TIGHTER THAN A FISH’S ARSE
Davey, Geordie II’s drummer, was tighter than a fish’s arse, but a nice man. The northeast has its fair share of tight-arses; I think it’s the overspill from Scotland. Anyway, Davey bought a two-stroke Saab, li’l red thing. He bought it because it had this thingy which you could press and it would coast along, saving gas. “There’s a fucking thing,” he’d say. Dave’s chat-up lines are legend: “You don’t want a drink, do you?” was a classic.
Davey was built like a steroid-guzzler on cheap food; he drove a three-ton truck delivering Calor gas—that’s probably the reason he could do a four-and-a-half-hour drum solo. He would break sticks, cymbals, and drum skins all the time, but cymbals were expensive, so he would rivet the cracks together until the cymbal sounded like an elephant with a mouth full of pennies. He was an extremely funny man, and when we were playing rock ’n’ roll onstage, all you’d hear behind you (at the top of his voice) was “Mister Grimsdale!” Yup, another Norman Wisdom fanatic.