God, I was bored with sitting in my bedroom (in Kidderminster) playing guitar.

'Meg' really needed to happen.

No success on the internet. I knew I'd eventually get round to something but had no idea how to go about it.

One day, whilst harping on about nothing in particular (as per usual), on the old Gorky's site I started to moan about the situation. Matthew Pimm (who runs Gorky Dispenser) said 'I live in Kidderminster!'. Small world I thought. 'I don't suppose you play analogue keyboards as well?'. Well, he did actually.

I met Matt in the Old Boars Head (Taphouse) for a drink, rather sheepishly using my friends Sal and Tom as chaparones! I still stand by that decision.

For a while Matt and myself jammed queitly (or noisily at low volumes) in Matt's 3rd floor bedroom. Just messing around with little bits and pieces. It was fun and it sounded pretty cool, to my ears at least. I know it sounds trite but I have a great fondness for those early recordings.

Tom, my best mate, was learning to play drums at this time. We'd nip into rehearsal studios so Tom could practice and I could play guitar louder than I could at home. Tom wasn't that great just yet but the man had rhythm. You could tell. I needed the practice too, still do.

Tom had listened to some of the early jams Matt and I had recorded. I think he said it wasn't really his cup of tea. To be fair, it was a bit 'out there'. He must of thought it had some merit though because we all went to Ice House Studios for a jam. Sci-Fi Things had previously changed from a 10 minute jam to a more structured and mellow thing. With drums it changed again - in a good way. Tom was under the impression that he wasn't good enough to play in a band. We disagreed and Tom remained (under protest).

I didn't want to sing but for the purpose of structuring the songs I was pushed into it. My aim was for us to get a rhythm guitarist / singer. This would've allowed me to have fun playing more interesting guitar parts over the songs (and not 'sing') This, quite obviously, never happened. I therefore still remain singer (under protest).

Not sure whether we had discussed getting a bassist but Matt knew Allan. We liked Allan's attitude more than his bass playing, but like him we did so he joined the band. Thankfully, since then, his playing has improved. Regrettably, since then, he has also collected too many bass effects pedals. The bass effects remain (under our protest).

Soon (well, okay, many months later) we had enough songs to fill a set, and we could play a few of them too. Thoughts turned to playing live.

We went to the Marrs Bar in Worcester on a Jam Night. We wanted to be one of the first on because of the desire to get it over as quickly as possible and also because we considered that expections of the quality of act would grow as the evening drew on. I, at least, also wanted to get drunk afterwards. Before we went on we were all wrecks. I was trying to tune my guitar but couldn't balance the tuner on my leg because it was shaking that much.

We waited for hours, it was emotionally draining. We rushed on and played Sci-Fi Things, Jet Set Willy and My Thoughts Collide as fast as we could and dived off stage just in time to catch the last train. The reception was favourable except for Sci-Fi Things which was in lead balloon territory. That was the first and last time Sci-Fi Things opened a Meg set. Sci-Fi Things, we love you.

Talking about lead balloons our first proper gig was at The Punch Bowl in Ronkswood, Worcester (see review in Gigs section).

During our early gigs Lambear was just hanging around with Meg. He was an involved fan. He'd offer to drive and wanted to come to every gig. He even came to watch us practice on Sundays! One Sunday we were short of Tom. A practice without drums wouldn't be our normal 'run through the set, mess around for an hour' affair. It would more likely be 'mess around for three hours' so we told Lambear to bring his guitar for fun. He could clearly play more than he had let on. Basically it went well enough that we gave him the thumbs up to join Meg for a trial period. Meg had lost a fan and gained a guitarist. There would be one less person cheering but more reason to cheer.

And that is Meg as it stands today. Er, except Lambear has since left. Everyone was really upset for a few reasons but we carried on. Things probably worked out better.

Oh, yeah.Tom and I were driving over to my brothers house discussing band names. All the names we were coming up with had connotations. They sounded like death metal bands for the most part! Meg is my beautiful, loyal(ish) black cat. As a band name it doesn't really suggest a great deal. It was agreed and rubber-stamped soon after.