Lowsley I first met Adrian R. Shaw on the last train back from Manchester. For one reason or more, the passengers had been heavily drinking and were in a boisterous mood. As the train pulled out of the station, my colleague and I had our attention drawn to some sort of commotion towards the very rear of the train. There was much jeering and some yelling, and this figure could be seen approaching. Some of our fellow passengers were throwing things at him whilst those who had nothing to throw cast their eyes away as he passed, only to stare at his retreating figure and shake their heads in wonder. His retort to all this was a warning that he was from Barnsley, and he seemed surprised that he was not receiving the respect that he felt due from this statement. He stopped to shout something at someone just in front of us, noticed the adjacent seat was empty and lay himself down before us. He was wearing a rather smart but terribly dated powder blue C&A suit, a mass of curly hair (the type that Leo Baxendale would illustrate with a bird feeding her young within it), and a pair of those silver specs that collect algae around the rims by the nose. At some point this expression appeared which I took to be one of insanity, but it was an attempt at registering recognition. He pointed at me and claimed we'd been at college together. I naturally denied this, but on comparing dates it did indeed appear that we had been there at the same time, although never met. Later I would recall a twit that I had noticed in the canteen with the most ludicrous Smiths quiff, NHS glasses, beads and no doubt some shrubbery crawling up from his rear - I had immediately made the wise decision to ignore him for the rest of my education. Having established (in his eyes at least) some common ground between us, he preceded to describe his night out. He'd been to an open mike night at a comedy club where he'd had a few drinks to calm his nerves until it was his turn, making sure he heckled everyone before him... finally he was in front of the mike but he only managed to deliver his first joke ("my wife's got a ten inch gash, it takes some licking") before a bouncer had his arm twisted up his back and was marching him out of the club ignoring Adrian's warning ("look pal, i'm from Barnsley") and depositing him in the street. He then suffered further abuse in the chip shop from a couple of girls he was only being friendly to before making it onto the last train and the unpleasantness within. We acknowledged his tale with neutral nods that he mistook for sympathy, and he told us about his job. He was a security guard at the Tate, and stood in front of paintings all day ("if I've got to have a job I want to have one where I don't have to do anything"). His salvation from this was a band he and his mate Kev were in, called The Teenbeat, and they needed a manager. He offered me this position and I gave him my address to send a tape to. About a week later, I received a letter in the post. In childish scrawl it asked me if I remembered the previous meeting and here was the requested tape. It was the most badly taped thing I had ever heard. Some sort of gig where a possible audience of about ten were enduring a clueless combination of guitars and bass with this amazing popping sound as percussion.