A meal in itself.

When my parents first moved to Somerset, I took the opportunity to drive my mother’s terrible Suzuki Jimny to Exeter, to see what it was like, and to check out Manson’s guitar store, about which I had heard much. At the time, which was around 2003, Glasgow had Sound Control, McCormacks, Merchant City Music, and CC Music as its principle guitar stores, and as Manson’s was in the exotic south west I felt I must check it out.

On the noticeboard, there was an advert for a singer, and as I had, at the time, planned to stay in the South West, I thought I’d give the number a ring. I spoke to some guy, where I discovered that my zeal for getting into bands didn’t match my ability to drive the best part of an hour and a half each way for practice, and the conversation came to a close.

Two years later, I had moved back to Glasgow, met the lady who would become my wife, been to Canada and moved back to the South West, to Exeter, where I once again found myself stood in front of the noticeboard, in front of the same advert. Though I’d forgotten all about calling it the first time, especially as two years had passed and I wouldn’t have associated it with the previous advert, I rang that number and spoke to the same guy. This time, we met in the Kings Arms, where I felt intimidated by the three large men who would shake my hand. The irony that the member who wasn’t there was 6’7″ is not lost on me.

Three years down the line, I found myself screaming my way through yet another set with this very band, having recorded a record called The Great Wide Hope. Released on Bored Stiff Records by Andy Dicker from Codex Alimentarius, it would go on to be special in Exeter, but nowhere else. We were extremely proud of it, and as it heralded my return to proper live performance following the extremely painful dissolution of my former band, Cat Kills Six, it was something of a crucial landmark.

It is presented below as both a show of what once was, and a sorrowful monolith, as the second record, The Widening, was never recorded, and is unlikely to be.