eBay

Adam Mole's 'The Mrs. Won't Pay For A Caravan Fund'

Hello and 'welcome to my world'. Every two weeks I plan to auction (via eBay) 'Pop Will Eat Itself' related 'lots' in a quirky, experimental, mildly amusing, most unlikely scheme to raise enough cash to purchase a nice cosy vintage caravan... for myself!

This conceptual extravaganza is also described in glamourous literary fashion at James Brown's 'Sabotage Times' website.

http://www.sabotagetimes.com/music/adam-mole-needs-a-caravan-so-hes-selling-his-pwei-memorabilia/

Here for auction is lot ‘PWEI005’.

The ‘Akai S1100, midi stereo digital sampler’.

Here stands the classic Akai S1100 used by every sampling hero in the music business from 1990 and beyond! Now holding professional vintage status this is possibly Pop Will Eat Itself’s longest serving ‘relic’. Central to the whole fabric of PWEI, once priceless now pretty useless, but never the less this historical artefact is at least equal in stature to any early earthenware glazed jug or beaker dug up by Baldrick in television’s ‘Time Team’ I can tell you!

It has however seen better days, bought around 1990 for £3000 (I think), you can now pick them up for next to nothing...and here’s the fun part...in perfect working order. This PWEI product is far from ‘mint’ and if intended to continue its majestic historical past will need a professional service and repair. The floppy disc drive has been temperamental for years and no longer wants to load any discs. You could connect a scuzzi port and lead to a zip drive or even try the equivalent 21st century technology catalogue of innovation and you may have a perfect working model. I must admit though, I have had a bit of a wriggle around with the internal wiring in a ‘I don’t know what I’m doing but if I just take the casing off, have a look, wriggle a lead or two and put it back together again I might just fix it pointless moment’. Therefore ‘I CAN NO LONGER VOUCH FOR’ the electrical safety of this S1100.

Just to tease I include a few floppy discs loaded from a compatible (I think!) Akai S3000. They hold a sprinkling of classic PWEI samples extracted from various master tapes. What a teasing scumbag!

Approximate size is 19x17x12 inches.

I am pretty sure almost everything written, recorded and played live from ‘Cure for Sanity’ through ‘The Looks Or The Lifestyle’ to ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ and up until our untimely demise involved this Akai S1100 ‘helper’. In fact for many hundreds of hours Graham, Clint, Rich, Fuzz and myself would fiddle with it’s knobs, often in pleasure, often in frustration but often to euphoric climax and delight!!!

Songs such as ‘Dance Of The Mad Bast**ds’, ‘Touched By The Hand Of Cicciolina’, 92DegreesF’, ‘Bulletproof’, ‘RSVP’ and ‘Ich Bin Ein Auslander’ were all written, produced and showcased to our faithful crowd using this Akai S1100.

The fully expanded memory helped cope with the numerous ‘live’ samples played through my keyboard at gigs across the world. We would always, always travel with this Akai...almost always!

Brighton University began to hold an annual summer festival. We had played the previous year and liked the vibe so were due to play again. We were also finishing mixing the album ‘Dos Dedos Mis Amigos’ in London at the same time. We decided to hire a replacement Akai S1100 for Brighton so that Chuck New could continue to use our trusted S1100 and finish a mix that night. It was loaded with samples all running nicely and...well it just seemed the best idea, the right thing to do.

The gig was much bigger than the previous year and our regular hardcore fans were gearing up for a good night. As the band before us finished their set our crew hastily set up our equipment...but not the S1100. The useless piece of rubbish would not load our usually accommodating array of floppy discs. Unbeknown to us at the time the Akai S1100 can vary in operating systems or something or other...ask Rich, he will know...anyway all we needed was a floppy disc from our own sampler with a quick download/upload/thingymgig...ask Rich, he will know this too. But, in a field in Brighton, 50 miles from London with ten minutes till we are due on...not so good!!!

Dropped a right b*llock there! We did however all have the balls to go on stage ourselves and apologise to a rather unhappy crowd. A month or so later we played I think a free gig for anyone with a ticket for the aborted festival appearance. The small upstairs room at the Brighton centre rocked that night and we celebrated in a dance club next to Brighton beach. I celebrated by walking fully dressed into the sea...shoes, jacket, the lot. I forgot the pebble beach suddenly drops about ten feet. I could have drowned that night but thankfully my hideous cheap baseball type jacket inflated like a puffer fish...luckily for many years I would have a severe bad taste in clothing...of course I’m much better now!

About 10 years ago I actually took this S1100 to the local tip along with some other domestic paraphernalia. As I dumped various items of household tat my arms reached out for this sampler. I picked it up and for some reason put it back in the car. Couldn’t do it! However, now is the time. It has sat in my cellar ever since...doing nothing...and will now hopefully make room for another case of wine. Finally to get rid. Bloody marvellous!

I haven’t offered International postage because of the size and weight (about 12 kilo). If anyone from across the world wants to source the transport then cool...let me know.

O.k., to recap; again you are not bidding on the product but the history. Don’t ask me if it does ‘this’ or it does ‘that’, ask Rich. We were never the most successful band in the world but this sampler gave us a little stardust...but never enough, so there must be some hidden somewhere...perhaps it still lies in this sampler! Hopefully you can find it if someone doesn’t get there first.

Happy bidding!