TONIGHT sees the start of my band Barnstormer 1649’s 30th anniversary celebrations.

Our first gig was at the Jericho Tavern, Oxford  on November 5 1994. Tonight we’re playing Florence Park Community Centre in the same town, and as I write this there are still tickets on the door.

Tomorrow lunchtime we’re at the lovely Bell Inn in Bath, starting 1pm — I’ll be doing an opening spoken word set at both. Time for a reminisce…

After I started as Attila in 1980 I always knew I’d form a band one day alongside my solo work, and when I did, in mid-1994, it came fully formed.

Having seen them in action, I recruited Brighton’s chaotic, beer-sodden, toilet humour-obsessed, musically brilliant punk/music hall crossover pioneers The Fish Brothers: M M McGhee on drums, Martin Fish on guitar and Dan Woods on bass.

But for our first two gigs Dan played lead guitar, his main instrument. I didn’t need a lead guitarist, but I’d had an offer I didn’t want to refuse — and I knew that by the nature of things it would be a short-term one.

Dan and McGhee were both accomplished musicians working with all kinds of people, among others punk legend Captain Sensible. I knew Captain as an affable Brighton-dwelling Palace  renegade and occasional Evening Star drinking buddy.

When I told him I was getting a band together with his guitarist and drummer he said he wanted to join on bass.
 
“Don’t be silly, mate. You’ll be off gigging or be dragged onto some stupid TV game show next week!” (apart from the Damned and his solo work, outfall from Happy Talk was still rippling gently out of the pipe 12 years later).

But Captain assured me that he was going to be free for a bit, so I thought “What the hell.” I knew it wouldn’t last, but I knew it would be perfect for the initial plans: a few British gigs and then the main stuff, my first tour of Germany with my own band rather than solo. I had developed a good following there, and having Captain on bass — at least on the posters — was definitely the Sensible thing to do.

We learned the songs I had been preparing for years in a couple of rehearsals — incredible, instinctive musicianship all round. And all the time I was thinking about a name. For some reason unbeknown to me, but rooted in my life as a coastal dweller and sea angler with a soft spot for flatfish, I decided to call my new band Flounder.

Yes, I know. For the vast majority, oblivious as you are to the world of muddy harbours, “to flounder” means “to be completely crap.” For me it was a coastal flatfish. I’d always had a thing about flatfish. My 1983 debut album Ranting At The Nation had been subtitled More Poems About Flatfish And Russians.

I was used to being niche, but I soon realised this was far too niche for my own good, and Flounder lasted as long as Captain Sensible. Two gigs. Oxford and Brighton. The moment I heard him on the phone, I knew. “Sorry, John…”

But the first two gigs as Flounder and the tour of Germany both went really well, despite the ludicrous nomenclature and the fact that Sensible was on the poster but not the stage.  

The band was set. The name Barnstormer came soon afterwards.

And here we are, after 30 years, five albums and hundreds of gigs all over Britain, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, plus a few in France, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary and Italy.

My original idea of combining early music and punk, very much to the fore on our first album, faded for the next few and came roaring back with the fifth, the 2018’s Restoration Tragedy, the definitive album for what I set out to achieve all those years ago, which is why I added the “1649” to the name.  

Dan sadly died in 2019 and other band members came and went: Tommy Muir, David Beaken, Jason Pegg, Tim O’Tay. Our current line-up is guitarist Sean Cox, aka Sean the Hippy,  bassist Dave “Captain” Cook, and the ever-present McGhee. They’re all lovely — and they all still play in the Fish Brothers.

Thirty very enjoyable years. Thanks to all!

My lively and interactive Facebook presence is www.facebook.com/attilathestockbrokerhttp://www.facebook.com/attilathestockbroker, also Instagram @attilathestockbroker and Twitter @atilatstokbroka.