Remember how it started?

I first met Mark Straw at a party – in a darkened room – my head swimming with cider and my mouth brimming with words. Mark made me laugh. A lot. Mark was also a marine with a slick side in modernist aesthetics – he was a ticking, clicking, gin sipping time bomb who put a smile across your face in an instant. I miss Mark. A lot.

Mark and I liked Paul Weller. We did not know this at first but we would [solid] bond over Weller’s look, lyrics and loves as those summers raced by. Clean living in dirty times was our mantra. To be fair I looked a right old hippy when I met him – in some attempt to grow out my hair – through what I would still like to imagine as a quality Ian Brown phase – but in retrospect I looked like a fat version of my mother in the 1960s – with a more pasty complexion and sunken eyes. So my hair was getting wilder but mind was staying focused. Again I would liken this to Roger Daltrey’s modernist balance in Tommy – it’s reckless, relentless but focused with the right amount of humour and aggression. This is where I was at.

I was in the throes of trying to hang on to a London life I had left behind – arriving back from that hippest of institutions – that Goldsmiths’ vibe man – I had surrendered the cultural sights and slights to a life at first behind a bar and then propping one up. But at least those Scunthorpe soul [less] days were spent with soulful people. All will be written about at some point. You are not forgotten.

Once again Paul has the underlying role in all of this [I have discovered some tunes myself] he returned home from town one day clutching THE PAUL WELLER MOVEMENT 12 inch single – those first bars of Into Tomorrow – descending scales and fluid bass as we all took a trip down boundary lane – and here I found myself again. I’d been losing track of myself [somewhere] for while – I would do again funnily enough but now was the time to wallow in the Weller and take that modernist approach to getting high/ by. This sudden grand return to modernism – a backlash against the grunge – the Seattle [freak] scene was welcomed in the North – it meant a return to suits – you see you know where you stand with a suit – you get dressed up for a Friday night. See me walking around – I’m the man about town that you heard of.

And Paul Weller was the catalyst for all of this – the loaded scene – the reinvention of the new male – one who could laugh at the 70s but secretly yearn that it was all a lot easier when Benny Hill was prime time. Now I had my fair share of mightily misogynistic moments – but I didn’t want to nail my colours to a scene of ignorance and stupidity of football chanting mediocrity - and Weller I feel had a little more soul than areshole about him. And that first single chimed with the times – it embraced the changes we were all looking for – and it made the style council seem redundant. It seemed if Weller had really channelled the Marriot magic and the Paul Weller Movement album just proved this - it’s underlying funk and RnB riot laying siege to the modernist within.

 

So we bought flat fronted trousers in markets in Manchester. Scoured second hand shops for shirts and tops and looked for new loafers to loaf in at public houses. And a dear friend Richard even got handy with the sewing machine, an iron and some soap – and was turning out the four button high collar suits with flat fronted fixed crease narrow cut trousers. I cannot fit into mine now. At that point I was the face. If you wanted it.

But let’s get back to Weller.

I saw him at the Royal Albert Hall – early Wild Wood tour. He simply was on it. It was excess with finesse. Craddock and White holding it all in – as Weller strutted in his Peacock Suit and sang with the masses. This was not dad rock – it never was to be honest. But lazy journalists like lazy terms.

But Mark and I’s love of the Weller would culminate in us sending ‘Stanley Road’ home in a taxi as Paul raged evermore and I drank to excess in The Honest Lawyer. You see I was a postman – that meant I was always up early – not always awake but up early. To sort my round – to put the letters in the frame – to bag up and get out. Feeling resentful like Jimmy in Quadrophenia. So with instructions to purchase the CD box set of Stanley Road – in its 12inch Peter Blake designed glory – I finished my round of the downtown of Westcliff and the surrounding environs and made my way to Mark’s so we could go buy it together.

Duly purchased we made our way to the finest public house in Scunthorpe – The Honest Lawyer and had what would be described as loosener. And then we had several more. All the time that Record Village plastic bag lay at the bar – shouting out that it was meant to be being played in a bedroom somewhere on the way to Ashby. It was one of those drunken epiphanies – to call the local cab office – to send it home – in the front seat the belt on. It arrived safely and I eventually rolled home. You see music can do that – it can send you spinning into places unknown.

And often with Mark the unknown turned out to be a revelation.

And often Paul Weller provided the soundtrack.

Paul Weller Time Passes

Sing me to sleep

These northern towns bring you down [down deeper and down] so I escaped them - left the panic on the streets of Humberside and headed for the [in] the city - because there's a thousands things you can say and do there. Oh yeah. But as ever drawn back to my youth - as i nudge ever nearer to forty. So these Scunthorpe streets that we pass down - those tarmac roads and pathways where I stole glances and dreamed of heady romances and kicked off on and passed out in come back to play on repeat in the endless i-player of the mind.

It's funny how your idols let you down - you know all the sayings blah blah blah - never meet/ work/ eat or sleep with them. Not all of them - but most - because ultimately that connection you made was through music - not through talking or sharing - it's all one way. They told you and you responded with gratitude - waiting for the next release or discovering an album by them, an interview - they never searched you out - they didn't come knocking but you joined the gang nevertheless - you swelled their numbers and sometimes you had the swagger to match them. And there have been many gangs I've joined in the name of rock n roll, several that seemed to require an old man's anorak or cardigan as regulation wear.

And i've met a few of them - pressing my nervous hand into the palm of a bewildered Brian Wilson - it should be one of those stand out unique moments - but I'd stood in line in an HMV - feeling odd and out of place - that reaching the man was a blessed relief - because then i could go home. But this post isn't about the Beach Boys.

It was going to be about The Smiths.

You see I was reading an inarticulate interview with the former Manchester miserablist and thought to myself - you're a bit of mug really - and I'd heaped so much adolescent adoration on that old blouse and gladioli that I wished i'd embraced the techno roots that were being carved out before Paul purchased 'Hand in Glove' on 7 inch from Record Village and This Charming Man, the NY remix from WH SMITHS on 12 inch. Actually I say techno roots - i think i was buying various Wham related records at this time.

But by the age of 13 I had seen The Smiths - and all that self pity and sad poetry was given vent in their sound - this band who sang to my heart - and my hair. They used to be concert coaches advertisements in the Scunthorpe Telegraph - you'd wait for Steelbeat on a Friday - the local music scene column and there beside it would be the concert coaches advertisement - so for 10 pound you could go see AC/DC at the Apollo, or in our case The Smiths at Sheffield City Hall.

And I remember catching the coach - Paul and I getting on and the nerves kicking in - as we sat down amongst the older youth of the day - it was the first Meat is Murder tour. James supported and to be honest I think they blew me away more - it was straight down Record Village to order 'Hymn from a Village' the next day. But nonetheless The Smiths were a marvel and a wonder,  a relief from the corporate capitalism I thought was being pumped at me through tinny speakers and mono televisions.

I met Morrisey eventually, despite waiting for him and the rest of the smiths several times in various places. I had been invited down to the Love Music Hate Racism concert at the Astoria - now sadly ripped away to make way for flats - by my then friend Phil Fisk [we fell out because I was lazy] and he was documenting the return of the Libertines - and it was truly amazing concert for so many reasons -Doherty and Barat really do have a chemistry that means you can't take your eyes off 'em. Cheeky.

So that night was wrapped up with passess and access to this and access to that - and quiet pints sipped free of charge and all of that razamatazz. I'd already met Mick Jones in the first 10 minutes of arriving - so I kind of felt that this night would be one I remembered for years to come.

It was just before the Buzzcocks were going to play - i looked up from my pint and there was Morrissey seated with Pete Shelley deep in conversation. And it struck me what a big heed the man had - i mean he is big but his head could match my granny's anyday. Thoughts crossed my mind - this youth from Scunthorpe who had religiously taped every session, every new play by Peel was now in the room with his hero from the past. Yes we had had the whole NME backlash and to be honest I wasn't buying his albums - I'd pretty much stopped after Viva Hate. But it was Morrissey and I thought no matter what I would talk to him.

I waited for the conversation from Pete to dry up - i actually think Steve Diggle butted in - or dragged him off leaving Morrissey and his other friends perched at a table overlooking the stage. I seized my moment - witness tha fitness - leant over and said to him, at the age of 13 I saw Wham and The Smiths in the same year - I think I made the right choice -and  I just wanted to thank you for that.

And that was it - he was pleasant said thank you we shook hands and then continued to watch the concert. All done and dusted.

So here's to The Smiths - a companion for youth and little more. Listening to Morrissey spout his nonsense these days - doesn't rile me - but just makes me lament the days when every word meant something. But sometimes your heroes turn out to a lot thicker than you are.