INTRO…..
J: Welcome to the Done Lying Down gig+event journal. It was actually started 31st March 94, although the entries will begin with Father James’s 1st “practice” gig-thus the 1st gig of the current and final permanent line up of the band. Due to short term memory loss, some of the earlier entries may be incomplete or hazy……..
R: Which is hardly surprising considering the bands all out appetite for ‘Rock’n’Roll’ activities-So stick with it-another mountain to climb, another town to rock, another Gnarly to check out, another road to cruise and another van to break down. This is life on the road with a bunch of retards…..
F: I’ll second that!

Feb. 7th 94, The Robey, London.
Recording ‘Family Values’ Video.
R: Recorded at Plunk rock HQ, the Robey, see for yourselves. We all love the video, and the make-up artiste.
J: Yeah gnarly make-up artiste. Very surreal experience overall. 1st time doing a video, we gave complete control to Oz, the producer and his trusty crew of followers. I felt very foolish while filming, and desperately hoped that Oz would be able to make us look less foolish in the final product.
A: “Why do I look such a spaz”.

Feb 9th 94, The Robey, London.
Line up: DLD.
J: we played 2 sets of the same songs to a quite empty room. I forget why we played twice, but I guess it must have been because we needed the practice.
R: Considering this was my first appearance with the band, both sets went smoothly, and while Oz filmed more footage for our ground breaking “Septic” video during our 2nd set, I, at least , considered the gig a lot of fun. Hail the Ropey Robey…..
F: I seem to remember the gig in two parts, i.e.: exciting + tiring. I guess we ran out of steam doing the set once, but doing it twice again was sooooooooo…… The best thing is feeling like a band again, with James debut on the drums and sounding good.
A: There were supposed to be 4 bands playing that night. One cancelled the day before, one broke down on the way and phoned up, and one just didn’t show up. Such is the life of a Rock’n’Roll band.
J: “Must have been Bij’s night”.

Feb 12th 94, The Garage, London.
Line up: Linus, DLD, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.
J: Shit there’s people here!
A: Pre-gig shit required several rolls of T.P. on wet enamel. No seats avail.
J: we screwed up ‘Divorcee’ and ‘Birthday’ pretty bad. But still I remember thinking “best gig yet”. Miles showed up but I didn’t chat w/him. Linus said they had heard our song on the radio. They were from N. Carolina or something.
R: Having never played in front of that many people before, excitement was definitely pretty high. I remember shaking for about half an hour after we played-until I managed to comatose myself with fine young cannabis that is, Oh yeah Jon Spencer ruled-even though we blew them clean offstage!
J: J.S.B.E. were pretty aloof that night. Dan and Areola showed up, as did Catherine (make-up artiste) plus Nick + Richard + Ali + Liza + Colette. John Robb and Sonar Nation showed + Pig Keepers Daughter.

Feb 14th 94, The Venue, Edinburgh.
Line up: Bughouse, DLD, The Jon Spencer Bues explosion.
R: Got some good audience abuse tonight, with some guy yelling “Your influences are obvious-you’re transparent”! Other than that we played well and rocked yet another crowd of metal hungry maniacs!
J: I remember leaning out into the audience, supported by a beam and shouting w/out the mic between songs. We stayed at Richard’s sisters place.
F: Jon Spencer blew his amp, then used mine, then blew that! Then used the AC 30. Got drunk backstage with Jon Spencer’s rider (Newcie brown). Then came to the conclusion that their drummer was a self opinionated asshole. Their guitarist, Judah, was the coolest. J: Yeah cool guy!

Feb 15th 94, The Duchess of York, Leeds.
Line up: DLD, The Jon Spencer Bues explosion.
F: Arrive at Leeds a little tired, try to fix my Marshall, (fuses, etc.) but no chance. Spencer tells me I can use his amp, which I do, The gig was going really well, until Spencer’s amp blew again, 3 songs before the end of our set, there’s nothing I can do, so I resign my self to watching DLD from the audience…. (What a great band)! Jon Spencer’s wanker of a drummer gave an interviewer a hard time… Asshole! Spencer gave me £20 towards fixing my amp!

Feb 24th 94, The Powehaus, London.
Line up: These Animal Men, Action Painting, Mantaray and DLD.
J: Action Painting pretty much sucked. Lots of feedback and noise. These Animal Men had tons of young groovy groupies backstage-it was kinda funny. The place was really packed and the audience totally got into the show-It seemed like. JP surprised everybody by smearing shaving foam all over the upper torso. Nothing really went wrong. Sound was great! Ali jumped offstage and the lead was pulling Jean Jacques amp so it teetered very close to falling on the prostrate Jack. Jean Jacques showed up and Tanya babbled for about 5 minutes while Ali + JJ had a chuckle. Ali got a kick in the head from Giles. Liza got pissed off at Ali. Writing out the guest list took about two hours, about 150 people were invited! F: These Animal Men are the biggest bunch of cunts I’ve seen since the Surfing Brides. It seem to piss them off having to follow us. The audience wanted punk and they got it from us. Great gig, one of my faves!

March 7th 94, Mr Smiths, Bournemouth.
Line up: Emperor Of Ice Cream, DLD.
A: First ever Moonbus outing! Exhaust falls off upon reaching Bournemouth. We wait around until after 7pm to unload and we meet the ‘Emperor of Ice Cream’ for the first time. Guitars got blown away by Eddie’s bass amp, hence both JP & Glenn break strings during the first song. Glenn doesn’t like ESP (probably aided by having drunk most of a bottle of whiskey w/Emperors) and ends the performance by throwing it across the stage and then jumping on it—Sound man somewhat pissed off! James takes a storming stage dive after end of set into a writhing mass of JP, Ali & the ESP. We get very stoned afterwards. Poor Bij has to stop several times on the motorway for Penelopes. A particularly high streetlamp inspires JP to climb ( and then crash out in the van while Glenn and Ali continue laughter therapy.) What the gig lost in the performance. It made up for it in the intoxication quotient! J: Yeah, I got really messed up after the gig w/the Zimmers. The gig was pretty poor, but still quite fun night overall. Monitors kept cutting out mid-song and were very quiet and distorted when they *did* work. We tried playing “Bolus” and really screwed it up. Ben + Andy were jumping around like crazy and made up for the lack of good music we were providing. Man Glenn was missing easy guitar parts. F: Yeah I regret getting so pissed that night, but as it is becoming traditional to do so- I’ll blame the Zimmer Frames!

March 11th 94, The Old Trout, Windsor.
Line up: The Flamingo’s, E of Ice Cream, DLD.
J: Correct but uninspiring. Support “Flamingo” pretty much sucked. The Emperor of Ice Cream were OK. The room looked like a wedding reception ballroom. Sound was really good, but very few people were around and the response was pretty unenthusiastic. R: Apart from my mum, who turned up to see us for the first time. We also got a cool live tape, even though the engineer missed the 1st few songs. F: Good set, not enough audience, but hey that’s not our fault (Is it?).

March 12th 94, The Angel, Bedford.
Line up: Mambo Taxi, E of Ice cream, DLD.
A: “Shoot this band, give me the double barrelled shot gun”! Emperors about Mambo Taxi! AliMac pulls a scoop by chatting to the lead singer of Mambo Taxi for 15 min. after the show having fallen in love with her 2 weeks earlier-What a spaz! J: PA was pretty good, crowd was OK, but I don’t think they were into our kind of music. I think this was the first gig were James was kind of on the *slow* side!

March,13th,94 U.L.U. London.
Launch party for the Family values E.P.
J:Once again I had to say “Best gig yet”,Onstage sound was really good, the place was packed and people got into it. a good pile-up at the end of the gig we did ‘be My brain’ as an encore,....because it’s *our* party. Jack Plug was shaking up a can of lager in between every song and opens it and makes a mess in the last song. Good gig-good crowd! we found a bag of grass after the show that belonged to the Smirkik dude and got a joint as a finders fee. He was trying to explain something to me, and he said “You know when your band doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and it’s just your ego that keeps you going.....” “No”. Party w/the Zimmer frames back at Ali’s. As leaving Edward was giving advice on how to look after my voice, then as he was driving off I gave him a hoarse “Bye Edward!!” scream. it was funny at the time. F:Best gig so far for me!



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