Reg, the Coked Up Drummer
When I was promoted to Lance Corporal during my time in the army I became the youngest Lance Corporal in my regiment. This was extremely evident during Corporals Mess Meetings where I was sat with guys who had been Corporals longer than I had been alive. One guy, Stevie, was like an alcoholic tramp. I used to get a lift home at the weekends with a chap who lived in Blackpool and we would pick Stevie up from Rochdale. Every time we would wait outside a rough pub in the car until Stevie finished off the 5 pints he had just bought. I always insisted that Stevie sat in the front as he was a full corporal, seniority and all that, but the real reason was that within 3 minutes he would be fast asleep and drooling and farting. It would have been no surprise if he had poo-ed himself too, he was that sort of a guy.
Any road, being a Lance Corporal it became obligatory for me to attend the Corporals Mess Christmas Ball. A fancy meal was cooked by the Chefs (well as fancy as you could get in the soldiers kitchen), there were some ‘acts’ booked for entertainment (a band and a comedian) and both Big Vern and I had girls for the evening.
I had begun to learn guitar a few month earlier, I even managed to get one out to the Gulf during the war. Big Vern was a very encouraging friend but had no knowledge of what a good guitarist sounds like. It just so happened that his 2 most favourite songs in the world were ‘Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Stairway to Heaven’, so imagine his delight when he found out I could half play some of the riffs from both songs, he thought I was a genius. What Big V didn’t realise was that every guitar learner at the time could play those 2 songs, bar none! After a few drinks at the ball Big V leaned over to me and said, “If I can get you on stage would you play a bit of guitar for us? The girls will go mental!”. Now, as always, my balls have always been larger than my talent, but this time my balls were the size of planets whilst my guitaring talents were the size of marbles. “Yeah, no problem I said”. FFS!
Half an hour must have gone by and I was secretly hoping that Big V had been unsuccessful in his attempts to get me on stage when a compere came over the mic. “We are very lucky to have with us tonight a most talented guitar player amongst the ranks, so please put your hands together for MICHAEL BAERON”. O..M..G! God knows what I was going to play, I had just learnt Sally Cinnamon by the Stone Roses, in fact that was the only song I knew all the way through, so that had to be it, at least I could sing along too! Jesus, God knows what I was thinking, my voice has never been great either. Two pieces of crap doesn’t make gold does it, it just makes a lot more crap!
Anyway, as I was making my way to the stage the compere came to the mic again “And we also have Reg, who is going to be doing some drumming”. I watched Reg come to the stage. He hadn’t walked to the stage like me, a forlorn man moping towards his execution, No, Reg leapt up out of his seat laughing manically as if he’d just snorted a kilogram of cocaine and won the lottery, and then ran to the stage and did a cartwheel before taking his place behind the drums. He looked at me and said, “You start and I’ll play along”.
I’m pretty sure Reg had never heard of the Stone Roses, from his drumming he was more of a ‘Pantera’ kind of a guy, and hence 2 bars into my intro Reg started doing a drum solo like no other. Not only that he was throwing sticks in the air, placing his feet on the drums and wiggling his tongue. I couldn’t do anything. I stood by the microphone stand dejected and lost and watched Reg play his 15 minute drum solo. That story still makes me cringe.
Any road, being a Lance Corporal it became obligatory for me to attend the Corporals Mess Christmas Ball. A fancy meal was cooked by the Chefs (well as fancy as you could get in the soldiers kitchen), there were some ‘acts’ booked for entertainment (a band and a comedian) and both Big Vern and I had girls for the evening.
I had begun to learn guitar a few month earlier, I even managed to get one out to the Gulf during the war. Big Vern was a very encouraging friend but had no knowledge of what a good guitarist sounds like. It just so happened that his 2 most favourite songs in the world were ‘Smoke on the Water’ and ‘Stairway to Heaven’, so imagine his delight when he found out I could half play some of the riffs from both songs, he thought I was a genius. What Big V didn’t realise was that every guitar learner at the time could play those 2 songs, bar none! After a few drinks at the ball Big V leaned over to me and said, “If I can get you on stage would you play a bit of guitar for us? The girls will go mental!”. Now, as always, my balls have always been larger than my talent, but this time my balls were the size of planets whilst my guitaring talents were the size of marbles. “Yeah, no problem I said”. FFS!
Half an hour must have gone by and I was secretly hoping that Big V had been unsuccessful in his attempts to get me on stage when a compere came over the mic. “We are very lucky to have with us tonight a most talented guitar player amongst the ranks, so please put your hands together for MICHAEL BAERON”. O..M..G! God knows what I was going to play, I had just learnt Sally Cinnamon by the Stone Roses, in fact that was the only song I knew all the way through, so that had to be it, at least I could sing along too! Jesus, God knows what I was thinking, my voice has never been great either. Two pieces of crap doesn’t make gold does it, it just makes a lot more crap!
Anyway, as I was making my way to the stage the compere came to the mic again “And we also have Reg, who is going to be doing some drumming”. I watched Reg come to the stage. He hadn’t walked to the stage like me, a forlorn man moping towards his execution, No, Reg leapt up out of his seat laughing manically as if he’d just snorted a kilogram of cocaine and won the lottery, and then ran to the stage and did a cartwheel before taking his place behind the drums. He looked at me and said, “You start and I’ll play along”.
I’m pretty sure Reg had never heard of the Stone Roses, from his drumming he was more of a ‘Pantera’ kind of a guy, and hence 2 bars into my intro Reg started doing a drum solo like no other. Not only that he was throwing sticks in the air, placing his feet on the drums and wiggling his tongue. I couldn’t do anything. I stood by the microphone stand dejected and lost and watched Reg play his 15 minute drum solo. That story still makes me cringe.
I tried to search for Big Vern on the old internet. Other than the photo of me below the images here are what came up in the image search. I'm pretty sure that he doesn't appear in these images but I would love it if I'm mistaken, particularly the pervy elbow touching pic.
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