Counter Culture
The Dangerfields drummer Andrew Johnston talks about the 'Dangercar'.
When, in 1933, Adolf Hitler asked Ferdinand Porsche to come up with a 'People's Car' for the working man of Nazi Germany, I doubt that even he could have imagined the original design of better fuel efficiency, reliability, ease-of-use and economically efficient repairs and parts would be merrily exploited nearly three quarters of a century later by a wretched band of Belfast-based musicians.
Rock 'n' roll wasn't invented until the early 1950s, and punk came even later, but Hitler and Porsche had unwittingly invented the ideal carriage for the do-it-yourself bandleader.
It was a Volkswagen that trucked the Dangerfields (and before them, Griswold) around the highways and byways of Europe for 800-odd shows over ten action-packed years.
I had owned a couple of vehicles prior to the jade green Golf estate. The soon-to-be-sacked Citybus driver who wrote off my Citron 2CV by ramming its rear while I was stopped at a zebra crossing did me a favour in the long run.
The boot of a French umbrella on wheels is no place for a seven-piece drum kit. I then shared a rather naff Polo coup with my mum until the purchase of RAZ 1369 from Isaac Agnew, Boucher Way on November 11, 1997.
It was one hell of a car: solid, substantial and not for girls. It was the Yorkie of the motor vehicle world.
If a juggernaut had hit this baby head-on, your money would have been on the little guy.
It wasn't new, but the former test drive vehicle was as good as, and it was only a matter of weeks before it was launched into its first tour, a Griswold jaunt around Scotland.
Tales of woe and endurance are legendary. People and equipment would be loaded into every available crevice like some crazy game of human Tetris.
Travelling from London to Belfast for the launch of the Dangerfields' Hellride EP, we stopped to make space for 1,000 CDs.
That was irksome enough, but then we missed our ferry and were forced to sit in the car for nine hours (it was hailstoning, and the passenger terminal was closed) with CD trays and inlay cards balanced on our faces.
One of my favourite tricks was positioning my traps case (a coffin-shaped box used for transporting drum stands) on the rear luggage shelf so that it would flip forward every time I hit the brakes, whacking my bandmates in the back of the skull and hopefully knocking some sense into them.
That was the plan anyway, but it usually just made them quit. Thirty-seven members came and went.
At the end of one European tour, travelling from Oberhausen to Belfast with typical disregard for sane routing, we pulled over for a kip during a hailstorm (what is it with the DFs and hail?).
We'd picked up an extra passenger, Nik from Bristol 'ciderpunx' Disorder, so he, Dangerfields guitarist Dan and our 'roadies', a snivelling urchin named Mully and a six-foot-five, 17-stone madman known as Paul Branagh, were vacuum-packed into the back seat.
Mully was perched on Nik's knee, using the back of my headrest as a face-pillow. Due to the heavy weather we couldn't even get the windows open for some fresh air.
You don't know the meaning of misery until you've slept bolt upright in the driver's seat of a parked VW while five bleary imbeciles sweat, snore and fart around you.
Three weeks' worth of stagnating sock juice is not for the fainthearted.
Away from the DFs, I was once hired (I say 'hired', but I didn't get paid) to chauffeur Joe Strummer between Glasgow Barrowland and a record store signing in Edinburgh.
I never much liked the Clash, but my girlfriend at the time, Jane, was a huge fan, so we got busy scrubbing the Dangerseats in preparation for Strummer's illustrious bum.
Joe, of whom Jane was in deep awe, refused to sit in the front, insisting that 'my lady' should ride up there.
The humble rock 'n' roll superstar bunched up in the back with Jane's brother and his pal.
Other notable passengers included Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand (before he was famous; in fact, before he had money for the bus) and Mick Cooke of Belle & Sebastian.
Both were members of Jane's ska-punk ensemble, the Amphetameanies, and both made a pleasant change from a screaming drunk Goatboy.
Our sordid former bass player retreated to the Golf after the infamous escapade of 2002, when a lady 'friend' he had picked up mugged him and took all the band money.
The next morning, we awoke to find two flat tyres and a dead battery.
This made our journey south rather difficult, though not as difficult as the explaining Goat had to do to his girlfriend, whom he was scheduled to meet in Edinburgh around about the time we were scouring Aberdeen for a Kwik-Fit that accepted second-hand punk CDs in lieu of cash.
On a night off later that same tour, I wound up in Brighton watching Zeke.
The Seattle lunatics were my favourite band at the time so it seemed entirely reasonable to ask them to autograph my windscreen pillars.
In my addled state, I probably thought I could flog 'em on eBay.
The Dangerfields family truckster was a trusted ally for 253,128 miles of heavy-duty touring.
I always dreamt of hitting the magic million and flipping the clock, but it wasn't to be.
RAZ 1369 undertook its final engagement in January 2007. The six-day Supersuckers support tour passed without incident.
In March, hours before we were due to HSS it to the mainland for a UK tour with Stiff Little Fingers, we shattered the rear windscreen while attempting to fit guitarist Simsie's enormous speaker cabinets into the boot.
Then the head gaskets caught fire.
It would have cost more to buy a replacement engine than it did to buy a new car (a tomato red '93 Golf estate, which lasted until December past).
Both vehicles were taken away for scrap last month. I received 100 for the pair, but neither owed me a penny.
The red car got us through the SLF tour and paid for itself a few times over. It was never the same, though.
Sure, I got a kick out of completing a 35-date tour of the UK's largest venues out of the back of a 14-year-old station wagon, but nothing could match the lean green mean machine of yore.
The Dangercar: June 21, 1997 to January 21, 2008. For that which transported those about to rock, I salute you.
The Dangerfields
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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