Bloody hell, I liked thrash metal and then indie when I were a lad. Ladies, generous or otherwise, were few and far between. Any sauciness there, would have involved either a complete lifestyle change to the one I live, or a level of determination which I just can't muster.

it is fair to say drink and herbal cigarettes were involved - and quite possibly my friend had been 'partying' in the afternoon. But it WAS the mid-70s; post-hippie but pre-AIDS.

every feckin' gig!

Early 80's trips to the Southampton Gaumont to see Maiden, Dio, Hawkwind, Ver Snake and all the rest were noted for the total lack of girlies. There were attractive girls, a fair few in fact, but they tended to be a bit older than us, WAY out of our league and always accompanied by their enormous, hairy, hard-as-arseholes biker boyfriends who tended to not be too chuffed at their girlfriends being letched at by spotty teenagers.

There is a good story my mate Dave tells of when he and a couple of others went to see Duran Duran at about the same time, though.. In the crush at the front with lots of excited teenaged girls.. You can fill in the gaps.

Which, ironically, is pretty much what they did.

Richard Herring fondled my arse after a show in Manchester in 2006.

I snogged Miki Berenyi out of Lush in a club in Leeds. I have no recollection of this whatsoever but 2 friends claim it happened and as I was well out of my head at the time I cannot deny or confirm it.

Still not bad going, kissing a groupie who was also the lead singer in her own band.

Arf arf.

I was about seventeen and the product of a sheltered upbringing and fresh from a cloistered all boys school. Not sure we spoke much but I think I may have said "Gosh" and "Crikey". It happened at a Prince concert. Well, it would wouldn't it?

is it really you?

After all these years...

is so bereft of these stories I will be using some of the above to make myself sound more interesting at parties, except I don't go to parties, ho hum...

I danced with a girl who went on to become a model for Gucci in front of all my school mates, managed to pass myself off as a journalist and interviewed the band, went to the aftershow party and got up to no good with a groupie in a lift, snogged some girl outside who thought I was in the support band and ended up going home with a girl I'd been trying to get hold of for months. I did get a parking ticket though.

I was 17 and my life has been downhill ever since.

in a galaxy far, far away, I used to go to a lot of gigs with a friend of mine, who was quite stunningly attractive.
I was always the 'I don't fancy yours much' one in that duo, apart - for some unfathomable reason - at one particular Dr Feelgood concert, where I managed to cop off with a rather lovely-looking bloke in the crowd, while she stood by, waiting for me and this fella's tongues to untangle, so I could finally bid him farewell and join her in a mad dash for the train home.
I believe to this day that I performed a very worthy public service that evening, by giving her a rare insight into the acute and specific pain of being a wallflower.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that the kinetic kisser might have left his specs at home.

After my band's first ever "big" support - for one of ex-Saint Ed Kuepper's bands - I packed away my drums, promising Kuepper's rather grumpy roadies that I would be moving them shortly, quickly slurped down a substantial part of Mr Kuepper's rider, and then waded my way through the crowd, convinced pretty much everybody would be oohing and aahing at the realisation I was now among them. Or, at least, I hoped that I might be recognised and that my sweatiness could be attributed to the enthusiastic tubthumping I had just been engaged in and not just poor hygiene or faulty glands.

As I worked my way through the crowd toward the bar, I was pressed up against this extraordinarily attractive older woman, sheathed in some slinky material and well on her way to a certain sort of inebriated "looseness". The crowd wedged us together and she held her drink aloft in one hand and her ciggie in the other as our bodies inadvertently met and she stared at me, openly and unabashedly.

She looked extremely happy to see me, smiling warmly and, fuck me, yes, taking advantage of the crowd's press to, yes, it can't be true but it is, it is, push up against me and, nooo, rub and grind against me.

I was 19 and quite unused to this sort of thing but I knew the gentlemanly thing to do would be to buy her a drink. So I shouted away at her that I was just going to get a drink, would she like one? Oh, yes, she would. Some frothy cocktail that laid waste to my teenaged wallet.

I brought her back her drink and we recommenced this slow dancing/frotting thing and I thought I was the luckiest drummer in the whole world. This gigging in big venues was just the ticket for a sexstarved teenage horndog and I liked it. My first ever biggish gig and the harsh rhythmic insistence of my drumming had evidently flicked some sex switch on in this ourageously attractive woman's mind. The raw manliness I exhibited as I beat the shit out of my budget Tama kit was obviously what some womenfolk had been missing.

As time ticked on and it became apparent that I soon had to clear my kit out of the backroom, I leaned in and shouted at her that I was just going to get my drums and would be back soon.

"Drums?" the pissed-up floozy shouted back, "What drums?"

with Tori Amos and Carol Decker.

Then woke up.