Preface to my mini tour of Portugal : How my relationship with this country was started and nurtured.

There I was a young innocent boy all the way from South Africa. I had been raised on traditional rock n roll pose and posturing, a band would play onstage and be calculated and cool but on this night my life would change forever. I was at a gig to watch a band called “The Parkinsons”, a band that had began to create a name for themselves in the London music scene. The reason why they had some notoriety was not for gorgeous melodies and being nice. They had created a name due to insane live shows, loud fast punk rock and nudity.

From the first note they were in the crowd and jumping around. It blew my little mind, the boundary between performer and fan had been smashed. Everyone fed off the energy and got crazy and some even joined the band in getting naked. Thus began my relationship with Portugal.

I had a few things in common with this group of Portu( geezers) for we had all come from different countries to try serve at the altar of rock n roll. I had just joined my first band in London called “Police and Thieves” and we had all gone to “The Parkinsons” show. After the show we met the band and they were super nice. We quickly forged a bond and began hanging out in the London garage rock scene playing shows and partying together . What a time to be alive, I found a musical mentor in the guitarist “Victor Torpedo” and he turned me onto a lot of cool bands such as Devo,Radio Birdman, The Cramps and Wall of Voodoo. At one point I was even lucky enough to play two gigs with the band when they were in between drummers.

This period of time has been documented in the release of The Parkinsons documentary “Long way to nowhere” . I even feature as a talking head in the documentary here is a link to the trailer.

I'm sure if you really want to find the actual documentary it is on torrent somewhere.

Following the demise of “The Parkinsons” the guitarists contacted me to be in a new band of his called “Blood Safari”. This band was to be less punk and more in the vein of “The Gun Club” and “Wall of Voodoo”. So I joined Blood Safari on drums and we got to go to Portugal 3 times to play some gigs. It was awesome and due to the guitarist’s fame from being in The Parkinson's and another band called “The Tedio Boys” the shows were packed and always fun. Here is a video from a gig in Lisbon.

Interesting fact about this video is , I was having a horrible time mentally. We had been rushed from our meal at a restaurant to playing. Needless to say I didn't feel well playing drums on a full stomach and was freaking out. Thus began a few years of being incredibly anxious for shows and being physically sick before and during shows. It became so frequent I would be sick in time to the beat so I wouldn't lose the groove. What I think my subconscious was trying to tell me was that this music dream was beginning to fade and I needed to do something else with my life. So I did what any punk did and got a degree in Economics, Politics and Philosophy. I returned to Portugal a few times to do some surfing trips but didn't play any music.

Fast forward to almost a decade later when a fan from one of the Blood Safari gigs gets in touch with me.I actually found a picture of him from a Blood Safari gig. Here is a picture of the fan (name Cunha) flipping me the bird during the gig.

He lives in London now and wanted to start a band. So we formed the band “Trash Culture” and now we are playing Portugal for the first time. So come and join me as I take you on my first tour back in Portugal.

tour diary to follow