Hit the North

The North can sometimes turn out the coolest sounds – amidst the humdrum towns that drag you down – there’s something in the constant mither and moans – rains and winds that has us all running to music to soothe our ills.

Because everybody’s got to live their live.

However, it was and never will be fashionable the North that is – you can add a touch of gloss here and there and often northern souls are hip in a way that can’t be recorded or documented with the lens of the capital cameras. But fashionable it is not. I guess anyone thinking that the Beatles had it, or The Buzzcocks started it, The Smiths lived it and the Mondays partied with it would think that the North was awash with glamour and excitement. But that means you negate the existence of:

Doncaster

Rotherham

Grimbsy

Hull

Preston,

York,

Skipton,

Scunthorpe,

Scarborough-on-Sea,

Chester,

Chorley,

Cheedle Hulme,

Ormskirk,

Accrington Stanley,

and Leigh,

Ossett,

Otley,

Ikley Moor,

Sheffield

These places are all in the north, filled with fury and futility as kids kick cats and hit each other with baseball bats. And growing up you would wrestle with the ‘big’ kids or find alternative routes home to avoid a kicking through ten foots and alleys, over railings and walls to retreat to the sounds that filled you with hope and security. And as I grew older I fell in love with it all – a romance with the bleak outlook and frustrated faces – the furnaces and the smoke. And we would play records and dream of escape but a little part of me reels around the [central park] fountain and is forever wedded to cheap pies and ale and those discos with deejays who talked over seven inches and scraps with your chips. Holed up in the council house streets – in our shared bedrooms we played tunes to soothe our troubles and growing pains.

I remember the revolving 45s and 33s – the wait as the needle hit the record and the drumbeat went like that. This was our heaven up here, up the stairs and away from the folks – we would roar through The Birthday Party EPs, rock to the Spector sounds of Rock n Roll by Lennon, immerse ourselves in the electric jangles of bands from foreign places and sunny climes and discuss lost albums by the Beach Boys or how we could track down Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed. It’s all at a touch of a button these days – a sharp hit on the return key and you can hear it – find out what others think – study the style [and go wild]. Back then it was a [mystery] it was trips to the library to seek out books on music – and leaf through back issues of NME – perfectly stored in boxes under tables. And you could even take records out – take them home under your arm with the books. Now you’d be lucky to get a book out.

Existing on one photograph of Lou Reed or The Byrds to create your [Scunthorpe] style was a challenge – but one we relished and warmed to. Sub-culture the meaning of style – having a look because that’s all you got to distinguish you from the masses [and attract the lasses] And never to be recreated. I know I discussed that this writing should not be about looking back – but it is permeated with loss – it’s the age thing creeping in and the disconnection from the real on a day to day basis. Like an alzhiemer’s waltzer – spinning and glimpsing and then forgetting for no reason other than it pops and springs into the mind.

But amidst the spit on the streets was a mapping out of the attitudes the opinions – it was where friendships sparked with wit and naivety stem from – of getting things wrong and working things out to the backdrop of bass and guitars, thumping drums and screams of alienation – which sounds so death metal – but it wasn’t - it was quite light to be honest – full of fun apart from the occasional thumping – which I often deserved anyway, as oversized kids on ‘peds – confronted you with fucks and fingers because of your hair or this or that. Although,I did own a mustard crimpoline cardigan – an homage to Mancunian miseries – that riled many a person up. I mean a cardigan causing confrontation and consternation – THIS IS THE NORTH.

They take offence at a built up shoe, or a slow queue or a badly pulled ale.

So we thank them for the music and the songs I am singing. I never really subscribed to the North/ South divide – you’re either thick or you’re clever – it don’t make no difference what dialect you speak in or what you call a bread roll. And I haven’t worked it out – no doubt somebody will – an ex-accountant with a penchant for the indie scene of the early 1990s – how many bands have risen from the North as opposed to the South - but i guess i like as many bands from down south as do from up north. You know I own an Airstream box set for christ’s sake.

I haven’t felt excited about a band in a long time – well not in the way I used to as a young man. It was what got you through the week. But a friend I worked with gave me a burnt CD – it had Arctic Monkeys written on it – he said they we’re good – had seen them a couple times in London dives and on small stages and the crowd went wild and everybody sang along. I was worried to be honest – never felt that next big thing really – you know I cock an ear to it – but don’t exactly follow it. I mean Glasvegas or the XX anyone? All that studiedness and Brit[school] pop charm and sensibility. No,no, no – I don’t love that anymore. So it may well have been a while before I could be bothered to listen to it. It was certainly after lots of people had believed the hype. [But Flavor told me to not believe and you tend to do as Flavor says] So it was with a sense of knowing about these lads that I hit play – and I was pleasantly surprised at first. Hadn’t thought that it would appeal – but found myself returning to lines – of sentiments and situations that resonated with realness as I remembered ‘cuddles in the kitchen just to get things off the ground’. Clearly within this cacophony of guitar – all mastered LOUD was a band with a heart –and a band with an attitude you could just about respect. Young lads, making young music for young people. It is not hip to bluster in on someone else’s scene. But that first album – as it was these songs were the authentic ones – the demos you know – the ones given away – at gigs - as the myspace world made bands an all of that – but these songs became that angry Arthur Seaton two fingered salute to all the [my] generations trying to claim them as their own. As I said I don’t want to be part of a [music] scene – heavy on the [music] scene – but the Monkeys [see what I did there] were pretty much creating it with each strum of their guitars.

But whatever people say about that album that is what it is not. It is Northern though. And some tunes just capture that spirit – that bleakness you get from darker nights and cheap lager. I once saw a kid just dragging a curtain rail around – it was like twenty feet and he was about 5 ft – and he was dragging it around – I think he was going to school. But there’s a certain romance with all of that – not sentimental – more brutal. Like Loach’s Kes or Meadow’s England. Of bigger lads and chances and nods and winks and Rugby club dances. There’s a simplicity and a mockery that I love in the lyrics on that album and it reminds me of being there. Of course now ruined by Emma’s brother mentioning George Formby as ‘Bet you look good on the dancefloor’ came on. So all I have in my head on hearing is a ukulele or banjo working class caricature – strumming tunes with wild abandon.

It is clear the North will [not] rise again - not in ten thousand years.

But I do like it.

Buying the Plastic Ono Band and reeling

I remember when I first discovered the ‘Music and Video Exchange’ in Greenwich, to be honest it isn’t hard not to discover – it’s on the high street. Now if you’re a record obsessive like me – you’ll be able to recognise how important a place like that is. It doesn’t look much – all scruffy front and in need of a lick of paint or at least its windows need cleaning.

But it promises so much.

A shop filled with old records, new sounds , new experiences. I had arrived in 1989 , a mere youth. green and new to the workings of a south London I knew nothing about. However, my vinyl obsession was firmly in place, always scouring the record shops, second hand stores and cardboard boxes of market stall traders for those elusive sounds of the underground. And here was a shop full to the brim of them.

A sound explosion.

I would walk across the ‘heath on a Sunday, a lazy day, a recover day to spends hours in the company of fellow ‘anoraks’ carefully flicking through piles of records. Pausing over the covers, flipping them over in my hands and reading the track listings on the back.

I stumbled across, well I say stumbled – to be honest I had most likely looked at every single record in that store over the course of a year, a pristine copy of the John Lennon Plastic Ono record. A record full of anger and sadness. That and Pet Sounds – it was a summer of desolation. Believe me as I revelled in new found loves and guilt and loneliness within these London streets.

I remember putting the record on the revolving deck and placing the needle on it, on Love, and it all came swimming back to me how I stood alone and felt the hairs on my neck rise. It turns out Spector was hardly at any of the sessions for this album – but it’s him on piano on Love. Him and Lennon keeping it simple and heartfelt – obvious and honest. You know the Love song was passé man – but there’s honesty about that tune – as Lennon’s primal wailing gives way to singing. The whole album is a classic – not a word I choose lightly – you know I’m not making lists.

There’s a sense of accomplishment – of Lennon getting back on it – and I guess that’s how I felt on first listening to it. Coming out of an isolated summer to an autumn of something else. Lennon [along with Wilson] just helped me get right along.

Funny how people do that to you

sounds from the overground - solitary rants for the listening man No.1

I read my old fanzines

I added randomly to the windows media player playlist and hit shuffle

I grabbed a handful of records

I downloaded 'wede man'

I sang along with 'Sympathy for the Devil'

I texted a friend to play 'Twist and Shout' by The Mamas and the Papas

I recieved my Jonny ticket in the post. The concert starts at 7.00pm. That's my kind of time - old man's time - last train back.

I contemplated buying the remastered Screamdelica and the new Panda Bear album

I played the Live at the Social - by The Chemical Brothers whilst travelling back and forth to Sainsburys

We listened to rock 'n' roll together in a dirty car.

I listened to a pirate radio station

I listened to Radio Three

Everyone should listen to Dion and the Belmonts and i will return to this.

Things are getting repetitive

In order to change the style [go wild]

I have decided to abandon the format that the previous entries were taking for a post that is just simply a piece of music.

Just waves of sonic experimentation building to bleeps and bass. There are no facts to uncover - there are stories - but I'm not going to write them.

A grower.

They have been known to call it.

A grower.

Just cool it man - just cool it

We travelled to concerts by car – the trusted Hillman Imp, a Mk3 Escort, that white car – young drivers and young minds. Reversing up motorways in the dead of night, missing bends and turning off lights as we careered down country roads and lanes to the cities. Well, city mainly – we used to visit Hull a great deal. I used to live in Hull. Well not Hull but Borough – where they made the aeroplanes – but we moved and like the lost son – I would return in my youth for my fix of independent music.

The Aldephi is one of the most wonderful venues you could ever set foot in. Run by Paul Jackson – the John Peel of the North East – as far as I’m concerned. You see the Adelphi opened everybody’s eyes to something new. It just let bands play and play and play. It was cheap – it was cheerful and when I was writing my fanzine all those years ago it meant i got to interview bands and do all that music journalism stuff.

I would take the portable cassette player – a Phillips one- i think and my list of questions and corner some unsuspecting member of the Razorcuts, The Telescopes, Brilliant Corners, The Siddleys, The Valentines or Spacemen3 amongst others, and rattle them off and tape our wild ramblings – both pre and post gig. I sometimes taped the gig as well – the tapes now sit in the garage somewhere – gathering dust and gently warping in the humid air. With other concerts bought from record fairs in Leeds and Doncaster or tapes of gigs sent by a friend from a friend of a friend’s band. They are all there somewhere – documenting that C87 movement – the next wave of shambling cacophony.

The Aldephi holds about two hundred people – it might be more – it could be less – when The Williams played it normally held about 12 to 15 people. So you can see my view of its capacity is somewhat sullied by the solitary clapping of a man at the bar. And we used to take people to the gigs – who clearly couldn’t be bothered to clap. This is of course a lie – and written to reignite an interest in The Williams – actually we did play in front a few fairly sizeable crowds – that’s what you get from supporting better bands. Except when we supported Tombstone Grafitti – there were shit [this is of course in no way bitter that they went on to wondrous fame as Hull’s own Kingmaker the next month] We were a little avant garde by that time – I blame pale saints and sonic youth.

But as i keep saying this is about the music – and on a warm,warm night in June, the 21st actually – i found that out because someone else has kindly listed all the concerts they have been to – it just so happens he was there – printing the date on his blog - we had ventured over to see Spaceman3. Spaceman 3 - a band of brothers united by the stooges, the velvets and can [amongst other things]playing rock n roll to the indie kids on Vox 12 string Teardrops and overdriven amps. I came to late to the Space[man] race but soon understood the [raw] power of their sonic assault was worth investing in. From the early drones to the open soul of Purity and beyond the Spaceman 3 felt like a connection.

I wasn’t expecting the Adelphi to be heaving – but it was.

The whole place had an edge. The band had an edge – whilst sitting on chairs.

It was that kind of night.

The Summer of Love was over and the terrace crowds had rained down to the local bars in search of new sounds and experiences. It was if Oldham’s Firm had popped by for a bit of the old droney drone. The old fuzz, fuzz, fuzz with that LSD buzz. And the Adlephi was getting hotter. Minute by minute as the crowd swelled and swayed in the haze – man. I had already interviewed Sonic – round the back – all positive words for the [fucked] up children of the world.

And now had flipped the tape to record the gig.

And still it grew hotter – and more people joined the already heaving room – I was talking to my brother about this concert at the weekend and he informed me that he stood on a ledge – throughout the whole thing. I was somewhere in the first two rows – camera ready for that fanzine shot – when I sort of remember looking down on myself. It was if the swelling of the crowd and somehow just let me go – and I was there just having a look around the place from above.

And slowly they began to play – with Sonic ‘cooling down’ the crowd – if you don’t want this song in fifteen instalments – he told us – righteous – but we wouldn’t have minded. It was going to be a long night. And still the heat rose – and sweat turned to steam as we swayed and rolled our way through a spaceman set.

So hot in there.

And suddenly through the haze a guitar – [coming down] gently repeating – three notes – Jason seated – it’s so hot – but we’re all beginning to connect – except the scallies – wanting revolution and dope to ease their mid week blues – but I’m with Jason now – floating in space with all the other gentleman and all the other ladies. As the guitar repeats and gently we crave for a stream – to wash away all of our discomfort – not a stream – an ocean – right inside the Adelphi – to cool us down – but right now it’s the cool sounds that are letting us breathe through that simple refrain that it’s so hot.

And in the heat the tape would strain and warp – stretch these simple sounds into squelches and screeches –and monotone noises. Sonic’s interview held in stasis – trapped in the tape – along with the beautiful sounds the spacemen made that evening.

There was a version from Spaceman 3 - but I found this lurking in the background - and it was Jason's song afterall.

I like The Beatles – I don’t know whether I love the Beatles

She said John’s already up there – he’s waiting for you.

I think she said he was sitting on the bed. Richard and I were kind of freaked by that – but that was Richard’s mum for you – had a turn of phrase and smile and a welcome for the strays who would wander through that home – up the stairs and to the record player and television that resided in Richard’s room.

He first introduced me to the Beatles – not that I hadn’t heard of them already but by the tail end of the 1970s and the new beginnings of 1980s – The Beatles had kind of gone right out of fashion. They seemed to be from another era – another time back then. The dissipation of all things Beatles had happened – you could pick up a set of Rock n Roll 1 and 2 for a couple of quid in Woolworths – there was no awe. And to be honest there shouldn’t be – people get shot because of that. So it was through Richard’s record player that I got to hear the hits of the past, the obscure tracks and Revolution Number 9 in the dark. Because playing music should be exhilarating and communal at times – the [in] sound of the [in]crowd.

Paul and I once created a ‘horror’ experience that had us playing a Japan b-side – it was Burning Bridges [if you want to try it yourself] at 16rpm as you entered a room full of shock. You could do that on record players then – slow it down – speed it up – separate the sound – switch the speaker – get to understand sound.

Richard understood sound.

Still does.

He would play me The Beatles – point out a harmony, a sound, a beat, a this, a that – and I would listen [and learn] And over time I’ve fallen in and out of love with The Beatles – they’re a huge behemoth in the world of the popular – christ [you know it ain’t easy] they practically invented it all – the boy band – the serious band – the arguments – the plundering of this and that – juxtaposition – it’s a drag man.

Richard and I wrote a play about the Beatles. We were young. We never took it to the West End – it wasn’t a sure fire hit. We still might cast it – Michael York as Rory Storm – that sort of thing. We also partook in a fancy dress competition – in fact – the only fancy dress competition I was ever in – not that I haven’t tried to look like my idols over the years – like some sort of perpetual fancy dress competition – I believe my Alex Patterson years were fairly successful – possible not my Flavour Flav’s. We went as John and Paul – we couldn’t muster a George or a Ringo – but looking back it would have been more fitting to be George and Ringo. We wore white collarless shirts and black trousers – Richard had fashioned some Lennon specs from chicken wire. He was Lennon – I was McCartney - as I shared a birthday [well all of my birthdays with Macca]. And obviously just in case our transformation was not good enough in itself – we put our names [that is John and Paul] on card around our necks.

We did not win.

Nor come second.

But immersing yourself in the those sounds in other people’s room’s was important. Of course my fascination [not musically] for Clifford T Ward was borne out of stops in that house – at the end of wibbly wobbly way and just down from Andy Ross’s. Some times I picture it vividly – those eighties days [and nights] sometimes I smell it too – a moment as I pull a record from a sleeve. I’m back in Richard’s house and a record is playing and we are talking – and invariably laughing about things. We still do that – laugh about things.

We should make time to play one another some records

But from time to time I return to Abbey Road Studios and hear the experiments in sound [and colour] that Martin and his mates put together. I’ve been listening to the Magical Mystery Tour album – all remastered and i-tuned for Apple[s] and that sloppy Ringo drumming keeps on giving me a smile. And the children have tuned in, turned on but not yet dropped out to the psychedelic sounds of Lucy in the sky with Diamonds, All you Need is Love, I am the Walrus and Strawberry Fields – so the car journeys are getting better [couldn’t get no worse] So it all starts again – this legacy – as two kids in juniors once did – playing songs for pleasure. The Beatles are the real rolling stones – they’re not stopping.

I bought the Beatles ‘Rarities’ album – this was a WH Smith purchase – upstairs in the precinct. Blue cover – simple – no pictures of the band – just their sounds. It had ‘Rain’ and ‘She’s a woman’ on it – I always come back to those. Not so much – ‘You Know My Name’ – although it does seem to surface in my life more times than I would have imagined back then. There’s something so beautiful about both of those tunes. There’s the Lennon sneer – as they ‘run and hide their heads’ and the all out blues of McCartney as he hollers that he don’t need no presents. This is The Beatles for me – fluid bass – scratched chords and harmonies rich in understanding – all the time accented by the fact that things might fall apart or get out of hand – that a shout might go up – a line get fluffed and before you know it – you’ve buried Paul and slayed the Tate household.

The Beatles are good people.

Being in the company of good people is always a bonus.

'cause when I need a friend it's still you

I used to live in Nottingham – arriving there to become a teacher – to train – to aspire for something else other than the sad Scunthorpe existence that i had been carving out – one of intense self pity and futility descending into drunken shambles and idiotic behaviour. To be honest – i’ve always been an idiot – but those latter days back up north were ones that i needed to leave [them ] all behind. I had been to Nottingham several times – journeys in cars on motorways as we floored it and hit those top top speeds.

I first heard Dinosaur on John Peel – most people hear most things on John Peel. Well they used to. Now i think you have to download some DJ on iplayer to hear the new finds or switch to DAB and roll into the 6mix excesses. You knew were you where with four stations – pop music, different pop music, classical, talking. It was as simple as that. Now you find me listening to the four and the three – the middle class angst and cosying in and the beauty of Bach and Beethoven – all horrorshow indeed.

But generally as a teenager you would start with Janice Long, possible the Kid and then go round Peelie’s – see what he was playing. You know- the big kid in the know – the one in the gang who was working and had more stuff than you did – be it beers, crisps, clothes, fags or records. Things panned out like that. John Peel would discover them and then you would – and over radio waves allegiances were formed – friends rallied and music taped [my home taping as yet has not killed music]. There was something beautiful about a song on Peel that you fell in love with. You had a few opportunities to catch it – because after a week or so it was gone. Far too much to play you see – ephemeral pop music – pop pop pop.

That simple fuzz of overdriven guitars.

It does it every time. I bought myself an i-rig for the i-phone [oh yeah – I’m one of the nerd guys – shopping at Autism R Us] just to recreate that Marshall sound – this one goes up to 11.]  Dinosaur could do that – that Seattle throttle – that Jaguar jolt as we all joined in their freak scene. There was a moment when we suddenly became swept up with this lethargy – contradictory I know that we worked ourselves up to sit down. But the Seattle thing seemed like a PuNK thing back then. It was discordant drones for abnormal youth – the teenage riot of America offering kids the alienation they needed from the last throes of Thatcher’s Britain. If you play your guitar loud – perhaps it doesn’t matter that there aren’t any jobs, opportunities or even [teenage] dreams.

And guitars were played LOUD in the 1990s.

J Mascis was this freakbeat guitarist – laconic and laid back as the strings of his Fender Jaguar contrived to ring out our teenage frustrations whilst Lou Barlow provided the beast of the bass to hang our troubled times. And Murph hit the skins and we headbanged our frustration away. Suddenly this rock was not rawk – it felt authentic and heavy – moving me away from the anoraks and simple chimes – getting older see – getting that little bit angrier.

It was time for a change.

Graham from Pale Saints sent me [okay – me and Paul] the first dinosaur album – and we would listen to Mountain Man on repeat – feeling its anger but laughing at the redneck nature of it all. But those guitars still rocked man. And then Bug came along – all pop and racket and suddenly there’s a scene – a whole scene man – it had to be a scene – the NME said. There wasn’t a scene when I first ventured to Nottingham Polytechnic – only the Freak scene [gedditt?] And we waited an eternity for the dinosaur onslaught – Mascis mucking with the mix of the pedals – those endless pedals – phase this distort that and chorus nothing. But we waited – anticipated and all of that. To be honest Paul and I were recovering from the sheer rock attack of the Lunachicks – this was Russ Meyer with guitars – pure unadulterated heaviness. I would later fly from the Marquee stage wearing an elephant cord anorak as the ‘chicks pounded and throbbed through Sugar Love – but as i said elsewhere – that is another story.

And then it happened – guitar, bass and drum driving down to simplicity. This was my Seattle scene – my SUB[mersion] in POP. I remember when Nirvana came along I thought they were interlopers – and James asking if I wanted to go to the Astoria to see them – and I couldn’t be bothered – feeling I had my fill of electric guitars – oh – well some you miss – but I was glad to see Dinosaur at this point. Before it imploded.

I jumped, I shouted – I may even have played air guitar. Utterly thrilled. I even managed to interview J for the fanzine – fifteen words in fifteen minutes – still on some micro tape wedged in a draw in a Scunthorpe house no doubt.

So here’s to loud guitars and not much else.

It seems there are mighty wrangles over who owns the copyright to this track and you can't find the original video. So here is a live version from 1988.