, or at very least to turn a light on, it began to dawn on me that I wasn’t the victim of just another Bullingdon practical joke.

Like the time they invited that homeless guy to a party and fed him quail laced with a laxative all night, and then left him lying in a pool of his own faeces outside Theresa Mays London flat.

Now that was funny, but this isn’t.

Not funny at all.

It’s hard to work out how much time has elapsed, but I know that I am incrementally losing degrees of rationality with every second that passes.

I’m clinging on, but I can feel my sanity slipping away as I start shouting, screaming, for help again.

“You can stop the caterwauling”

The voice seems to come from all around me and is very obviously electronically disguised.

With just five words quite casually delivered my anus spasms and I very nearly literally shit myself.

“No one can hear you.”

Peering into the void around me I still can’t see anything.

“Look I’ve got money and I’m quite an important sort of guy. So let’s talk about what is going on here and I am sure that we can come to some sort of arrangement”

Seconds stretch out and all I can hear is my own ragged breathing.

Minutes must have slipped away and just as I start to think that I imagined it he speaks again.

“You’re not a very nice fella. You do know that don’t you?”

Instead of answering straight away I close my eyes as if that makes any sort of difference and try and think who would do this to me, what enemies I have accrued over the years, and why this is happening.

Nothing.

I’m getting nothing.

I don’t even know what he means about not being a nice fella.

I work hard, support a wife and a couple of kids, respect my colleagues, have a close circle of friends and for fucks sake I even maintain a mistress in a style that would exclude her from bitching.

There’s no one that would bear a grudge and this is ludicrous.

“I think you may have the wrong person. I’m serious. I don’t think I am the man who you have a problem with.”

“Really?”

“Yes Really. I’m no one. I work in banking.”

“That’s interesting. You are no one, but also an important man. An oxymoron wrapped in a conundrum then. Is it correct that in 2003 you negotiated a three million pound settlement deal and a favourable pension plan to leave a company that was in ruins?”

“Do I have the wrong person? Did you leave behind you men and women who lost everything? Their employment, their pensions and in some cases their homes?”

There’s no mistake. It comes crashing in that there is no mistake, and with that I know that this isn’t going to go well as I feel more sweat trickle down my back as I croak out “That’s just business. There’s nothing personal about that.”

It sounds pathetic to my ears because it matters now.

“In 2006 you took over the running of an account for a multinational company and in doing so reduced the tax they paid to the UK from one point five percent to zero. Is that correct?

I don’t know what to say, but he goes on before I can even consider a response.

“It’s 2013 now and they have never paid a single penny in tax since you offered your financial advice. Is this correct?”

“Yes, but you have to understand that there is no malice involved in that sort of thing. It’s just how the world works. I’m just a small cog in a very big machine. You must see that”

“Some are saying the machine you are a cog in isn’t working, but it seems to be running smoothly for you. Is that a fair comment?”

I don’t know how to answer this and stammer that “this is the world we live in and we all have to do our best to get by and…..”

“it’s a world that you have helped to maintain as it benefits you.”

There’s something in the tone of the voice that sounds as if it is a sentence being handed down.

“As the global banking crisis decimated the livelihoods of literally millions of people have you financially benefited from this?

Yes or No?”

Something inside me snaps and I spit out “Fuck you. Who are you to judge me? Who are you to fuckin’ ask me anything? You holier than thou wanker hiding in the dark asking me your inane questions. Go and  fuck yourself.”

With a click a light goes on and about twelve feet away sitting directly in front of me is a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, the assumed badge of the anonymous movement.

“Ha. You fuckin’ wanker. Isn’t there a lecture you should be at? Some protest about the homeless that needs your attention. Shouldn’t you be filling out an appeal so you can hang onto some shit benefit? Now get off your lazy arse and untie me as this has went on far enough”

For a second I am quite pleased with myself. The danger of the unknown has passed and all this time I’ve been sitting shitting myself for nothing.  

Relief is flooding through me when he says “You have options available to you. I’ve been speaking to a great many people and they think that you should either be stood against a wall or hung from a lamppost.”

Laughing now I can barely get out “who do you think you are?” before he slips the mask off.

“But you’re a comedian, an ex junkie, a fuckin hippy.”

“Yes my dear.

You have me bang to rights as I am indeed all that you say. I’m a comedian who has had enough.

A tired ex junkie and a hippy who believes with all his heart in free love and shagging.

You are here because when I had my little rant in the papers and on the television the main response was the throng throwing back at me that I was drawing attention to a problem without offering a solution.

They were right.

I was flapping my thesaurus at them and flouncing around as a disenchanted revolutionary, but deep down I knew I was right, and as they say ‘actions do speak louder than words’ and here we are now.

So what is it?

A bullet or the noose?

Now listen closely matey.

There is no punchline to this.

It’s time to pay the piper you obnoxious self entitled sack of shit.’

Cadaver Club - A Fate Worse Than Life

Horror punk isn't just for Halloween.

It's the gift that keeps giving all year round.

Or it can be if The Cadaver Club are allowed to have any say in the matter.

With 'A fate worse than life' they have taken the ghoulish fun of all things dark and mysterious and given it a rather attractive polish that will be sure to slap a grin on the the chops of the most Edgar Allan Po(e)-faced goth.

More Munsters than Texas Chainsaw Massacre they may be, but I've never been averse to a blast of the Monster Mash so I'm happy to dance on the grave of your nearest and dearest to this one.

Over the last few years it may be fair to say that the (mainly) US bands who look to the crypt keeper for their musical kicks have lost the ability to see the humour in what they are doing, and with that much of their appeal in my opinion.

So this is the perfect antidote to that.

The bands ability to stitch elements of rock and roll and pop punk together before firing the spark of life into them would without a doubt give Mary Shelley a momentary spring in her step, and if anyone can raise a somewhat dead genre from the grave then I am putting my money of these guys to do just that.

It sounds as if with a rictus grin in place they are looking to tweak the noses of the Misfits fans while screaming 'why so grave' at them before manically rushing off into the night, and that is exactly as it should be.

Facebook - www.facebook.com/cadaverclub?fref=ts

Website - http://www.cadaverclub.com/

Merch - http://www.pirateheartrecords.com/?page_id=160

Live in Glasgow - www.facebook.com/events/625780427466137/?fref=ts

Brand Webb. At a fashion store near you.

I see the R Brand and R Webb thing is still going on.

It's like a pantomime argument between a couple of Dames who are swinging their Louis Vuitton's at each other in a grandly verbose fashion.

I fully expect that from under some powdered wigs some archaic cussing will commence very soon.

For those who may have missed it here's an update.

Brand thinks that the political system is just two cheeks of the one arse, and voting for a big hairy bottom is rather silly when we should be reaching for a smooth and pert alternative.

Meanwhile Webb can see his point, but thinks that we should just wax the hairy arse and encourage some squats to give it a more palatable appearance.

Now I lean towards the smooth and pert alternative, but I am not unaware of the major flaw in Brands argument.

That major flaw being that no government is going to entertain addressing a system that allows them so much freedom to exploit while garnering power and wealth from doing so.

They may tinker about the edges to substantiate the illusion that what we have is a democracy, and what we want does matter, but they wont give that up without a fight.

So the dream of an alternative reached through peaceful non participation in the political process is all well and good when discussed on the television, or within the pages of the New Statesman, but take it into the real world and the jackboots will quietly be slipped on.

Lets not pretend that anyone in power is going to capitulate in the face of the proletariat asking them nicely to fuck off.

Then we have Webb looking for change from within the system.

For an intelligent man I am surprised that he can realistically consider that participation in voting can bring a seismic change to how we are governed.

At the most wealth redistribution could be considered, but only as a measure to quell the rumblings of dissent from the populace.

A very tiny percentage shift in the majorities favour will shut them up would be the approach taken, and then quite probably accepted by many as an 'I'm all right Jack' alternative to dealing with the bigger issues at hand.

The lyric from The Who 'Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss' seems increasingly apt.

The alternative options available to us both shelter under the same corporate are licking umbrella after all.

So, and it is difficult to say this, it looks like if we really do want a change then it will come floating in on the back of a river of blood.

Historically the reluctance of those in power to relinquish control always leads down the same path.

No quarter is given, but instead needs to be taken.

I'm not promoting violence in stating this, but simply highlighting what has come before, and in a rather blunt style asking what has changed.

As a side issue to all of this, and regardless of the views expressed by both men, I have found myself with a bit of a problem about the whole celebrity political bitch slapping that is going on.

My problem is about the credence given to the views expressed.

While I am comfortable with their input, and I am happy that so many are open to jumping into the fray and contributing their thoughts, it rather saddens me that if the same points were raised by an unemployed single parent living in a bed sit then no one would have given much of a toss about their considered opinions.

The reality of celebrity endorsement for an idea, ethos, or whatever, and the lust to jump on their bandwagon is quite a sad reflection of our society.

While they have every right to express their opinions and views, and equally the right to push for a change, I am still left wondering why their words are allowed to carry so much weight.

Neither of the men here are claiming they have any more right to push an idealogical viewpoint than Mr and Mrs Joe Bloggs and we need to keep that in mind, but we are most definitely providing them with a platform that we wouldn't extend to others.

Maybe when that changes it will open a door that can lead us to a more palatable future for all.

Goodbye, and thanks for all the............chips

It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to Pivo.

If our lives are to be considered as somewhat akin to a travelogue then my time as a booker for the club will be in hindsight seen as a diversion from the beaten track that will feature as a blink and you will miss it footnote.

People come and people go and this is the flow of life.

In the vacuum of information rumours breed though.

So I would like to take this opportunity to explain my reasons for leaving.

Prior to that though I would like to wish all the staff of the venue all the best for the future.

Without exception it has a pleasure to have worked shoulder to shoulder with them, and a part of me feels they deserve so much more than I was able to bring to the table.

So to the bar managers JoJo, Foley and Louise.

You guys are warhorses who just keep going no matter what is thrown at you.

If wealth was truly the reward for hard work then you would be on the cusp of retiring to your mansions to sit poolside sipping on chilled cocktails by now.

Also the ladies who work behind the bar.

Hats off. No one does it better.

Then there are the guys behind the desk.

Omar and Alan are hands down the best sound engineers that I have worked with, and I wouldn't hesitate in recommending them to anyone who is looking to run a live show.

The best of the best.

I could wax lyrical for hours while sprinkling every utterance with superlatives and it still wouldn't come close to covering the high regard I hold them in.

And lets not forget James who wandered in off the street looking to book a show and ended up staying and taking on the role of assistant booker.

Meeting James was a pleasure.

Just as I was running out of positive things to say about the next generation who are knocking at the door here he arrived with a suitcase full of enthusiasm and the smarts to make a difference.

I hope that in some way I passed some of my passion for music onto him and one day he will look back and smile about how he started in all this.

Seriously young man. You have whatever it takes and don't doubt that.

It's been an honour to work with you.

To show that I can still get down with the kids here's a fistbump to Finn.

Take no prisoners mate.

Oh and Harris man. I will miss you.

Seriously.

The last few weeks when we have really been able to sit down and work together have just shown me how good you are at what you do to.

Being the press guy is just one string to your bow and I hope that you don't let that ultimately get in the way of your writing.

You are a very talented fella.

I expect to be reading poems, stories and articles you pen for many years to come.

….......and Sam.

The place wouldn't be the same without you big man.

Your security badge should simply say 'Nae Hassle'.

I'm going to miss you all.

In addition to the staff I would also like to highlight a few people who I have met on the way.

Darren and Miff of Gobo Photography who are now friends rather than acquaintances.

Jamie of the New Hellfire Club.

If he was a card in a deck then he would be the King of diamonds.

Campbell Stewart who I feel a genuine affinity with due to our love of RAWK, and the guys at SMOAK.

My life has been enriched by meeting you all.

Okay now all that is out of the way lets wire in to the reasons.

They're a mixture of personal and professional.

The personal is that I have a great deal on my plate at the moment and something had to give.

My children and my partner are ring fenced in that respect so when I made a list of what I need to keep and what needs to go then on balance it is Pivo that has to go.

I feel that I have been neglectful of all my relationships with people that I care about and this has had an impact on me.

I have come to the conclusion that this can't go on and I need to balance my life out better so that I can spend time with my family and the close friends who I love dearly such as Claire Amos and Pauline Oubari.

Those who know me well are aware of how many hours I have been putting in between being a working carer, a single parent and then as the booker for the venue.

It's been a punishing schedule that offered no time to sit back and just chill.

I need to put my hand up and openly say that I bit off more than I could chew.

That's the personal in a nutshell.

Professionally, well if I am to be completely honest I will have to firstly admit that I have always held some reservations about getting on board as a booker as it was never really a position that I have felt any affinity for.

The reason I did accept it was because I thought that in a small way I could have made a positive change to the musical landscape.

I misguidedly thought that by addressing many of the legitimate issues that artists raise then the venue could have acted as a catalyst for change.

It would have been a shining beacon of ethical attitudes in a stormy sea polluted by sharks.

That wasn't to be though, and as I sit here the weight of responsibility for not achieving those aims presses down hard on my shoulders.

I didn't deliver on the promises that I made and it pains me to say that.

I really did think that I could kick start something that would ultimately grow legs and create a vibrant and inclusive music scene where punters and artists coexisted in perfect harmony.

Silly of me wasn't it?

The grand dream dashed on the rocks of disillusionment.

The idea that I had wasn't a complicated one.

Put simply it was that I would look to provide an ethical deal to bands, and in this way they would flock to the venue and ultimately it would become the benchmark that all others promoters and venues would be measured against.

In addition I thought that if I gathered four excellent acts to play on a bill then like 'A field of dreams' the people would come.

Quality over quantity was my mantra.

Sadly the reality was that few bands seemed to consider the deal was any good and continued to gravitate towards deals that are less financially and professionally beneficial to them.

In a rather distasteful and sexist moment I did say that is seemed that if bands were offered the choice of being ass raped or having their balls gently tickled then for some perverse reason they keep going for the first option because it was/is the familiar one.

So that fell flat on its face.

The secondary idea in my head was just as unsuccessful.

Regardless of how talented the individuals were who played it is fair to say it is a continual battle to get enough people out to make a show viable.

There's been much debate about this.

Is it the x-factor culture, are people just disengaged with live music?

Is the economy biting just that bit too hard?

All have merit as reasons, and I am sure we can add many more, but the bottom line is that I have failed in grabbing the dream and making it a reality.

Very often it has been an exercise in punching smoke.

So I am hanging my hat up and my days of being a booker are behind me.

It's a stressful job and ultimately for one reason or another I found it to be solidly unrewarding to.

It was taking more than it gave.

In closing if I may bring it back to the team at Pivo.

I extend my best wishes to you all, and my replacement.

I sincerely hope that they can achieve more than I did.

So there's really only one more thing to say.

Peter. Shut it.