Selected by Rusty 

The first time I went to The Gun was with Nick, maybe 2014, asking me to come and have a look at this pub that would be soon be coming on the market that he was interested in. It was a really grim, drizzly old late January night… proper London weather.

We walked in and I’m not sure whether the atmosphere was more grim inside or out, really unwelcoming and horrible… possibly worse than The Slaughtered Lamb in ‘An American Werewolf’ except this wasn’t make believe. We got a pint of some kind of piss and sat in the corner… where the now legendary ‘Seceret Plans, Clever Tricks’ neon would come to be (and break often), and many a vortex session would unfold.

Somehow, Nick saw the potential, and where others would have run a mile his infectious enthusiasm and optimism, as we’ve all come to know and love, convinced me that this indeed was a go-er. Within six months, The Gun, in its new incarnation was open… and ‘100% committed to breaking even’.

Immediately it felt like home, fast became mine and many others Cheers, except in Hackney, not Boston… and with Nick Stephens at the helm, certainly funnier and arguably more handsome than Sam Malone.

Ahhh the memories, if only I could rememeber them. Seriously, there were so many highlights, the meeting new people and others I hadn’t seen for some time, on both sides of the bar that have gone on to become firm friends… off the scale DJ sets that ripped off roofs, only to be replaced and ripped off again… ‘that’ first pint after covid restrictions were lifted… the birthdays…

In 2024 my girlfriend Lizzie asked me what I wanted to do, half asleep I replied ‘I wanted to walk into my favourite pub, see as many pals that could make it, with ‘Where Everybody Knows Your Name’ (The Cheers theme tune) playing, with Bez sitting at the bar so we could have a pint’ (I don’t know him, but our birthdays are on the same day). I walked in’ ‘Where Everybody…’  blasting out, everyone in there holding up facemasks of me and Bez, and little Grateful Dead party cakes! No Bez unfortunately, but thanks to Andy Bell it very narrowly nearly happened… I got a birthday video message from him instead and much fun and hilarity ensued!

For a track, I am choosing The Undisputed Truth’s ‘Ball of Confusion’. There was a Gun radio show takeover and there was a few of us in attendance, a good mix of The Gun’s eclectic sound – I believe it was Jean Young, Cherrystones, more than likely Scott, maybe Nathan Wilkins? Nick, Josh and myself… I dropped this stone cold slice of psychedelic soul… that incomparable Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong production. It bounced around the place like a tennis ball on Mistubishis in the breakdown… and Nick screaming at me “What the FUCKING HELL is this track!”