A GUEST SERIES

10 – Rolodex Propaganda – At The Drive In (2000, Grand Royale Records)

Released as a single in September 2000 (Reached Number 54)

You can’t stand up in the space below the floorboards. I have to crawl and crouch. The floor is littered with bits of old concrete, stones, dirt and general crap. There is part of an old newspaper down there. It is the Mid Devon Advertiser from the early part of the 80s.

I note for future reference that I can access the pipes underneath the bathroom from this space, which might come in handy. Its pretty dark down there. The only light other than the one from torch comes from the hole in the floor/ceiling about ten metres to behind me.

The space appears to stretch for a little distance, it looks like it goes underneath my lounge. You couldn’t see that from the top of the hole. I turn around, that in itself, is a job, and go back up to Mrs SWC and report back. She asked me again what is in the bags. I haven’t looked yet I tell her. She is drinking a cup of tea and looks really comfortable sitting in the hallway on the footstool.

I crouch and crawl back along the ground, shining the torch as I go. In the far corner of the space, right under the lounge is a box, there doesn’t appear to be anything else down there, apart from the bags that is.

I spin around again and I drop the torch and somehow it manages to switch itself off. I let out a small cry and my wife sticks her head down the hole and asks me if I am ok – I tell her I need another torch and I crawl towards the hole in the ceiling in the dark. I’m a bit scared to be honest.

Freakin Out – Graham Coxon (2004, Parlophone Records, Number 37)

My wife hands me a small torch and I update her as to the box in the corner. She tells me to bring it to the hole and open it up. The small torch helps me find the bigger torch, which I am glad still works. I crawl back over to the box and push it over to the hole. I am intrigued to find it is sealed shut with gaffa tape and I call for a pair of scissors.

Mrs SWC hands me some scissors and I cut through the gaffa tape. The box contains old cameras. There are packed with old bits of polystyrene, but there are probably five or six cameras here. I pass the box up through the hole in the floor. Some of the cameras date back to the 1930s or so. I climb out of the hole and look longingly at the cuppa on the side of the cabinet. Mrs SWC tells me that she will pop the kettle on whilst I check out the bags and back down into the hole I go and form some reason this song is playing over and over in my mind

Get Got – Death Grips (2012, epic Records, Did Not Chart)

There were, as you will remember, three bags, a blue rubble style bag, a green bag and a dark coloured Adidas sports bag, and for those of you who get disappointed by anti-climax – switch off now.

The blue rubble style sack contains two sets of curtains, they are filthy and old and worthless. They used to be a brown colour. Brown would definitely not work in our lounge.

The green bag is slightly more interesting. It contains books and folders. They are in surprisingly good condition considering they have been shut in a dark space for some time. One of these folders contains postcards of trains, buses and tractors, it looks like a collection or a school project. It is sort of beautiful in a neglected waste of time sort of way. It also has a battered copy of ‘Animal Farm’ in it, two books by Danielle Steele, three books by John Buchan and most worryingly a couple of books by Dennis Wheatley, who writes about the occult.

The Adidas Sports Bag contained £860 in used £20 notes.

Nah not really, it contained a clock (broken), three plastic plant pots, an old (broken) nodding dog that you stuck on the parcel shelf of your car, some coat hangers and one female size 4 shoe.

The Other Shoe – Fucked Up (2011, Matador Records, Did Not Chart)

That was it. It was largely crap, and I for one felt slightly disappointed that there were not body parts or oodles of cash down there.

SWC