76 Questions For Mike Peters

This is the first expansive interview I did for TheAlarm.com (then actually www.demon.co.uk/alarmpo) as the web master for the site.  My wife and I picked up Mike Peters at the airport in June of 1996 and drove him to the MTV Movie Awards Radio Roundtable where he was interviewed and played a few acoustic songs.  The 76 questions came out of the long and in-depth conversations we had that day.  This was the first time I had spent any length of time with my boyhood hero, and I was blown away by how easy going and open he was to al lthese question.
-Steve Fulton


1. How avid of an Alarm collector are you?

If there was a Top 10 of Alarm collectors I like to think I would be in it. I used to collect everything when I was in The Toilets/Seventeen but when success eluded both bands I started to view my scrapbook collection as a bit of a curse and so stopped around the time The Alarm came into being. I started collecting again in about 1985 and now have a fairly extensive catalogue My most recent purchase was a copy of the IRS (U.S. only) Finyl Vinyl "Unsafe Building" ($10.00) from Bleeker Bobs in Los Angeles. The one record I do not have, much to my regret, is a mustard vinyl "Deceiver" which might keep me off the number one spot!


2. Do any tapes of The Toilets or Seventeen exist, and will we ever get to hear them?

No Tapes of The Toilets exist to my knowledge. I had a live tape from a support slot with the Buzzcocks at Eric's, Liverpool in 1977, but lost it in 1980 when my car was broken into. Seventeen made numerous demo tapes during the years 1978-1980. The most definitive would be a 12 song 4 track demo recorded in 1979 at WSRS in Wallasey. I personally don't have a copy of this, although Twist still has the masters somewhere. I think this would be a fascinating release at some point as it features all the original members of The Alarm. Some song titles are "Talkin' About The Weekend", "Lies Lies Lies", "Stop Thinking About Yourself" and a cover of the Beatles "Please Please Me" among others. It may or may not include a cover of Tom Jones "It's Not Unusual" which was brilliant.


3. How many and which Seventeen songs went on to become Alarm songs.

Of the many Seventeen songs, only "Sixty Eight Guns" went on to become an Alarm song. It was the last written during the Seventeen era and was played during the band's last tour of Scotland and at the final Seventeen show (The Half Moon, Herne Hill, Dulwich London, January 1981). It was at this show that we announced our new name "Alarm Alarm".

This is the first editorial I wrote about The Alarm for the web.  I planned it for release on the 10th anniversary of the Spirit Of' 86 concert.   It was originally published on The Alarm Archive web site.

Spirit 'Of '86, A Fan Looks Back

by Steve Fulton (USA Alarm Archive President)

"I Was There"

That phrase seems to stick out in my mind, twist around, and implode every time I see it on the "Spirit Of '86" stickers that I have tucked away in one of my Alarm scrapbooks. Not just because, truth be told, I was there on April 12th, 1986, but also because of the bittersweet irony that it represents. I remember that day, 10 years ago, as vividly as any day in my entire life. It was a day, when the biggest rock 'n roll event in the world was centered around The Alarm: two Welshman and two transplanted Englishman who created the most unbelievably inspiring music I had ever heard. April 12th 1986 was the day I witnessed, what I believe, was the finest moment of The Alarm, but also the beginning of their end.

Article : History Of The Alarm : Goldmine Magazine Nov. 1995

This is my magnum opus on The Alarm, originally published in Goldmine Magazine, November 1995.

History Of The ALARM: 1973-1995

THE BEGINNING
"Your revolution ain't no solution there's gotta be a better way out"
-The Toilets (Mike Peters) "Alarm Alarm" 1976

In 1973 the future members of the Alarm met in Wales as teenagers. Dave Sharp (real name: Dave Kitchingman) and Nigel Twist (real name: Nigel Buckle) both moved to the Rhyl, Wales from Manchester, England. Twist and Sharp had been playing music together for most of their early teens, Twist on his step-father's drums, and Sharp Strumming his mother's Spanish guitar. In Rhyl, the pair met Mike Peters and Eddie MacDonald, next-door neighbors since the age of 4. Rhyl is known as a beautiful vacation spot for British tourists, but in 1976 there was not much in the way of excitement for bored teenagers. The British punk explosion beckoned Mike Peters across the border to see The Sex Pistols in Chester,England. Peters was blown away by the Pistols energy and stage presence. However, after being shunned at the backstage door by Jonny Rotten, he decided two things. He would pitch in his career as a computer operator to start a punk band, and if successful, never treat his fans with contempt.

Mike Peters, and Nigel Twist soon formed a punk band named The Toilets. The Toilets were regulars at the famous Liverpool club "Upstairs At Eriks," a virtual breeding ground for 80's new wave artists (e.g. Echo And The Bunnymen, Flock Of Seagulls, Icicle Works). Dave Sharp took Eddie MacDonald to his first punk show to see The Toilets. His eyes were opened, inspiring him then and there to get into the punk scene. MacDonald was interested in joining the Toilets, but after support slots with The Clash and The Buzzcocks, the band broke up. Sensing a common musical purpose, Peters and Macdonald began writing songs together.

Gumpha Racing : Game Design : Atari ST

Back in 1989 I designed a spaced-themed "horse racing" game named Gumpha Racing.  The game would have been like one of the old "bet on the odds" style games that I played all the time on my Atari 800.  The graphics were designed using Degas Elite, and  it was going to be developed using STOS.  I was not able to finish the game (the code is lost forever), but the graphics live on.   I still plan to one-day finish this game.

Here are the graphics.  I'm not saying they any good, but they are mine, any they are legitimately from the 16-bit era.

3 frame animations: crowd, winning flag, starting gun

Race options.  Not sure how this would work.

Sample game screen.    

Computer Lab: From Begg Flyer, 1983

I found this Computer Lab story while going through the papers my mom saved from Junior High.  I have no recollection of writing it.    The most interesting thing about it to me, are the two educational games I mention working on: Spelling Magic  and Arithmetic Clash.    Those  are both games I planned to make, but had totally forgotten about them until today.   I was only 13, and I didn't have a computer of my own, so I guess I planned to work on the exclusively in the computer lab.    

Computer Lab :  Begg Flyer, Nov. 23, 1983

By Steve Fulton

In the back right hand corner of the Learning Lab, Room 23 are the Begg School’s very own Apple computers.  Although not used to their full potential, these computers help students with learning problems, to do better in whatever subjects they are sent to work with.  They also provide a course of information retrieving never before available  to Begg School.  This source is called software.   Software is the disk program that can be run on the computers.  This software includes science programs, math programs, English programs and many others.

How can these computers be operated?   How can students be taught how to use the computers or programs?  The answer is Computer Aides.

The Computer Aide is one of the small groups of students that have been trained to teach other students how to use computers.

A Computer Aides job are as follows:  1. They must see if any student need help using the computers. 2. They see if the teachers need any help. 3. They use utility programs and work on their own programs.

Most of the Computer aides use the third job, to play games or use Logo (a graphics program), but the Aides that are really into computers and programming make their own programs.  Two of these programs are Spelling Magic, a spelling educational game, and Arithmetic Clash; a mathematical space game.

The prime reason of the computer aides is to introduce computers to students at Begg School, and in my opinion, they are doing a pretty good job of it!

So the next time you are sent to the Learning Lab, ask the teacher if you can use a computer. It might change your life!

COMPUTER UPDATE

Begg School has recently received 25 new computers donated by a company named Pertec.  As soon as they are set up, you may be using one with your English class.

Video Games Are My Hobby: Essay From 1982

My essay for Mr. Davis' 6th grade English class, March 22, 1982, Foster A, Begg, Junior High, Manhattan Beach, CA.
(text below)

Steve Fulton

3-22-1982

Essay

My favorite thing to do is play a video game. After school on Thursdays I run home, grab 10 dollars, and nag my mom to take me to the arcade.  When we get there, I jump out of the car and run into the arcade to change my money.

When my money is changed, I run over the nearest GALAGA machine and start to play.  What great fun it is to blast space ships out of the sky, and when it is over I slide another quarter in and play again.  The sounds and colors the game makes are crisp and real.

When your (sic) playing the game its(sic) like your mind goes blank and all you can see is your ship blasting other ships.  You usually play for about 5 hours, and when you finally leave you have a very bad headache and are dizzy.  You feel so bad that for the next 7 days your sick and on the 8th you recover and on that same day you go back to the arcade.

(end of essay)

First off , it's not even a proper essay.  Where are the 5 paragraphs and the conclusion? Slacker.  Secondly, The whole bit about having $10 and playing for 5 hours is a total fabrication. It was more like $2.00 and playing for 2 hours because they gave 8 tokens for a dollar at Castle Park in Redondo Beach on Thursdays.  I probably did not mention tokens at all because I did not think the teacher would understand.

Ms., Davis must have assigned an essay where we had to use the numbers 10,5,7 and 8 or something like that.  She also probably wanted us to describe an activity in detail. By the way, not every kid wrote about video games in those days.  In fact, I imagine I was going out on a limb with this essay because Ms. Davis could be fairly strict and straight-laced (as far as I recall).

The 3rd paragraph is the most interesting to me because it describes how my 12 year-old self felt when I was playing a video game.  Par for the course today, Pretty scary stuff for the video game naysayers at the time I would believe!

I'm sure there are kids today who might write the exact same essay (substituting Xbox live and Minecraft for the arcade and Galaga of course).  The games, genres, platforms, and developers might chnage, but the feeling of wanting to to do nothing more than run home and play your favorite game, that feeling never goes away.