Just A Feeling

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It’s increased my will to live and it’s made my health and fitness so much better. It’s a shame because I was a very happy fatty but now I understand both sides of the fence and I wish I’d done this a long time ago because health is the most important thing. Buster: My side of this is definitely promotions and making it a great event. I’ve networked all around places like the Midlands and the North and the West and London of course. That is a place where we are really going to aim at bringing people out for the weekend which is always a good thing to do – people need to get out of London.

I wanted to put together a festival that would include bands that have been in the industry almost as long as I have, and although now ignored by the big record companies, they are still loyal to their music, fans and their roots. Some of their hit singles through the 1980's include " Nee Nee Na Na Na Na Nu Nu", [1] " My Girl Lollipop", [1] " Lip Up Fatty", [1] " Can Can", [1] " Special Brew", [1] " Walking in the Sunshine" and " That'll Do Nicely". [4] I think now everybody’s got mortgages and settled down with children the idea of fighting and being silly, things that they may have done when they were younger, has just gone out the window. In fact they’re the people who are now looking at the kids doing exactly the same thing and telling them off! Buster, who has recently slimmed down from 31 stone to 13 stone has put together a lineup that includes many bands that he has had the pleasure of playing with throughout his long career. After becoming popular in their native London, Bad Manners signed a recording contract with Magnet Records in 1980, and became regular guests on television shows such as Tiswas. The band also appeared on The British Music Awards (1981) and Cheggers Plays Pop. In 1985, they also appeared on The Time of Your Life, hosted by Noel Edmonds. Being closely associated with the 2 Tone movement (though never signed to 2 Tone Records itself), they were one of six bands featured in the 1981 documentary film Dance Craze. [1]a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Chris Woodstra. "Bad Manners | Biography". AllMusic . Retrieved 25 January 2014.

a b c "The Journal - All manner of mayhem". Journal-online.co.uk. 19 September 2008. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Buster: Oh totally – I perform like I was 18 again. I’ve just got this mad idea that my body seems to be getting better and younger and fitter and as long as I’ve got that in my head and my body’s responding I’m not complaining!

This has been our worst year for a while [numbers wise] but we’ve deliberately done that because we don’t want to overplay. We will be doing tours just before we do the festival that will be part of the promotion. But we’ve got that tag because we have seriously toured more than anyone else that I know and certainly over the years the distances that we’ve travelled - other bands would have just gone “no we’re not doing that!”

I know it’s strange that I should be promoting health as people would think that I’ve lived more of an unhealthy lifestyle than anybody in the world, but I feel so great now. It’s just given me a real zest for life and the desire to want to achieve greatness on stage. It’s going to be a solid three days of bands playing because there’s also a lot of small bands that will be going on. We’ll also have the bar running up at the museum end. The whole thing is going to be growing and in the next five years we hope to make it into a place where people will come along and really enjoy themselves – not just for this event but for other events. But this July it is going to be the venue for another exciting music event, Badfest, a three day extravaganza featuring some of the bigger names from the past 25 years that continue to play live even though shunned by the bigger festivals and music companies. It will be an annual event. They were at their most popular during the early 1980s, during a period when other ska revival bands such as Madness, the Specials and the Selecter filled the charts. Bad Manners spent 111 weeks in the UK Singles Chart between 1980 and 1983, and they also achieved chart success with their first four studio albums, with Ska 'n' B (1980), Loonee Tunes! (1980), and Gosh It's ... Bad Manners (1981) being their biggest hits.Buster: The whole of the music business is run by record companies who are very self-centred and if you don’t do what they want you to do then you don’t go anywhere. Of course once you get a bit long in the tooth you realise that these people are taking liberties out of you and you don’t want to be part of that. This means you survive any way you can and a lot of bands die at that point or go on the road. If they’re good enough they will survive and if they’re not, they won’t. It’s a dog eat dog world. Everyone’s out to try and earn a shilling and to make themselves as successful as possible. Buster: Well – just Bad Manners being there will make it a little bit different I can assure you! But it’s the quality of the bands that have been chosen and the fact that I know that when people come and see anything to do with ska it creates a good party atmosphere. It makes people drink and celebrate a bit more than maybe they should but I’m encouraging people to come here and enjoy themselves so that is really what this weekend will become. Buster: For us it’s just like a big holiday and it always has been and that’s how we like to keep it. So I would say that we do roundabout 200-250 gigs a year and have done every year and no other band has ever come near that! We’ve always had such a good time that we just want to do another one as soon as one's finished! Buster: Yes - it’s my 30th year in the business – it sounds like I should have given up a long time ago but I really enjoy doing what I do and I’ve never been able to stop it! The fans have always been that loyal and loved what Bad Manners have done and of course I’ve got to this stage of the game now where what else can I do but be Buster?! It’s what I’m good at!