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About the deathBox
DeathBox began life as the Newcastle Gerald & Toast. The G&T was first published around about February 1998. The original purpose of the G&T was to provide an excuse to get pissed up on sherry whilst writing down loads of stuff which we believed to be funny. Obviously, in the cold light of sobriety, it wasn't that funny at all, but no matter, it was down on paper and so we typed it up, put it all together and forced people to read it.
It was originally distributed around a few select pubs in Newcastle upon Tyne. Not only was this a good excuse, but it also meant the people who read it would be people who knew us. We weren't to know that the stupid fuckers would find the thing funny, but they did, and so the drinkers of the Egypt Cottage, the Tyne, the Tanners Arms and the Free Trade Inn were stuck with it for a while. We also gave it to our favourite record shop, Surface Noise, but they went bust, and we'd like to take this opportunity to apologise for that.
Further distribution came from our top DJ mate (and occasional contributor) Big Niall, who dished it out in the Riverside and various other gigs he did. After nine issues, around November 1998, we got a bit lethargic and stopped doing it. No big fall out or creative differences or nowt, we were just lazy.
Late
in 1999, we decided to resurrect the thing as (what
turned out to be) a one off, for some reason changing
the name to deathBox. The plan was that we'd blag
our way in to the recording and after show lig for the
Millennium Tube, being filmed at Tyne Tees. Once
inside, we'd distribute it to the various movers and
shakers there, become instant media darlings and we'd be
made for life. It didn't actually work out like
that, although Travis' tour manager liked it, as did the
comedian Adam Bloom - who turned out to be one of the
nicest people we've ever met. After that we got a
bit carried away on the free booze and it all went tits
up.
Anyways,
the G&T/deathBox went into another state of limbo as
we got on with other things (buying houses, growing
up(!), writing our pub & restaurant review site - Newcastle Central) until late 2000 when we decided to
write some new material. This coincided with us
being approached by the Idlefish website to include some
material on their site. This gave us a bit of a
kick up the arse which culminated in this revamp of the
site in March 2001.
The
current content of the site comprises old G&T and
deathBox material, plus the new stuff we've written in
the meantime. The plan is that the G&T will
continue as the printed version, with the same material
being published on the internet as deathBox. We
might even try to keep it up to date as well.
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