Growing up as I did, in the early seventies, I was of a generation that marvelled at the wonderful technological advances that graced the television set at half past seven on a Thursday. Top of the Pops would zoom past in such an uncontrollable surge of excitement that no sooner had Tony Blackburn introduced the first chart hope of the evening than Raymond Baxter and William Woollard launched into a glimpse of what mind boggling extravagance awaited us in twenty years’ time.
With all the advances our world had seen – television, the internal combustion engine and moon landings to name but a few, it was hardly surprising that such things as personal computers, mobile phones and cars that float on a curtain of air left us gazing in wondrous awe. No, they didn’t always get it right but that was the beauty of it; nobody was any the wiser and even today, as we look back at a legacy of unfulfilled prophecies, we still aren’t. Maybe someday we will find a use for floating cars, paper clothing and interplanetary etiquette. As it was though, the show ran and ran and, probably due to its close proximity to Top of the Pops in the scheduling list, found favour with at least one member of the family.
As well as having a desperate hunger for music, I was prepossessed with a strange thirst to know how things worked. One of the greatest presents I ever had was a simple throwaway thing. I guess he thought I was just going to play with them but a drawer full of my granddad’s old buggered up pocket watches was a mechanical wonder just waiting to be discovered. I guess a very significant thing was happening and I probably laid down my first roots in an engineering sense. It didn’t take long before I knew what each little gear did, the function of every spring and lever and had succeeded in making every one of them work. Soon, it went from watches to clocks to record players to vacuum cleaners to cassette players.
Of course the beauty of it was that in those days broken things could be fixed, the advances in technology were tangible and they were met with a great deal of expectation and very little sense of inevitability but things were moving on; we were moving away from a nuts and bolts world; it was a time of astonishing advancement. The dawn of the printed circuit board and the computer era was just around the corner and miniaturisation had bought up all the tickets for the next decade. Digital watches and pocket calculators would soon be common place and a power struggle would ensue over the comparative merits of VHS and Betamax, mirroring the Compact Cassette vs. Stereo 8 battle of the seventies. Now that was what I called progress. OK, so they were really inventions of the sixties but they really came to the fore in the early seventies. The idea of a magnetic tape onto which you could record whatever you wanted was a major step forward in the world of audio storage. It made it possible to capture audio from whatever source you wanted and, crucially, it was portable. Whatever songs your mate had, you could record; whatever songs you wanted form a radio broadcast, you could record. In a few short years, piracy stepped into thousands of bedrooms and it didn’t involve miles and miles of reel to reel tape; just a little plastic box smaller than a fag packet. Remember all those tapes you had of the charts; all the lists you made from the music press, so that you knew when the song you wanted was going to be played and how you hoped that this time Blackburn didn’t yap all over the intro. Aye, if only they’d foreseen the almighty shitstorm that the mp3 would unleash they could have saved all that money on their home taping is killing music, faux skull and crossbones logo; they might have realised that music would survive and that the art would endure and, besides all of that, with the amount of electricity, time and effort we wasted, we’d have been as well spending the 50p on the single. At least that way we got the whole thing; at least that way we didn’t get the neebs Alsatian barking like a maniac or the RAF jet going overhead that rattled the windows in their frames.
Another great advancement of the time was the rise in the fortunes of our national team. A World Cup beckoned - the first in living memory. We were there while England and Brian Clough presumably, stayed at home to lick the wounds inflicted by the famous Polish goalkeeping ‘clown’ Jan Tomasewski.
This foray onto the world stage however, would prove to be a short and frustrating one.
Ever the bridesmaid, glorious in defeat, and all those other daft clichés used to describe, in a favourable light, something that just doesn’t quite meet the required standard, we went home after the first group stage, undefeated, a credit to the nation, having held the mighty Brazil to a draw. Unmarred even by some idiotic advertising campaign for Maureen One One f4cking eight, Scotland still remain the only side to return from their world cup campaign undefeated but without the big golden nugget.
We even had our own song, Easy Easy.
A typically silly piece of work that, to the point of embarrassment, was as lyrically bereft and as brazen a slice of bubblegum as I’d ever heard, it was written by Bill Martin & Phil Coulter who had been responsible in no small way for some other fairly tragic events in the world of pop.
Shang a Lang, Congratulations, Puppet on a String and Back Home were the high points on their graph of achievement.
They were the Celtic equivalent of Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman without the megahits.
During the lead up to all of this, we were gripped by world cup fever and by the end of the school term, at the age of twelve, I had broken into the school team. I played in goal, which was pretty surprising given that even now, if I straighten my back and puff out my chest, I’m only five - nine. Back then? I was pocket sized and I don’t mean jacket pocket sized; not even shirt pocket or hipper sized. I mean I was the comparative size of one of those totally f4cking useless little efforts that you get in jeans that are just a complete pain in the arse because nobody can figure out what they’re for other than snagging your pinky on when you head in to fumble for some loose change. Anyway, I guess the one thing that made me any good at all was that I could jump about all over the place and dive at the feet of on-coming opponents without any fear of getting hurt. I also had a knack for reading penalties.
For as long as I could remember our school either won the league or came second to our west end rivals. We had a headmaster who could only be described as an evil bastard. Without doubt, he was the headmaster from the Wall. I actually remember at the time the Wall came out thinking that Roger Waters must have gone to the same primary school as me. Surely there couldn’t be more than one such evil, sadistic bastard. He was, without fear of contradiction, the most feared and despised man any of us had ever come across, topping our schoolboy list of evil wrongdoers that included other such notables as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Ted Heath and Bob Monkhouse but by the time I reached my last year at primary school, we had a new head teacher and a new modern extension.
The new regime was much less draconian and the sight of pupils sneaking around in fear of serious, and most likely, illegal, assault was consigned to memory and the fading scars on the back of the legs. Unfortunately, our success on the pitch followed suit. We were having a disastrous season and had been beaten by everyone except the neighbouring RC school. Every year, for as long as I could remember, they were the whipping boys of the Primary School League. This year was no exception and they’d suffered defeat after defeat. The only thing making them look good was the fact that we too had been utter shite in every game. We had only managed a one all draw in our first match against them so it came to the last game of the season to decide who would get the old spurtle. That’s like a wooden spoon but without the spoon bit, specially designed for stirring porridge and, to every sane person outside of Scotland, is commonly known as a stick.
This was a home game for us but, having just had the school partially rebuilt, the pitch was a cross between the Somme and the surface of the moon. Anyone from Primary 4 and under was strictly forbidden from playing there in case one of them fell into a crater and was never seen again. The tarmac playground was much safer for them. There was also the lack of a perimeter fence around the ground which meant if someone skied it, or if one of the bigger lads just wanted to be a bit of a bastard, some of the juniors would have to walk all the way round the block or scale the six foot wall to get the ball back. It would have been ok for us to play on this pitch as we all knew where the holes were; we knew that the whole thing sloped to the north end and we knew where all the builders rubble was scattered but for them, a bunch of pansy convent boys, it was considered too dangerous so off we trooped that glorious summer afternoon to the academy sports ground.
Bearing in mind that this was the seventies, and a good twenty years before you were allowed to have an entire second eleven sitting around posing for Adidas on the subs bench, we were restricted to two subs. Thirteen, picked from a squad of about sixteen, that being the exact number of boys who actually knew what a football was. Admittedly there were some in the team who couldn't spell the word football - probably still can't - but the entire squad were there on the merit of having a full set of limbs, no embarrassing illnesses and no symbiosis with the insect world. On the day, by some strange and fateful twist, three of the regular team players were off sick so there were only thirteen of us left to choose from. At least this time I was going to get to along to the game.
I hadn’t had a start all season and, expecting nothing to be any different this time round, had already taken my place on the bench – a row of breeze blocks in actual fact. Next thing I know, there’s some frantic waving and I’m summoned to the changing room and getting changed. “Big eins got the shites. Pit these oan” the captain roared, clearly feeling the stress. If this had happened today, I would have been pulling on some designer breathable fabric, padded at the elbows and shoulders and a pair of high tack padded gloves. As it was though, this was 1974. Bearing in mind what I said before that, in some ways at least, we were in a bit of time warp, I ended up pulling on a yellow top that had obviously been knitted out of old Brillo pads and fashioned with a month’s trawling in the North Atlantic in mind. It carried the smell of moth balls like Van Helsing would carry a crucifix to ward off vampiric molestation though why the f4ck any sane minded moth would wish to molest such a garment is way beyond the scope of my wisdom. The gloves were like a pair of welders gauntlets but I never wore gloves anyway so they just got chucked next to a post.
I wanted to wear my own green top with the number one on the back like David Harvey wore but the heidie was having none of it.
Again, if this were in the modern age, I would have probably told him if he wasn’t happy with my kit, he could put big skittery breeks between the posts, but as it was, I was just glad I was getting a game at last.
As we ran out into the sweltering heat of the afternoon, I was flushed with pride and excitement. I stood between the posts trying to make myself look big but succeeding only in a passable impersonation of flea in a matchbox.
The game kicked off and, from here on, only the truth can be told, that being that my defence and I had a blinder. I use this term, not in the sense that we were so good you would have been blinded by our brilliance, but in the sense that we played like five blind men.
Even as a twelve year old, and from my vantage point in the six yard box, it was clear to me that these guys didn’t have much of a clue about protecting their keeper who was by now feeling more than a wee bit skittery himself.
Attack upon attack rained down upon my goal and it was only the fact that their forwards couldn’t have hit a bear’s arse with a banjo that kept the score down.
The law of averages however, was stating that eventually they would hit the target but when this happened, with my one and only save of the day, I managed to push the ball behind for a corner.
From the resulting corner, they scored. A bit of shoo-in really as I totally missed the low cross as did all six team mates crowding my area. Eight people in the six-yard box and the one it had to hit was the only opponent.
Ten minutes later their striker broke away against the run of play. As the ball bounced before him from a speculative punt out of defence I tried to anticipate what he would do. There was only him and me. I quickly tried to psyche him out. Would he go to my left or my right? I expected he was right footed and tried to show him a bit more of my right hand side to push him to his left. I don’t know if my edging towards him panicked him, if he suffered some rare and involuntary spasmodic affliction or if he just fluffed it but he lashed out at the ball with his right foot and sclaffed it. The ball, in mid bobble, flew off his shin and over my head and all I could do was turn and watch it bounce feebly over the line.
For anyone watching from the other half, his and my team mates, it must have looked like he made an audacious chip from about 18 yards out with the advancing keeper at full stretch.
As it was, the low shot I was expecting never came. The torrent of abuse however, like ten Lorimer volleys, was furiously despatched and delivered by first class post.
It didn’t matter to me. I was deflated. I’d been beaten by a deflection and a miss hit.
It didn’t matter that we played with a ten-man attack and had absolutely no shape whatsoever.
It’d didn’t matter that the lazy bastards all thought it was worthwhile running back to give their goalie some stick but couldn’t be arsed running back to defend every once in a while.
Two – nil down at half time and I was pissed off and beginning to feel a bit envious of big shitey kegs’ spot in the toilets.
The second half was a minor improvement and we at least managed to claw back the deficit.
In truth, I’ve forgotten most of the details about the rest of the game. I know I could easily have nipped round the corner to the bakers for a pie or gone for a snog in the bushes with the wee lassie from the end of the street because I didn’t have a single touch for the rest of the match.
That was my first and last taste of school football.
I never felt the same about it after that.
And so to the music…
What else at this time of year…
Various Artists - World Cup Anthems
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lk8pw1
Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians, Live 09.04.1991, Orpheum Theater, Minneapolis, MN
http://www.sendspace.com/file/q6aucd
Green On Red, JC Dobbs, Philadelphia, 30.06.1986
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ebrv0r
TMTCH, Hamburg 03.02.1986
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6ql8kv
Wilko Johnson Band, Half Moon Putney, 19.05.1985
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4t5kht
Edwyn Collins - 1997-12-xx - Kultkomplex Cafe, Cologne
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1u6u67
Orange Juice, Coasters 29.11.1982
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kxkzmp
The Alarm, Bremen Aladin, 10.06.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/x5s4jn
Josef K, Art College, Edinburgh
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fkttdw
James, Alton Towers, 04.07.1992
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3ha78z
Stranglers, Zurich 85
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6hmlwp
In Tua Nua, Torino
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jbf10w
Sparklehorse - Ambassador - Dublin - 2001-11-02
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5x0gsa
Richmond Fontaine – Live in the Club Q-Bus City Leiden Holland 27.02.2010
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uuxfuo
Zerra One, Paris - Olympia 07 June 1982
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cyyxtb
Nick Lowe, ritz.ny.1985.xx.xx
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3g7bfz
Joe Pug, Mission Creek Festival 01.04.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/n0sirx
MikeScott, _Dublin, 01.09.1991.rar
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5egs7p
Television, Masonic Temple Auditorium Detroit 13.03.1977
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vjzh8p
The Who, Live In Phoenix
http://www.sendspace.com/file/422dlr
Tom Robinson, Live in Liverpool, 1986
http://www.sendspace.com/file/crjoql
til the next instalment,
Enjoy.
Hooli
Wednesday, 7 July 2010
Friday, 4 June 2010
How come no one older than me ever seems to understand…
I know that this is a pretty unremarkable fact but, based on the party going antics of todays average twelve year old, I figure it is worth pointing out that I can only ever remember going to one birthday party. This is not to say that any recollection of the other squillion ice cream and jelly gigs has faded irretrievably from my memory, it is to quite categorically and unequivocally say that I only ever went to one. As I said before, my early childhood elapsed in part during the swinging sixties. A time when everyone was too busy getting whacked on the narc-du-jour or marching against whatever political outrage piqued their collective hysteria. So with that in mind, and despite the unavoidable truth that it was the birthday of the sister of a friend who I didn’t particularly like (the sister, not the friend), it has to be said that this was a major highpoint of my preteen social calendar.
She was about four at the time so I guess I must have been about ten.
I don’t remember much about it other than being told that neither the friend nor I were allowed to win ‘pass the parcel’.
Later that same year she would smack me over the head with a funny little garden rake thingy, leaving me with puncture marks in my scalp that I can still feel today.
I can place this episode perfectly in time as I remember we were having a kick around one Saturday afternoon, not in our usual place on the grass at the top of our street or in the big park at the end of the scheme but, for some totally bizarre reason, in the car park. I was ‘being’ Peter Lorimer because I could take the ball on the volley and Leeds had just won the cup. This was something of a big shout for a ten year old as this was a guy who was known to be able to give it some welly but he was Scottish and played for Leeds, which was good enough for me. So we larked about for a bit, ‘three and in’ or something similar I guess was what we called it; chipped a few crosses for the odd header on target; took the odd chest height cross on the volley into the neebs chrysaths; next thing I know, wallup, my cranium is the new resting place for some itinerant garden implement. There was that split second, “oh f4ck” moment when the rest of the lads quite literally went “oh f4ck” before I went “oohya bastard”.
Even at that early an age I had attained an interesting mastery of the English laguage.
Anyway, I don’t remember there being much pain or much drama, just the blood and, as anyone who has kids will know, a little head wound goes a long, long way.
Needless to say my Leeds top soon resembled an Arsenal top with a big red splat seeping down the front.
Some time later, in one of those typical 20 a side, next goal wins, jerseys for goal posts type of affairs, revenge would be mine.
Being as it was, by now, the infancy of a new decade, it was a strange sort of time. Forget all that Gene Hunt bollocks, this was the far north of Scotland; an insular community; one content to live firmly in the past in spite of all the trappings of the modern age delivered by the Naval and RAF bases nearby. This was the kind of place where old folk still pointed at aeroplanes; where kids tried to feed bread to the helicopters; where power cuts were looked forward to because you didn’t have to feed the meter and progress passed through town like it was the arseole of the world. Although there had been a lot of changes in the world of fashion and music, there was still a strong sector clinging to the haggis and shortbread ideal of ‘Grannies Heilan Hame’, the ‘But and Ben’ and the Sunday Post.
OK, so it wasn’t quite as bleak and removed from modernity as the Gaeltachd but it still held onto that daft pretence of being a city just because it had a cathedral.
Amid all this, and the centre of my universe, was my mother. She was an odd polarisation of what was trendy and what was most definitely not. She’d been to London to work, had loads of trendy clothes and, looking back, I guess she may have been the envy of a lot of her mates who were stuck in grimsville. But at the end of it all, she was still a single parent, struggling to bring up a family and have the life any normal 30-something would have.
She had a new man in tow. Another ‘uncle’.
I never got that whole pile of shite about “this is your Uncle Bertie Shagmeister” or whatever.
Did she really think I was that f4cking stupid?
If anyone asked, I was to say he was my uncle, home from the sea.
Like anyone cared a f4ck about who he was.
Everyone knew her story. Everyone knew what my father had done.
That was the small town mentality of it. Stuck in the 1940s where such things were frowned upon. Aye, we could all go to war and shoot the f4ck out of each other but God burn ye in hell if you were known to be shagging someone who wasn’t your lawful wedded.
Just a load of condescending and patronising bollocks.
Anyway, having hopelessly and pointlessly digressed, back to the matter in hand.
Revenge.
About this time, she became quite detached from the whole glam rock affair. She had no real interest in the new stuff, preferring to remain rooted in the world of her twenties. Under the influence of the new ‘uncle’ she was turning into a bit of a folkie. Unfortunately for me, this was around the time the Clancy Brothers and the Corries were starting to get quite big in the folk world. The consequence for me was the appearance of various hand knitted folk type garments, generally knitted from what I was told was arran, and emblazoned with funny little leather buttons that had an odd meaty taste when you sooked them.
How the fuck she expected a ten year old to keep a white cardigan clean, especially one that he definitely didn’t want to wear, is still beyond my understanding.
Also beyond my understanding, was the way the fates would conspire to iron out the playing field and set up the circumstances for my little slice of retribution.
Back then, we had something we knew as the ragman.
This amounted to some dodgy looking gypsy geezer who looked like Albert Steptoe, wasn’t really a gypsy but just some old tink from the caravans across the river who, once a month, would come round wheeling a hand cart, collecting old clothes in exchange for a balloon or a packet of sweets.
The guy was a magnet for the little kids but was frowned upon by their parents.
The whole across the river area was a big taboo for all of us. The only way across was by the railway bridge or by a big water pipe with spikes and barbed wire at either end. Although some of the bigger kids made the daring trip to the other side, I was never brave enough to try. I don’t know if it was the journey or the fear of what would happen if I was found out. Probably a bit of both.
So there we were, one Saturday afternoon, late in the summer of 1972, about twenty past tea time, a riotous assembly of about forty kids, raging from eight to fourteen years old, all chasing a big brown bladder stitched up to effect a barely passable impersonation of a regulation football. This wasn’t any regular kind of game and no regular kind of ball. The bigger kids took great delight in hoofing the ball straight up in the air, as high as they could and watching as the smaller kids tried to head the ball. This was something that, despite the ball being filled with air, left the recipient with severe neck strain, potentially debilitating eye injuries from the laces and at least two inches shorter in height from spinal compression due to the force exerted by gravitational acceleration. Remember that one? Force = mass x acceleration.
Anyway, on it went, the never ending game, in the hope that someone from our end of the scheme would be first to fire it between the two piles of apparel assembled for posts, thus signalling game over, and then it happened...
...someone scored just as the ragman came along and all the wee ones came out of the woodwork like a swarm of newly hatched spiders seeking their first taste of insect flesh or, in this case, their pink balloon or their packet of iced gems.
Everybody grabbed their gear and headed back home.
Now I know what you’re thinkin’.
Did he leave the cardi behind or did he give to the gypsy.
We’ll to tell you the truth, in all that excitment, I kinda lost track myself.
Being this is a white, cable knit, arran cardigan with leather buttons that taste like they've been stained with Bovril, the most powerful sweater in the world that would blow your credibility clean oot o’ the watter, you’ve got to ask yourself one question.
Did I feel lucky?
Well, in my defence I’d like to claim that I was distracted by the fact we’d won, that it was tea time and the that there were all these little beasties chasing after the ragman but to be honest, I don’t know for sure what happened. I like to think that, in my role as the agile minded criminal mastermind, I contrived a situation whereby someone else did my dirty work and, as the ultimate act of revenge, took the fall for something that wasn’t their fault but, the fact of the matter is, although I was smarter than the average ten year old, I wasn’t that smart. What is true is that one of the other kids claimed he saw this little blonde kid giving the gypsy a white jumper in exchange for a red balloon. That was good enough for me to be able to finger the little rake bradishing bitch from up the street as she trotted proudly past our kitchen window waving her little scarlet dirigible.
That was how it was.
Saturdays in the summer were an endless game of footy that ended with mathematically improbably scorelines and teams that would fluidly change as X or Y had to go for lunch, tea, haircut, de-lousing or whatever other refinement their parents saw fit and an endless struggle to avoid wearing some or other knitted abomination that was straight off the cover of a Clancy Brothers album.
For me though, the best thing about Saturdays as a kid was a trip to one of the three shops that sold records.
This was the time of the K-Tel revolution. The time when the sixties, and those ridiculous Top of the Pops albums gave way to the 70s and albums boasting 20 original hits by 20 original artists.
The Beatles were gone, not that I’d really noticed, and music was noticeably changing. Flower power had been consigned to the waste heap of impropriety, giving way to glam, glitter and platform shoes. The Mexico World Cup was a distant memory that the Bolivian jewellery trade had survived only marginally better than the English World Cup Squad, although the latter did manage a No1 hit with Back Home.
Week after week, Top of the Pops was seducing me with ever more wondrous sights.
Things I’d never seen before; exciting and exotic sights that were beyond my imagination.
There was this strange curly haired wee fella in a feather boa with glitter all over his puss. There was another bloke with the weirdest hairdo I’d ever seen and a bizarre line in leg-wear, cuddling up to some weird looking guy in a blonde feather cut, a glitter suit and platform thigh boots. There was the poppy eyed guy with the funny hat that looked like his granddad cut his hair round a pudding basin and there were also those nice clean cut boys with the white suits that my granny liked. The only time my grandfather was even remotely interested was when the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards were at No1 with Amazing Grace. Everyone else was just a long haired gink.
What one of those was, I’ve no idea.
If grandfather was faced with something he couldn’t understand and hadn’t the vocabulary to deal with, he just made something up. He was six foot four. Nobody was going to argue with him.
He made stuff up all the time and I assume now, in adult life, that he was a pretty funny guy. He was a friend of Charlie Chaplin – they met when Chaplin visited Nairn on one of his many holidays to the north – and was full of funny stories about things he did during the war. The funniest thing ever was a road trip with him. This would invariably entail much swearing and gesticulating as he complained about every other driver on the road from behind the wheel of his Ford Anglia. This was something I would inherit some twenty years later but sadly, no I didn’t also inherit the old Dagenham Dustcart.
Once out of the town and onto the open road, he was free. His spirit would rise and he would break into song or into a shrill blast of whistling that made bagpipes sound like they were being heard from the inside of a concrete bunker.
The inescapable truth about this was that his musical repertoire was limitless because he just made stuff up. He’d start off singing some old favourite traditional Scottish tune like Road to the Isles or something equally dismal to a ten year old and then, suddenly he’d veer off into something else. Jim McLean’s Whisky Chorus, as popularised by Robin Hall & Jimmie MacGregor was a particular favourite that would naturally end up with about a hundred verses relating tales about everyone he’d ever known. Oh how I longed to meet the mystical woman to whom he promised, “I’ll buy a big sheep’s heid an gie the teeth tae Bella”
He did the same, in a way Edward Lear did, with poetry. He just made up nonsense. Contradictory nonsense.
He loved the great Scottish tradition of song making; Burns; the bothy ballads; Harry Lauder; and the White Heather Club. He loved the accordion – especially under the masterful hands of Jimmy Shand or Will Starr. He loved everyone – especially after a few drams – and everybody loved him back.
Like an aged version of Hen or Joe Broon, he was the archetype of Scotland in the forties, rooted so firmly in the time and the place that he just kept living it over and over. Today, he’d be seen as anachronistic and living in the past but there was much more to him than that.
When I think about it now, I wish could have known him in the present day, when we didn’t have a sixty year age gap. I wish I could have understood what he was about then instead of resenting the fact that he was a father substitute.
Some of his unbridled Scottishness must have rubbed off on me though as it would surface much later in life but, at the time, there was nothing remotely Scottish in the modern cultural mould, unless you counted Rod Stewart. But he was just another long haired gink, and an ‘English’ one at that.
My grandparents were growing old. I was growing up. The new man in my mother’s life was sticking around and things were starting to change.
She was spending more time at home. I was spending less time at the bowling club.
We were starting to at least look like a proper family.
I was allowed to grow up a bit; grow my hair. I got some fashionable clothes and got a bit of a social life.
Then, one Christmas, it happened.
My great Road to Damascus moment. The moment when music really reared up and I knew I was hooked.
It was 1972.
For my main present I was given a huge red model Fokker triplane, an interest by proxy, that I succumbed to in preference to being an ungrateful a brat. It was accompanied by an apparently insignificant little red transistor radio, the type with a little off white earpiece shaped like a mutant earwax collecting mushroom. This is so strongly etched upon my memory that I can even remember the song I heard when I first switched it on. From then on, it was my salvation.
I could stay in my room and listen to it at the weekend without disturbing anyone and, more importantly, without anyone disturbing me.
I could listen to the charts every Sunday evening.
It was on this very machine I first heard all the greats of the time.
The Jean Genie with its thunderous ‘duh duh duh, duh du-du duh duh duh’ riff.
20th Century Boy and Wishing Well.
It’s easy to mock but, at ten years old, I first heard them all on the Ed Stewart Saturday morning Junior Choice request show.
There was the other stuff too. The Osmonds, the Jacksons and all the Chinn & Chapman stuff; the Sweet, Mud and Suzi. Then, out of the blue it happened. Something Scottish. Something that swept through the country like a plague. Something that that was so unashamedly crap that it made being Scottish even more ridiculous than it actually was. Something that can only be described as Rollermania.
What, oh please will someone tell me what, in the name of God, were we thinking about. How on earth did we let five talentless oiks from Edinburgh, and their allegedly crooked manager, con the great British public into believing they were the next big thing? They even had their own TV show for f4ck’s sake.
That little radio though, for all the crap that came out of it, was my subterranean passage to a different world. The real revelation was Radio Luxembourg.
This was an education as it shifted in and out of phase. The sounds were less mainstream than on daytime radio and certainly better than the stuff they played after Radio 1 reverted to Radio 2 after the top 20.
After a week listening to Stuart Hendry and Tony Prince, at the weekend I’d eagerly drag my mother to Woollies, Clydesdale or Barr & Cochrane to buy some obscure sound I’d heard on the radio.
My next great revelation was hearing Johnnie Walker on Radio 1 at lunchtime.
He did a thing called Pop Quiz. I’d listen intently to the questions and amaze myself at the knowledge I had been absorbing through some form of osmosis.
By the age of 12 I was a confirmed muso.
That first song on that wonderful Christmas day by the way. ‘C Moon’ by Paul McCartney & Wings, complete with false start.
Why that stuck, I don’t know. But it did.
And so to the whole point of it all, the music.
The usual mixed bag starting with that song.
Never did like it…
Paul McCartney – the Nashville Sessions 1974
http://www.sendspace.com/file/66vg1u
The Waterboys – An Appointment With Mr Yeats Premiere, Dublin Abbey, 15.03.2010
http://www.sendspace.com/file/sf3td7
Editors – Dundee Fat Sam’s 11.03.2010
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9c2rup
Glenn Tilbrook – Farmingville,NY, 18.03.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xdw3rw
Laura Marlin – Cellar Door, 05.02.2010-06-04
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3ztlof
Primal Scream – Milan, 01.05.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/eqgevb
REM – Manchester 17.11.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/fezkum
Vampire Weekend – Reykjavik, 19.10.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/80zddn
Saw Doctors – House Of Blues, Cleveland OH, 06.03.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pgq0am
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ordyvb
Them Crooked Vultures – Edinburgh Corn Exchange, 15.12.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/eoa7fb
Joe Pug – The Ark, 27.03.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hqup8h
And So I Watch You From Afar - XFM Session 2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/vsmjj6
Orange Juice – Caley Palais, Edinburgh, 13.05.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/olnsx4
The Earle Family – Newcastle Opera House, 06.11.2001
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3vvl9v
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5f8hzi
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9lyzmq
OK.
So that’s it for now.
Back in a few weeks.
Hopefully I’ll post something before I head stateside.
Enjoy
Hooli
Saturday, 17 April 2010
i don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello...
My first guitar was a battered, sprucetop, steel strung acoustic with an action that Beth Ditto could limbo dance under. A formidable beast, it bore the scars of a generation of abuse and the name Epiphone on its headstock. Handed down by an aging uncle whose arthritic fingers refused to do the bidding of an acutely sharp mind, it had been marinating in rhythm ‘n’ blues since the 1940s.
Not the stupid R’n’B thing that we have today, which is synonymous with screeching divas or black girl groups singing what we sophisticated gents used to call soul.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the inspiration for the British boom of the 60s and bands like the Stones, The Yardbirds and John Mayall.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the touchstone for the 70s revival and bands like Dr Feelgood and Nine Below Zero.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the transfusion without which we would still have Greensleeves coursing through our veins.
Real music on real instruments by people with real lives and real characters.
Music that spoke of the lives of the people who made it.
Music that cut its way into the grain of every battle scarred instrument it was ever played on.
Music that…
Uh?
Oh, must have dropped off for a minute there – having the most wonderful dream.
Of course, that’s the story I’d like to tell; a misty, soft focus, romanticised tale of a mysterious relative who came and went through my childhood, dropping names like Hooker, Waters, Diddley and Berry. Sadly, there was no such uncle and no such guitar. As much as I’d love this to be a MOJO Magazine tale of the childhood genius flourishing thanks to a gift from a legendary British bluesman, in truth, my early aspirations and attempts to be musical were utterly fruitless and the closest I ever got was farting in the bath.
The reality was that my very first guitar was a plastic thing of no real distinction other than the fact it bore the faces of the four Beatles.
My recollection has it that it was a faux electric, that is, that it was shaped like a stratocaster.
It was probably nothing more than an oversized ukulele.
I say that, not as a derisory comment towards the uke but merely to suggest the size of instrument your smaller than average five year old would be capable of holding. I know I must have been five because this was the time of my first musical awakening.
I still remember the first song that hooked me and probably the first sound that made me ask my poor mother for a guitar. It sounds a bit silly now but that single little snippet of electric guitar, that one note, bent up and back, just before Paul McCartney sings “Oh no, You say goodbye and I say hello” was the thing that reeled me in.
Suddenly I was a Beatles fan. I wanted to be George Harrison.
The annuls of history tell me that it was 1967 and more than likely at Christmas, the song in question not being recorded until October which places it a good five years and two weeks after my coming into being. It also strikes me that it wouldn’t have been a birthday because birthdays were, in the main, immemorable occasions. Maybe it’s a generation thing but we didn’t really ‘do’ birthdays in the sixties. Maybe it’s just that all the parents were too stoned to be able to cohesively construct something as complex as a birthday party. Maybe the kids, cake, games and tantrums were just a little too ‘Alice’ for the tripped out flower power brigade. Maybe they were too busy banning the bomb or burning their bras. Maybe they were lost on the way to San Francisco with flowers in their hair.
Who knows?
Certainly not me in my little world of eggmen and walruses.
From my earliest of memories, the radio was always on. My earliest true memories, not memories by association or by proxy, are actually of getting freaked by the wallpaper in my bedroom at my Grandparents prefab and having a little red plastic sit and ride London bus. These are inseparable memories although I know, apart from the fact that they are mine, that they are in no way remotely connected to each other. Why, I know not, but they are inseparable all the same, stuck together by an invisible bond like two strangers who’ve just been shit on by the same seagull.
Close to these in my memory bank is indeed the fact that the radio was always on.
My mum was a young mother; only twenty-one when I was accidentally born in Aberdeen. Not that my birth was an accident. Small though she may have been and, to me as a child, in possession of all the magical powers in the world, she would most definitely have been pregnant before I was born and would naturally have been up to some hanky panky with my other parent. No, my accidental appearance in Aberdeen was down to the fact that she was whisked by ambulance to the Granite City because the local hospital couldn’t cope.
Having narrowly escaped all the ridiculously fashionable names in 1962, I ended up being named after a ridiculous pop singer of ridiculous pop songs, simply because our surnames sounded similar. This left me with a ridiculously un-fashionable name. Worst still, I was anointed by the poisoned chalice of being an Aberdonian.
Situated some sixty miles south east from what would be my home for my first 13 years, to a small boy who rarely ventured beyond the end of his street, Aberdeen was the big city; a place of mystical stature and for all I knew, the edge of the world.
As a child, I was part of a single parent family. I had no real explanation for this and believe me, in one of Scotland’s smallest cities, an explanation was most definitely needed. Everyone knew everyone else and most of their business besides. Even if the kids didn’t really know each other, it was a fair bet that their mothers did and consequently, it was a fair bet that, while their mothers clacked over the fence about the cost of pies or whether Tom Jones really was better than Englebert Humperdink, certain kids would stockpile any poisonous pellets that fell their way, saving them up to be conveniently fired at a time of their choosing at the little gap toothed kid across the street. Others were typically kid-like in their solidarity and their unquestioning nature.
Some had fathers at sea. Some had fathers who were deceased. Some probably had fathers who they claimed were at sea but were actually in jail while others had normal two parent families. Me, I just had no father, no explanation and a source of great insecurity and inferiority that I couldn’t understand. With a mother in her twenties, you would however, be excused for thinking that in my childhood I was exposed to all the cultural delights that prevailed at the time.
Not so.
I wouldn’t say my childhood was unconventional.
Certainly not in the way that being of an insular religious persuasion that eschews modernity and fraternisation with the infidels would mean but my childhood was definitely different from most of my friends. My mother left to work in London and I grew up with my grandparents in the matriarchal and patriarchal roles. By this time, they were in their late sixties. They did old people stuff. They liked old people things like bowling, wrestling and the black and white minstrel show. They wore old people clothes like semmits, y-fronts and big blue raincoats. They ate old people food like tongue, liver and kidney.
Didn’t they know what these things were for?
To my growing disgust, I was expected to do the same and even now, with the exception of retirement homes, I can always tell by the pishy smell when I enter a place where kidney has been cooked. I know this to be true because it has recently been put to the test – not that I’ve been stalking old folks homes you understand.
I guess it must be a war thing.
People who have lived through the world wars feel it necessary to eat all sorts of weird stuff that would induce a gag reflex in most modern beings.
Don’t they know that’s what haggis and black pudding are for!
Just gather up all the slimy wobbly bits that nobody wants.
Add enough black pepper to choke a horse
Chuck it all in a plastic bag.
Boil for an hour.
Instant local delicacy
Their notion of entertainment was no different.
When I wanted to play, they would be off to the bowling club, the wrestling or visiting aging relatives who, instead of toys or radio, had a nice big platter of ox tongue sandwiches. I was never allowed friends in the house and I never had any new stuff. My football kit wasn’t even last seasons, my football boots were given by a mate who outgrew them, my school clothes were like something an insurance broker would wear and my haircut was decidedly short back and nae sides; a style favoured by those engaged in trench warfare. Hell, I was retro before retro was even on the fashion map.
The biggest influence in my life was my grandfather and what that meant was that my pre-teen years amounted to numerous trips to the Masonic lodge, the bowling green or the bookies. I was four going on sixty-four and destined to be a flat capped geek. Something had to be done.
The worst thing of all was the ritual Sunday afternoon trip to the cemetery. Even now, after forty plus years, the psychological scars remain and the very thought of dead flowers is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat.
Big, tombstone riddled field full of dead folk? I can handle that.
Smell of rotting vegetation? Totally f4cked.
The reason for this was it was always the job of my older cousin and I to take last week’s flowers to the bin, wash out the vases and refill them with fresh water. I can vividly recall the cut glass bowl and the chromed lid with all the holes in it that the decaying and slimy chrysanthemum leaves would stick to. I can vividly recall that it was me who had to poke his fingers through each hole to clean it because I was the youngest and had the smallest fingers. The smell would linger for the rest of the day on those little fingers. Then it would be back to another aging aunt for tea and biscuits. Not the kind with chocolate on them. No such luxury as a Jacobs Club. No, these were Garibaldis and Perkins.
Old people biscuits!
I remember one time, and when I think about it, it was probably the last time, when I had a nosebleed that seemed to go on for hours. I stood in my great aunt’s kitchen bleeding profusely into a huge Belfast sink that seemed to turn completely red like the opening credits of a Hammer Horror movie.
This was probably the result of being on receiving end of a sleekit slap in the puss from my older girl cousin; something that my lack of any defined memory of it, tells me it must have been such a frequent occurrence that it seemed the norm.
My memory does treat me to the recollection of the one time I slapped her back when she had sunburn.
As time went on, a demolition order was placed upon our row of asbestos prefabs. In their place were to be built concrete terraces and flats. Ironically, my grandparents declared these a potential death-trap. It was time to move house. I would miss the sun shining on the large white expanses of wall on the servicemens’ houses opposite.
It’s funny how a song can invoke such a strong emotion without ever having any real connection to a particular place or time but whenever I hear Paul Weller’s Pink on White Walls, I’m transported back there, on my little red bus, four years old, looking through the slats in the gate, hoping my mum would come walking up the path.
So it happened that we moved into a brand new council estate with rows and rows of brand new terraced houses (complete with asbestos panels below the windows and warm air central heating blowing through asbestos ductwork – lovely stuff). The streets weren’t complete by the time we moved in and I remember that first summer, in 1967, following the tar spreader and the steam-roller around. I still love the smell of freshly spread tarmac.
That summer, my mother returned from London and I went to school. Things became a little more normal but there were still repression issues about the single parent stuff. There was so much that was beyond the comprehension of a five year old.
The mysterious trips away when I knew she was working at the local bookies; the mysterious uncles I never knew I had; the nights when I would wake and hear her and my grandfather shouting at each other; the night he threatened to throw her out of the house with only me to stop her from hurtling down the stairs.
I was to become more and more reliant on music. I just wasn’t aware of it at the time.
With the radio continually on, and I still remember its Alba logo and its cream plastic body, shaped like one of those retro Dualit toasters, with a 3” diameter dial and the names Athlone, Hilversum, and Luxembourg sounding tantalisingly exotic, I was fed a daily diet of Jimmy Young, Pete Murray and someone called Caroline.
Funny thing was I was sure Caroline was a girls name.
Though everyone knows about Radio One, 1967 and Flowers In The Rain, for me, the birth of a new radio station was even less significant than England’s World Cup triumph a year previous.
I had records.
We had one of those Dansette record players that took 78s, 45s and 33s.
A red box of magic that, when you lifted the arm out of the way, could play the same song over and over.
As I sat in my mum’s bedroom listening to the stack of singles she loaded onto it while getting ready to hit the town, I was transported to a different life.
There was always something by Elvis or Cliff. But more often the tunes were by the Monkees or The Bee Gees. The Kinks or The Beatles.
Some of the Beatles records were actually mine. I had this double EP recording of The Magical Mystery Tour with the little cartoon booklet and in the middle, an off blue double page containing all the words to the songs.
This was my favourite thing at the time.
Listening to I Am The Walrus while my mum put on her slap.
I’m proud to say I still have it.
My record collection, even then, was nothing if not eclectic.
There was the Beatles stuff; a couple of singles by the Monkees; an album by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch; another by the Alexander Brothers (old peoples’ music); a little one sided disc that my mum recorded in a booth in London that was supposed to be a reminder of her when she was away at work but just made me sad; and a pink five inch Pinky and Perky single.
To this day, I have no idea where that came from or why the f4ck I listened to its helium induced madness, but I did.
The strange thing was that I loved every one of those records in its own peculiar way.
Growing up, as I did, on the fringes of the highlands, life was simple.
The highlight of my week would be a trip up the street where, if I was a good boy, I might get a Wimpy or even better, if it was summertime and to break up the walk home, a trip to the Park Café. This was a long cafeteria type affair opposite the towering horse chestnut trees of the Cooper Park. It served chips with everything type grub, proper milkshakes and, the best thing of all, Knickerbocker Glories that came in something resembling a trasparent upturned road cone. The place was amazingly of its time, like something out of a Bond movie and to me, was the last line in glamour and sophistication with the most incredible modern art canvasses hung all over the walls. One piece looked like it had been shot at with a machine gun and had three dimensional, two-inch diameter bullet holes sprayed randomly across one corner. Another had an image of a skull that I now recognise as being influenced by HR Giger. Some just had swirls or streaks of dark blues and blacks with the very occasional splat of red.They seemed to represent another world. Something that was dramatic and exciting.
Next door to the Park Café was the Two Red Shoes, Morayshire’s premier nightclub.
I was always being told that the Beatles had played there.
If I’d been an adult, I’m sure my response would have been along the lines of “bollocks” or “away an’ shite” but as it was, I was a child with only my mother’s word to go on. She assured me that she was a personal acquaintance of the clubs owner, a certain Albert Bonici who was a music promoter and a big enough name in the music biz to be able to lure the Animals, the Pink Floyd (allegedly with only a dozen people in attendance) and of course, the Beatles.
Don’t believe me, check it out
Very occasionally, probably on birthdays, these trips up the street would be combined with a trip to the pictures. The cinema in my little corner of the highlands was called the Playhouse. Built in the early 1930s to the design of Alister G MacDonald, it would be fair to expect some sort of majestic Art Deco façade befitting the times but no, presumably the architect, being the son of the great politician and first Labour PM, Ramsay MacDonald, was so well steeped in greyness that the end result was a drab affair wedged below the City Hotel, giving the whole thing the appearance of an entrance to a premises with delusions of grandeur. In later years it would find its true place in society, flanked by the Wimpy and an Italian chippy.
Circumstance usually dictated that it was a birthday but, under any circumstances, a trip to the pictures was a much sought after treat. You got to see the latest release on a massive screen with massive sound. You got a packet of Paynes Poppets (the regal version of Revels) and, if you were lucky, you got one of those Kia Ora drinks that tasted of plastic.
The Love Bug; Where Eagles Dare; The Battle of Britain and Kidnapped are the ones I remember with most clarity. I also remember the thrill of going in on the High Street and coming out through a side door onto North Street. Why this was a thrill is way beyond my comprehension. I just remember it was a thrill. Going with mum was also a thrill and way better than the Saturday kids’ matinee where you got in for nothing if you took a bag of sugar and an empty jam jar. This was partly because there were always bigger kids from the other end of town trying to pick fights and partly because, quite frankly, the films were shite.
They were poor, less exciting, imitations of the Man from UNCLE, Mission Impossible and the Avengers or less exotic and charming versions of the Flashing Blade, Belle & Sebastian, and the White Horses.
As the decade drew to a close, if it wasn’t on the TV, it wasn’t happening.
I remember the Apollo missions, the televised coverage and my collection of coins from the Esso garage.
I remember the black power salutes during the Mexico Olympics and my grandfather’s outrage at the politicising of a sporting event.
I remember general elections and sombre people called Harold Wilson & Ted Heath who were supposedly something called politicians.
I knew this was a serious business because they never smiled.
I remember George Best and Cassius Clay, Tommy Cooper and Morcambe & Wise all of whom never seemed to stop smiling.
Viewed through the eight by ten inch fuzzy grey screen in our front room, it seemed a world away from home but also a world away from the Cavern and Carnaby Street or Cape Canaveral and Westminster.
I guess I didn’t get the significance of any of it and, while my mum and grandparents sat transfixed by these unfolding events, I was happier listening to the radio.
One thing that I clearly did get the significance of was Top of the Pops. Even though it would be 1971 before colour transmissions kicked in, and a further two years before we had anything remotely equipped with the right stuff to receive the colour pictures, my first tastes of Top of the Pops in the late sixties were like some forbidden fruit.
Music porn for the under tens.
I thought all my birthdays had come at once.
The Beatles – Most Wanted
http://www.sendspace.com/file/stfqr3
Divine Comedy – Barcelona 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0j4c1o
Ocean Colour Scene - The Village, Dublin, 2003
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hljdr2
Drever, McCusker & Woomble – Live at Pocklington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wvpk1h
John Mellencamp – Check This Out – Live in Hamburg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oq36li
Oysterband – Live in Bologna
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ociol7
Damien Rice РWorld Caf̩ 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xd5b9z
Eddie & The Hot Rods - Live in Preoria
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ofrz6x
Jose Gonsalez - Factory Theatre
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mj6a58
Fire Engines – Retford + London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wfu6bb
Go Betweens – Brussels Botanique
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zfmcqn
Orange Juice - Glasgow Tech
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f7zgl5
The Stranglers - Live At The Ritz
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wh05wu
The Alarm – Astra Theatre, Llandudno
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4hkywd
Green On Red – I-Beam
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bh3e8t
King Creosote – Slaughtered Lamb
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9dkqk3
Lou Reed – Acoustic Demos 1970
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7yu8hy
Enjoy
Next episode in a week or ten.
Cheers
Hooli
Not the stupid R’n’B thing that we have today, which is synonymous with screeching divas or black girl groups singing what we sophisticated gents used to call soul.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the inspiration for the British boom of the 60s and bands like the Stones, The Yardbirds and John Mayall.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the touchstone for the 70s revival and bands like Dr Feelgood and Nine Below Zero.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the transfusion without which we would still have Greensleeves coursing through our veins.
Real music on real instruments by people with real lives and real characters.
Music that spoke of the lives of the people who made it.
Music that cut its way into the grain of every battle scarred instrument it was ever played on.
Music that…
Uh?
Oh, must have dropped off for a minute there – having the most wonderful dream.
Of course, that’s the story I’d like to tell; a misty, soft focus, romanticised tale of a mysterious relative who came and went through my childhood, dropping names like Hooker, Waters, Diddley and Berry. Sadly, there was no such uncle and no such guitar. As much as I’d love this to be a MOJO Magazine tale of the childhood genius flourishing thanks to a gift from a legendary British bluesman, in truth, my early aspirations and attempts to be musical were utterly fruitless and the closest I ever got was farting in the bath.
The reality was that my very first guitar was a plastic thing of no real distinction other than the fact it bore the faces of the four Beatles.
My recollection has it that it was a faux electric, that is, that it was shaped like a stratocaster.
It was probably nothing more than an oversized ukulele.
I say that, not as a derisory comment towards the uke but merely to suggest the size of instrument your smaller than average five year old would be capable of holding. I know I must have been five because this was the time of my first musical awakening.
I still remember the first song that hooked me and probably the first sound that made me ask my poor mother for a guitar. It sounds a bit silly now but that single little snippet of electric guitar, that one note, bent up and back, just before Paul McCartney sings “Oh no, You say goodbye and I say hello” was the thing that reeled me in.
Suddenly I was a Beatles fan. I wanted to be George Harrison.
The annuls of history tell me that it was 1967 and more than likely at Christmas, the song in question not being recorded until October which places it a good five years and two weeks after my coming into being. It also strikes me that it wouldn’t have been a birthday because birthdays were, in the main, immemorable occasions. Maybe it’s a generation thing but we didn’t really ‘do’ birthdays in the sixties. Maybe it’s just that all the parents were too stoned to be able to cohesively construct something as complex as a birthday party. Maybe the kids, cake, games and tantrums were just a little too ‘Alice’ for the tripped out flower power brigade. Maybe they were too busy banning the bomb or burning their bras. Maybe they were lost on the way to San Francisco with flowers in their hair.
Who knows?
Certainly not me in my little world of eggmen and walruses.
From my earliest of memories, the radio was always on. My earliest true memories, not memories by association or by proxy, are actually of getting freaked by the wallpaper in my bedroom at my Grandparents prefab and having a little red plastic sit and ride London bus. These are inseparable memories although I know, apart from the fact that they are mine, that they are in no way remotely connected to each other. Why, I know not, but they are inseparable all the same, stuck together by an invisible bond like two strangers who’ve just been shit on by the same seagull.
Close to these in my memory bank is indeed the fact that the radio was always on.
My mum was a young mother; only twenty-one when I was accidentally born in Aberdeen. Not that my birth was an accident. Small though she may have been and, to me as a child, in possession of all the magical powers in the world, she would most definitely have been pregnant before I was born and would naturally have been up to some hanky panky with my other parent. No, my accidental appearance in Aberdeen was down to the fact that she was whisked by ambulance to the Granite City because the local hospital couldn’t cope.
Having narrowly escaped all the ridiculously fashionable names in 1962, I ended up being named after a ridiculous pop singer of ridiculous pop songs, simply because our surnames sounded similar. This left me with a ridiculously un-fashionable name. Worst still, I was anointed by the poisoned chalice of being an Aberdonian.
Situated some sixty miles south east from what would be my home for my first 13 years, to a small boy who rarely ventured beyond the end of his street, Aberdeen was the big city; a place of mystical stature and for all I knew, the edge of the world.
As a child, I was part of a single parent family. I had no real explanation for this and believe me, in one of Scotland’s smallest cities, an explanation was most definitely needed. Everyone knew everyone else and most of their business besides. Even if the kids didn’t really know each other, it was a fair bet that their mothers did and consequently, it was a fair bet that, while their mothers clacked over the fence about the cost of pies or whether Tom Jones really was better than Englebert Humperdink, certain kids would stockpile any poisonous pellets that fell their way, saving them up to be conveniently fired at a time of their choosing at the little gap toothed kid across the street. Others were typically kid-like in their solidarity and their unquestioning nature.
Some had fathers at sea. Some had fathers who were deceased. Some probably had fathers who they claimed were at sea but were actually in jail while others had normal two parent families. Me, I just had no father, no explanation and a source of great insecurity and inferiority that I couldn’t understand. With a mother in her twenties, you would however, be excused for thinking that in my childhood I was exposed to all the cultural delights that prevailed at the time.
Not so.
I wouldn’t say my childhood was unconventional.
Certainly not in the way that being of an insular religious persuasion that eschews modernity and fraternisation with the infidels would mean but my childhood was definitely different from most of my friends. My mother left to work in London and I grew up with my grandparents in the matriarchal and patriarchal roles. By this time, they were in their late sixties. They did old people stuff. They liked old people things like bowling, wrestling and the black and white minstrel show. They wore old people clothes like semmits, y-fronts and big blue raincoats. They ate old people food like tongue, liver and kidney.
Didn’t they know what these things were for?
To my growing disgust, I was expected to do the same and even now, with the exception of retirement homes, I can always tell by the pishy smell when I enter a place where kidney has been cooked. I know this to be true because it has recently been put to the test – not that I’ve been stalking old folks homes you understand.
I guess it must be a war thing.
People who have lived through the world wars feel it necessary to eat all sorts of weird stuff that would induce a gag reflex in most modern beings.
Don’t they know that’s what haggis and black pudding are for!
Just gather up all the slimy wobbly bits that nobody wants.
Add enough black pepper to choke a horse
Chuck it all in a plastic bag.
Boil for an hour.
Instant local delicacy
Their notion of entertainment was no different.
When I wanted to play, they would be off to the bowling club, the wrestling or visiting aging relatives who, instead of toys or radio, had a nice big platter of ox tongue sandwiches. I was never allowed friends in the house and I never had any new stuff. My football kit wasn’t even last seasons, my football boots were given by a mate who outgrew them, my school clothes were like something an insurance broker would wear and my haircut was decidedly short back and nae sides; a style favoured by those engaged in trench warfare. Hell, I was retro before retro was even on the fashion map.
The biggest influence in my life was my grandfather and what that meant was that my pre-teen years amounted to numerous trips to the Masonic lodge, the bowling green or the bookies. I was four going on sixty-four and destined to be a flat capped geek. Something had to be done.
The worst thing of all was the ritual Sunday afternoon trip to the cemetery. Even now, after forty plus years, the psychological scars remain and the very thought of dead flowers is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat.
Big, tombstone riddled field full of dead folk? I can handle that.
Smell of rotting vegetation? Totally f4cked.
The reason for this was it was always the job of my older cousin and I to take last week’s flowers to the bin, wash out the vases and refill them with fresh water. I can vividly recall the cut glass bowl and the chromed lid with all the holes in it that the decaying and slimy chrysanthemum leaves would stick to. I can vividly recall that it was me who had to poke his fingers through each hole to clean it because I was the youngest and had the smallest fingers. The smell would linger for the rest of the day on those little fingers. Then it would be back to another aging aunt for tea and biscuits. Not the kind with chocolate on them. No such luxury as a Jacobs Club. No, these were Garibaldis and Perkins.
Old people biscuits!
I remember one time, and when I think about it, it was probably the last time, when I had a nosebleed that seemed to go on for hours. I stood in my great aunt’s kitchen bleeding profusely into a huge Belfast sink that seemed to turn completely red like the opening credits of a Hammer Horror movie.
This was probably the result of being on receiving end of a sleekit slap in the puss from my older girl cousin; something that my lack of any defined memory of it, tells me it must have been such a frequent occurrence that it seemed the norm.
My memory does treat me to the recollection of the one time I slapped her back when she had sunburn.
As time went on, a demolition order was placed upon our row of asbestos prefabs. In their place were to be built concrete terraces and flats. Ironically, my grandparents declared these a potential death-trap. It was time to move house. I would miss the sun shining on the large white expanses of wall on the servicemens’ houses opposite.
It’s funny how a song can invoke such a strong emotion without ever having any real connection to a particular place or time but whenever I hear Paul Weller’s Pink on White Walls, I’m transported back there, on my little red bus, four years old, looking through the slats in the gate, hoping my mum would come walking up the path.
So it happened that we moved into a brand new council estate with rows and rows of brand new terraced houses (complete with asbestos panels below the windows and warm air central heating blowing through asbestos ductwork – lovely stuff). The streets weren’t complete by the time we moved in and I remember that first summer, in 1967, following the tar spreader and the steam-roller around. I still love the smell of freshly spread tarmac.
That summer, my mother returned from London and I went to school. Things became a little more normal but there were still repression issues about the single parent stuff. There was so much that was beyond the comprehension of a five year old.
The mysterious trips away when I knew she was working at the local bookies; the mysterious uncles I never knew I had; the nights when I would wake and hear her and my grandfather shouting at each other; the night he threatened to throw her out of the house with only me to stop her from hurtling down the stairs.
I was to become more and more reliant on music. I just wasn’t aware of it at the time.
With the radio continually on, and I still remember its Alba logo and its cream plastic body, shaped like one of those retro Dualit toasters, with a 3” diameter dial and the names Athlone, Hilversum, and Luxembourg sounding tantalisingly exotic, I was fed a daily diet of Jimmy Young, Pete Murray and someone called Caroline.
Funny thing was I was sure Caroline was a girls name.
Though everyone knows about Radio One, 1967 and Flowers In The Rain, for me, the birth of a new radio station was even less significant than England’s World Cup triumph a year previous.
I had records.
We had one of those Dansette record players that took 78s, 45s and 33s.
A red box of magic that, when you lifted the arm out of the way, could play the same song over and over.
As I sat in my mum’s bedroom listening to the stack of singles she loaded onto it while getting ready to hit the town, I was transported to a different life.
There was always something by Elvis or Cliff. But more often the tunes were by the Monkees or The Bee Gees. The Kinks or The Beatles.
Some of the Beatles records were actually mine. I had this double EP recording of The Magical Mystery Tour with the little cartoon booklet and in the middle, an off blue double page containing all the words to the songs.
This was my favourite thing at the time.
Listening to I Am The Walrus while my mum put on her slap.
I’m proud to say I still have it.
My record collection, even then, was nothing if not eclectic.
There was the Beatles stuff; a couple of singles by the Monkees; an album by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch; another by the Alexander Brothers (old peoples’ music); a little one sided disc that my mum recorded in a booth in London that was supposed to be a reminder of her when she was away at work but just made me sad; and a pink five inch Pinky and Perky single.
To this day, I have no idea where that came from or why the f4ck I listened to its helium induced madness, but I did.
The strange thing was that I loved every one of those records in its own peculiar way.
Growing up, as I did, on the fringes of the highlands, life was simple.
The highlight of my week would be a trip up the street where, if I was a good boy, I might get a Wimpy or even better, if it was summertime and to break up the walk home, a trip to the Park Café. This was a long cafeteria type affair opposite the towering horse chestnut trees of the Cooper Park. It served chips with everything type grub, proper milkshakes and, the best thing of all, Knickerbocker Glories that came in something resembling a trasparent upturned road cone. The place was amazingly of its time, like something out of a Bond movie and to me, was the last line in glamour and sophistication with the most incredible modern art canvasses hung all over the walls. One piece looked like it had been shot at with a machine gun and had three dimensional, two-inch diameter bullet holes sprayed randomly across one corner. Another had an image of a skull that I now recognise as being influenced by HR Giger. Some just had swirls or streaks of dark blues and blacks with the very occasional splat of red.They seemed to represent another world. Something that was dramatic and exciting.
Next door to the Park Café was the Two Red Shoes, Morayshire’s premier nightclub.
I was always being told that the Beatles had played there.
If I’d been an adult, I’m sure my response would have been along the lines of “bollocks” or “away an’ shite” but as it was, I was a child with only my mother’s word to go on. She assured me that she was a personal acquaintance of the clubs owner, a certain Albert Bonici who was a music promoter and a big enough name in the music biz to be able to lure the Animals, the Pink Floyd (allegedly with only a dozen people in attendance) and of course, the Beatles.
Don’t believe me, check it out
Very occasionally, probably on birthdays, these trips up the street would be combined with a trip to the pictures. The cinema in my little corner of the highlands was called the Playhouse. Built in the early 1930s to the design of Alister G MacDonald, it would be fair to expect some sort of majestic Art Deco façade befitting the times but no, presumably the architect, being the son of the great politician and first Labour PM, Ramsay MacDonald, was so well steeped in greyness that the end result was a drab affair wedged below the City Hotel, giving the whole thing the appearance of an entrance to a premises with delusions of grandeur. In later years it would find its true place in society, flanked by the Wimpy and an Italian chippy.
Circumstance usually dictated that it was a birthday but, under any circumstances, a trip to the pictures was a much sought after treat. You got to see the latest release on a massive screen with massive sound. You got a packet of Paynes Poppets (the regal version of Revels) and, if you were lucky, you got one of those Kia Ora drinks that tasted of plastic.
The Love Bug; Where Eagles Dare; The Battle of Britain and Kidnapped are the ones I remember with most clarity. I also remember the thrill of going in on the High Street and coming out through a side door onto North Street. Why this was a thrill is way beyond my comprehension. I just remember it was a thrill. Going with mum was also a thrill and way better than the Saturday kids’ matinee where you got in for nothing if you took a bag of sugar and an empty jam jar. This was partly because there were always bigger kids from the other end of town trying to pick fights and partly because, quite frankly, the films were shite.
They were poor, less exciting, imitations of the Man from UNCLE, Mission Impossible and the Avengers or less exotic and charming versions of the Flashing Blade, Belle & Sebastian, and the White Horses.
As the decade drew to a close, if it wasn’t on the TV, it wasn’t happening.
I remember the Apollo missions, the televised coverage and my collection of coins from the Esso garage.
I remember the black power salutes during the Mexico Olympics and my grandfather’s outrage at the politicising of a sporting event.
I remember general elections and sombre people called Harold Wilson & Ted Heath who were supposedly something called politicians.
I knew this was a serious business because they never smiled.
I remember George Best and Cassius Clay, Tommy Cooper and Morcambe & Wise all of whom never seemed to stop smiling.
Viewed through the eight by ten inch fuzzy grey screen in our front room, it seemed a world away from home but also a world away from the Cavern and Carnaby Street or Cape Canaveral and Westminster.
I guess I didn’t get the significance of any of it and, while my mum and grandparents sat transfixed by these unfolding events, I was happier listening to the radio.
One thing that I clearly did get the significance of was Top of the Pops. Even though it would be 1971 before colour transmissions kicked in, and a further two years before we had anything remotely equipped with the right stuff to receive the colour pictures, my first tastes of Top of the Pops in the late sixties were like some forbidden fruit.
Music porn for the under tens.
I thought all my birthdays had come at once.
The Beatles – Most Wanted
http://www.sendspace.com/file/stfqr3
Divine Comedy – Barcelona 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0j4c1o
Ocean Colour Scene - The Village, Dublin, 2003
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hljdr2
Drever, McCusker & Woomble – Live at Pocklington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wvpk1h
John Mellencamp – Check This Out – Live in Hamburg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oq36li
Oysterband – Live in Bologna
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ociol7
Damien Rice РWorld Caf̩ 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xd5b9z
Eddie & The Hot Rods - Live in Preoria
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ofrz6x
Jose Gonsalez - Factory Theatre
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mj6a58
Fire Engines – Retford + London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wfu6bb
Go Betweens – Brussels Botanique
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zfmcqn
Orange Juice - Glasgow Tech
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f7zgl5
The Stranglers - Live At The Ritz
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wh05wu
The Alarm – Astra Theatre, Llandudno
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4hkywd
Green On Red – I-Beam
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bh3e8t
King Creosote – Slaughtered Lamb
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9dkqk3
Lou Reed – Acoustic Demos 1970
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7yu8hy
Enjoy
Next episode in a week or ten.
Cheers
Hooli
Monday, 15 February 2010
...I can live and breathe and feel the sun in winter time...
Back in the early 90s, during life before children, I was in my late twenties and early thirties; I was at the peak of my fitness. Every weekend was spent hill walking, biking or doing general outdoor stuff.
My tendency, as a teenager and young adult, to back away from anything unknown had served me well. It kept me away from serious drugs while allowing me the relatively safe hit of alcohol. It kept me from dangerous pastimes and any new venture was met with vigorous bouts of kicking and screaming on my part. Everything was done on my terms and I scarcely ventured out of my comfort zone. Now, as I see my eldest daughter growing up with the same reticent sense of self preservation, I realise that I no longer hold the same set of values. I wouldn’t say I’m making up for lost time but I do believe you’re never too old to try something new.
So, with the kids packed away to their cousins along with their grandparents, Valentine’s day beckoning and the winter Olympics set to start, the weekend seemed set for some adult fun with no kids around to complain about what we were eating, how much we were drinking, what we were watching on TV or which recreational activities we chose to pursue.
Two full days to do whatever we wanted!
No gymnastics run. No requests to go into town or the cinema.
Despite my love for moaning about it, one of the advantages to living where I do is the close proximity to the Cairngorms. Within an hour or so, I can be away from the city, wrapped up in wilderness and away from people. The other great thing is the fact that when you combine continual northerly airflow with altitudes above 3000 feet, you get snow. Not only do you get snow but you get it in such sufficiency that it is possible to ski on decent and challenging outdoor slopes. When I was younger, I was a skier of reasonable ability (after overcoming the hurdle of my comfort zone). OK, so Alberta Tomba never had anything to worry about but despite my modest technical ability, I could handle pretty much any slope. So having had the best snow we’ve had in about twenty years we were set for a weekend of skiing.
Then, someone had the bright idea that we should go boarding.
Totally rad, I thought.
Bit of a young things game with its own code, its own lingo and its own style.
My old eighties, Milk Tray man ski suit was sure to make me look like a complete twat and I was worried about the fact that I would probably want to ski rather than board but hey, I was up for it.
Now, if you imagine this to be a Disney cartoon with a voiceover by James McAvoy, I‘m sure you can guess that by the time the end credits roll, I’m popping tricks like Shaun White on speed. Not the case. Fortunately for me, and everyone else, this ain’t no Buena Vista production and I scarcely come close to Mr White in the hair, teeth or skills department. In fact, I’m pretty sure even if I wound the clock back twenty years and went at this full tilt, anything more elaborate than a falling leaf descent would still elude me for many years to come. Still, going into this with some experience as a two planker, I figured I was going to be able to deal with the theory and the embarrassment of some spectacular wipe outs. As it turned out, I needn’t have concerned myself with any of that. The worst thing, apart from being skied into by a novice skier while trying to get myself upright, was the pain that I was left with the day after. I never came to grief, although the afore-mentioned novice did leave me with a nice big bruise after she skied across my stomach. She was very apologetic and, to be perfectly honest, I was in no position to complain. Had she been built like an East German shot putter with a face like a box of toads it might have been a different story. Let’s just say I’ve had worse experiences and having someone ski across your stomach isn’t the worst thing that can happen to your Saturday afternoon. No, the pain was solely down to the continued effort of pushing myself upright from behind. This was akin to backwards press ups with someone continuously kicking your feet out from underneath you.
Anyway, having got the hang of getting upright and managing to get from one end of the slope to the other without injuring myself or anyone else, I was feeling quite pleased with the days efforts. A quick nip down the road, stopping off for an Indian carry out on the way home, and we were seated, beer in one hand, pakora in the other, watching the ski jumping on the telly. Bedtime on the horizon, now the fun was about to really begin.
No, you dirty buggers, that’s not what I mean.
Although I did manage to get up the stairs, anything involving any form of co-ordinated movement using the arms or upper body, were rendered impossible by the cumulating pain in my arms and shoulders coupled with an inability to control my motor skills.
After a restless night of broken sleep, I awoke on Sunday morning to a cup of coffee, some heart-shaped chocolate thingies and the overwhelming feeling that I’d been the victim of some exotic form of assault and battery that involved being swung around by the arms then being tangentially released at speed into a brick wall, kind of like the hammer throwing that you see in the Olympics I guess, except without the female oxter hair and popping neck veins.
As Sunday proceeded, the simple things like tying boot laces, picking up carelessly dropped items and wiping one’s arse became marginally impossible.
Too much information I hear you say, but if you’ve ever injured your back, or anything else for that matter, you’ll know what I mean. It’s the simple things in life that get you down.
People have invented things to simplify these matters.
The stair-lift; the auto-grabber; the slip on shoe.
Sadly, aside from the bidet, no one has invented the auto butt wiper. I visualise one of those things we use in industry for wiping boots on; two upturned brushes with a vertical handle at the top to save the user from falling over. Raise the brush to butt level, replace it with a roll of Andrex and affect a sort of humping motion over it.
Bingo - assuming your stomach muscles will permit anything like a humping motion.
At least you only have to do it once a day.
Makes last night’s curry seem like not such a good idea though...
As for the boarding? What a blast.
Already planning my next trip
What better way to celebrate the best Scotland has to offer…
Big Country – Glasgow Apollo, 21.12.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qxm6d7
Arab Strap - Centro Social Espanol, Montreal 12.04.2001
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6l4kau
Arab Strap - La Tulipe, Montreal, 05.04.2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/20fwja
Television – CBGB 18.02.1976
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6heutl
Velvet Crush - New York, 21.10.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gw6tvr
Garbage - Long Beach Arena, CA, 29.11.2002
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6jkj6i
Felice Brothers – Grimey’s Store Nashville, 04.04.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/93coln
Felice Brothers – Mercy Lounge, Nashville, 03.04.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/x9wykd
Pulp – Black Session, 20.10.1995
http://www.sendspace.com/file/683a7j
Pulp - Glasgow, 04.04.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4vfq04
Cat Power - Astor Theatre Perth, Australia, 06.01.2010
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wcp9wf
Led Zeppelin – Detroit, 12.07.1973
http://www.sendspace.com/file/intqkf
Steve Earle – Perth Concert Hall, 07.12.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/937vsn
Dave Sharp – Kilmarnock, 15.09.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/if59j9
The Alarm – Middlesborough Town Hall, 05.11.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8phlo0
Pete Wylie – Bradford Pennington’s, 02.05.2002
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ex2d91
The Stranglers - Live In Toronto 1980
http://www.sendspace.com/file/yng6qc
The Beatles – Montreal Quebec, 09.08.1964
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ent3fx
Jethro Tull – Toronto, 04.06.1972
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xqeyxw
Til next time, enjoy.
Hooli
My tendency, as a teenager and young adult, to back away from anything unknown had served me well. It kept me away from serious drugs while allowing me the relatively safe hit of alcohol. It kept me from dangerous pastimes and any new venture was met with vigorous bouts of kicking and screaming on my part. Everything was done on my terms and I scarcely ventured out of my comfort zone. Now, as I see my eldest daughter growing up with the same reticent sense of self preservation, I realise that I no longer hold the same set of values. I wouldn’t say I’m making up for lost time but I do believe you’re never too old to try something new.
So, with the kids packed away to their cousins along with their grandparents, Valentine’s day beckoning and the winter Olympics set to start, the weekend seemed set for some adult fun with no kids around to complain about what we were eating, how much we were drinking, what we were watching on TV or which recreational activities we chose to pursue.
Two full days to do whatever we wanted!
No gymnastics run. No requests to go into town or the cinema.
Despite my love for moaning about it, one of the advantages to living where I do is the close proximity to the Cairngorms. Within an hour or so, I can be away from the city, wrapped up in wilderness and away from people. The other great thing is the fact that when you combine continual northerly airflow with altitudes above 3000 feet, you get snow. Not only do you get snow but you get it in such sufficiency that it is possible to ski on decent and challenging outdoor slopes. When I was younger, I was a skier of reasonable ability (after overcoming the hurdle of my comfort zone). OK, so Alberta Tomba never had anything to worry about but despite my modest technical ability, I could handle pretty much any slope. So having had the best snow we’ve had in about twenty years we were set for a weekend of skiing.
Then, someone had the bright idea that we should go boarding.
Totally rad, I thought.
Bit of a young things game with its own code, its own lingo and its own style.
My old eighties, Milk Tray man ski suit was sure to make me look like a complete twat and I was worried about the fact that I would probably want to ski rather than board but hey, I was up for it.
Now, if you imagine this to be a Disney cartoon with a voiceover by James McAvoy, I‘m sure you can guess that by the time the end credits roll, I’m popping tricks like Shaun White on speed. Not the case. Fortunately for me, and everyone else, this ain’t no Buena Vista production and I scarcely come close to Mr White in the hair, teeth or skills department. In fact, I’m pretty sure even if I wound the clock back twenty years and went at this full tilt, anything more elaborate than a falling leaf descent would still elude me for many years to come. Still, going into this with some experience as a two planker, I figured I was going to be able to deal with the theory and the embarrassment of some spectacular wipe outs. As it turned out, I needn’t have concerned myself with any of that. The worst thing, apart from being skied into by a novice skier while trying to get myself upright, was the pain that I was left with the day after. I never came to grief, although the afore-mentioned novice did leave me with a nice big bruise after she skied across my stomach. She was very apologetic and, to be perfectly honest, I was in no position to complain. Had she been built like an East German shot putter with a face like a box of toads it might have been a different story. Let’s just say I’ve had worse experiences and having someone ski across your stomach isn’t the worst thing that can happen to your Saturday afternoon. No, the pain was solely down to the continued effort of pushing myself upright from behind. This was akin to backwards press ups with someone continuously kicking your feet out from underneath you.
Anyway, having got the hang of getting upright and managing to get from one end of the slope to the other without injuring myself or anyone else, I was feeling quite pleased with the days efforts. A quick nip down the road, stopping off for an Indian carry out on the way home, and we were seated, beer in one hand, pakora in the other, watching the ski jumping on the telly. Bedtime on the horizon, now the fun was about to really begin.
No, you dirty buggers, that’s not what I mean.
Although I did manage to get up the stairs, anything involving any form of co-ordinated movement using the arms or upper body, were rendered impossible by the cumulating pain in my arms and shoulders coupled with an inability to control my motor skills.
After a restless night of broken sleep, I awoke on Sunday morning to a cup of coffee, some heart-shaped chocolate thingies and the overwhelming feeling that I’d been the victim of some exotic form of assault and battery that involved being swung around by the arms then being tangentially released at speed into a brick wall, kind of like the hammer throwing that you see in the Olympics I guess, except without the female oxter hair and popping neck veins.
As Sunday proceeded, the simple things like tying boot laces, picking up carelessly dropped items and wiping one’s arse became marginally impossible.
Too much information I hear you say, but if you’ve ever injured your back, or anything else for that matter, you’ll know what I mean. It’s the simple things in life that get you down.
People have invented things to simplify these matters.
The stair-lift; the auto-grabber; the slip on shoe.
Sadly, aside from the bidet, no one has invented the auto butt wiper. I visualise one of those things we use in industry for wiping boots on; two upturned brushes with a vertical handle at the top to save the user from falling over. Raise the brush to butt level, replace it with a roll of Andrex and affect a sort of humping motion over it.
Bingo - assuming your stomach muscles will permit anything like a humping motion.
At least you only have to do it once a day.
Makes last night’s curry seem like not such a good idea though...
As for the boarding? What a blast.
Already planning my next trip
What better way to celebrate the best Scotland has to offer…
Big Country – Glasgow Apollo, 21.12.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qxm6d7
Arab Strap - Centro Social Espanol, Montreal 12.04.2001
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6l4kau
Arab Strap - La Tulipe, Montreal, 05.04.2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/20fwja
Television – CBGB 18.02.1976
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6heutl
Velvet Crush - New York, 21.10.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gw6tvr
Garbage - Long Beach Arena, CA, 29.11.2002
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6jkj6i
Felice Brothers – Grimey’s Store Nashville, 04.04.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/93coln
Felice Brothers – Mercy Lounge, Nashville, 03.04.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/x9wykd
Pulp – Black Session, 20.10.1995
http://www.sendspace.com/file/683a7j
Pulp - Glasgow, 04.04.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4vfq04
Cat Power - Astor Theatre Perth, Australia, 06.01.2010
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wcp9wf
Led Zeppelin – Detroit, 12.07.1973
http://www.sendspace.com/file/intqkf
Steve Earle – Perth Concert Hall, 07.12.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/937vsn
Dave Sharp – Kilmarnock, 15.09.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/if59j9
The Alarm – Middlesborough Town Hall, 05.11.1984
http://www.sendspace.com/file/8phlo0
Pete Wylie – Bradford Pennington’s, 02.05.2002
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ex2d91
The Stranglers - Live In Toronto 1980
http://www.sendspace.com/file/yng6qc
The Beatles – Montreal Quebec, 09.08.1964
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ent3fx
Jethro Tull – Toronto, 04.06.1972
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xqeyxw
Til next time, enjoy.
Hooli
Sunday, 31 January 2010
...cut the cackle cos we're getting to the facts now...
Everybody has their thing.
For some it’s cars. For others it’s bikes.
Some do sports, others do movies.
Even the most brutally challenged of imaginations finds something to capture the little niche that remains unoccupied by the events of their daily life.
For most, it’s a healthy interest in some form of escape; something that takes them to another place. A place where they can be someone else or, in some cases, where they can stop pretending to be someone else and actually just be themselves. Like an imaginary friend, who never tells you the bad stuff, everybody has their crutch. Everybody has something to lean on when the need arises; something that is a comfort in the darkest of times.
For some it’s the church or religion
For others, maybe it’s a wee bit of a bevvy on a Friday night. A little bit of self-medication to cleanse the shit that has been sucked in during the week; maybe a bit of chocolate, a guilty pleasure to make amends for a week of starvation and a diet of rocket and goji berries. Maybe even a little dabble in the world of narcotics or the secret red lit and wax dripped world of the gimp.
Who knows?
Quite frankly, who cares.
Everybody has their thing and, so long as they’re not pissing in my porridge, I couldna give a toss.
As I guess anyone who comes here has noticed, my thing is music; that incredible journey through all 51 states, Europe and the world beyond.
I say 51 states because everybody knows that England is the 51st of the United States of America.
Music is a journey and whatever I’m listening to will be what I’m playing and vice versa.
Having recently read books by Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, it’s clear that I’m not alone in this lifelong journey. So impressed was I, by their anecdotal styles and the intimacy of their stories that I toyed with the idea of a similar musical travelogue myself. I had it all planned, a chapter a month; the twelve musical phases of my life. I even went to the bother of writing it. I got as far as chapter eight which, if I’m being honest, and honest is something you have to be to do that whole autobiographical thing, was a piece of piss. It’s actually making it interesting enough for someone else to want to read that’s the tricky part. That said, and having convinced myself that it’s not the sort of thing to grace these pages for the next coming year, I still have to decide what to do about this blog.
It’s time for a change as I can’t maintain the grumpy Jack Dee persona forever.
Not sure what that change will be or even if it will be noticeable.
Meantime, taking the long way round to a subject that is close to our hearts, I consider that with every passing day, I learn something new and so, with a strange sort of similarity, with every passing week, my musical appetite demands that I hear something new.
No longer being a radio fan, I rely on a combination of the internet and the music press to fulfil this appetite. As I do from time to time, I was flicking through the music monthlies the other day before consigning them to the recycling bag that is my daughter’s bedroom.
Generally, I read the same columns first and then plough through the uninteresting dross at my leisure.
It was during this perusal, that I stumbled upon something that interested me.
Sir William of Barking, Billy Bragg no less, had entered the great file sharing debate and, as you would expect from a man of his intelligence, was being very pragmatic as he surfed atop the veritable pishwave churned up by Lily Allen.
Much has already been said and there can be no doubt that a great deal more pontificating will abound from the industry flat earthers.
I have already made it plain what my feelings are on the matter and will reiterate this only by saying that a large percentage of the files I download or see made available for download are either total or partial shite.
On average, before I started in this two ring circus, I was spending around fifty quid a month on CDs, 90% of which were crap. This peaked in the mid eighties when, during the CD revolution, I had more disposable income than ever before. I was buying out of curiosity or out of loyalty. Sometimes on the basis of a single track heard on the radio. I expect I’m pretty average in that context. Still, that amounts to a sizeable annual outlay. Factor in gigs and the travelling costs; TV/Radio licence and the 50 quid a year I was paying to the public library to borrow CDs and DVDs in order to satisfy my curiosity; it all adds up to more than I could really afford. In truth, gigging was a luxury I couldn’t really afford.
OK, so the rock star isn’t to blame for my poor choice of home town but having spent in excess of 500 nicker to see a band, I think I can be forgiven for feeling a bit pissed.
Seasoned visitors here will no doubt be experiencing déjà vu by now but the point is, putting on my best American sitcom accent, I don’t actually buy all that shit about impoverished artists and how file sharing is sucking the lifeblood out of the most creative industry in the world.
A visit to Tom Robinson’s website puts it all in perspective.
He has a number of albums up for download and an option to donate what you think they’re worth.
He has a nice little equation showing how much or rather, how little, he would get if you downloaded these from iTunes
Interesting to see this point of view so blatantly endorsed on his own website.
Another interesting thought I saw on a website tried to explain the modern concept of copyright and I quote:
“The modern idea of copyright in the UK began with the 1710 Statute of Anne, the full title of which was An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.
The purpose was the encouragement of learning, rather than the increase in printers' profits.
So basically, copyright is a bargain between a creative person and the public. The public, via their elected representatives, say: "We will make a law which gives you a monopoly, for a limited time, on copying some creative work you have made. This financially enables you to create more works without needing a wealthy patron. And it gives us those works to enjoy, and eventually all the rights to them we would have in absence of the law."
The "Time therein mentioned" by the Statute of Anne was 14 years. Today, for musical works, the copyright term is 50 years, which means that the work of some major artists from the 1960s we still listen to today, such as The Beatles, is not far from coming out of copyright.
The record companies therefore have a financial interest in extending the copyright term on existing works. So, they have responded to the Gowers Review by rolling out major artists like Cliff Richard and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull to get all indignant about how their creative output is not being valued if they can't continue to make money from it.
But the entire multi-million pound record industry has been founded on a 50-year copyright term. The executives looked at the law, said "yes, this is a bargain we are prepared to strike with the public" and got on with the job of finding and promoting artists - very successfully.
Clearly, the copyright term is doing its job. Production of creative works has been encouraged. But now, when the patient public is coming close to getting its end of the bargain, suddenly they want to change the deal.
Let's do a thought experiment. What would happen if, tomorrow, the entire Beatles' back catalogue was suddenly out of copyright?
Firstly, it would quickly become much more widely available and listened to. High-quality copies would appear on all the legal peer-to-peer filesharing networks, and on music sale services like iTunes (where currently it's prevented from appearing by the rightsholders).
Several budget CD labels would issue box sets of the entire back catalogue at a low price. The Beatles' record company might well do higher-priced deluxe versions with bonus content such as videos or interviews to which they still had the rights. Someone would press some Beatles vinyl so scratch DJs could get their hands on copies more easily.
New music, such as dance or hip-hop, which sampled the originals, would be created and commercially released. Beatles music would become the soundtrack to many budget films, as artists jumped at the chance to use something recognisable without having to go through the hassle and expense of clearing. In short, there would be an explosion of creative output.”
Whichever way it’s tarted up, the balance of power always lies with the record companies and the industry because the law protects them and when the law cannot protect them anymore, they just make up some more laws.
As I’ve said previously, I’ve fallen foul of the takedown shakedown gang to the point where I am only posting ROIO or bootlegs.
I have heard that even that is under scrutiny with King Crimson flashing their takedown badge.
Why anyone would want to download such pompous drivel is beyond me but hey, its music Jim but not as we know it.
The best one I’ve heard recently though has to be the one where Edwyn Collins has been told he can’t put A Girl Like You on his My Space page. A song that he wrote, distributed and therefore, owns.
Totally bizarre.
And so...
Sector 27 – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lwv8mk
Various Artists – A Scottish Songbook
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4u73rx
Emma Pollock – Echo
http://www.sendspace.com/file/q1gp34
Mike Peters – Radio Wales, December 2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4wht24
Tenacious D – Wellington , NZ, 27.12.2004
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ygh2nf
Bob Dylan – Edinburgh Playhouse 1995
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5396dc
Tom Waits – Christchurch, NZ, 04.09.1981
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ya61ns
Dave Sharp – Live in Greenock, 16.01.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l7yldd
The Twilight Sad - KEXP at the Doug Fir Lounge, 17.09. 2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/blzn5u
American Music Club – Live at the Venue, Edinburgh, 26.01.1992
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wbqlqx
The Blues Band – Live at the BBC
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4rn0dy
The Bangles – Bristol, 30.06.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0menk4
The Primitives, Birmingham Powerhouse, 08.05.1988
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dzg71c
American Music Club – Calton Hill, Edinburgh30.08.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6alzry
Hugh Cornwell – Wasted Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kqyjpe
Laura Marling - St Pancras Old Church, 23.11.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cmffyu
Twilight Sad – Neumos, Seattle, 16.09.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/004xzk
Blood Red Shoes - Madame Jo Jo's London, UK 2006-09-26
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1a1fqm
The Boomtown Rats - Live in California,
http://www.sendspace.com/file/v607dy
Drever, McCusker & Woomble – Live at Pocklington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lzd71z
Joe Pug – Poe Pug
http://www.sendspace.com/file/y4hq3n
James РFestival Les Eurock̩ennes, Belfort 23.06.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wfybsz
'til next time,
enjoy.
Hooli
For some it’s cars. For others it’s bikes.
Some do sports, others do movies.
Even the most brutally challenged of imaginations finds something to capture the little niche that remains unoccupied by the events of their daily life.
For most, it’s a healthy interest in some form of escape; something that takes them to another place. A place where they can be someone else or, in some cases, where they can stop pretending to be someone else and actually just be themselves. Like an imaginary friend, who never tells you the bad stuff, everybody has their crutch. Everybody has something to lean on when the need arises; something that is a comfort in the darkest of times.
For some it’s the church or religion
For others, maybe it’s a wee bit of a bevvy on a Friday night. A little bit of self-medication to cleanse the shit that has been sucked in during the week; maybe a bit of chocolate, a guilty pleasure to make amends for a week of starvation and a diet of rocket and goji berries. Maybe even a little dabble in the world of narcotics or the secret red lit and wax dripped world of the gimp.
Who knows?
Quite frankly, who cares.
Everybody has their thing and, so long as they’re not pissing in my porridge, I couldna give a toss.
As I guess anyone who comes here has noticed, my thing is music; that incredible journey through all 51 states, Europe and the world beyond.
I say 51 states because everybody knows that England is the 51st of the United States of America.
Music is a journey and whatever I’m listening to will be what I’m playing and vice versa.
Having recently read books by Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie, it’s clear that I’m not alone in this lifelong journey. So impressed was I, by their anecdotal styles and the intimacy of their stories that I toyed with the idea of a similar musical travelogue myself. I had it all planned, a chapter a month; the twelve musical phases of my life. I even went to the bother of writing it. I got as far as chapter eight which, if I’m being honest, and honest is something you have to be to do that whole autobiographical thing, was a piece of piss. It’s actually making it interesting enough for someone else to want to read that’s the tricky part. That said, and having convinced myself that it’s not the sort of thing to grace these pages for the next coming year, I still have to decide what to do about this blog.
It’s time for a change as I can’t maintain the grumpy Jack Dee persona forever.
Not sure what that change will be or even if it will be noticeable.
Meantime, taking the long way round to a subject that is close to our hearts, I consider that with every passing day, I learn something new and so, with a strange sort of similarity, with every passing week, my musical appetite demands that I hear something new.
No longer being a radio fan, I rely on a combination of the internet and the music press to fulfil this appetite. As I do from time to time, I was flicking through the music monthlies the other day before consigning them to the recycling bag that is my daughter’s bedroom.
Generally, I read the same columns first and then plough through the uninteresting dross at my leisure.
It was during this perusal, that I stumbled upon something that interested me.
Sir William of Barking, Billy Bragg no less, had entered the great file sharing debate and, as you would expect from a man of his intelligence, was being very pragmatic as he surfed atop the veritable pishwave churned up by Lily Allen.
Much has already been said and there can be no doubt that a great deal more pontificating will abound from the industry flat earthers.
I have already made it plain what my feelings are on the matter and will reiterate this only by saying that a large percentage of the files I download or see made available for download are either total or partial shite.
On average, before I started in this two ring circus, I was spending around fifty quid a month on CDs, 90% of which were crap. This peaked in the mid eighties when, during the CD revolution, I had more disposable income than ever before. I was buying out of curiosity or out of loyalty. Sometimes on the basis of a single track heard on the radio. I expect I’m pretty average in that context. Still, that amounts to a sizeable annual outlay. Factor in gigs and the travelling costs; TV/Radio licence and the 50 quid a year I was paying to the public library to borrow CDs and DVDs in order to satisfy my curiosity; it all adds up to more than I could really afford. In truth, gigging was a luxury I couldn’t really afford.
OK, so the rock star isn’t to blame for my poor choice of home town but having spent in excess of 500 nicker to see a band, I think I can be forgiven for feeling a bit pissed.
Seasoned visitors here will no doubt be experiencing déjà vu by now but the point is, putting on my best American sitcom accent, I don’t actually buy all that shit about impoverished artists and how file sharing is sucking the lifeblood out of the most creative industry in the world.
A visit to Tom Robinson’s website puts it all in perspective.
He has a number of albums up for download and an option to donate what you think they’re worth.
He has a nice little equation showing how much or rather, how little, he would get if you downloaded these from iTunes
Interesting to see this point of view so blatantly endorsed on his own website.
Another interesting thought I saw on a website tried to explain the modern concept of copyright and I quote:
“The modern idea of copyright in the UK began with the 1710 Statute of Anne, the full title of which was An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.
The purpose was the encouragement of learning, rather than the increase in printers' profits.
So basically, copyright is a bargain between a creative person and the public. The public, via their elected representatives, say: "We will make a law which gives you a monopoly, for a limited time, on copying some creative work you have made. This financially enables you to create more works without needing a wealthy patron. And it gives us those works to enjoy, and eventually all the rights to them we would have in absence of the law."
The "Time therein mentioned" by the Statute of Anne was 14 years. Today, for musical works, the copyright term is 50 years, which means that the work of some major artists from the 1960s we still listen to today, such as The Beatles, is not far from coming out of copyright.
The record companies therefore have a financial interest in extending the copyright term on existing works. So, they have responded to the Gowers Review by rolling out major artists like Cliff Richard and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull to get all indignant about how their creative output is not being valued if they can't continue to make money from it.
But the entire multi-million pound record industry has been founded on a 50-year copyright term. The executives looked at the law, said "yes, this is a bargain we are prepared to strike with the public" and got on with the job of finding and promoting artists - very successfully.
Clearly, the copyright term is doing its job. Production of creative works has been encouraged. But now, when the patient public is coming close to getting its end of the bargain, suddenly they want to change the deal.
Let's do a thought experiment. What would happen if, tomorrow, the entire Beatles' back catalogue was suddenly out of copyright?
Firstly, it would quickly become much more widely available and listened to. High-quality copies would appear on all the legal peer-to-peer filesharing networks, and on music sale services like iTunes (where currently it's prevented from appearing by the rightsholders).
Several budget CD labels would issue box sets of the entire back catalogue at a low price. The Beatles' record company might well do higher-priced deluxe versions with bonus content such as videos or interviews to which they still had the rights. Someone would press some Beatles vinyl so scratch DJs could get their hands on copies more easily.
New music, such as dance or hip-hop, which sampled the originals, would be created and commercially released. Beatles music would become the soundtrack to many budget films, as artists jumped at the chance to use something recognisable without having to go through the hassle and expense of clearing. In short, there would be an explosion of creative output.”
Whichever way it’s tarted up, the balance of power always lies with the record companies and the industry because the law protects them and when the law cannot protect them anymore, they just make up some more laws.
As I’ve said previously, I’ve fallen foul of the takedown shakedown gang to the point where I am only posting ROIO or bootlegs.
I have heard that even that is under scrutiny with King Crimson flashing their takedown badge.
Why anyone would want to download such pompous drivel is beyond me but hey, its music Jim but not as we know it.
The best one I’ve heard recently though has to be the one where Edwyn Collins has been told he can’t put A Girl Like You on his My Space page. A song that he wrote, distributed and therefore, owns.
Totally bizarre.
And so...
Sector 27 – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lwv8mk
Various Artists – A Scottish Songbook
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4u73rx
Emma Pollock – Echo
http://www.sendspace.com/file/q1gp34
Mike Peters – Radio Wales, December 2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4wht24
Tenacious D – Wellington , NZ, 27.12.2004
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ygh2nf
Bob Dylan – Edinburgh Playhouse 1995
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5396dc
Tom Waits – Christchurch, NZ, 04.09.1981
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ya61ns
Dave Sharp – Live in Greenock, 16.01.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l7yldd
The Twilight Sad - KEXP at the Doug Fir Lounge, 17.09. 2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/blzn5u
American Music Club – Live at the Venue, Edinburgh, 26.01.1992
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wbqlqx
The Blues Band – Live at the BBC
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4rn0dy
The Bangles – Bristol, 30.06.2008
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0menk4
The Primitives, Birmingham Powerhouse, 08.05.1988
http://www.sendspace.com/file/dzg71c
American Music Club – Calton Hill, Edinburgh30.08.1994
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6alzry
Hugh Cornwell – Wasted Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kqyjpe
Laura Marling - St Pancras Old Church, 23.11.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cmffyu
Twilight Sad – Neumos, Seattle, 16.09.2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/004xzk
Blood Red Shoes - Madame Jo Jo's London, UK 2006-09-26
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1a1fqm
The Boomtown Rats - Live in California,
http://www.sendspace.com/file/v607dy
Drever, McCusker & Woomble – Live at Pocklington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/lzd71z
Joe Pug – Poe Pug
http://www.sendspace.com/file/y4hq3n
James РFestival Les Eurock̩ennes, Belfort 23.06.1991
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wfybsz
'til next time,
enjoy.
Hooli
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
A Winter Trilogy
The Ghost of Christmas Past
(…I’ve come to know the wishlist of my father…)
When I was first married, I lived in a small flat within a granite tenement near the centre of town. In many respects, this was ideal. We were young, had little responsibilities and behaved accordingly. Where we lived was like a city centre village, a remnant from the Victorian era, with its parks nearby and all the benefits of the city centre amenities close at hand.
It was walking distance to all the best bars and, geographically speaking, ideally placed for a curry or a kebab on the way home. The neighbourhood had shops; grocer, butcher, baker, fishmonger, home brew shop and guitar shop.
Christmas shopping was a piece of piss.
Ten minute walk to the west end shops, four hours later, hundred quid lighter, it was done.
The flat had been a typical Victorian tenement; shared outside cludgies; big copper steepie in the back lobby; coal boiler and bunkers; scrubbing board and mangle; two rooms with open fires, eight foot high ceilings and bugger all else.
If this was the typical tenement flat, why should we expect it to get anything more than a typical 1980s tenement conversion?
Front room left exactly as was but with the added attraction of having the fireplace boarded up; backroom unevenly quartered to provide a poky wee hall, a poky wee bedroom, a poky wee bathroom and the usual non-cat-swing kitchen, barely large enough to accommodate two people and a turkey.
After four years of us living there the transformation was complete. The final insult to the Victorian era; pink and grey walls complete with black ash, smoked glass and chrome.
One of the downsides though was that the building had no central heating to speak of. In fact, when we moved in, it had no heating whatsoever.
Not being endowed with great wealth, we saw fit to install a couple of electric panel heaters; the kind of thing that you can set on a timer to come on before you get in from work; the kind that give off the thermal equivalent of a puddle of cats piss. On more than one occasion, it was so cold that the ice formed on the inside of the windows and the only way to get any heat was to have a bath.
The real trouble with tenement living though, the main thing that drives most sane adults into semi-detached suburbia, is mostly that you have multiple neighbours.
This, in itself isn’t so much of a problem as their antics.
I was naïve enough to expect that there would be a degree of community spirit within the building. That we would all look out for each other and be like a big but slightly disjointed family.
Sap!
The reality was that, right up until the day we left, with only one exception, we never really knew any of our neighbours.
We were fortunate to have an elderly couple opposite (except they weren’t really a couple, more of a widowed old guy still clinging the notion that his wife had just popped out for some spam and would be back in a wee minute) and an elderly and, generally, harmless old biddie upstairs but, as time wore on and sheltered housing beckoned, all that was to change. We also had a Spanish chef who lived directly above us. He was known to come home from work and, in what I could only assume to be a fit of depression about either a lost love or a burnt paella, blast out Harry Nilsson singing Without You on a permanent loop. I guess we can now count ourselves fortunate that it predated that skirling bitch Mariah Carey. Other times, we would hear him working out on one of those trim-track rowing machine contraptions, the endless swish-swoosh coupled with his grunting, set to a Dr. Hook soundtrack, all conspired to sound like a bizarre, marathon sex session.
Upstairs on the other side, the sweet old lady, whose washday was Monday and woe betide anyone who ignored the fact, vacated the premises when its owner sold up. As a replacement we had the Ginger Medusa and her daughters the Peroxide Rottweiler and the Peroxide Doberman. Nobody had much to do with them because we all knew a single look could turn mere mortals to stone.
Washing ceased to be an issue though as they never seemed to do any.
Downstairs, across the hall from us, the old man with the ill fitting gnashers and his imaginary wife soon felt the warm hand of benevolence and succumbed to the pishy stench of a care home in the country.
The flat was sold to an agency, done up with a bit of new paint and after months of being empty, we had new neebs across the hall.
It was all quiet for the first couple of weeks but very quickly, that spiralled into a depressing cycle of Thursday afternoon, he got paid; Thursday evening, he came home shit-faced; Thursday night, she’d kick him out; Thursday midnight, he’d kick his way back in; early Friday morning he’d crank the music up full blast and kick seven bells out of her. Monday morning the door would get fixed so he could kick the shit out of it again a couple of weeks later. Rest of the time, he would shout at her, she would shout back, doors would slam, music would get cranked up and we would dread the doorbell ringing.
We came to suspect after a while that the job he claimed to have as a chef at the local nut house was nothing but a fantasy and he was in fact one of the inmates. Either that or it was one of those situations like owners and their dogs getting to look like each other, where he had been around bams for so long he turned into one.
The final straw came when, after he had smashed a six-inch hole in the shared lobby wall, presumably because the door had remained locked, he managed to get into his flat taking my wife with him.
Eviction soon followed.
Domestic trials aside, those were happy times. We generally lived by our means. Drank a lot of homebrew, took lots of baths and wore lots of layers in the winter.
We’d had a few practice runs at the roast dinner by the time Christmas came around. One spectacular disaster springs to mind when, having invited my in-laws for Sunday dinner, I went to the pub after work, leaving my wife to deal with the roast. I wasn’t exactly blootered but let’s just say that me and that chicken weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye. My less than sober attempts to carve the beast ended up with the chicken skiting across the plate, performing an intricate pirouette with a full somersault and twist before landing on the floor. The following battle to restore the trussed up bird to its place of glory alongside the tatties was one I was never going to win and in the end it looked like the neighbour’s cat had got at it.
We spent a lot of time preparing for what was our first, and when I think of it, probably only Christmas alone together. Bought a nice bit of beef (never could stand turkey); some nice wine; a dinky little Christmas pudding; even turned the heating on in October to let things warm up. I can’t recall much about what gifts were exchanged but I do remember it was the first year I had ever had a real Christmas tree. It was eight feet high, touched the ceiling and I had to use a stepladder to reach the top. We bought a whole stack of glass baubles, loaded it up and stuck it in the window.
I’ve always thought of the Christmas tree as a binary sort of thing – one of life’s classic polarisers – you’re either real tree with needles or fake plastic tree without.
I grew up in a needle free house.
This was my revenge on my childhood. This was my way of exercising my right to freedom of choice. I wanted to post handfuls of pine needles through the letterboxes of all the homes with plastic tress in their windows.
When Christmas Day came round, among the presents was a bottle of Moniack Sloe Gin. For those not familiar with Scottish wineries, Moniack Castle is a wee place up past Inverness and let me tell you, these guys know a thing or two about making gin taste good.
As the day went on, and the level of the bottle went down, dinner seemed like less and less of a reality. I’m not sure if it got burnt or even reached the oven but I can remember the two of us watching some crappy James Bond movie on a 12” TV, laughing our arses off amid the piles of wrapping paper.
Our lives were so uncomplicated then.
We could be happy with the simple wish of being together.
Now though, the wishes are not our own…
Opening the Christmas parade, Joe Pug.
Watch out for this guy; buy his album when it comes out. Hails from Chicago. Writes like Dylan crossed with Josh Ritter. Simple style. One man; one guitar. Saw him supporting Steve Earle. The rest is just the usual trawl through the archives…
Joe Pug – The Pageant, St. Louis
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mtt6nx
Steve Earle – The Pageant, St. Louis
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfvo6e
Tom Waits – San Diego Folk Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xggcac
Bob Dylan – Hartford
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ydqlet
Rockpile - Bottom Line
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qcfdoc
Wreckless Eric – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/87u7h5
Rachel Sweet – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3vsg5q
Lene Lovich – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zmsh4j
Rachel Sweet – Cleveland Agora
http://www.sendspace.com/file/57u0dg
Steve Wickham – Dublin
http://www.sendspace.com/file/e0klk9
Lloyd Cole – Paris
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4z492k
Karine Polwart - Marlborough Town Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/850iia
Arab Strap – Live In Melbourne
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5xmtu6
The Ghost of Christmas Present
(…think this bus is stopping again to let a couple more freaks get on…)
Having conceded to the fact that I had to do some Christmas shopping, at least to get my own present, I had enlisted the help of those jolly nice chaps at Amazon.com. Deep inside though, I knew there was always going to be something that needed a trip into town.
Shopping can, for some people, be an enjoyable, rewarding and sometimes therapeutic experience. The catharsis of spending your hard earned bawbees on something you really want, having spent the preceding five days doing a load of stuff that someone else wants, sort of makes it all worthwhile. For many of us though, it is a strange and often frustrating experience. Maybe its just familiarity but the same old shops touting the same old wares and the same old fake jewellery stalls blocking the same old thoroughfares hold no excitement for me whatsoever. I always find shopping in another city a more pleasurable experience. Glasgow has the Buchanan Galleries; Birmingham has the Bull Ring; Manchester has Trafford Park; Dundee has the Wellgate; and Newcastle has the Metro Centre. We have the Bon Accord Centre, the Mall Trinity, and the St. Nicholas Centre. Now, as an added bonus, presumably for good behaviour and exceptional endurance, we get Union Square.
A fourth shopping mall, claiming to be just what the city has been waiting for!
Am I missing something here? Aren’t we in the midst of economic gloom?
We’ve never managed to fill all the units in the old shopping malls so what the f4ck do we need another one for? It’ll just be another place for scummy little tabbie munchers and underage mothers to hang out with their screaming weans.
Worse still, they built the place a stones throw from the harbour bars and the red light district, the seedy underworld of Stuart MacBride novels.
Even worse than that, they built it between the harbour and the fish market. Now what sort of olfactory sensation is that likely to spark?
Just the inspiration you need as you’re leafing through the Faith and Zara designs; fish guts, salt and diesel. Somehow I don’t think my wife would be too happy with a yellow sou’wester and a pair of matching 20 joule, steel toe cap wellies in her Christmas stocking.
– note to self – next time Walkers are looking for new crisp flavours…
Still, at least it’s next to the bus station and the rail station.
Handy, Really handy!
Especially when you consider that ninety percent of the people who are likely to visit the place don’t have direct access to a rail link.
I’m lucky; the railway runs past the end of my street. Shame some bastard shut the station in the 1960s. Still you can’t have everything. At least I’ve got the bus service. That runs through my particular little part of suburbia with the usual regularity and because I live in a group of streets that now resembles a triangular island surrounded by three main roads, I have three options from which to board said omnibus.
Because this also involves the merging of three routes, it also means that at one of the stops, a bus is due every ten minutes or, if you inhabit the real world, three times an hour, usually grouped together, with the other three broken down somewhere on the other side of town.
It’s funny that whenever I’m a pedestrian trying to cross the street there are buses zipping back and forth with all the frequency of the last remaining space invader; and isn’t it funny when I’m in a hurry to drop the kids off before going to work, I get stuck behind one that then stops at every stop before halting for a chat with its mate going the opposite direction.
Funny Funny! Ha Ha f4cking Ha!
Another problem with the bus service and living where I do is that the normal city bus service goes up what used to be the main shopping street.
Now maybe it’s me and maybe I’m just being a little over sensitive or perhaps even a little too forward thinking here but what the hell is the point of running a bus service up a street where there haven’t been any shops since Moses was a lad.
Yeah, OK, it might be tradition and yes, I agree, the routes have to be interconnectable to get from all the As to all the Bs but that is of no comfort to Old Maisie in her blue raincoat and polythene head-square. She doesn’t want to have to trudge an extra quarter of a mile in the cold and the rain with her throbbing bunions and dodgy hip while dragging her little tartan shopping trolley down the steps. She may well have a buss pass but she doesn’t want to take three buses to get from her front step to Woolies. No wonder old people moan so much.
Thirteen different lines and they all go up the same street. Not one of them goes to the bus station. What good is that?
Even the park and ride goes straight up the old main drag. The only moment of sanity in the whole parade is on Sundays, when the P&R goes to the new shopping centre. Just as well I’m not a church goer like Old Maisie.
So to get to where I want to go, I have to get what is called a country bus. This is the service that goes from the station, ultimately, to Inverness and back again. It runs about once every two days and is the technological equivalent of the Oregon Trail.
Anyway, here we are, mid-December, Aberdeen, pissing rain and not a parking space to be had so, being a fine young specimen of manhood and feeling fit, healthy and free from hangover, against my better judgement, I decide to take my chances with the city bus.
Aside from the lack of ‘door to door’ aspect, which I can live with, for many years now I’ve had a long running mental battle with public transport.
Back when I was a kid, in the days of double deckers and clippies; Aztec bars and blue lemonade; when we wore platform soles and Oxford bags and Bowie and Bolan were the ultimate style icons, public transport was widely used by all manner of people. It was cheap. It went exactly where you wanted it to go, it was frequent, on time and you didn’t have to worry about parking on the high street.
We even had a sitcom dedicated entirely to the realm of the bus depot.
For years I travelled by bus to secondary school. This again was cheap and the trip was largely for the benefit of school kids and commuters.
After I left school, I became one of those commuters. Even though it was only twice a week, it was something I dreaded. Six of us would make the 30 mile, Sunday evening trip up the coast, already longing for the trip back the following Friday but even then, the journey was bearable.
Then something changed.
Firstly, I passed my driving test, which meant I literally could travel door to door.
Secondly, I went on an ill-advised holiday to the Costa del Sol that departed from Newcastle airport. The ensuing bus trip was one of those that seemed to be unending.
Finally, when I was about 25, a drunk driver pulled his transit van in front of me, writing off the first decent car I owned.
The battle with the insurance company that followed was a protracted affair that left me with no car for around six months. The battle with my own nerves left me shitting myself every time I was anywhere within 50 metres of a Transit van. It was back to the good old number 19 for me. This left me with a deep-rooted resentment for public transport.
The thing about it was that, in the same way as if I was at a gig, at a football match or standing in a queue at an airport, I would always land up with some total fruit-loop next to me.
Like the DHSS, Primark and the council offices, buses are a magnet for the great unwashed. I use that term not as a metaphor.
My recent adventure to the city illustrates the point perfectly.
I leave the house at 9.15 and begin the walk to the bus stop. About a hundred metres away from my house, I take a shortcut through a hotel car park. This is a diagonal route that saves me taking two sides of a triangle and avoids the ‘young offenders’ home at the bottom of the street. I dodge a number of piles of dog shit and reach the main road where I pass two pubs outside which the pavements are littered with tabbies. There are the usual broken bottles and glasses, not to mention a couple of technicolour yawns decorating the pavement. Round the next corner, I pass a Chinese takeaway and, after a couple of hundred metres, the obligatory Chow Mein. I’m not sure if this is first or second hand and I’m not interested enough to want to find out. Another 100 metres or so and I’m at the bus stop.
At one end, the window has been tanned so I move in and turn my back to the wind.
The whole place stinks of stale pish, cigarettes and old newspapers.
I’m eventually joined by a young mother with a pushchair. Judging by her figure, which is disproportionately round in comparison to her scrawny face and neck, she’s going to have to get an extension fitted to the buggy pretty soon. I warn her against taking the wee one into the bus shelter. She scowls at me as if it was me who pished in the corner. The oversized geet scowls also, which makes his face look like a monkey’s arsehole.
An elderly couple are approaching, maybe about two hundred metres away, as the bus steams in to view. As it draws closer, the words Out Of Service become clear on the front. Why the hell is it on the road if it’s out of service is my immediate thought. Like my whole take on the offside rule, (that if you’re on the pitch you bloody well better be interfering with play, unless you are the goalkeeper) it’s a thought that I keep to myself.
Another bus comes into view, with another, a couple of cars behind. An 18 and a 21.
Both due to stop. Both intent on keeping going into town.
Eventually another 21 shows up and pulls into our stop.
Someone exits through the middle door.
As I hang back to let the elderly couple get on first, the scowl and her arse faced offspring barge past me to confront the driver.
“Eh min, fit i fckinell is iss aboot like min? Bin wiytin’ here fraboot a fckin’ oor like. Ah shouldna hivtbe staunin’ oot in is caul in ma condition, ‘is isny gidinuf me freezinmititsaff like. Three o youze jist drove past me, me wi a bairn an in ma condition ‘n’ ah. Altiye iss, if ma lad wiz here he’d fckinsortyiz oot so e wid. Ah’ll fckintell ‘im fan ‘e gits oot”
“You can’t take that on here”
I’m not sure if it’s the buggy or the sprog the driver is referring to. Maybe it’s her festering gob.
”Fit i fckinell d’ye mean like? Fit dyemean a canna tak iss oan here? Hoo the f4ck am ah mint tae get is wee shite aboot wi’oot it like? D’ye hink ahm fckin wundirwummin like? Fckinell, youze are a i same. Altiye iss…”
“Miss, you can’t take the pushchair on the bus. There is no room. Have a look. There is standing room only.”
“Fitye mean staunin room only? Ah canny staun in ma condition. Hiv ye nae een ye fckinbam? Kin ye nae see ahm riddy to fckin drap like?”
It’s at this point that the other bus pulls in and, thankfully, I leave the exchange.
The elderly couple board, flash their passes and I follow, parting with my £2.50 fare.
I do a quick scan and opt for a seat next to a window midway up the bus. Just as I get comfortable and jam my phones in my ears, the inevitable happens, I see arse face and his scowling mother stomping towards the bus.
Please drive off, please go, go, go – too late, they’re on.
She hauls arse face out of the buggy, collapses it and hurls it at the storage rack.
Please sit up stairs, go on, turn left, go on – too late.
Please don’t sit next to me or even near me, please, go just keep going, please –
Aw f4ck.
Why did she have to sit behind me?
Opposite or in front of would have been bad enough but behind? Why behind?
Who knows what manner of snotters, spittle or generalised barf I’m going to get covered in.
After a couple of minutes I get a tap on the arm.
“Eh min, yigotonyfagslike?”
“No sorry I don…”
“Ah yifcka aatsfityizasay. Geeza a fag yigrippybasturt”
“I told you I don’t…”
“Goat ony beer en? Yi must hae suhin’” she says as arse face tugs at her arm.
“tifckuryiwintinyiweeshite?”
“Oose, oose” is the gurgled reply.
As I turn away from her, she produces a plastic bottle of something red and fizzy and I’m thinking “oh shit here we go”. I hear arse face grab the bottle with delight while she’s still trying to get the cap off. I sense a mini tug of war behind me then a fshfwooshhhh. I’m waiting for the wet sticky spray on the back of my neck but it never comes.
I sneak a look at the reflected scene in the window opposite and notice that the scowl, the bump and arse features are covered in wet cola splats.
Maybe there is a God after all.
I stand and head upstairs, safe in the knowledge that in the equation (her lazy arse + her bump + cola-boy) x spiral stairs, the result is going to be peace and quite for me.
Yes, there definitely is a God. For now at least…
Weird Al Yankovic – The Essential
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jppcm3
Leonard Cohen – Live In Amsterdam
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0uzhdb
The Waterboys - Live In London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/o9onpi
REM – Lyon Tapes
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xn3lir
The Men They Couldn’t Hang - Never Born To Follow
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uvnu2y
Velvet Crush – Live in Providence
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pgzp28
10,000 Maniacs – 10km
http://www.sendspace.com/file/p0dorq
Paul Weller – Live at the Barras
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5ftcz0
Bob Dylan – Blackbushe
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l1qvuo
John Mellencamp – Check This Out
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1rmd63
Gun – Hard Rock Hell
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h7gdab
Bob Dylan – Jersey Boy
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xcyzx7
Julie Fowlis – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/chhtkb
Felice Brothers – Live (re-upped mp3s this time)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oa0yh1
Roddy Frame – Live at the Belfast Empire
http://www.sendspace.com/file/z1s9dw
Lisa Hannigan – Live at the Troubador
http://www.sendspace.com/file/yzclae
The Ghost of Christmas Future
(…maybe this year will be better than the last)
So having spent a few Christmases shivering in our poky wee tenement, we made that long and winding, bus trip to where we are now. The full on, family Christmas! Just like all the Kerry Katatonic or Colleen Moron ads on the telly, the picture of health and happiness all rolled into one, minus of course the Iceland platters.
Over the years I have become very close to my wife’s family. It’s not that I have any issues with my own parents; it’s just that if stability had a face, it would look like my in-laws.
I’m proud of the fact that neither of us asked them for anything yet they fed us when we were hungry. Put us up when we didn’t have a roof. Supported us through a lot of personal shit.
Year after year, they did the deed and we helped where we could.
Time moved on and saw us all have kids of our own. A full family dinner now needs a 20-foot table and a squadron of the detested turkeys but still, my wife’s parents stick to the task of providing for the extended and ever growing tribe. I see them getting older and with every year, coping with the hassle and stress of it all with no less dignity but just a little less ability.
Every year we tell them to do less but they do it because they think it’s expected and every year everyone lets them get on with it because they think it’s what they want.
Every year my father in law works too hard, makes himself ill and it hurts to see him being taken for granted.
Every year my mother in law gets upset because she thinks she has failed to please everyone.
In truth, they’ve never failed. Not once. Even on the Christmas Day when we took over completely and I ended up in casualty having accidentally ripped out a fingernail, they were there to apply suitable amounts of anaesthetic and serve the dinner on my return.
Someday, it will be full circle. Someday, the youngest generation will be with their partners, freezing their bollocks off (metaphorically of course) in their first homes, putting up with annoying neighbours and laughing their faces in half at something they’d normally think was a load of shite.
Someday we, their parents, will have to take up the baton and run with it.
I guess that’s what Christmas future holds for us.
I’d like to think that we will find the whole thing a lot less stressful.
I’d like to think that the load will be evenly shared and that a bit more humility comes to bear upon us all.
I’d like to think that each year finds us better than the last.
I’d also like to think that, maybe for a change, we could let it slide – go with the flow, but the older I get, the more I see myself being shackled by the stupid ties of tradition and my misguided understanding of what other peoples expectations are.
I’m sure they too will be going along with it all because they think it’s what I want.
One day we will probably all turn into the things about our parents that annoyed us the most.
However inevitable it is, I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
Counting Crows – Warren Haynes Christmas Jam 2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/txxpqr
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – Old Town Music Hall Late Show
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4qurvu
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions - Queen Elizabeth Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/90ifjj
Laura Marling - Royal Festival Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6ev8cv
Roddy Hart – Sign Language
http://www.sendspace.com/file/758jaz
King Creosote – Woodend Barn
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0pkp5b
thenewno2 – Charlotte
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jbdsxk
Biffy Clyro – Liquid Room, Edinburgh
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9pd6w7
Camera Obscura – Firlej, Wroclaw, Poland
http://www.sendspace.com/file/tni8xt
Joseph Arthur – Geneva
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9vtvr6
Blind Pilot – Great American Music Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wd73s6
Hope Christmas for you is what you want it to be.
Life may not be all James Stewart and Donna Reed.
But it is a wonderful life all the same.
Glossary of terms
“Eh min, fit i fckinell is iss aboot like min?” –
I say my good man, can you please tell me what is happening
“Bin wiytin’ here fraboot a fckin’ oor like” –
I’ve been waiting here for about sixty minutes
“Ah shouldna hivtbe staunin’ oot in is caul in ma condition ‘is isny gidinuf me freezinmititsaff like” –
I don’t think it’s proper for a woman in my condition to have to stand here until my nipples are hard.
“Three o youze jist drove past me, me wi a bairn an in ma condition ‘n’ ah”
Three of your colleagues failed to halt with is a bit off considering I’m an expectant mother.
“Altiye iss, if ma lad wiz here he’d fckinsortyiz oot so e wid. Ah’ll fckintell ‘im fan ‘e gits oot” –
I will tell you this, my good man; if the father of my bastard offspring was here today he would give you a seeing to. I will make him aware of this on his release from prison.
”Fit i fckinell d’yemean like? Fit d’yemean a canna tak iss oan here? Hoo the f4ck am ah mint tae get is wee shite aboot wi’oot it like? D’ye hink ahm fckin wundirwummin like? Fckinell, youze are a’ i same. Altiye iss…”
What do you mean I cannot take this on here? What other method do you suggest I use to transport my child? Can you not see I’m lazy? You are not from here and I don’t like the look of you. I will tell you this…
“fitye mean staunin' room only? Ah canny staun in ma condition. Hiv ye nae een ye fckinbam. Kin ye nae see ahm riddy to fckin drap like….”
What do you mean standing room only? I can’t stand. Do you not have eyes you ignoramus. Can you not see that I am pregnant?
“eh min, yigotonyfagslike?”
I say, do you have a cigarette?
“ah yifcka aatsfityizasay. Geeza a fag yigrippybasturt”
A likely story. Please may I have a cigarette?
“Goat ony beer en?. Yi must hae suhin’”
In that case, do you have a beer. You must have something
“tifckuryiwintinyiweeshite?”
What do you wan’t?
Have a good one
Hooli
(…I’ve come to know the wishlist of my father…)
When I was first married, I lived in a small flat within a granite tenement near the centre of town. In many respects, this was ideal. We were young, had little responsibilities and behaved accordingly. Where we lived was like a city centre village, a remnant from the Victorian era, with its parks nearby and all the benefits of the city centre amenities close at hand.
It was walking distance to all the best bars and, geographically speaking, ideally placed for a curry or a kebab on the way home. The neighbourhood had shops; grocer, butcher, baker, fishmonger, home brew shop and guitar shop.
Christmas shopping was a piece of piss.
Ten minute walk to the west end shops, four hours later, hundred quid lighter, it was done.
The flat had been a typical Victorian tenement; shared outside cludgies; big copper steepie in the back lobby; coal boiler and bunkers; scrubbing board and mangle; two rooms with open fires, eight foot high ceilings and bugger all else.
If this was the typical tenement flat, why should we expect it to get anything more than a typical 1980s tenement conversion?
Front room left exactly as was but with the added attraction of having the fireplace boarded up; backroom unevenly quartered to provide a poky wee hall, a poky wee bedroom, a poky wee bathroom and the usual non-cat-swing kitchen, barely large enough to accommodate two people and a turkey.
After four years of us living there the transformation was complete. The final insult to the Victorian era; pink and grey walls complete with black ash, smoked glass and chrome.
One of the downsides though was that the building had no central heating to speak of. In fact, when we moved in, it had no heating whatsoever.
Not being endowed with great wealth, we saw fit to install a couple of electric panel heaters; the kind of thing that you can set on a timer to come on before you get in from work; the kind that give off the thermal equivalent of a puddle of cats piss. On more than one occasion, it was so cold that the ice formed on the inside of the windows and the only way to get any heat was to have a bath.
The real trouble with tenement living though, the main thing that drives most sane adults into semi-detached suburbia, is mostly that you have multiple neighbours.
This, in itself isn’t so much of a problem as their antics.
I was naïve enough to expect that there would be a degree of community spirit within the building. That we would all look out for each other and be like a big but slightly disjointed family.
Sap!
The reality was that, right up until the day we left, with only one exception, we never really knew any of our neighbours.
We were fortunate to have an elderly couple opposite (except they weren’t really a couple, more of a widowed old guy still clinging the notion that his wife had just popped out for some spam and would be back in a wee minute) and an elderly and, generally, harmless old biddie upstairs but, as time wore on and sheltered housing beckoned, all that was to change. We also had a Spanish chef who lived directly above us. He was known to come home from work and, in what I could only assume to be a fit of depression about either a lost love or a burnt paella, blast out Harry Nilsson singing Without You on a permanent loop. I guess we can now count ourselves fortunate that it predated that skirling bitch Mariah Carey. Other times, we would hear him working out on one of those trim-track rowing machine contraptions, the endless swish-swoosh coupled with his grunting, set to a Dr. Hook soundtrack, all conspired to sound like a bizarre, marathon sex session.
Upstairs on the other side, the sweet old lady, whose washday was Monday and woe betide anyone who ignored the fact, vacated the premises when its owner sold up. As a replacement we had the Ginger Medusa and her daughters the Peroxide Rottweiler and the Peroxide Doberman. Nobody had much to do with them because we all knew a single look could turn mere mortals to stone.
Washing ceased to be an issue though as they never seemed to do any.
Downstairs, across the hall from us, the old man with the ill fitting gnashers and his imaginary wife soon felt the warm hand of benevolence and succumbed to the pishy stench of a care home in the country.
The flat was sold to an agency, done up with a bit of new paint and after months of being empty, we had new neebs across the hall.
It was all quiet for the first couple of weeks but very quickly, that spiralled into a depressing cycle of Thursday afternoon, he got paid; Thursday evening, he came home shit-faced; Thursday night, she’d kick him out; Thursday midnight, he’d kick his way back in; early Friday morning he’d crank the music up full blast and kick seven bells out of her. Monday morning the door would get fixed so he could kick the shit out of it again a couple of weeks later. Rest of the time, he would shout at her, she would shout back, doors would slam, music would get cranked up and we would dread the doorbell ringing.
We came to suspect after a while that the job he claimed to have as a chef at the local nut house was nothing but a fantasy and he was in fact one of the inmates. Either that or it was one of those situations like owners and their dogs getting to look like each other, where he had been around bams for so long he turned into one.
The final straw came when, after he had smashed a six-inch hole in the shared lobby wall, presumably because the door had remained locked, he managed to get into his flat taking my wife with him.
Eviction soon followed.
Domestic trials aside, those were happy times. We generally lived by our means. Drank a lot of homebrew, took lots of baths and wore lots of layers in the winter.
We’d had a few practice runs at the roast dinner by the time Christmas came around. One spectacular disaster springs to mind when, having invited my in-laws for Sunday dinner, I went to the pub after work, leaving my wife to deal with the roast. I wasn’t exactly blootered but let’s just say that me and that chicken weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye. My less than sober attempts to carve the beast ended up with the chicken skiting across the plate, performing an intricate pirouette with a full somersault and twist before landing on the floor. The following battle to restore the trussed up bird to its place of glory alongside the tatties was one I was never going to win and in the end it looked like the neighbour’s cat had got at it.
We spent a lot of time preparing for what was our first, and when I think of it, probably only Christmas alone together. Bought a nice bit of beef (never could stand turkey); some nice wine; a dinky little Christmas pudding; even turned the heating on in October to let things warm up. I can’t recall much about what gifts were exchanged but I do remember it was the first year I had ever had a real Christmas tree. It was eight feet high, touched the ceiling and I had to use a stepladder to reach the top. We bought a whole stack of glass baubles, loaded it up and stuck it in the window.
I’ve always thought of the Christmas tree as a binary sort of thing – one of life’s classic polarisers – you’re either real tree with needles or fake plastic tree without.
I grew up in a needle free house.
This was my revenge on my childhood. This was my way of exercising my right to freedom of choice. I wanted to post handfuls of pine needles through the letterboxes of all the homes with plastic tress in their windows.
When Christmas Day came round, among the presents was a bottle of Moniack Sloe Gin. For those not familiar with Scottish wineries, Moniack Castle is a wee place up past Inverness and let me tell you, these guys know a thing or two about making gin taste good.
As the day went on, and the level of the bottle went down, dinner seemed like less and less of a reality. I’m not sure if it got burnt or even reached the oven but I can remember the two of us watching some crappy James Bond movie on a 12” TV, laughing our arses off amid the piles of wrapping paper.
Our lives were so uncomplicated then.
We could be happy with the simple wish of being together.
Now though, the wishes are not our own…
Opening the Christmas parade, Joe Pug.
Watch out for this guy; buy his album when it comes out. Hails from Chicago. Writes like Dylan crossed with Josh Ritter. Simple style. One man; one guitar. Saw him supporting Steve Earle. The rest is just the usual trawl through the archives…
Joe Pug – The Pageant, St. Louis
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mtt6nx
Steve Earle – The Pageant, St. Louis
http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfvo6e
Tom Waits – San Diego Folk Festival
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xggcac
Bob Dylan – Hartford
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ydqlet
Rockpile - Bottom Line
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qcfdoc
Wreckless Eric – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/87u7h5
Rachel Sweet – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/3vsg5q
Lene Lovich – Be Stiff Concert
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zmsh4j
Rachel Sweet – Cleveland Agora
http://www.sendspace.com/file/57u0dg
Steve Wickham – Dublin
http://www.sendspace.com/file/e0klk9
Lloyd Cole – Paris
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4z492k
Karine Polwart - Marlborough Town Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/850iia
Arab Strap – Live In Melbourne
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5xmtu6
The Ghost of Christmas Present
(…think this bus is stopping again to let a couple more freaks get on…)
Having conceded to the fact that I had to do some Christmas shopping, at least to get my own present, I had enlisted the help of those jolly nice chaps at Amazon.com. Deep inside though, I knew there was always going to be something that needed a trip into town.
Shopping can, for some people, be an enjoyable, rewarding and sometimes therapeutic experience. The catharsis of spending your hard earned bawbees on something you really want, having spent the preceding five days doing a load of stuff that someone else wants, sort of makes it all worthwhile. For many of us though, it is a strange and often frustrating experience. Maybe its just familiarity but the same old shops touting the same old wares and the same old fake jewellery stalls blocking the same old thoroughfares hold no excitement for me whatsoever. I always find shopping in another city a more pleasurable experience. Glasgow has the Buchanan Galleries; Birmingham has the Bull Ring; Manchester has Trafford Park; Dundee has the Wellgate; and Newcastle has the Metro Centre. We have the Bon Accord Centre, the Mall Trinity, and the St. Nicholas Centre. Now, as an added bonus, presumably for good behaviour and exceptional endurance, we get Union Square.
A fourth shopping mall, claiming to be just what the city has been waiting for!
Am I missing something here? Aren’t we in the midst of economic gloom?
We’ve never managed to fill all the units in the old shopping malls so what the f4ck do we need another one for? It’ll just be another place for scummy little tabbie munchers and underage mothers to hang out with their screaming weans.
Worse still, they built the place a stones throw from the harbour bars and the red light district, the seedy underworld of Stuart MacBride novels.
Even worse than that, they built it between the harbour and the fish market. Now what sort of olfactory sensation is that likely to spark?
Just the inspiration you need as you’re leafing through the Faith and Zara designs; fish guts, salt and diesel. Somehow I don’t think my wife would be too happy with a yellow sou’wester and a pair of matching 20 joule, steel toe cap wellies in her Christmas stocking.
– note to self – next time Walkers are looking for new crisp flavours…
Still, at least it’s next to the bus station and the rail station.
Handy, Really handy!
Especially when you consider that ninety percent of the people who are likely to visit the place don’t have direct access to a rail link.
I’m lucky; the railway runs past the end of my street. Shame some bastard shut the station in the 1960s. Still you can’t have everything. At least I’ve got the bus service. That runs through my particular little part of suburbia with the usual regularity and because I live in a group of streets that now resembles a triangular island surrounded by three main roads, I have three options from which to board said omnibus.
Because this also involves the merging of three routes, it also means that at one of the stops, a bus is due every ten minutes or, if you inhabit the real world, three times an hour, usually grouped together, with the other three broken down somewhere on the other side of town.
It’s funny that whenever I’m a pedestrian trying to cross the street there are buses zipping back and forth with all the frequency of the last remaining space invader; and isn’t it funny when I’m in a hurry to drop the kids off before going to work, I get stuck behind one that then stops at every stop before halting for a chat with its mate going the opposite direction.
Funny Funny! Ha Ha f4cking Ha!
Another problem with the bus service and living where I do is that the normal city bus service goes up what used to be the main shopping street.
Now maybe it’s me and maybe I’m just being a little over sensitive or perhaps even a little too forward thinking here but what the hell is the point of running a bus service up a street where there haven’t been any shops since Moses was a lad.
Yeah, OK, it might be tradition and yes, I agree, the routes have to be interconnectable to get from all the As to all the Bs but that is of no comfort to Old Maisie in her blue raincoat and polythene head-square. She doesn’t want to have to trudge an extra quarter of a mile in the cold and the rain with her throbbing bunions and dodgy hip while dragging her little tartan shopping trolley down the steps. She may well have a buss pass but she doesn’t want to take three buses to get from her front step to Woolies. No wonder old people moan so much.
Thirteen different lines and they all go up the same street. Not one of them goes to the bus station. What good is that?
Even the park and ride goes straight up the old main drag. The only moment of sanity in the whole parade is on Sundays, when the P&R goes to the new shopping centre. Just as well I’m not a church goer like Old Maisie.
So to get to where I want to go, I have to get what is called a country bus. This is the service that goes from the station, ultimately, to Inverness and back again. It runs about once every two days and is the technological equivalent of the Oregon Trail.
Anyway, here we are, mid-December, Aberdeen, pissing rain and not a parking space to be had so, being a fine young specimen of manhood and feeling fit, healthy and free from hangover, against my better judgement, I decide to take my chances with the city bus.
Aside from the lack of ‘door to door’ aspect, which I can live with, for many years now I’ve had a long running mental battle with public transport.
Back when I was a kid, in the days of double deckers and clippies; Aztec bars and blue lemonade; when we wore platform soles and Oxford bags and Bowie and Bolan were the ultimate style icons, public transport was widely used by all manner of people. It was cheap. It went exactly where you wanted it to go, it was frequent, on time and you didn’t have to worry about parking on the high street.
We even had a sitcom dedicated entirely to the realm of the bus depot.
For years I travelled by bus to secondary school. This again was cheap and the trip was largely for the benefit of school kids and commuters.
After I left school, I became one of those commuters. Even though it was only twice a week, it was something I dreaded. Six of us would make the 30 mile, Sunday evening trip up the coast, already longing for the trip back the following Friday but even then, the journey was bearable.
Then something changed.
Firstly, I passed my driving test, which meant I literally could travel door to door.
Secondly, I went on an ill-advised holiday to the Costa del Sol that departed from Newcastle airport. The ensuing bus trip was one of those that seemed to be unending.
Finally, when I was about 25, a drunk driver pulled his transit van in front of me, writing off the first decent car I owned.
The battle with the insurance company that followed was a protracted affair that left me with no car for around six months. The battle with my own nerves left me shitting myself every time I was anywhere within 50 metres of a Transit van. It was back to the good old number 19 for me. This left me with a deep-rooted resentment for public transport.
The thing about it was that, in the same way as if I was at a gig, at a football match or standing in a queue at an airport, I would always land up with some total fruit-loop next to me.
Like the DHSS, Primark and the council offices, buses are a magnet for the great unwashed. I use that term not as a metaphor.
My recent adventure to the city illustrates the point perfectly.
I leave the house at 9.15 and begin the walk to the bus stop. About a hundred metres away from my house, I take a shortcut through a hotel car park. This is a diagonal route that saves me taking two sides of a triangle and avoids the ‘young offenders’ home at the bottom of the street. I dodge a number of piles of dog shit and reach the main road where I pass two pubs outside which the pavements are littered with tabbies. There are the usual broken bottles and glasses, not to mention a couple of technicolour yawns decorating the pavement. Round the next corner, I pass a Chinese takeaway and, after a couple of hundred metres, the obligatory Chow Mein. I’m not sure if this is first or second hand and I’m not interested enough to want to find out. Another 100 metres or so and I’m at the bus stop.
At one end, the window has been tanned so I move in and turn my back to the wind.
The whole place stinks of stale pish, cigarettes and old newspapers.
I’m eventually joined by a young mother with a pushchair. Judging by her figure, which is disproportionately round in comparison to her scrawny face and neck, she’s going to have to get an extension fitted to the buggy pretty soon. I warn her against taking the wee one into the bus shelter. She scowls at me as if it was me who pished in the corner. The oversized geet scowls also, which makes his face look like a monkey’s arsehole.
An elderly couple are approaching, maybe about two hundred metres away, as the bus steams in to view. As it draws closer, the words Out Of Service become clear on the front. Why the hell is it on the road if it’s out of service is my immediate thought. Like my whole take on the offside rule, (that if you’re on the pitch you bloody well better be interfering with play, unless you are the goalkeeper) it’s a thought that I keep to myself.
Another bus comes into view, with another, a couple of cars behind. An 18 and a 21.
Both due to stop. Both intent on keeping going into town.
Eventually another 21 shows up and pulls into our stop.
Someone exits through the middle door.
As I hang back to let the elderly couple get on first, the scowl and her arse faced offspring barge past me to confront the driver.
“Eh min, fit i fckinell is iss aboot like min? Bin wiytin’ here fraboot a fckin’ oor like. Ah shouldna hivtbe staunin’ oot in is caul in ma condition, ‘is isny gidinuf me freezinmititsaff like. Three o youze jist drove past me, me wi a bairn an in ma condition ‘n’ ah. Altiye iss, if ma lad wiz here he’d fckinsortyiz oot so e wid. Ah’ll fckintell ‘im fan ‘e gits oot”
“You can’t take that on here”
I’m not sure if it’s the buggy or the sprog the driver is referring to. Maybe it’s her festering gob.
”Fit i fckinell d’ye mean like? Fit dyemean a canna tak iss oan here? Hoo the f4ck am ah mint tae get is wee shite aboot wi’oot it like? D’ye hink ahm fckin wundirwummin like? Fckinell, youze are a i same. Altiye iss…”
“Miss, you can’t take the pushchair on the bus. There is no room. Have a look. There is standing room only.”
“Fitye mean staunin room only? Ah canny staun in ma condition. Hiv ye nae een ye fckinbam? Kin ye nae see ahm riddy to fckin drap like?”
It’s at this point that the other bus pulls in and, thankfully, I leave the exchange.
The elderly couple board, flash their passes and I follow, parting with my £2.50 fare.
I do a quick scan and opt for a seat next to a window midway up the bus. Just as I get comfortable and jam my phones in my ears, the inevitable happens, I see arse face and his scowling mother stomping towards the bus.
Please drive off, please go, go, go – too late, they’re on.
She hauls arse face out of the buggy, collapses it and hurls it at the storage rack.
Please sit up stairs, go on, turn left, go on – too late.
Please don’t sit next to me or even near me, please, go just keep going, please –
Aw f4ck.
Why did she have to sit behind me?
Opposite or in front of would have been bad enough but behind? Why behind?
Who knows what manner of snotters, spittle or generalised barf I’m going to get covered in.
After a couple of minutes I get a tap on the arm.
“Eh min, yigotonyfagslike?”
“No sorry I don…”
“Ah yifcka aatsfityizasay. Geeza a fag yigrippybasturt”
“I told you I don’t…”
“Goat ony beer en? Yi must hae suhin’” she says as arse face tugs at her arm.
“tifckuryiwintinyiweeshite?”
“Oose, oose” is the gurgled reply.
As I turn away from her, she produces a plastic bottle of something red and fizzy and I’m thinking “oh shit here we go”. I hear arse face grab the bottle with delight while she’s still trying to get the cap off. I sense a mini tug of war behind me then a fshfwooshhhh. I’m waiting for the wet sticky spray on the back of my neck but it never comes.
I sneak a look at the reflected scene in the window opposite and notice that the scowl, the bump and arse features are covered in wet cola splats.
Maybe there is a God after all.
I stand and head upstairs, safe in the knowledge that in the equation (her lazy arse + her bump + cola-boy) x spiral stairs, the result is going to be peace and quite for me.
Yes, there definitely is a God. For now at least…
Weird Al Yankovic – The Essential
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jppcm3
Leonard Cohen – Live In Amsterdam
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0uzhdb
The Waterboys - Live In London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/o9onpi
REM – Lyon Tapes
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xn3lir
The Men They Couldn’t Hang - Never Born To Follow
http://www.sendspace.com/file/uvnu2y
Velvet Crush – Live in Providence
http://www.sendspace.com/file/pgzp28
10,000 Maniacs – 10km
http://www.sendspace.com/file/p0dorq
Paul Weller – Live at the Barras
http://www.sendspace.com/file/5ftcz0
Bob Dylan – Blackbushe
http://www.sendspace.com/file/l1qvuo
John Mellencamp – Check This Out
http://www.sendspace.com/file/1rmd63
Gun – Hard Rock Hell
http://www.sendspace.com/file/h7gdab
Bob Dylan – Jersey Boy
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xcyzx7
Julie Fowlis – Live
http://www.sendspace.com/file/chhtkb
Felice Brothers – Live (re-upped mp3s this time)
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oa0yh1
Roddy Frame – Live at the Belfast Empire
http://www.sendspace.com/file/z1s9dw
Lisa Hannigan – Live at the Troubador
http://www.sendspace.com/file/yzclae
The Ghost of Christmas Future
(…maybe this year will be better than the last)
So having spent a few Christmases shivering in our poky wee tenement, we made that long and winding, bus trip to where we are now. The full on, family Christmas! Just like all the Kerry Katatonic or Colleen Moron ads on the telly, the picture of health and happiness all rolled into one, minus of course the Iceland platters.
Over the years I have become very close to my wife’s family. It’s not that I have any issues with my own parents; it’s just that if stability had a face, it would look like my in-laws.
I’m proud of the fact that neither of us asked them for anything yet they fed us when we were hungry. Put us up when we didn’t have a roof. Supported us through a lot of personal shit.
Year after year, they did the deed and we helped where we could.
Time moved on and saw us all have kids of our own. A full family dinner now needs a 20-foot table and a squadron of the detested turkeys but still, my wife’s parents stick to the task of providing for the extended and ever growing tribe. I see them getting older and with every year, coping with the hassle and stress of it all with no less dignity but just a little less ability.
Every year we tell them to do less but they do it because they think it’s expected and every year everyone lets them get on with it because they think it’s what they want.
Every year my father in law works too hard, makes himself ill and it hurts to see him being taken for granted.
Every year my mother in law gets upset because she thinks she has failed to please everyone.
In truth, they’ve never failed. Not once. Even on the Christmas Day when we took over completely and I ended up in casualty having accidentally ripped out a fingernail, they were there to apply suitable amounts of anaesthetic and serve the dinner on my return.
Someday, it will be full circle. Someday, the youngest generation will be with their partners, freezing their bollocks off (metaphorically of course) in their first homes, putting up with annoying neighbours and laughing their faces in half at something they’d normally think was a load of shite.
Someday we, their parents, will have to take up the baton and run with it.
I guess that’s what Christmas future holds for us.
I’d like to think that we will find the whole thing a lot less stressful.
I’d like to think that the load will be evenly shared and that a bit more humility comes to bear upon us all.
I’d like to think that each year finds us better than the last.
I’d also like to think that, maybe for a change, we could let it slide – go with the flow, but the older I get, the more I see myself being shackled by the stupid ties of tradition and my misguided understanding of what other peoples expectations are.
I’m sure they too will be going along with it all because they think it’s what I want.
One day we will probably all turn into the things about our parents that annoyed us the most.
However inevitable it is, I’m not sure I’m ready for that.
Counting Crows – Warren Haynes Christmas Jam 2009
http://www.sendspace.com/file/txxpqr
Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – Old Town Music Hall Late Show
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4qurvu
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions - Queen Elizabeth Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/90ifjj
Laura Marling - Royal Festival Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/6ev8cv
Roddy Hart – Sign Language
http://www.sendspace.com/file/758jaz
King Creosote – Woodend Barn
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0pkp5b
thenewno2 – Charlotte
http://www.sendspace.com/file/jbdsxk
Biffy Clyro – Liquid Room, Edinburgh
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9pd6w7
Camera Obscura – Firlej, Wroclaw, Poland
http://www.sendspace.com/file/tni8xt
Joseph Arthur – Geneva
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9vtvr6
Blind Pilot – Great American Music Hall
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wd73s6
Hope Christmas for you is what you want it to be.
Life may not be all James Stewart and Donna Reed.
But it is a wonderful life all the same.
Glossary of terms
“Eh min, fit i fckinell is iss aboot like min?” –
I say my good man, can you please tell me what is happening
“Bin wiytin’ here fraboot a fckin’ oor like” –
I’ve been waiting here for about sixty minutes
“Ah shouldna hivtbe staunin’ oot in is caul in ma condition ‘is isny gidinuf me freezinmititsaff like” –
I don’t think it’s proper for a woman in my condition to have to stand here until my nipples are hard.
“Three o youze jist drove past me, me wi a bairn an in ma condition ‘n’ ah”
Three of your colleagues failed to halt with is a bit off considering I’m an expectant mother.
“Altiye iss, if ma lad wiz here he’d fckinsortyiz oot so e wid. Ah’ll fckintell ‘im fan ‘e gits oot” –
I will tell you this, my good man; if the father of my bastard offspring was here today he would give you a seeing to. I will make him aware of this on his release from prison.
”Fit i fckinell d’yemean like? Fit d’yemean a canna tak iss oan here? Hoo the f4ck am ah mint tae get is wee shite aboot wi’oot it like? D’ye hink ahm fckin wundirwummin like? Fckinell, youze are a’ i same. Altiye iss…”
What do you mean I cannot take this on here? What other method do you suggest I use to transport my child? Can you not see I’m lazy? You are not from here and I don’t like the look of you. I will tell you this…
“fitye mean staunin' room only? Ah canny staun in ma condition. Hiv ye nae een ye fckinbam. Kin ye nae see ahm riddy to fckin drap like….”
What do you mean standing room only? I can’t stand. Do you not have eyes you ignoramus. Can you not see that I am pregnant?
“eh min, yigotonyfagslike?”
I say, do you have a cigarette?
“ah yifcka aatsfityizasay. Geeza a fag yigrippybasturt”
A likely story. Please may I have a cigarette?
“Goat ony beer en?. Yi must hae suhin’”
In that case, do you have a beer. You must have something
“tifckuryiwintinyiweeshite?”
What do you wan’t?
Have a good one
Hooli
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