Dave The Punk

It wasn’t a cheap weekend — ticket, train fare, digs, food, beer — but every penny was worth it. For four days, Rebellion was the perfect punk rock antidote to my CFS. Eight thousand odd like-minded people crammed under one roof, and not a whiff of trouble inside the festival. The only aggro we saw all weekend was outside a nightclub and, bizarrely, on the London to Brighton train home.

Marky Boy was my partner-in-crime, even if his jokes were criminal. We fell into a nightly ritual — leaving the Winter Gardens buzzing, heading for chips and gravy before the walk back. By the time we hit our accommodation, it was usually 2am, our ears still ringing. 

I heard there’s a beach in Blackpool… never saw it.

After the final band — my beloved The Exploited — we ducked into the gents and Mark started belting out “Sex & Violence,” swapping the words for “Chips & Gravy.” By the second chorus, half the blokes were singing along. A ridiculous, brilliant full stop on a filthy, beautiful weekend.

Dave The Punk

While at Rebellion, I had my photo taken by Safe Gigs for Women — a grassroots organisation working to make gigs and festivals safer for everyone, regardless of gender. They campaign against harassment and abuse in live music spaces, promote respect in the crowd, and support gig-goers who’ve experienced unwanted behaviour.

I’m proud to back them because punk has always been about looking out for each other, and a scene that prides itself on freedom should also be free from intimidation.

You can find out more and support their work here: Safe Gigs for Women.

Dave The Punk

Sometime between No Future and Scotland Calling — two festivals screaming defiance and chaos — I did the most punk thing imaginable: I retired from 40 years of Local Government.

Four decades of serving the community. Forty years of policies, procedures, and more Excel formulas than is strictly healthy. Some say it wasn’t real service — but let me tell you, those pivot tables kept the wheels turning while the rest of the world span out of control.

I came, I complied, I formatted cells. Now? I’m done clocking in. No more meetings about meetings. No more systems that mysteriously crash just before year-end. I’ve swapped the office chair for something with fewer ergonomic regrets and a lot more punk on the playlist.

Retired? Sure. But don’t confuse that with going quietly.

Dave The Punk

I turned 60 in December and did what any self-respecting punk with a taste for the theatrical would do: celebrated with blood, chains, and treason. A birthday weekend soaked in London’s macabre history — the London Dungeon, The Clink Museum, and The Gunpowder Plot. Torture devices, plague pits, political unrest… honestly, it felt more like a family reunion.

Some people mark a milestone with cake and a quiet dinner. I chose manacles, executions, and a healthy reminder that things could always be worse. Sixty candles? Nah — I lit the fuse under Parliament instead (virtually, of course… for now).

Dave The Punk

Sometimes you get an idea so daft it lodges like gravel in your brain, and the only way to dig it out is to do it. That’s what this ride was. A scratch I had to itch.

I’d worked out that the bridle path from my house to Ditchling Common and back was ten miles. So I thought: why not ride it ten times? A century made from repetition, from stubbornness, from knowing every puddle and rut by the end of the second lap and still going back for eight more.

It wasn’t fast. It wasn’t glorious. It was dusty, slow, and weirdly meditative. I didn’t care. The point wasn’t speed — it was the idea itself. Ten times ten. One hundred miles. Off-road. Round and bloody round.

A few days later, I went under the knife for macular hole surgery — nothing dramatic, just a bit of eye plumbing. I was already thinking ahead, bugging the surgeon with questions about when I’d be back in the saddle. I still had three centuries to go to make it a hundred. I’d get my strength back, build up again, tick them off, job done.

Only… I didn’t recover. Not fully. Not enough. That ride, my 97th, turned out to be the last.

It took me a long time to accept that. I’d got so close. Three rides short. It felt cruel, like a chapter ripped out of the book just before the final page. I grieved it — not just the century goal, but the part of me that believed I could always ride through anything.

But I’ve made peace with it now. Most people never do a single century. I did ninety-seven. On the road, off the road, in the rain, in the wind, on whims and on grit.

And if the last one was a weird loop through Sussex gravel, ridden on a hunch and a compulsion, well… that feels about right.

Dave The Punk

One minute it was just an eye op — routine, they said. A tidy little fix for a macular hole. The surgery worked. What they didn’t see coming was chronic fatigue syndrome kicking the door in while I was healing.

I never bounced back. The centuries? Gone. Pogoing? A memory. CFS didn’t just slow me down — it changed the rules. But I’m not done — I’ll still be in the pit. I’ve swapped the saddle and the stage dives for the safety rail. Slower, maybe, but no less fierce. You don’t stop being punk just because your body throws a curveball.

Dave The Punk

Some people have a knack for picking the winning lottery numbers. I, apparently, have a knack for scheduling Covid.

Both times I’ve had it, the build-up followed the same bizarre pattern. It started with a Public Image Ltd gig on a Tuesday — because nothing says ‘health hazard’ like John Lydon sweating into a mic. By Friday, I’d be collecting my bike from the mechanic, completely oblivious to the viral doom sneaking up behind me. Saturday? Full-throttle party mode. And then, like clockwork, I’d wake up Monday morning feeling like I’d swallowed sandpaper and tested positive.

In 2022, it was PiL, a freshly tuned bike, and The Exploited. In 2023, same opening act — PiL, bike — then Polly’s 60th. Both ended with me flat on my back, coughing up the memory of a great weekend. 

It’s like my immune system thinks Lydon is the Horseman of the Apocalypse.

So yeah — if you ever see me heading to a PiL gig with a freshly serviced bike, maybe keep your distance.

Dave The Punk

A couple of months after I saw them live, the band disbanded following deeply disturbing allegations against Justin Sane. I was devastated. Like many, I was astonished that someone so publicly aligned with progressive, socialist values could be capable of such behaviour.

I fully support the remaining band members’ decision to end Anti-Flag. It was the right call — swift, principled, and in keeping with everything they always stood for.

This doesn’t erase the band’s history or the impact they had. Their music, their activism, and their message meant a lot to me — and still do. I’ll always align with the values they championed: anti-fascism, anti-racism, and justice for all. Those ideas are bigger than any one person.

Dave The Punk

One minute I was screaming “Roots Radicals” with a pint in hand, the next I was chasing the sunrise on a bike, swapping one kind of chaos for another.

The day started on Minster-on-Sea promenade at 4:48am, surrounded by 754 other riders with more ambition than sense. The plan? Chase the sun coast-to-coast — Isle of Sheppey to Weston-Super-Mare — and beat it to the other side before it disappeared. Like some kind of Lycra-clad vampire race.

205 miles later, with nearly 10,000 feet of climbing in my legs and most of Kent, Wiltshire, and Somerset behind me, I rolled onto the Grand Pier in Weston-Super-Mare with over an hour to spare. My longest ever ride. My proudest? Quite possibly. My most painful? Let’s just say there were moments my saddle and I needed relationship counselling.

Out of 755 who started, 519 beat the sun. I was one of them.

Was it ever in doubt?

Dave The Punk

Sandwiched between The Exploited and Anti-Flag, I swapped the pit for pedals and hit Spain for a six-day Gravel Tour in the Sierra Nevada. Off-road, off-grid, and occasionally off-my-nut for signing up, we rode 321 miles and climbed nearly 10,000 metres — because apparently “holiday” now means Type 2 fun.

A different hotel every night, legs burning, bikes crunching through dust, gravel, and the occasional existential crisis. The Spanish weather threw the whole menu at us: sun, wind, rain, and yes — actual snow in May. Spain, being Spain, said “¡qué divertido!” and gave us a hailstorm for dessert.

It was brutal. It was beautiful. It was everything I needed. Punk gigs may feed the soul, but this ride fed something deeper — that old hunger to keep pushing, keep climbing, even when everything’s telling you to stop.

And besides, what’s more punk than getting caught up a snowy mountain in the middle of nowhere, dressed only in a thin layer of lycra and fingerless gloves?

full story on Sportive.com

Dave The Punk

Couldn’t sleep the night before. Maybe it was dread. Maybe it was excitement. Or maybe it was the creeping realisation that I was about to spend an entire day in my garage trying to climb Mount bloody Everest — on a turbo trainer. Because nothing says punk rock like deliberately suffering in a confined space for 15½ hours with no one forcing you.

I was up at 1:30 am. In the saddle by 3. No music, just the whirr of the flywheel and the sound of my own stupidity echoing in my skull. The goal? Eight and a half laps of Alpe du Zwift. 8,848 metres of climbing. No shortcuts. No excuses. No brakes.

Each climb? 72 to 80 minutes of leg-churning déjà vu. Like Groundhog Day with chafing. No moshing, no sweat-drenched crowd — just me and the mountain, again and again and again. Around climb three, things wobbled. The adrenaline wore off, the doubt crept in. My body sent a cease and desist as my legs filed an official complaint with HR. It was a full-on existential grievance meeting on wheels. But I kept going. Because stubbornness is free and I’d already committed to stupid.

Then the reinforcements arrived. Mates rocked up throughout the day, cheering, shouting, drinking beer (the bastards), filling the space with much-needed chaos. At a semi-respectable hour, Abrasive Wheels kicked off the playlist — all attitude and feedback — and suddenly it felt less like torture, more like a basement gig where the headliner is pain and I’m the sweaty support act.

Fuel? Chaos on a plate. Caffeine shots, energy gels, jam bagels, hummus wraps, rice cakes, jelly beans — basically, a buffet that could fuel a music festival and confuse a dietician. Part science, part desperation, part “what’s still in the fridge?” I wasn’t eating for pleasure — I was eating for war.

Twelve hours in the saddle (with a few lie-downs in between), 137 miles, 6,500 calories burned. I climbed Everest. In my garage. On a Sunday. Because punk’s not just a sound — it’s a mindset. Loud. Unreasonable. Unstoppable.

Dave The Punk

My dad passed away in August, and I’m still not quite sure how to put him into words — but here goes.

He was a storyteller, a biscuit thief, a fashion anarchist (socks and sandals before it was ironic), and a DIY legend who could transform a house with a roll of wallpaper and a spirit level. He didn’t say “I love you” often, but he showed it in every shelf he straightened and every cuppa he made.

He filled my childhood with music — terrible music, to be clear — but it gave me something to rebel against. Thanks for Rod Stewart, Dad. I’ll stick with The Damned.

We all miss him, every day. But if I ever catch someone nicking the last chocolate biscuit, I’ll know he’s still around.

Dave The Punk

For our 25th wedding anniversary, we headed to Amsterdam — a romantic city of canals, art, and, as it turns out, psychedelic misadventure.

On the day itself, we were wandering the streets when Polly dragged me into one of those “special” coffee shops. She confidently ordered a joint. I hadn’t touched anything like that since a teenage misfire, so I stuck to a black coffee and an innocent-looking muffin.

She was a bit giggly and wobbly on the way out, so I played the sensible one and guided her back to the hotel like some sort of stoner chaperone. But then… the muffin kicked in. Subtly at first. Then not-so-subtly. Dizzy turned to “hang on, is gravity broken?” and I had to lie down.

Next thing I know, the walls are doing jazz hands and I’m clinging to the bed convinced I’m going to be launched into space. It was all glitter and giggles at first, but then the paranoia rolled in like a fog machine at an ’80s gig.

Meanwhile, my poor wife went out for our romantic anniversary dinner alone, while I spent the evening grinning at the ceiling and trying not to fall off the planet.

Not quite what we had in mind… but it definitely brought new meaning to “elevated experience.”

Dave The Punk

After this glorious run of gigs, Covid finally caught up with me — my first time, and it hit hard. Eternally grateful for the vaccinations, which took the edge off and quite possibly kept me out of hospital. One in the eye for the conspiracy theorists.

It also stole Rammstein from me — my first time seeing them, years in the making. I had a Feuerzone ticket, prime fireball real estate. Instead, I was stuck at home, feverish and fuming, while my son took my ticket… and my dreams went up in pyrotechnic smoke without me.

As for how I caught it? Could’ve been the sticky stage monitors at the Underworld, Jonny Rotten’s spittoon radius, or the headbutt diplomacy of the Father’s Day mosh pit. Honestly, it’s a miracle I didn’t catch something sooner.

Dave The Punk

Spring 2020. The world shut down, but we cranked things up.

While most were baking banana bread or trying to remember what day it was, we spent 13 weeks filming our own DIY Parkrun parodies — lo-fi, low-budget, and occasionally low-brow. Each week, a new theme. Each week, a fresh excuse to wear something ridiculous and run around the garden like escaped circus acts.

There was Forrest Gump week, where we just kept running (and quoting). Wacky Races had us channelling our inner Dick Dastardly with homemade props and very little dignity. And Superhero week featured Lycra, questionable flying poses, and the local postie giving us a very wide berth.

It was absurd. It was joyful. It was just what we needed.

watch now on YouTube

Dave The Punk

We thought we were done. The lockdowns had eased, the costumes were packed away, and our weekly dose of weird had shuffled off into legend. But then autumn rolled in, bringing a second wave of lockdowns.

Over four more episodes, we saddled up for Spaghetti Westerns, rewound the clocks for a Time Travel special, and wrapped it all up with an Outtakes finale that was equal parts chaos and catharsis. It was stranger, sillier, and somehow even more DIY than the first run. Turns out you can’t keep a punk and his brilliantly game co-star down for long.

watch now on YouTube

Dave The Punk