\m/ Rockbitch are so NSFW that it's not even funny. \m/

No, seriously guys, I mean... You've read various posts about the pale underbelly of my life... You've read details of events that may even have nipped at the edges of illegality... Actually, you may well have seen the odd post that tore great chunks out illegality and spat it out whilst laughing maniacally and poking at a koala bear with a greased herring.

You've even read about the time I was trapped in a darkened room with a load of wild transvestites, and had my photograph taken for a German Fetish Magazine.

But this one...

It may not be for everyone... You should probably be at least 18 to read this.

And if you've ever been offended by anything, ever, don't read this either.

Don't get me wrong, everything that happened was between consenting adults and whilst money had changed hands... Well... It was still technically just a Gig.

-oOo-

It was just prior to the dawn of the New Millennium, and I was working for a global producer of aeroplane engines during the day, and drinking copious amounts of alcohol at night.

The pub I spent a lot of my time in was The Victoria Inn, opposite the main railway station in Derby which was at the time, and still is, one of the country's leading alternative live music venues.

This particular day, I was having a conversation with the landlord about the bands that he was putting on and the see-saw, swings and roundabouts situation that you get where 'Cover' or 'Tribute' bands are always very popular, but up and coming original bands are a bit more 'honest' but don't drag as many people across the threshold, if you know what I mean.  there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing and it all got a bit philosophical until I mentioned a band that I'd only recently heard of, that I thought might well bring in the punters.

They were a bunch of melodious young ladies who sailed under the sobriquet of 'RockBitch'

Do feel free to Google them, but maybe not from a PC at your place of work.

For those of a shy (or quite sensible) disposition, I will give you a quick rundown of the, now sadly defunct, band.

They were a group of young ladies, who I believe at the time all lived together in a polyamorous, pagan, feminist community based in a chateaux, somewhere in France. They all knew each other very, very well. And were not hugely shy about showing their friendliness towards each other on or off stage.  In fact, they weren't shy about showing their friendliness towards themselves either.  In their spare time, they played pagan, feminist, empowering rock music... Which, if I'm honest relied more on the fact that they didn't wear very much than on any huge technical ability, don't get me wrong, they all knew how to play their respective instruments but, well, you know, boobs 'n' stuff.

Fast forwarding a month or so, the band was booked and it was discovered that 'The Vic' wasn't big enough to deal with the number of perverts that had said that they were interested in buying tickets, so a deal was struck with a local Rock club, 'The Rockhouse' to host the gig.

Then someone 'leaked' to the local paper that an all-girl hardcore sex-show was coming to the peaceful little hamlet of Derby-on-Derwent, which generated a potload of free publicity and increased the number of interested parties no end - Everyone was holding their breath, waiting for the gig to get cancelled, and everyone was very surprised when it wasn't.

I had the bright idea of getting some of my workmates to attend, as I'd been trying to get them to come out for a beer for a while, most of them were contractors who only lived locally during the week and went home to their loved ones at the weekend, and would otherwise just have been say in their digs, staring at the 1950s wallpaper and drinking 'Happy Shopper' lager.  To a man, they all said 'Yes'. (Please note, one of my workmates was almost seven feet tall, remember this, it pops up later)

The Gig Itself...

Now, I've seen the 'band' at the same venue twice now, once with Mrs Dandy and once without, and I can't for the life of me remember which time this was, I'm sure she'll remind me later, not that it matters hugely I suppose.

It all started off fairly normally, I suppose the band were gauging their audience and the stage was about 40 deep with 99.5% men,crammed together so tightly that you couldn't get a cigarette-paper between them. 

I remember looking at the back of this one chaps head and thinking, "why has that guy got a swimming cap on?' It was only when he turned that I saw the anatomically improbable phallus protruding from the front of it which the lead guitarist 'perched herself upon' repeatedly at various points during the evening.  

There were a couple of moments where the band members 'Openly celebrated each others femininity' via the medium of digital manipulation (No, I don't mean Photoshop) Which, if I remember correctly, raised more applause than any of the songs.

Then about halfway through the show, everything kind of stopped... The vocalist (who was excitingly named 'The Beast') called for quiet and produced from somewhere (She didn't have any pockets that I could make out) a condom, in a golden wrapper, which she held high in the air.  there was a short speech about female empowerment, women's rights to enjoy themselves however they saw fit and all sorts of other things that no-one was particularly listening to.

She then cast the item like a prophylactic Frisbee into the crowd.

Remember my altitudinally blessed colleague?  Well, he reached out one of his baboon like arms and plucked it, unthinkingly, from the air. (I kept my hands firmly by my sides through the entire sordid ordeal, obviously)

He grinned gormlessly at me and shouted into my ear, 'What did I win?' - I pointed at the band, who were all alternating between frantically gesturing him forward and doing that over-the-head handclap and shouting 'Woo' thing.

What he'd won, as some of you may already know (especially those of you who ignored my advice and Googled the band) was to spend the time that it took the band to play the next song, with an extended guitar solo, in the dressing room, in flagrante delicto, with a member of the band.  He toddled towards the stage, and was led away by a pretty young lady who looked him up and down as if trying to work out whether he was totally in proportion or not.

It seems that he probably was, as she came out as the song was drawing to a close, naked but for her boots, and asked them to play it over again.

-oOo-

These are the wonderful ladies from around the time in question, sorry it's not a great photograph, but it's quite difficult to find a decent picture where they're actually wearing clothes.

What? you were expecting them to be ugly?

New balls please.

Should you ever see me in the street, (and that sort of counts on you knowing who I am I suppose) what would the first thought be?

Would it be 'I say, he's reasonably tall.' or 'What a splendid beard that man has, I shall make it my life's work to become his faithful man/woman servant.' or 'What was that awful baconny smell?'

One thing it probably wouldn't be is 'That fine figure of a man there, is a natural sportsman, I should bow down before him in supplication and offer him the unfettered use of my clothing optional hot-tub.'

And that's because I'm not.  My frame is not what you'd describe as streamlined (apart from my head that is). My musculature, such as it was, has become flaccid through lack of use, and I sometimes get a bit out of breath thinking about chips.

But believe it or not, at one time, not only was I an avid sportsman who played thrice weekly, but I was captain of not one, but two top (ish) of the league sports teams at the same time.  I can virtually smell your surprise from here.

It all began around twenty-five years ago in a bar called The Old Silk Mill (As previously mentioned HERE).

I was sat there, one Saturday lunchtime, with my then girlfriend, when the landlord wandered over to the noticeboard and pinned an A4 piece of paper to it. It was the sign-up sheet for the new pool team.  Within a week or so, many names were added to this list and we went onto some limited success.  In fairness a number of the limitations we faced involved a few of the team being under the influence of certain substances that may be frowned upon in polite society.  It was a fairly regular occurrence that we would have to take nine players to a match that required seven in case someone started rocking backwards and forwards in the corner having 'shroom flashbacks and another person found themselves unable to play because the table was covered in tiny, multi-coloured horses with tusks, wearing snowshoes.

But we had some truly great players.  Our original Captain, Billy B, was a borderline psychotic, who looked like a dark haired cross between Professor Mick Aston from Timeteam and Rasputin, who would strut around the table with both his prehensile knees and eyes pointing in many different directions at once.  he mumbled to himself all the time whilst executing some truly physics defying shots and he would often turn around and laugh uncontrolably in the face of his opponent in the style of a pirate.

His sister, Louise, also played for us. It would be difficult to find two siblings that were more different in outlook (or any other email system for that matter).  Where Billy was manic, Louise was calculating.  She would look at all the balls on the table from all angles before every shot and was the closest thing to a Cyber(wo)man that I've ever seen. Fine pool player, especially where performing 'snookers' was concerned.  In fact, she only ever lost it when she made a mistake that lost her the match - Then... Well... Have you seen Bladerunner? With Harrison Ford? You know the bit where Daryl Hannah's character Pris was 'retired'? Well, that.

Louise had a female life partner (or whatever the politically correct term is this week) called Annie who was a natural pool player and a great mate who would wander around the table, taking great shot after great shot, taking multiple swigs from her pint, and bringing the generally masculinity of her opponent into question and then mercilessly barracking him until he cried.

We also had Sam, and her boyfriend Sam (Yes, it did sometimes get confusing) who we would usually try to put on in the last match, the spot usually saved for the Captains to play each other... Although it was more of a guideline than an actual rule really.  We would wait for the last player from their team to come to the table, if he was small, and seemed to be easily intimidated, Male Sam would play, and win without speaking a single word.  If he seemed to be confident, the sort of man who would have had his own cue cut from a single piece of antique wood, salvaged from the wreck of a viking longship, Female Sam would play - Not straight away of course, she would have a bit of a stretch, declare that her blouse was a bit restrictive and then look her opponent directly in the eyes whilst she slowly undid as many buttons as she needed to to let him know that she had 'forgotten' to wear a bra that day.  Then she'd win. Thinking about it, that might have technically been cheating I suppose.

Now, I'm going to stop there, because this is in danger of just turning into a list of people that I knew at the end of the 80's.  Suffice it to say that, obviously, the blindingly famous SMick was in the team, as was my other professionally Scottish friend Jock, who is, as I've mentioned before, sadly no longer with us.  Suffice it to say that it was like an outside broadcast featuring The Addams Family every time we went to a different pub to play one of our 'Away' matches.

Over a few seasons, things changed, as they so often do. old players left and new ones joined. In fact, Billy B himself left to concentrate his chemical experimentation and because I was the only one not to say 'no' when he tried to appoint a replacement Captain, I got the job.  A couple of other major things changed too.  One was that there had, for a long time, been complaints in 'The League' about sexism and misogyny, so a separate 'Ladies' league was started (Our team was Captained by my then girlfriend) and The Silk Mill changed hands, it's new owner instantly deciding that his first order of business would be to get rid of all the dirty bikers and turn the place into one of those awful, homogeneous city centre pubs with microwaved (but still described as homecooked) food.

So we moved, to The Station Inn, mentioned in the SMick story linked above, and presented them with at first two and then three ready made teams. We stayed there for many years, in fact, if you visit there to this day, you will see many of the trophies that we won still proudly displayed.

The teams continued to change, the supremely gullible Steve, joined the team that we now had to call the 'Mixed' team because:

a) It had both male and female members
b) You weren't allowed to call it the 'Men's' team, because that would be sexist.

But all this isn't exactly getting us to where I was Captain of two sports teams is it?  The emotional rollercoaster that was my love life took an excitingly depressing downturn in 1991, where my then girlfriend, and Captain of the ladies team, found solace in the arms (amongst other things) of another, as hinted at in this post HERE - So, I did what any self respecting man would do under those circumstances:

I became the Captain of the Ladies team too.

So, Thursdays and Sundays I would go to the pub, get drunk and play pool with my friends (both male and female) and on Tuesdays I would go to the pub, get drunk and watch ten girls, between eighteen and thirty, bend over a pool table for two hours.  It took my mind right off the heartbreak situation that I'd just been through I can tell you.

And for our less gentlemanly male readers, whose minds are racing with all sorts of interesting possibilities...

Yes, two, but not at the same time.