Yes, it's come and gone. I made it along though, and was rewarded with the opportunity to hear Mr. Odd , Sister Death , President Chang , She's A Yo-Yo , She's On Drugs , Our Friends The Filth , and Bakersfield . i.e. the same old set list they've been playing for 18 months.

Chiefly notable thing about this particular performance was Dooj Wilkinson dressed up in a very convincing "Grim Reaper" outfit, with scythe, cape and silly makeup. Something to do with the Mexican Day of the Dead, apparently.

My brother Sam and I accosted Pat and co. afterwards, and asked why they never play " Chickentown " in Northampton. Pat seemed to think it was a good idea. Very doubtful whether anyone in Northampton would twig what he was singing about.

Gabriel Turner admirably said he had been in favour of not playing Mr. Odd this time out, but he had been over-ruled by Pat. That makes it about 9 gigs I've been to, and they've played Mr. Odd at every one. (And Sister Death too, come to think of it, but that's fair enough)

News on the recording front is good. David J. is said to be hard at work mixing the 17 tracks Pat and the gang laid down over the last few weeks. Pat says it's very upbeat. Plenty of songs in the Pineapple Tuesday / Penguins mode.

Other thing Pat mentioned was that he has managed to visit the WWW site, and was very disappointed not to be able to find the sample of the audience at Creation's Albert Hall gig shouting "Fuck Off" in Czech.

The rest of the benefit was pretty interesting: a college band with a would-be John Lydon lead singer trying desperately to impress the record industry types who may or may not have been there, and a punk-noise band (not unlike Rollins Band, I suspect) who were excellently loud and mindless.

Pat sensibly declined the offer to headline after these guys, but had a great time beforehand playing over their fuck loud P.A. . Makes a change from Slurps, at least. President Chang became a theatrical noise experience info not a million miles from Sonic Youth (almost).