Tap O' Lauriston, Edinburgh, 9th April 1999 with Sven Hassel

1999 was the year of winning Battle of the Bands competitions. In April we became the first ever winners of The Tap O' Lauriston Battle of the Bands. We were an extremely late entry. Norri had unilaterally decided that we weren't going to go in for it. The rest of us decided multilaterally to ignore him, paid our entry fee at the last minute and sort of elbowed our way onto the bill for one of the first round heats. To be honest, this wasn't very fair on some of the other bands. Most of them were young and starting up, while we were experienced Tap veterans. We knew we could draw a crowd there and we knew we'd go down well. We also benefited because most of the other more established bands that could have given us a run had deigned it below them to enter. Not us, we could win four hundred big ones here.

The deal was made a bit more risky because we could make a hundred quid by playing The Tap normally. Here we were agreeing to play for nothing all the way through and hope that we won. It was a bit of a gamble. Our one previous attempt at a Battle of the Bands had come in Leven in 1996.

(Flashback, Biancos, Leven 1996, in between suspicious fires

We were up against The Troops from Kennoway and The Surf City Rockers from Newcastle. There was no way the Rockers were going to win because there was no panel of judges, just punters in the crowd voting and no-one had come just to see them. (Since when could Newcastle be called Surf City, anyway?) The Troops were one of these reformed punk bands from the early eighties with the significant difference being that they hadn't had any success first time round either. They travelled in a butcher's van, had brought all their Kennoway buddies with them. Their Kennoway buddies were now mid-thirties and looked like they'd dressed up for a night at the bingo. 'We shouldn't have any problem here,' we thought.

As it turned out, not many people came from Glenrothes to see us because Leven is a dive and not many people from Glenrothes, a slightly less divier dive, ever go there if they can avoid it. We must have had virtually every non-Troops person in the place voting for us, but - and this is the comedy bit - we didn't know we were allowed to vote for ourselves. We lost by - ta da! - seven votes. The real comedy is that The Troops weren't even the second best band that night.

The whole thing was a bit of fix anyway. If you want me to be really cynical, and I'm gonna be, it was organised by Ned and Jacko (as mentioned earlier) to raise a bumper pot of cash for their new pet band Bonafide from Dalgety Bay. I went to college with a guy from Bonafide and, although they're just a bit too obviously Rage Against The Machiney, you can't help but quite like them. Bonafide duly won the final by a ridiculously large margin and scooped their bumper pot of cash. Remember that Blackadder scene with the by-election in the rotten burgh?)

Top: Lynne as the creepiest nun in Edinburgh. Above: Norman keeps his dignity despite being attacked in his pants

Back to The Tap, 1999. Shamefully, I can't remember who we played with in the first round. It could have been someone called SPOON, that sounds familiar. What I do recall is that most of the other bands didn't turn up and all our pals voted for us to get us into the second round. There was a bit of a doubt about this because most of our pals are twisted bastards and we really had to impress on everyone that, 'look, there's cash up for grabs here, goan dinnae fuck around, eh?'

We thought that this was us in the final. Sixteen bands had entered originally. Four heats of four bands each (albeit two pulled out of our one) then a final with the four winners. Nope, there was now going to be two semi-finals of two bands and then a grand final after that. The Tap were certainly going to get their £400 worth.

So we all came back a couple of weeks later. The scars of that embarrassing night in Leven being beaten by the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker were still there so we had to drag all our friends along as well, and make sure that they voted. We beat DUD LOAD from Cupar who had a collective age of slightly less than Skinz and I combined. As with the last round it was kind of an unfair fight, this was their first gig in The Tap and we were giving out free Bucky as usual. Suspicions may have been aroused by the distribution of flyers directly after the result was announced advertising the final, with our name already printed on it. It wasn't a fiddle, it was just obvious we were going to win.

The final was to be between us and SVEN HASSEL, led by Norri's cousin Gerry. Obviously everyone was remembering the 1991 Scottish Cup Final, the Family Final, Dundee United versus Motherwell, Jim McLean versus Tommy McLean, but with us being from Glenrothes and SVEN HASSEL being from Livingston there was never likely to be any love lost. On a more serious note this Battle of the New Towns gave us a more tangible change of losing than we had counted on. SVEN HASSEL were only a few gigs old but were getting better every time. With us as the long standing Tap regulars we'd look like right goats if we lost this one.

We're all good friends with Gerry, he's driven a van down to England for us in the past. We play football in the same team, or at least we did until he dislocated his shoulder just before I wrote this. In the run-up to the family final his shoulder was operating perfectly. It also turned out that, years before we'd met Norri for the first time, Gerry had been in SWINE FLU on the night LD50 died at The Hawkshill Hotel. And he was going out with my ex-girlfriend. How much spice do you want in a final? They could have had Dolly playing bass, I suppose.

There was about two weeks between our semi-final and the final. To cover prizes and stuff it was decided to charge on the door of The Tap for the first time that I can remember. It was only a pound but it's the thought that counts. Gerry was winding us up, putting on a straight face and giving it, 'we're just glad to be in the final', 'we hope we don't put on too bad a show' and all that shit. He knew and we knew that this would be far from a foregone conclusion - Gerry's a very popular guy.

We put maximum effort into our build-up; Lynne made a couple of nun costumes for her and Rod, Norri dusted down his old Satan get-up, we distributed a bunch of flyers claiming Rod's son needed an eye operation, every trick in the book. We stock-piled Buckfast, got in paper cups to bribe everyone and, fucking hell, even practised twice in one week. Dave Peggie arranged for a bus-load of GRUNTS punters to come through to cast their votes. If we could have booked a couple of nights in a hotel at Troon we would have done.

We turned up on the night and you could almost cut the excitement with a knife. Gerry, the sneaky cunt, had pulled a new haircut out of the bag. Half black, half white, it looked smart and would surely by worth a few votes in the totting up. I looked round our band and all I saw was mousy hair, grey hair, dull dull dull.

Then came the real fuck-up for us. It is always an advantage going on last at any gig but particularly in the Battle of the Bands. The voting is done once the last band finishes which means that if people want to vote for the first band they have to sit through the second (who they may hate) before they can exercise their democratic right. Also, if someone is unsure who they liked better then being the freshest memory helps - 'who was first again? What like were they? I cannae mind, I'm just going to go for that guy with the panda haircut.' So it came time to decide who's going on first. Me, Gerry, Gav and possibly someone else from SVEN HASSEL are in the corner of the bar with a coin. It's us to call.

'Tails never fails,' I say.

'So Heads then?' says Gav, confused I assume.

Gerry tosses the coin and it comes down Tails.

'We're on second then,' says Gerry.

'Fucking hell, I said Tails,' I protest.

'Did you fuck, man,' says Gerry, smiling.

'I fucking did,' I argue wittily.

'Come on, Adam, just leave it,' wimps Gav.

Gerry is off and celebrating his going-on-last coup. I don't want to make too big a deal about it and seem like a big greeting face bastard. Gerry's my pal and maybe he didn't actually cheat us but, man, he jumped the gun; we hadn't decided. I always go for fucking Tails. Gav and I were, I thought, weighing up options till I bullied him round to Tails. Nobody had said our final answer. Gerry will never get the job on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire when Tarrant's had enough. I tell Gav he's a prick for, 1) calling Heads - only pricks call Heads and 2) wimping out when we could have got best three out of five. Stand your ground, man.

Listen to me, a year later and I'm still ranting on about a disputed toss of the coin. How sad am I? How cheated was I?

So they're on second, bastards. We're on first and we better make it fucking good because it seems that everyone in the boozer is from Livingston. It's been a long time since The Tap has seen a crowd this big. We go on, give away loads of Bucky, play great have a great time and then come off, to wait to be gazumped by the Livvy mob.

SVEN HASSEL, likewise, play great. A couple of nights before the gig Gerry had offered to take the punk sharing spirit route and split the prize money equally but, hard nosed and cocky bastards that we are we opted to fight for the reddies. Norri wanted to take it, his anti-competition Crass streak coming to the fore. .Just before the result is announced and just after SVEN HASSEL have finished their storming set I too would have settled for the punk sharing spirit option.

It came to vote casting time. There had been some debatable voting carry-ons in previous rounds and so this time Andy Vannan (who was in charge of the whole thing) stood stony-faced at the front making sure that everyone got one and only one voting slip. We all ran about the pub trying to make sure everyone Glenrothes-minded got a voting slip. I had to get everyone off the bus Dave Peggie had organised. They were all sitting about getting stoned and weren't going to bother voting. 'Come on, come on - we neeeed you. Do it for Glenrothes.' I ran the risk of Livvy wrath by suggesting to a couple of their punters that they might like to vote for us.

Rod's girlfriend Sharon managed to get her hands on two voting slips. She was a friend of Gerry's as well and so, in a futile effort not to take sides she cast a vote for each band. What's the point in that, Shaz? My brother also likes SVEN HASSEL and I had to pull some serious family emotional blackmail to get his vote. Skinz and I only managed to vote ourselves at the last minute. I still thought we'd lost.

The moment of truth arrived. We were all summoned to the front. Skinz had gone missing somewhere but the rest of us were there. Andy Vannan reads out the votes, predictably slipping in 'Jockney Rejects 1,000 votes...'. My heart was in my mouth. Everyone standing at the front seemed to be from Livingston, not a very good sign. Andy read out our score first. I thought that was a pretty bad sign as well. I was determined to keep a big grin on my face even when it was announced that we'd lost.

We won by 75 votes to 69. Bear in mind that there are seven of us in our band and only four in theirs, which gives us a three vote head start. Andy Vannan told me that he thought we'd lost when he read our score out first. Can you no count, ya big daft Hibbie?

We get a big cardboard cheque from the 'Bank of Punk'. First prize is £400, second prize is £75. To ease our punk consciences we give SVEN HASSEL £75 of our money. We'd also been given a big crate of beer at the start of the night but predictably, given all the scrounging Glenrothes bastards we've dragged along, we get very little of it ourselves. SVEN HASSEL still have all their crate but then they're big guys. I wouldn't steal their beer. The Space Kittens - aye, two of them are lassies. Four tasty guys fae Livvy? No way.

I bagsy the big cardboard cheque. Unfortunately, after the initial euphoria it turns out to be pretty useless. It's just another piece of junk sitting around my house. Last time I saw it it was behind a wardrobe. I'm trying to get some other member of the band to take it but nobody's interested - 'eh, what the fuck would I want with a big stupid cardboard cheque?' The thing is I'm a hellish hoarder and there's no way I'm throwing it out. I can see me at seventy still having a big stupid cardboard cheque behind my wardrobe. I bet you your granddad disnae have one of those.

Above: Six sevenths of The Newtown Grunts and a big stupid cardboard cheque