Ads

In my last post I mentioned how eager I was to get involved with GDFAF – or ‘Going Deaf For A Fortnight’ – my friend Pete’s hard-core gig-going initiative that seamlessly combines muso evangelism with the anti-lethargy ethos of the classic TV show ‘Why Don’t You’. That was on Wednesday, already midway through the first week of the fortnight. I haven’t posted anything on here since then, so you might assume that I’ve spent the last few days doing it large and moshing like an eejit in a variety of salubrious sticky-floored local venues.

Well, you’d be mistaken.

Do you want to know how many gigs I’ve been to in the last four days? Probably not, but that’s never stopped me before. I’ll tell you how many gigs I’ve been to in the past four days. I’ve been to the grand sum total of fuck all.

Well, that’s not strictly true.

On Friday night I saw the legendary local comics artist Hunt Emerson performing with his band The Black Country Hats. They were very good, but I can’t really get away with claiming it was a gig. No, it wasn’t a gig. It was the launch party for the Birmingham Comics Show.

Long ago and far away – when I was a card-carrying fanboy/cartoonist/writer trying to break into the comics industry – I used to go to events like this all the time. But it’s been a while, and I had somehow managed to forget how deranged these things get. For the uninitiated, comics events, festivals or even shows are a feeble excuse for people who happen to have a fondness for a somewhat despised medium to get together and drink enough booze to tranquilize a horse.

And – needless to say – it can get quite surreal, too. At one point I interrupted a drunken but somewhat theatrical exchange of insults between two people I’d never met before by saying: “Oi, enough of the Reed Richards/Doc Doom shite.”

This will probably mean nothing to non-comics aficionados, I know, but right there and then I knew instinctively that this was perhaps the only place in the world where it would make Perfect Sense. My gut instinct was validated when one of the faux combatants suddenly adopted a ridiculous vaudevillianesque pose and scowled: “Curse you, Richards!” If I tried that stunt anywhere else I’d probably be typing this with broken fingers.

Anyhow, Pete’s blog features a far more lucid and considered account of the evening’s shenanigans. You can find it here.