Many people go to Amsterdam for many reasons. Three young lads from Carlisle in 1986 went to Amsterdam to play music, all else was secondary; and played music we did, every night around the centre of Amsterdam, in squats, on street corners, for radio and for private parties. Sure we saw the strip shows and tasted, smelled, drank all the substances we wanted…but our drug of choice was music, and that we hammered every night for 3 months.

The Red Aligatorz were no more, we had renamed ourselves “The Lonesome Pump Attendants” Wotto had stayed in Carlisle, but the rest had regrouped in Holland.

We met some amazing people: Daddy Glass, Pop Dick and Harry, a solo Irish lad from Dublin who sang U2 songs better than U2 (well that is not hard). One man who stood out was Papa Joe, all the way from Indiana US of A. He came along half way through our set and took out his banjo and played a long and we saw him every night for all the time he was there. His legs would fly out and he danced and strummed and finger picked through our skiffle and rockabilly set, a true gent.

But when we were not playing I think we would get bored, we would sit around and read, play to ourselves, go for walks, or a bike ride, smoke cigars or cigarettes drink coffees or have a beer. Time would pass slowly, we lived for the night to play, to get cheered and to get paid. After playing, about 1am we would go off for a bag of “fries” and a beer, go to our local bar “Onnies” and drink until the early morning. Once we played Onnies bar on my birthday, and a good night it was! I was particularly partial to Dutch Gin.

This is a recording the 3 of us in Amsterdam, killing time before the evening busking. Swanny is playing Slide guitar, I am strumming my mandolin and Ellie is playing double bass.