Tim Lebbon – horror and dark fantasy author

Well they go together so well, don’t they?

Last Saturday my mate Gareth Morgan (he’s the drummer here) and set off to Cardiff to see Motorhead on their new Motorizer tour.  We started the day off with a nice slow afternoon drinking real ale (who wouldn’t?), visiting a couple of interesting pubs along the way.  There’ll be more about that on the beer blog Blog O’ Beer very soon, so watch out for that.  One incident of note to some of those reading this will be when I bumped into an old friend in the Rummer Tavern – Darren Floyd!  Darren was formerly head honcho at Razorblade Press, who published two very early books of mine Faith in the Flesh and Hush.  It was good to see him and have a quick chat, though he made sure to say he wasn’t writing horror anymore.

On to the Student’s Union in Cardiff for the gig, and we completely missed the first act Danko Jones whilst queuing to get in.  Shame. The bar there served Tetley’s beer out of a can for about £3.00, so I had to control my gag reflex to have a couple more pints.

Saxon were … Saxon.  My favourite band back in the mid-80s (and my mid-teens), their music still brings a nostalgic smile to my face.  But I can’t help thinking about the makers of Spinal Tap apparantly following Saxon around on tour before making the movie …

“We are Motorhead, and we play Rock and Roll.”  And so they did.  Very loudly.  Now, I’m not complaining. If I go to see Motorhead, I don’t expect to be able to sit down, have a cup of tea and talk politics and the state of the world with my mate.  But this was so loud that the songs were completely distorted … and I know them all.  Example: Lemmy said they were going to do a Thin Lizzy cover.  Great!  Lizzy are still one of my favourite bands, and it would be great to hear Motorhead’s take on one of their classic tunes.  But the sound was so distorted that it took me half a song to identify Rosalie.

Last week, Flogging Molly were bloody loud, but I could hear the songs, and every word Dave King said.  Lemmy needs to kick some sound engineer ass.

Oh well, maybe I’m just getting old.  The one surprising (pleasantly so) moment was when 5 strippers came on stage during Killed By Death.  Obviously professional ladies (and checking the Motorhead Forum, I think they were The Fuel Girls), they gyrated and writhed, and came very close to taking everything off without actually being naked (licensing laws, I suspect).  They hung from Lemmy afterwards, and it looked like the cover of an old Gor novel.  Lucky sod.

So, that was Motorhead!  Their new album is great – better than Kiss of Death, though still not quite up to the standards of Inferno for me.  And let’s face it, in his early 60s, Lemmy still knows how to deliver.

Last night I visited a small seaside town with my wife and two kids.  I made a trip into a book shop, raising a weak smile from my wife … it’s pretty normal, after all.  She said she’d take the kids off for a meal.

For a small seaside bookstore, I was delighted to see that they had a sign up stating “BERSERK – coming soon!” (even given that BERSERK is not yet published in the UK).  I asked the owner if he liked authors signing their books, and he said, “No worries, I’ve got a bloke in the shop who signs them all.”

“How the hell can he do that?” I asked.  “How can he sign my book with my name?”

“Oh, he doesn’t.  He signs every book William.”

Whereupon we had an argument. What as strange, strange dream.  So if anyone out there finds any of my books signed by ‘William’, please do tell me … and there’ll be a novel in there somewhere, I’m sure.

Today, I’m off to Cardiff with my mate Gareth to sample some splendid real aleas, and then this evening we’ll be watching Motorhead, Saxon and Danko Jones.  Seen Motorhead many, many times, so tonight I hope Lemmy’s in a good mood.  Saxon … what a blast from the past!

Full report soon.  Watch out for William the Imposter.