Three years now since The Keatons ceased to be. Not particularly important that we existed or not, in the scheme of things, but I had the good fortune to look at a load of old photos last week and some of them were worth sharing.

Typical Keatons live shot from sometime in 1993. Left to Right, Steve, Dave, Mo, Kevin and myself. Drummer is obscured. Mo broke a rib diving onto those nasty railings at the front, and did two shows in agony.

Keatons press shot from 1994 for the ‘Beige Album’. Needless to say it was never used. We lived in far flung corners of the home counties and rarely assembled for things like photos, so Steve asked his elderly next door neighbours to sport stupid masks. They happily agreed. Note the string of pearls at the front, which I particularly like.

First gig in 1986 at the Hammersmith Clarendon. Note very thin Steve on bass and Dave wearing ridiculous shades. Neil, lead singer and songwriter, takes centre stage. He got bored of playing gigs in 1990 and let other people sing instead, he just sent us a tape of songs every six months.

This is 1989 and the first single ‘Residivistish’ has just been released. Steve looks endearingly jagged (so said Melody Maker) and you can glimpse original drummer Ken behind the kit, with his big hair. This show got an absolute slagging from Everett True. We filled the venue with cardboard, jugglers, video booths and so on, and the best adjective he could come up with was ‘enterprising’. We almost didn’t play at all when the fire officer turner up on a routine inspection. We were finally banned from the Falcon a few months later when a gay poet friend of ours came on in a bride’s outfit and decided to completely disrobe.

Another shot from the same show. Mo started appearing regularly with the band about this time and did various performance art things along with the songs. We probably pissed off far more people than we pleased, but we weren’t really that bothered, e.g. Mo gets paint on some band’s cymbals, who proceed to get angry and violent. Mo agrees to clean it off, and does so in the toilets with his own piss.

Action shot from one of the top three Keatons gigs ever. Where was it, you ask. The Marquee? Er, no, it was in some pub in small Scottish seaside resort of Gourock, where the basement was below sea level and we had to play standing on pieces of sodden cardboard.

More Scottish fun. Our tour of Scotland in 1990 BEGAN in Stornoway, in the Outer Hebrides, on a Monday night. We were begging people to come in. In the end about 15 people went for it. Simon is singing, Neil couldn’t handle the thought of driving no stop for 20 hours, and he was probably right.

Later that year Blur asked us to support them in their UK tour. Here’s the photo to prove it happened. Drunken drummer, bored looking Mr Coxon. Steve enjoys the attention. We were thrown off the tour after 4 gigs for being ‘unprofessional’.

More absurd line-up changes. Ken, once the drummer, sings. Simon, once a singer, plays guitar. This was a three guitar onslaught from the Bull and Gate with lots of important people in the audience. Needless to say, we were complete shit. And excuse me while I shed a nostalgic tear over my home made bIG fLAME t-shirt.

We ended up going abroad a hell of a lot cos no-one in the UK thought we were any good. This shot is from the freezing wastes of France on our tour with Foreheads in a Fishtank in 1992. Left to right, Jez (Foreheads) Steven (Keatons) Dave (Keatons) me (Keatons) Kim (official mascot) Matt (Foreheads) Steve (Keatons) Adrian (Foreheads) Jeff (Foreheads). Gain (Foreheads) takes the pic. Highlight of this tour was Jeff getting busted for Ecstasy on the Franco-Belgian border and ALL of us having to strip naked in front of a moustachioed Belgian border guard. Bastard. Jeff and the guard, that is.

Three pics from a show on that tour in Ville Neuve Sur Lot, town in the middle of fucking nowhere where fucking nothing happens. Despite that, no-one showed as is abundantly clear from this first pic. We were supported (tho we persuaded them to go on last) by shit local band ‘The Zeros’. They played, using our gear, for 90 minutes, to about 5 of their friends in this hall the size of a B&Q warehouse. They were so bad, I can’t describe. French punk-rock of the worst kind. Dave turned to me after an hour, looked at me with big, sad eyes and said ‘I’m so fed up.’

Anyway we played, and just went for it. Jumped off the stage and enjoyed ourselves.

Steve fell over.

Kev by now was singing all the time. Here’s a lovely shot of him upstairs at the Laurel Tree in Camden. I think this was our last London gig.

More London fun. The Samuel Beckett was in the middle of nowhere and was a late gig with no apparent means of getting home afterwards. We played there a lot. Here we see Mo in his sheep costume. Whenever we played an outdoor show he would don this an graze quietly for 20 minutes or so, take it easy.

We’re in the Czech Republic. A four week tour with no money AT ALL. We were starving. This is the thinnest picture of me in existence. Anyway, a studio in Decin recording last album ‘Ex Vide Betamaxi In Honda Cotopaxi’. In case you think we are all wankers, it’s a carefully posed picture.

Outside the studio in Decin. We took advantage of the presence of a photographer to take more amusing stills for the archives. Kev in hat and sandals, me and Steve with pipes. Dave was in bed. We had given up any hope of being successful by this point.

What was I saying about giving up hope of being successful? Here we are backstage at the Bunkr in Prague. Steve is dressed like a chicken. He went out on stage and said ‘You may be surprised to hear that back in Britain I manage to hold down a steady relationship.’

Mo in full effect, also in Prague. Sexy, huh?

Lastly, for your enjoyment, a QUO style pic of me and Steve. Who said rock and roll is dead???