Ok bit of a pause in posts, to represent the time after illinois, finishing my degree.
After my degree then, I stayed in Manchester, moved into a damp flat with Dave on Palatine Road in 'leafy' West Didsbury ok alright Withington then.
I had a third class honors degree in Mathematics, so naturally I got a cleaning job in a city centre pub along with more hours behind the bar at The Square Albert in the evenings and odd lunchtimes. I had no great plan for life, I just didn't want to grow up and find myself in a proper job.
Now Scott was the assistant manager at the Square Albert, he'd played bass in a few bands, liked Nine Inch Nails, and importantly had keys to the pub out of hours. On quiet shifts we'd while away hours talking about music, tackling the Manchester Evening News Crossword and trying to recycle Lothenbrau slops to appease brewery reps.
Scott had a really strange relationship with a girl from the North East called Alison. She didn't trust him and I'm not sure if I ever knew why. Whether it was just extreme paranoia, or whether Scott had previous for waywardness, it puzzled me though because as far as I could tell he was just a really sound bloke. I suppose he drank cider, in halves, so maybe he was an alcoholic at heart, or the type to wee in the wardrobe when drunk, or maybe he snogged a girl once; either way he was permanently in the wrong; and their normal conversational setting was 'argumentative'.
Alison trusted me though because she had been working at the pub when I started and thought I was nice and sensible (and presumably didn't wee in wardrobes), so Scott was allowed out of her sight as long as I was present.
So 'Daub' kind of span out of these 'bail conditions' as a way to regularly spring Scott out of Alison's clutches on Saturday mornings, to practice in the vaulted cellar of the pub, have breakfast and a few beers then start work on the evening shift when the pub opened at six, (because in those days pubs didn't open all day every day, imagine that)
Mike, the extremely laid back/stoned weekend pot collector was in on it; and played drums, although he was a much better guitarist than me; but I had an amp and a Melos DE1 Analog Echo Delay chamber and he had his brothers drum kit.
We came up with the name Daub, because pretentiously we were painting with 'noise', and it was a play on 'dub' and 'The Orb'. It was less about the music though and more about the escape. We may have only recorded these 'sessions' in order to prove to Alison that's what we were doing.
I guess If illinois had been all about crafted 2 and a half minute pop songs, daub was about epic meandering repetitive 12 minute soundscapes and I'd like to apologise now for anyone who has listened in entirety to any of these recordings; which I am now posthumously naming as 'Sorry, I cannot reimburse you for the time you have taken to listen to this'