Mick Pike, frontman of Preston post-punk outfit Pike and Lancashire alt world music faves Deadwood Dog, has a new venture on the go alongside his day-job. He tells me, ‘We haven’t a clue what we’re doing,’ in a ‘Blockbuster’ style, but he’s fooling no one, his licensed coffee bar in Pall Mall, Chorley, a cracking venue to catch another old veteran of the punk wars, John Baine, the artist better known as Attila the Stockbroker, out there entertaining and spreading the word about the evils of fascism since an enlightening moment catching The Clash at the Rainbow in ’77.

It says ‘punk poet, dub ranter, singer-songwriter, early music punk pioneer, writer and social commentator’ on the tin, and these days Attila – now 66, just ahead of Paul Weller – organises gigging schedules around Brighton and Hove Albion fixtures. In fact, he’s probably done that for many moons, and on this occasion that involved a post-match trek from Anfield after a narrow defeat at Premier League title contenders Liverpool. And despite the result, it’s clear that on reflection he’d happily take that feeling of disappointment bearing in mind where his club were at when he first properly got involved behind the scenes with Dick Knight and co., helping resurrect the Albion from ’97, the club having narrowly avoided a drop into non-league but soon playing ‘home’ games 70 miles away at Gillingham (‘If Kent was the garden of England, that was the outside toilet,’ he put it last night, recalling the Priestfield days).

He certainly made swift progress from Merseyside after the final whistle, getting to the venue not long before me, a few miles away, rare Spring bank holiday sunshine having necessitated a back garden kickabout with the lad followed by a sharp exit while listening to the closing stages of Arsenal’s ground-out goalless draw at the City of Manchester Stadium that ensured Liverpool stayed top.

A pint of White Rat in hand, I squeezed in at the end of the bar just before his first set, the same bitter being drained a little more fluently by our Sussex coast visitor, mighty fine lubrication on a night when it seems his voice was on the edge of croakiness, Attila opening with songs about his beloved Joe Strummer and first pop love Marc Bolan. He’s never pretended to be a great singer, but he can work his way around a few chords as well as his sharp prose and poetry, as those who have caught his band Barnstormer will know. And he bedded in, he played to his strengths, easy and entertaining repartee and a little preaching to an admittedly already converted audience proving to be his danger USP (unique selling point, that is, for those who’ve not been on marketing courses), the White Rat a key stage prop (‘White Rat, I wanna Rat; White Rat, a rat of my own!’ he sang, his sten guns over Southwick transported 250 miles north west. Danger Stranger alert).

John’s stories and verse ranged from standing in for Donny Osmond one night to travels in Albania and North Korea, the latter connection ultimately leading to catchy singalong ‘DPRK’, the Village People’s ‘YMCA’ reworked. Props also included his phone for poems he couldn’t remember so well (I could never do his job – I’d remember bugger all without a book or a notepad, and I’d be sweating at the thought of gadgetry failing me if I was reliant on a moby) and two mascots from the National Poo Museum in Sandown on the Isle of Wight, where his poo-et in residence role not only gives him a chance to indulge in childish humour but also help spread the word re bowel cancer awareness and pollution at the hands of corpulent utilities companies seemingly working hand in hand with short-sighted, share-scheming, money-worshipping Governments.

For me the true standout sections across his first set were his personal takes on losing his mum to dementia and his relationship with his step-dad, respectively ‘It’s Made of Wire’ and ‘Never Too Late’, the latter something I hadn’t heard for a while but was no less poignant (this scribe having lost both his folks to that dreadful disease), while the second set included a triumphant dub poetry section, an autobiographical ’40 Years in Rhyme’ (although it’s 44 now, he added) for me suggesting lineage back to Ian Dury’s wonderful ‘You’ll See Glimpses’ before a crowd-pleasing ‘Tenorman’, loved by no less than late great Benjamin Zephaniah, his toasted take on advice for the ageing bloke detailing his own cancer battle and the need to check yourself out to potentially save your life, while praising the wonders of our ailing NHS.

The politics was everywhere of course, from railing against Tory-voting relatives and Express/Mail/Sun-reading types to national obsession with the Royal Family, with ‘Prince Harry’s Knob’, ‘Maggots 1 Maggie 0’ and ‘Poison Pensioner’ worthy winners. These days he bats for the Labour Party, brought back into the fold by Jeremy Corbyn and determined to stick around, continuing a south coast pushback against the Tories, canvassing for his wife, Robina (who got plenty of mentions on the night), an ‘Anyone But Conservative’ philosophy at the ballot box not far from my own take on it all, determined to be rid of those in charge rather than focus on in-fighting among those on the left. And this being Attila, there was plenty of talk of socialism, the intricacies of anti-semitism name-calling and the sad erosion of national building blocks that the likes of Nye Bevan established, post-WW2, delivered by an artist proud to have been part of that golden generation that prospered under the Welfare State with regard to health, social care and education.

As he puts it on ‘40 Years in Rhyme’, ‘When I started off, spoken word was people talking to each other. Now it’s a genre!’ And I think we touched on it all, his words about Bob Crowe and the unions also going down well, and the finale a pensive piece on Palestine. I come out of gigs like this thinking the world will be alright after all, his words and the audience’s warmth for the subject suggesting perhaps the years of Brexit and twisted UK support for the Johnsons and Farages were just blips, the hedge fund drivers set to be banished, the Trusses, Kwartengs and Rothermeres to be resigned to history, as gleefully envisaged in ‘Left Wing Economic Establishment’, the song to go with the t-shirt. But then I think of the dinosaur who lives a few doors down, excited at the thought of Reform UK chancers coming through, suggesting we may still have some way to go. That said, all the time the likes of Attila are banging the drum and adding a little recorder (two at a time, I should add), there’s hope for a brighter future.

It took me just short of 35 years to catch him a second time, having first chanced upon Attila at Reading Festival in August ’89. But it was worth the wait… not as if my non-attendance down the years will have helped his bank balance. My mate Alex wrote this week, ‘I hope Attila doesn’t remember his review of our Guildford Labour Party Young Socialists’ magazine from the ’80s. It was, and I quote, ‘It’s shit’. If there had been a second edition, we could’ve put it on the front cover.’ We were sixth formers then. Wish I’d have been able to dig out my copy and get him to sign it, staples ‘n’ all. That may have been my first foray into publishing outside a school mag, quickly followed by Captains Log and Wubble Yoo fanzines, the latter charting my enduring love affair with Woking FC, one of our biggest paydays coming at the away end of the long gone Goldstone Ground ahead of an FA Cup tie in December 1992,the Cards securing a replay. That’s the only time I was on Match of the Day, slow-mo VHS plays catching me turning around to my better half with a wry, defeated smile among a sea of despondent fans following their goal. And thankfully Clive Walker later made up for his involvement in their eventual progress, signing for us, providing some of the best entertainment ever witnessed at Kingfield. Happy days. And while that has no real place in this review, if Attila’s allowed to rant and go off at tangents on stage, I am too. It is my website, after all.

Cheers, John. I raise a glass of White Rat in your direction.

For my 2015 feature-interview with John Baine, aka Attila the Stockbroker, head here. And for the latest from Attila head to his Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages and check out his Soundcloud and website links. And to see what’s coming up at Foxtails in Chorley, which offers cask ale, beers, wines, spirits, barista coffee, bar snacks and live music, and is sport-free – apart from when Attila’s visiting – and dog-friendly, check out their Facebook and Instagram links.