Saturday, 18 February 2012

Part 2 - From Little Things Big Things Grow

  For the next six months Brian, Ali and Pots ate, slept and breathed gardening and music, the boys missed so many meeting of their regular various gardening club meeting that they were eventually stricken from the roll and were considered outcasts even by usually welcoming cactus fanciers. Garden by day, rehearse by night the guys were becoming like a small cult or commando unit, finally totally frustrated by their sons antisocial behaviour their respective parents urged the band to move down to London and ''Get this crazy music idea out of their systems before Spring vegetable harvest began''  Ali's Father found them a squalid one bedroom basement flat in London'd East end with just enough space for their music and potting equipment but it had a rundown glasshouse that they could work on as a project outside of songwriting.

  The lads now began putting the final touches to the first ten songs that would form their first performance and debut album 'Enough Parsnips for the Whole Class?' released in February 1985. Tensions in the flat would often reach boiling point when Brian, a perfectionist with his music would make the band run over the same few bars dozens of times but Pots would also drive the crew crazy with his insistence on correct spacing of tomato seedlings in the greenhouse,and one evening the mood got ugly. ''God Brian! We've been over this song fourteen times today, are we ever going to book gig?'' screamed Ali ''These things take time you can't rush great music, it's like a ripening melon…..''  Brian said calmly ''Yes Brian but we need more space like the space between a tender young tomato plant…'' interrupted Pots '' Time! Space?…I'll give you a ripened melon in your face!'' Ali grabbed a small watermelon Ali's Mother had posted down as a housewarming present from the kitchen counter and hurled right at Brian's head, he just managed to duck in time and all the boys helplessly watched their desert go sailing through the front window and landing in the gnome band that the boys had set up the day before, shattered gnome, watermelon and tiny garden tools flew in all directions.    

  As the boys silently looked at each then the broken window then at each other again Brian proudly piped up with ''Well, I think finally, we are ready'', ''About time!'' Ali exasperatingly quipped ''You don't get much more ready to rock than smashing a gnome village'' Pots said laughing then added ''But what's for desert now?''   

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