Sharon is a punk. She has spiky hair and likes to wear ripped trousers, studded belts, dog collars and safety pins through her nose. Danielle is not. She is a girly girl and wears pretty dresses all the time. Funny how chalk and cheese get along so well.
Anyway, Sharon went to see a punk band recently and liked them so much, she felt she had to take Danielle along to see them. Amazingly, Danielle loved them too. This band is called Skid Mark and the Gussets.
Skid Mark, the lead singer and bass player of the Gussets
The lead singer and bassist is called, unsurprisingly, Skid Mark or, as he’s known to his close friends, Mark. The other band members are Freddy Gusset (guitar) and Pete Underpants (drums).
Freddy and Pete
So, what can we say about Skid Mark and the Gussets? Well, most people, including punks and skinheads, appear to think they’re absolutely, appallingly dreadful. Mark cannot sing a note (not that Sharon’s bothered), Freddy cannot play the guitar (he has only one hand) and Pete has no sense of rhythm. All of which Sharon thinks is nit-picking. They’re loud and obnoxious, just like she likes her music.
Take for instance their first, self-produced CD. It’s an EP entitled “Dirty Washing” and features 3 tracks: “I can’t do a poo without Sudoku”, which charts Mark’s battle with chronic constipation, “You’re Nick”, a track supposedly inspired by real life events, where Freddy was apparently mistaken for a friend by a policeman and thought for a minute he was being arrested, until they both realised their mistake and the policeman really did arrest him for riding a bicycle whilst under the influence of alcohol. Then there is Pete’s gentle lovesong, “I fell in love with a large painting of a woman in the stairwell”. These three tracks are reasonably representative of everything Skid Mark and the Gussets do: they all sound exactly the same (Mark is notorious for recycling lyrics – the choruses of “I can’t do a poo” and “I fell in love” are identical) and none of them can play their instruments, so thrash out the same the noise over Mark’s out of tune caterwauling. They have only sold one copy so far.
They have absolutely no stage presence whatsoever. Mark likes to crowd surf and frequently leaps into the crowd, which is probably a stupid thing to do because Sharon and Danielle, usually the only people there, will swiftly sidestep to avoid getting a boot in the face. Freddy thinks he can play guitar and leap up in the air at the same time. He can’t. He frequently falls over and has often fallen off the stage, usually when he’s completely off his head. Pete just beats the hell out of his drum kit and if he manages to get some semblance of a beat out of it, it is definitely a coincidence.
So, all in all the sort of band Sharon’s bound to like.
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
Words of Wisdom from Danielle and Sharon 