Richard Gregory at Quarantine mailed re the stuff I posted a couple of days ago on The Fall/Ajanta Cinema. (Oh, turns out my Fall thing was as I feared a re-post, from here where I posted it alongside some notes about Joy Division, so apologies for the repetition. It's hard to keep track of time around here.)

Richard wrote:

Just read your blog posting about the Ajanta. I saw the UK Subs there in '79 - the gig Aaron refers to. I think they were supported by Anti Pasti too (every gig in Derby at that time seemed to have Anti Pasti on the bill).  I know I went to the Ajanta but I remember so little about it. Stirred up lots of memories for me - Buzzcocks supported by Joy Division at the Assembly Rooms in '79 ("Love and peace Derby" : Pete Shelley with long white scarf around his head) and having to leave to catch the last bus back to Belper just as the Clash were playing White Riot - I think that was at the Kings Hall.... Ah, the olden days.

Didn't see The Fall until years later, at an Easter Monday gig in Manchester, supported by the then little-known Happy Mondays. This connects to a strange event for me. I went to that gig with my mate Mike (now a lecturer in philosophy, and working with me on my next piece, Make-believe).

About a year or two later I dj-ed regularly at a club in Leeds (the Phono, downstairs in the Merrion centre).  Got invited by a girl I didn't really know, Rebecca, who was a regular at the Phono, to dj at her birthday party in Liverpool.  Mike and I went over.  He was a student in Liverpool.  After the party (in some club that I don't remember) we went back to Rebecca's shared house.

Mike and I sat on the floor in her housemate's room, chatting in a roomful of people - all of them strangers to us.  I looked up and there on the wall was a photo of Rebecca and her housemate, grinning for the camera, at that Fall gig in Manchester.  Just over her shoulder, intently watching the band, was me and Mike.

In a later mail Richard added these fragments, too good not to share:

All that spitting...  Shame the spitting never crossed over into theatre.  I've seen a fair few shows I'd like to have spat at.

And this:

Great thing about the Phono was that it was run by two guys - identical bearded twins.  One worked the door, the other ran the bar.  I worked there for 3 months before i realised there were 2 of them.  I only knew because he offered me a lift home and - fuck - there was another one in the passenger seat.  I thought he was just very nippy between door and bar.

Aaron meanwhile sent the pic below of the band he was in back then (he's playing bass), here supporting TG, which means I must've seen The Corridor twice at least. Strange fucking country the past.