Coma Ray My first real band

Being on the dole in Liverpool in the early 90's gave you three choices - you either spent fruitless hours wandering around Orwellian job centres, took to drugs or joined a band (and quite often ended up indulging in all three at once).

Luckily I knew a few guys in a band; we shared similar music tastes and a vacancy had arisen for a bass player. So I joined Coma Ray (as they were known) in 1991, playing bass (which I could barely do at the time, but hey, that's rock'n'roll...). So it came to pass we punctuated those endless dole days making our 'sonic noise terrorism', and generally annoying anyone within earshot. You see, these were the days when Indie music was cool and My Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Sonic Youth and the Pixies were our heroes.

Looking back now we made some pretty original music, but we were too far from the mainstream to ever really appeal to a wide audience, and too damn wrapped up in our own little world to even care. Still, we had some good times, quite a few bad ones and the sense that we tried something new...