To my surprise ‘Bleak’ by Roddy Murray is actually available in my local library as an ebook. Gave it a read (for Peter Capaldi reasons) and found that I quite enjoyed the book! Murray’s writing is full of humour (despite the title) and very vivid. Lost count of the number of times I chuckled while reading. It’s like a collection of short stories as snippets of his life.
About a fifth of the book covers the time he spent in a band (formerly known as The Bastards from Hell and later The Dreamboys) - on the formation, change in name, a revolving door of band members, some songs and the various gigs they did back then, amongst other things. Highly recommended to read this section whilst listening to their songs, it’s a totally different vibe.
My favourite bit was his telling of Peter’s hair gel mishap the morning after a gig (which warranted a trip to the A&E on Christmas Day).
And favourite line:
Because we began as a drama project by-product, we were theatrical, only without props - frog masks, etc. With Peter upfront, though, every performance was a Performance, an Event, an Occasion.
All in all it’s a pretty fun read. Trying to link the memories shared in this book with the bits and pieces of content floating around (songs, interviews, surfaced photos of gigs and whatnot) was another fun exercise.
