The discovery of a real band playing within five miles of my house was intriguing and almost exciting. I'd only just started to learn how to play guitar, which I'd taken up after realising that there were at least two thousand bass players that were better than me in my street alone. The word on the street was that Big Country were the saviours of Big Guitar Rock, U2 were the new Led Zeppelin and Mark Knopfler had infiltrated the minds of every headphone wearing, tennis racket wielding, bedroom wannabe in the entire county of Essex. Level 42 were the be all and end all of local culture. All the fledgling Farrah wearing, Escort driving, white stiletto totting neo-stereotypes were appearing from nowhere as the part time punks and mod revivalists grew up, got jobs and cars and were busy creating their own nightmare scene. Boy Racers, RM1.

Wednesday night at The Rezz was like nowhere else I'd ever been in my life. Which just proves that I hadn't been out much (I was only seventeen). A cellar bar that was mirrored from wall to wall in order to give the impression that it was bigger than the twenty square feet that fate had allocated it. I got the impression that it was, in fact, a twenty foot square cellar with mirrors on the walls. But it had a bar. And a window that sold hotdogs so they could get the licence extended beyond 11 O'clock. And, most surprisingly of all, it was full of people.

Moreover, it was full of people dancing to The Velvet Underground and John Lee Hooker and The Byrds and The Buzzcocks and Wire. Not a Dire Straits or 'Frankie Says'T shirt in sight. A small, mirrored, parallel Romford selling watery hotdogs. Ideal breeding conditions for Goths and people who didn't like discos. But above all, it was not Hollywoods or the Ilford Palais. There were no Johns or Sharons.

There was no stage, just an area where the bands played. This was next to the DJ booth where Romford almost- a- legend, soon to be Speedway commentator, Chris French would spin all the latest underground pop sounds.

No one danced.

So he'd play some Banshees and the Goths would appear, do their strange arm waving thing, then sit down again. As the night wore on, you'd get The Pogues, The Cramps, more Cramps, King Kurt, some more Cramps and then the Cult. This was all interspersed with the original versions of songs that The Cramps hadn't already covered. Count Five, The Seeds, The 13th Floor Elevators, Stooges, MC5. It was well garage, and not a 130BPM 12 inch white label in sight. The Goths eventually got there own night on Thursdays , so the Wednesday night songs by The Cult were cunningly replaced with Cramps songs. No one noticed.

The first and only time I saw The Wolfhounds was at The Rezz. I was decidedly unsure what to expect. Chris French had really set it up for me by playing 'Eight Miles High'by The Byrds prior to the band going on. This was one of my all time favourite bedroom songs and to hear it loud for the first time was mind blowing. How could The Wolfhounds follow that?

They couldn't.

They were crap.

Out of time, out of tune, a singing guitarist who seemingly couldn't play or sing a note and a one note donk-donk bass player. Most of the 'banter'with the crowd seemed to consist of people hurling abuse at the bass player. You didn't get this at The Hammersmith Odeon. It was appalling. The drummer, however, I liked a lot. The only redeeming feature of the entire band.

The next day at work, Clarkey was keen for me to register my opinion.

'What did you think?'he asks.

'I liked the drummer'I replied.

'He left the band straight after the gig. Said he'd had enough'.

Oh dear. 'What you need to do is find another drummer, get the singer off guitar, and let me play keyboards'I offered helpfully. I don't know why I said it. I was already in a band of sorts (no drummer, natch) and I didn't really like any of their songs, but they were gigging. And they had fans who swore at them on first name terms. What did I have to lose? Apart from seven years of my life.

For some reason, the others thought this was a good idea and I was invited along for a rehearsal in Dagenham. I had offered my services as a keyboard player. Slight problem here. I couldn't really play keyboards. I figured that as the singer already played guitar, I had more chance of getting in the band if I brought in a new angle. Keyboards would really fatten out the sound and move the band in new and exciting directions. Keyboards would link the band with the previous three decades of experimental rock, from Joe Meek to The Fall via The Doors and ELP. Keyboards were heralding the new future of music and would one day dominate the charts. Keyboards were now.

'Where's your keyboard?'

'Er, I forgot it. I'll bring it next time. I've got me guitar instead'.

This was not exactly the truth. All I ever wanted to do was play guitar like James Williamson. I didn't even have any keyboards, apart from a Casio. The band consisted of Paul Clarke on wrong handed guitar, Dave Callahan on vocals, Andy Bolton on bass and Simon Stebbings on drums. Simon is Franks older brother and had previously played guitar with The Purple Hearts. Thank god I didn't know that at the time as I had two of their singles. I would have shat myself even more.

We set about rehearsing but I didn't know any of the songs. I said I'd just join I and see what happened. It was of course at this point that two things suddenly struck me.

1) Paul Clarke is a left handed guitarist who plays a right handed guitar upside down. ie, not restrung and impossible to follow unless you were to hang him upside down in front of a mirror.

2) I'd never played guitar in a band before in my life. I'd played in my bedroom and had been frantically practising my Mark Knopfler solos for two weeks, but I'd never actually 'done it'with anyone else in the room. I'd been quietly strumming away for twenty minutes or so, but then came my call to arms.

'This one's called "Twisting The Knife". You can do the solo if you want'.

Oh poo. Song starts. This was my audition. This was it. Dagenham or bust.

About two minutes in and I get the nod from Clarkey. I step forward, hit the fuzz box and whooooooossshhhŠI'm gone. The great gods of guitar based rock smile down on me from heaven. My fingers glide across the fretboard like tigers on Vaseline and pure molten lumps of rock'n'roll spew forth from my amp, filling the room with the past, present and future of music . Tears flow from the eyes of tiny children.

As I reach my crescendo, I close my eyes in due respect to the great guitar Gods that kneel before me. When I open them, the band are on the floor pissing themselves . "What the f**k was that? Sounds like Mark fucking Knopfler!"

I should have left there and then.

Andy 2003