The Fat Dog drummer talks us through the day from Father Ted alarm to the growl and pant of the stage.

The day begins, the phone lights up and the theme tune to Father Ted starts to batter my brain. You win, Ted. I’m awake, I’M AWAKE, good god I’m awake. Won’t you shut the feck up, and make me another cup of tea, Mrs Doyle, though I’m very far from feeling like a satirical sitcom. I shuffle in the direction of coffee and rebuke myself for choosing this piece of music, of all possible, tinny renderings of comedy classics, for the phone alarm. The beginning of the day, any day, is something of an anathema to me. It’s genetic. And pathetic. My girlfriend sleeps on so, feeling jealous, I clatter about the kitchen so she can feel my pain. Sharing is Caring.

But hey! Today is a special day and deserves my full attention. The woofy woof wagon is arriving pretty soon and I need to find my other welly. Minutes later they’re here, stirring up a storm on a kerbside in Camberwell. And we’re off. Fat Dog on tour. Baby.

I spend the 2-hour van journey locked into my headphones ‘stimming’, watching old episodes of Never Mind the Buzzcocks from the Lamar, Hughes & Jupitus era and listening to music. We approach the festival, buzzing.

The fun just keeps giving. Thank you, Joe Love, for pulling me into his tight group of musical geniuses and satirical punksters. Now I wear a dog mask on stage. I’m a mean, lean (ahem) drummin’ machine, and Satire is my middle name. Except, now I’m more mean. My dog mask got nicked a week ago. So I need to growl, or pant, or hang my tongue out and drool over my snare; anything to maintain the aesthetic.

This is very far from how I used to gig as a teenager; punking out at bars in Lewisham, Guinness after Guinness after Guinness, to get my 5-a day. Or perhaps I mean 5 Guinness a day. I dunno. Whatever. I was following some Government guidance. It was fecking great fun. I still play with my other band, New Immigrants, when the opportunity arises,

The mask is – was – an extension of myself – a trademark of the band. Being autistic, masking is big part of my life. With the dog mask, shit just got real. Especially if I sneezed, or pulled faces when doing complex fills. Then shit gets very real.

I need to go and do some stimming before I start setting up for the gig. This usually consists of me just having some anti-social time on my headphones. 13:15, our set time, is approaching, and we get ourselves pumped up, ready to feed the crowd with our looney tunes. Morgan (on sax and synth) sneaks onstage to tap the intro button, the 2-minute warning intro music begins, air raid sirens stir up the crowd. And we’re up.

The crowd becomes tribal. Energy is passed from crowd to band, band to crowd, like an episode of the Chuckle Brothers, only nothing like that… except for Joe, the lead singer’s moustache. The energy spirals upwards, we all wet ourselves with excitement (except we don’t). But that’s the sort of thing. “That sort of thing,” said Ted. “Careful now,” Dougal retorts.

Reviewers have described Fat Dog as a cult (unless it was a typo). We’re just here to have fun. It’s Fat Dog, baby, and you’re all invited.