Gaz E writes; It was May 2009 and, while the seeds were being planted for Uber Rock's launch a few months later, there was still plenty of time for quality gig going and, that year, it didn't get much better than the four band bill that almost levelled the tiny downstairs room of a valleys pub. Seriously, the room was as big as someone's living room and the crowd was face to face with the bands as they played. French krust-punks Viktims and their garage punk countrymen Hellscrack had been booked into the Gwesty in Brynmawr and were to be supported by This System Kills (with whom Viktims had released a split album in 2006, 'Victims Of This System'), featuring legendary frontman Pig, and Bad Samaritans (as Bad Sam were still called then) featuring former Cowboy Killers frontman Beddis and when they met, as you will find out, it was moider.....

"I'm from Ebbw Vale originally, I used to live in the Rassau, so I know Pig and This System Kills and Zoot and all them lot and we used to do mushrooms and mad shit and a lot of my mates from then, sadly, are dead, from drugs and alcohol and suicide, and the other half are on their way. If I go to Ebbw Vale now it's for funerals, which is really sad, it really upsets me but, y'know, we were the bastard offspring of Thatcher. Fucking cunt....

I wanted to change the name of the band to Thatcher's Orphans or Orphans Of Thatcher...cunt, but there we go....

So when I go back up the valleys it just does my head in, I go mental, and that gig in Brynmawr, well, I just went into a mad one with my mates. I was drinking Jack Daniel's and vodka and that bucket thing that Pig gives out with all the spirits and all that. The thing is, it's not pretentious; some of the punks and the metalheads they try too fucking hard, it's all "we're gonna be mad, we're gonna be mental" whereas us valleys boys are just naturals.

I just got so paralytic, I sat on the Hellscrack merch table and snapped it in half, but the gig was great; in your face, no stage, everybody going fucking mad...but in a good way....

So I went back home and forgot that the missus had two friends from work over to stay who I'd never met before. So I went into the front room to say hello to them and I was messing about - "Oi, ya fucking cunts, who are you?" - so my missus said I'd better go to bed. So I went upstairs, stripped off naked and came back downstairs trying to get into the front room to talk to them, then I was crying and crawling around on the kitchen floor naked, crawling around like a dog. I went back upstairs and spewed into the bed and I was crying and I thought I was gonna die - I had been told not to drink anymore after being in a heavy dependency unit in the 90s with pancreatitis - I can't remember everything that happened but I remember the spewing because I woke up covered in it, the mattress and the quilt and everything was covered in vomit.

My missus tried to sleep on the settee but couldn't because she thought I was gonna spew and choke to death and she's telling her friends "He's not usually like this" and they think I'm about to get into the room and kill them.

But I can't drink spirits and every time I go back up the valleys Pig tries to give me spirits and other shit. The first time I went back up there after the Brynmawr gig was to play Slugfest last year and Pig was trying to give me spirits...and when I went back home my missus had mates there again! But when I see Pig we just fall back into being kids again.....

I was in the house the one day and my missus thought I was off again; the ventriloquist dummy (from the Bad Sam album cover who lives in my house) is called Corky, and I've got a mate called Corky as well. I said to the missus "Fuckin' hell, I've just had a text off Corky, I'm meeting him in town later" and she's like "....he's in the cupboard..." and I'm like "Not him, you stupid bastard - my mate Corky, not the ventriloquist dummy" but she thought I was losing the plot......again."

Live photo kudos to Darrel Sutton