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Dan and I met at a pub in central London on January 8th, and as usual Dan was a fantastic help. As mentioned previously, Dan had already voiced doubts about whether we could continue with Ravi, and during the course of the conversation, we reached a decision that we would have to ask Ravi to leave.
We reported this to Stuart and Saul, who were both happy with it, and to Liam who was not. His position, as I understood it, was that his had been a rhetorical question, that it was an attempt to get me to see how the only sensible thing was to tolerate Ravi's behaviour as it was he who had transformed the band (a view I disagreed with), and he could not support any decision to ask Ravi to leave.
There followed a horrible, bitter few days of infighting, set against a backdrop of rehearsals for an acoustic gig booked for January 28th, at which point we agreed to have a meeting to try and thrash everything out. In the meantime, having completed all the interviews, Dan and I had begun the long long process of sifting through all the documentary footage to try and find what to use and what not to.
The meeting was a horrible, traumatic one and I have blocked almost all of it out of my mind. A patched up attempt at reconciliation was reached but it was purely papering over the cracks, and it felt like it even at the time. 
As if things weren't bad enough, Dan then injured his hand just before the gig and was only able to sing and play percussion. The gig took place at The Spot, in Covent Garden on Jan 28th and I remember clearly being miserable, and thinking 'I am having to act like a happy compere, instead of being one, I am really unhappy and I don't want to do this anymore'. It didn't help that because of Dan's injury, I had to cover his guitar parts as best I could. It wasn't an ideal solution but was the best we could do on such short notice. All of that notwithstanding, I think we played well, and the setlist, for what it's worth, was...
Sofa Bunny
Chiswick
Girlfriend Gay
Saddest Lights
Pam
Talking Streeb Blues
Miss Friel
Fat Nora
Above and Right: Screen captures of the last gig with Ravi: Jan 02
January became February and knowing that the end of Ravi was in sight, my enthusiasm was restored. Dan and I met regularly to work on the documentary, which it was becoming clear would be an epic task, and on songs for our next album. Liam, Dan and I met at Dan's on Sunday February 17th, where we recorded Saddest Lights and George W Bush, as well as overdubbing on 'Nazi Dog', 'Longevity' and
'Chiswick High Rd'. Later that week, Ravi and Dan met up and Ravi overdubbed some additional percussion parts.
We were planning, at this stage, to release the documentary in May, and the album in August. Both dates were to prove wildly, wildy optimistic.
With my enthusiasm rekindled at the fact that the band would continue under a new name, and no-one need be hurt, I also set about updating the website for 2001, a decision which was to have disastrous, unforseen consequences.
Meanwhile Dan was becoming increasingly unhappy. He felt the group had become a lame duck, waiting to be put out of its misery, and that, with all the traumas, we were behind with recording, and spending hours recording songs that had gone stale for him, that he needed a break from. However working on the new material (we were trying out 3 brand new songs (Roboslut, Viv Richards, Freak Y'all ) wasn't any help. He knew that we would never finish these songs with Ravi in the band, so it felt redundant, but moreover he was really frustrated by Ravi's refusal to just play straight rock drums, even when they were the best thing for a song. Ravi had a huge range of amazing percussion but sometimes it seemed like he felt he had to find something bizarre or obscure, even when a rocking drum beat was all that was needed.
That notwithstanding, in late February and early March, Dan and Ravi got together to begin mixing Nazi Dog and Longevity. On March 4th I uploaded the website pages covering 2001, little knowing that I had planed a timebomb....
March 9th brought Saul's 30th Birthday celebrations in Norwich.
Dan and I, had taken our acoustic
guitars, and Saul had brought his percussion. So the 3 Shorties, with
Saul's father on additional percussion, gave a mini concert. We
performed:
Noriega, My Mind Is On Sale, Fish and the Tambourine, Monkees Theme,
Listen To The Band, and I'm A Believer
We brought the house down. It was a sympathetic audience of course,
but still I was impressed by how good we sounded, and how much the
crowd got into it.
Then, another bombshell. Liam was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the decision not to tell Ravi that the Blackwells had no long term future, so a couple of weeks later, after the recording session of 17th March (where we recorded basic tracks for 'When Your Girlfriend Asks You If You're Gay' and 'B Grade Underwear'), he sent an email of resignation saying he would see out his previous band commitments but then wanted to leave. He cc'd Ravi in, so as to make the situation open and transparent. As Liam had opened the floodgates, I sent a follow up email 'resigning' too.
The journey back was a disaster. Car problems meant we had to be towed to my parents house. Then, as the car was a write off, endure a long coach journey to London where we had a band rehearsal scheduled. There was no time to go home, so we Dan had to make do without any bass guitar. Worse was to
come; Stuart had sent a message, he had been burgled and his keyboard
(and many other things) stolen, and if I recall correctly, Liam couldn't get his fiddle in tune (he went through a brief period of trying to learn the fiddle, which was to be used on the song 'Freak Y'All).
It was a depressing rehearsal and though we did make progress on
Roboslut, Dan and I were shattered by the end.
On March 19th I sent an email to the Shorties list formally announcing that the band would break up once the existing commitments had been met.
Left and Below Right: Saul's 30th Birthday On April 7th we began rehearsals for long time Shorties fan, Rachel Curren,'s wedding. We had commited to play at her wedding some time before, and when Liam announced his resignation and it became clear the band would be breaking up shortly, I was concerned that Ravi would pull out of the gig (indeed that was the main reason for not telling him immediately, as we could not let someone down on their wedding day). Well the rehearsal was wonderful. The reason…it was fun!!! There was no tension, stress, arguing or any controversy of any sort; just a band jamming and playing for fun. Wanting it to sound as good as possible, of course, but determined to enjoy the fun of making music, rather than it becoming a big chore where, by wanting to turn everything into serious, art-y perfection, you suck all the joy out of things. We planned to do some Monkees covers as it was a wedding, so we worked on Theme From the Monkees, Last Train To Clarksville, Sunny Girlfriend, For Pete's Sake, Girl I Knew Somewhere, and our originals Forecourt Loving and Sofa Gofer And we just grooved. Everyone was on the same page, and having a great time.
Meanwhile Dan and I were meeting one evening a week, most weeks, doing three hours or so work on the documentary. It was coming together, but it was slow hard work.
On April 21st the band, sans me, got together to record the basic tracks for 'Pam' and 'Sofa Gofer', however Ravi needed a great many passes before he was happy with the basic track for 'Pam' and so 'Sofa Gofer' was postponed.
May arrived, and Dan and I were still only up to 1997 on the off-line editing (ie: deciding where all the footage would go). Starting the physical splicing and dicing of the footage seemed an age away. On May 19th, Stuart, Dan and I met at Dan's house and overdubs were added to 'Miss
Friel', 'B Grade Underwear', 'When Your Girlfriend Asks You If You're Gay'
and 'Pam'.
Also in early May, Stuart gave us all a fright by collapsing suddenly and being rushed to hospital. He had to undergo brain scans but was eventually given the all clear.
Ravi was trying to organise for us to play at a benefit concert but this came to nothing. He and Dan did some more mixing work at this time, concentrating on 'Chiswick High Road' during May
June was supposed to herald the intensive rehearsals for Rachel's wedding but everything came crashing down about our ears in the middle of the rehearsal of June 9th. We were midway through the rehearsal, and all had been going brilliantly, when suddenly, and out of nowhere, Ravi announced he was furious at me for something I had put on the website. He claimed I had deliberately misrepresented the events of a meeting in 2001 and accused me of deliberately setting out to smear him via the website. Now, this certainly wasn't true, but I apologised regardless. I write all the webpages in my very limited free time, based on all the archive sources I can find, and on my memory which is fallible, of course so it was certainly possible that it had failed me. So having apologised and offered to change it, I hoped all would be well. Ravi, however, seemed to be getting more angry and said I was making things worse by pretending it wasn't a deliberate attempt to smear him. Liam and Dan defended me very strongly, pointing out that I wasn't a liar and if I had said that something was my honest recollection of events, then it would be. The rehearsal finished with Ravi saying that we couldn't move on till we had sorted this to his satisfaction.
Having left a reconciliatory answerphone message the same evening, I sent him an email the next day, June 10th, an extract of which follows
I would like to say again how sorry I am that you have been hurt/angered by something I put on the website, as it was clearly not my intention to cause you any pain.
I am sending the text of the page you refer to, and I would be happy to remove the whole paragraph
or to just remove certain words/sentences Just let me know which
you would prefer.
Again I repeat that I never meant to cause you hurt, and am genuinely sorry that I clearly have.
Sincerely
Aiden
Unbelievably I told him I would think about it. I really did not want to let Rachel down. As soon as I spoke to Dan, Saul and Stuart I knew what had to be done. they all said that he had to go. He couldn't keep holding us to ransom, especially now that his behaviour was now disturbing as opposed to just eccentric. When I spoke to Liam, he also appeared to agree. If I recall correctly he said: "Well, if he won't apologise or back down, he'll have to go".
That being the case I rang Ravi the next day and told him I wasn't prepared to put his message up, and that because of his behaviour we had decided to move on without him. He told us all to F***K ourselves, and that was the end of Ravi's association with the band.
In response, at some point between June 10th and 17th, I received a phonecall from Ravi during which he accused me of being a masterful manipulator who had the rest of the band under my influence. He claimed they couldn't see that I had psychopathic tendencies and were blind to how I controlled them all. He demanded I put a notice on the website stating that I had set out to smear him, that this showed that I was a coward and a bastard, and that now I had been found out.
If I did not, he said he would resign and leave us with no drummer for Rachel's wedding.
Meanwhile Liam and I had a very strained relationship. I felt he had taken Ravi's side against his own brother. He clearly saw it very differently. Whatever the rights and wrongs, we weren't on the best of terms. That said, he announced his engagement to Yuki during this time, and asked me to be Best Man, which was a great honour.
July 26th was the date of Rachel's wedding and the omens seemed good. Despite some convoluted travel arrangements we were all there on time. Indeed, Phil had arrived first. Our last experience with an emergency musician (Abingdon 1996) had been so awful that we had sworn we wouldn't settle up with Phil until after the final note was played. Now we were actually at the venue, this seemed to be a little churlish. I asked Dan about it, and we decided that at this stage nothing could go wrong. Phil was here, on time and ready. So we paid him in full, there and then.
After the break, we really got into the groove. Saul replaced Phil behind the drums and brought the show to life with some fantastic drumming. The groom said afterwards that the second set was the tightest he had ever seen us, and others described Saul's drumming as 'brilliant'. It was truly his finest hour.
Also, by the time of the second set, the sun had
set and it was dark outside, and cooler inside and people were coming
inside to check out the band. Phil had retired to the bar and was unavailable to provide percussion on 'Fat Nora', so we made a
virtue of a neccessity and got Alfie, a small child from the audience, to
shake marraccas, which the audience dug, and indeed everyone
was clapping along to the song and it got a fantastic reception. From then
on it was plain sailing, as the audience danced and sang along. When the
final notes of Stepping Stone faded away, they screamed for more so we
played 'I'm A Believer' for the second time. Still they wanted more, so we
decided to play 'Great Balls Of Fire' again too. But Phil had played on
that one, and he was indisposed! So Saul stepped into the
breech, and, having never played the song in his life, played it live in
front of an expectant wedding crowd, and played it da** well.
So it was that triumph was snatched from the jaws of defeat.
The set list was:
Set 1:
I'm A Believer
Girl I Knew Somewhere Encore: Theme From the Monkees
Last Train To Clarksville
For Pete's Sake
Noriega
Is Love Enough?
My Mind Is On Sale
Chuck's Party
All Muddled Up
Great Balls Of Fire
Little Bit Me, Little Bit You
Daydream Believer
Set 2:
Circle Sky
Fat Nora
Oklahoma Backroom Dancer
No Time
She
Sunny Girlfriend
Listen To The Band
Stepping Stone
I'm A Believer
Great Balls Of Fire
As summer turned to Autumn, Dan released a solo album
called 'Kanji School' and rehearsed and performed a gig with the other band he was involved with, 'The Swedish Chefs'.
On October 13th and 27th we rehearsed and recorded the last two songs for 'Buff My Lizard': 'Napalm Bagpuss' (which featured Saul on drums, and was to change title to 'Noodle Central' and finally 'England's New Chains..') and 'All Muddled Up' (with Chris Kiely pounding the skins).
On a sad note, Sauls' Nan, who sang 'Oh Mr Porter' on 'All's well that's never begun' (from our 'Music For Mooks' albun) passed away during December, following a short illness.
So that was 2002. Our annus horriblus. A pain in the arse of a year. But we'd got through it, and we were still going. We'd hit the very lowest point, and had everything thrown at us, but we were still together, and moreover the seeds of recovery had been planted. We could only hope that 2003 would see The Shorty Blackwells in full bloom once more.