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Brians Inflatable Gnome (1990 - 1992)
Sunday, May 1st, 2005The first band I joined was called Brians Inflatable Gnome, back in 1990. Their drummer, a good friend of mine called Andrew, asked if I would like to join them on guitar. I told him I didn’t play guitar, but it didn’t seem to deter him. You can imagine what we sounded like.
Still, we practiced every sunday afternoon, starting off in Andrews garage with towels over the drums so as not to annoy the neighbours, before moving onto more prestegious venues like the community centre in Pill, Newport, settling finally in a hall used by a brass band in Llantarnam, Cwmbran.
The general idea at the time was to write some catchy indie pop tunes. I had already decided that it would be more fun playing indie pop than goth, and anyway, it was easier to strum 3 chords really fast than pick intricate guitar lines, plus you could get away with playing through cheap amps and still have it sounding like it was supposed to.
After a year or so of writing songs and just playing for ourselves, Andrew turned up to practice one day with a cutting from the local newspaper - an advert from a guy needing support bands for other bands playing in the area. I think this was the first time we actually thought that others might be interested in listening to us. We had been recording our practices on a wee walkman sat in the corner of the hall, and so decided to send off a tape. Around the same time, a guy in school was organising a gig for charity, at which he wanted a load of bands playing. So we stuck our names down for that as well.
That turned out to be our first gig. Cos there was several bands playing that night, we never got a chance to do a sound check. So, resisting the urge to change into shorts beforehand (seemed to be the fashion among indie kids at the time), we took to the stage. I will always remember Andrews face when he tried out the kick drum - it was the first time we’d played through mic-ed up drums, and it was all rather exciting. Too exciting as it turned out, as my first introductory strum on the guitar managed to send my plectrum flying high into the air. Still, I managed to catch it on the way down, just as andrew launched into the first song. Almost looked deliberate there for a second…
There were two other memorable events from that evening. The first was the audience. To be the other side of a crowd thats jumping up and down and having a ball to *your* music is an incredible buzz.
The other event was not so nice. We had left our equipment backstage with all the other stuff after we played so we could watch the last band. Some fuckwit from one of the bands that played before us took a liking to my guitar effects pedals sitting there all alone and theifed the lot. Shitty end to an otherwise excellent evening. Turned out ok in the end though, as the venue was insured, and payed for me to get a brand spanking new effects box 
We played a few other gigs after this, mostly at the Legendary TJs in Newport. Being TJs, we were showered with abuse and plastic glasses, although the people that were just there to see the punk bands that we were supporting didnt take so kindly to us. It was mostly good natured however - after the gigs, those that had given us the most shit would often offer us class As at a vastly reduced price to compensate.
At the height of our fame (with our name being mentioned in such esteemed venues as Newport Market) there was even talk of an American tour (im not actually joking here!). This fell through as the band we would have supported had planned the tour for when everyone in our band was buggering off to different universities around the UK. I moved to Coventry (for my sins), and Brians Inflatable Gnome was no more.
