Steve, former bass player of The Keatons, emigrated to New Zealand this month. This is a shame for me, as it's nice to watch my former bandmates – the majority of whom are about 10 years older than me – get fat and old, while I remain comparatively youthful, supple, and taut of skin. It's great for him, though, as he's an utter misanthrope and there's not that many people knocking around in the part of New Zealand he's moved to.

Before he went, he sent me a stack of VHS videos of the band, on the promise that I'd digitise them and transfer them to DVD for him. To that end, I bought one of these, which is so far refusing to work properly. But still, watching them while wrestling with Firewire cables has given me a number of pleasant moments of nostalgia. Ideally I'd illustrate this piece with stills from the videos, but I'm “at work” so I can't, which is annoying. Still.

1) The band being interviewed in 1990 on late-night indie TV show Transmission, with our artist-in-residence Mo sellotaping pieces of sliced white bread to Steve's head while he attempts to talk seriously about the harsh financial realities of being in a band.

2) The band being interviewed a year later for the same programme by fledgling comedian Dennis Pennis, who hadn't yet thought of interviewing far more famous people than ourselves. I played “The Teddy Bear's Picnic” on my bassoon by Camden Lock, Steve wandered down the canal wearing a billboard saying “Keatons Rubbish – Punters To Sue In Retrospect”, and Dave – who had recently undergone a complete nervous breakdown – hid in some bushes covered in shaving foam, having first gaffer-taped a “K” onto his T-shirt in an attempt to transform into his alter-ego “Keaton Man”. He looks utterly confused and gives mono-syllabic answers to Mr Pennis, who has trouble holding the whole sorry mess together.

3) The launch party for our mini-album “Seven” at the Old Queens Head in an unsalubrious part of Stockwell. Mo celebrated by jumping on stage and attempting to clean all our teeth with a dilapidated toothbrush and a tube of Colgate. “I'm sure they're nice boys and love their mums,” said John Peel on his show the following week, “but the idea of sharing a toothbrush with all of The Keatons doesn't appeal to me.” Nor me. Steve ended the gig by holding up the record and saying “We've got some of these for sale, if anyone's even vaguely interested,” which kind of summed it all up.

4) A performance in Schaffhausen, Switzerland in 1993. Dave was extremely unwell and had stayed at home, so we played as a 4 piece, with Mo dressed in a red negligée and, predictably, annoying the audience with fireworks and cardboard. We had drunk far too much; I was onstage with my hair tied up in bunches (I used to have hair, you know), Kev was wearing his mum's jumper with a big cat on the front, and Steve walked onstage having stripped to his pants, placed a pink inflatable ring around his neck, sprayed targets on his nipples with black paint and tied an enormous chicken head onto his own head. He marched up to the microphone and said slightly slurringly to the crowd of Swiss teens: “Unbelievably, back home in Welwyn Garden City, I maintain a steady relationship.” No reaction, except a bloke in a leather jacket shouting “Punk Rock!” Steve's eyes were slightly glazed throughout, as he attempted to amuse himself in between the badly played songs accompanied by chaotic jumping around. “This song,” he began, giggling to himself, “this song is by, er, Charles Dickens, and it's called, um, Bleak House.” Silence.

So many appalling memories. I should write a book, about being in the worst band in the world. Except, actually, we were great. Ish.