I like the television.

They’re making a film about Spike Island. They’ve made a documentary about the Stone Roses – they’re selling our youth back in celluloid, as there isn’t any new music to push.  We’ve got 250 hours of Glastonbury coming our way – you can watch the Stones and all those other hit making machines. You can sit and chose. 

That’s the way it is (something’s will never change – that’s just the way it is)

I’m forty two this month – looking backwards as ever to those halcyon pop moments and heady days of bedrooms and revolving records. But do I want it on film, on my television and not on the radio nor in the flesh? I only listen to the 3 and 4 you know – and catch that pirate house station when the kids are taking a bath – it’s a random dial thaaaanng.

But invariably I’ve ended my weeks with documentaries about this style and that genre – this singer and that roller.

They showed a series on BBC4 about punk rock.

They’ve showed a whole heap of programmes on this style and that. It had talking heads and clips and stuff in it - tidying up the punk movement in sixty minutes tops and following it with more footage of [raw] power guitar chords and discordant screams from the great and the dead. It’s what it would have wanted – the punk movement – its own documentary strand on digital television. I guess I’m being ironic [moronic] here – but whenever I’m watching – note watching – not listening to programmes on music I get slightly touchy about it all. Drop into anecdote mode and say that I never really liked The Clash. Which is true – I could never warm to them. Don’t get me wrong I like the dub roots, the bass and guitar scowls and howls – but I never thought they had any grace.

I didn’t want to be in them.

You see when the Pistols arrived all full of froth and posture – it was a two fingered salute – a start – that quickly went nowhere – bound to really – it’s far too easy to claim you're bored when you doing nothing to stop the rot[ten] but at least it was a start. It was clouded in this and that – it didn’t care. But clearly it resonated – clearly it was a (rolling) stone dropped in the pond. Vacancy was predicated on alienation – on reaction to the grind.

And that’s why The Fall are the most vital of all those late 70s bands. In every record by The Fall is a reaction – a working ethic that had no time for boredom – it didn’t want to speak for the youth – it had more to say- ah. (I’ll return to this – later on – down the page – because today I’m rambling – I’m the half ten rambler – I can’t stay up that late anymore)

Anyway when I was younger – which was an age ago – it was always about taking sides (I’ve said this before – but you should know that this  repetition repetition repetition’s in the writing and I’m never gonna lose it)  – wearing your heart on your sleeve and telling anyone who would listen that your favourite band was the one that mattered the most. I tended to choose the obscure – the shambling cacophony of a new band I had on tape that had just emerged from Lanarkshire – bands that would sink without a trace. I’ll write a post about The Bachelor Pad at some point (they didn’t sink without a trace – they never really made a trace did they?)

So now you’re dipping in and out of genres and styles, geography and fashion –walking that New Yawk walk and talkin’ in a manc accent depending which strand of documentary programming you’ve been exposed to that evening. I ended up watching music inspired by The Eagles the other night – all California hair and  strumming as footage from 1974 poured through my television’s speakers and moved me to inertia – to bed.

But hey ho – let’s go  - I was talking about sounds on the screen – sold back to us – to send us to itunes and download that nugget of nostalgia. I was talkin’ ‘bout PuNk on the TV.

I’ve said it before but I first became aware of the dark side of pop – the chaotic and the immediate when Paul – my brother - introduced me to The Pistols, The Exploited [I know it’s not first wave punk – but they seemed exciting and dangerous at the time], The Velvets and of course The Fall. I’d only heard them – on the radio – in a disco – on a tape from a friend. I hadn’t seen them. I hadn’t seen The Fall move – not at that point.

Now there’s a band I would want to be in – to be honest there’s a high percentage that I could have been  - I think Mark E Smith I has got through something like a 100 members. I could imagine finding myself playing out of time as Mark turned down my amp and told me to stop showing off. There’s a left field – outsider art that courses through the veins of The Fall and whenever I’m in need of blast of diffidence and difference Mark has the sounds to represent it. 

I have yet to see The (mighty) Fall.

And another opportunity has passed me by. December - full of cold and coughs and pills and powders I couldn’t muster the energy to haul myself to Islington and get a piece of the MES. It just wasn’t going to happen.  I think in ‘indie’ circles seeing the Fall must be akin to seeing The Beatles. They sit outside the whole thing yet bring everything to the ‘scene’ – heavy on the music scene. And there was John Peel championing them every night – well every other night. It feels weird writing about Peel at the moment – as sagas rage and roll about who did what – with whom – in which studio or ‘green’ room. But for now I’m just going to go with flow and acknowledge that if there was ever a champion for a band then Peel was one for The ‘mighty’ Fall. Countless sessions from garage band veterans. Multiple hits in festive charts. Tape em. Tape them.

And I missed The Fall again. This time it was the throes of Spring. I read a wonderful review over at louder than war (the best place for up to date information – not like this ole place) – but I missed them. Again. That MES scowl – that ambivalence to the modern but thoroughly up to date (mate).

So where do I get my fix of the Smith ways of the world?

I find it on clips and bits in programmes about the Manchester scene – or documentaries with the good man himself. (Well he’s not really a good man – he’s a cantankerous fucker with wit that sits to the right – but you know he never played by the rules  - why should he? We don’t want that cloth cap clutching WMC attitude of deference round here)

So perhaps they’ll make a film about The Fall playing Doncaster. 

A film of Totale’s Turn. It isn’t Spike Island. It isn’t new music. 

But as this month has my birthday in it – I can be forgiven for looking back – not listening – looking.  

So here's the first piece of film I saw of The Fall - late night on a So it goes Special. Most likely BBC2 - it's on a video tape somewhere. 

And i've put in a performance of Blindness from Later - because it's brilliant. Because it's The Fall and that's what they do. 

Rock n Roll and wearing a bootlace tie in Doncaster

In my line of work you often come across the emerging tribes, the cults and fashions of the young and ridiculous. And I cannot fail to acknowledge the obvious fact that that once was me – all dressed up with nowhere to go – but putting on a show anyway. It transpires that the mid-eighties in Scunthorpe was part of a large scale sociological experiment where by all sub cultures were allowed free reign in schools and on the streets.

I mean I used to go to school in a tweed jacket topped with a quiff – we had a uniform – but it didn’t seem to matter as Patrick jackets collided with Donkey ones and doc marten boots. It was a free for all in the playground. It was a freedom we don’t always get under Gove and his return to the headmaster ritual of the 1950s.

I still look at clothes. I can’t fit in them but I still look at them. I’m no hipster – do you get me? I may have to start dressing like Tad to make up for my inability to sustain a healthy diet. These flirting with fashions fit snugly alongside our falling in love with sounds. I’m not sure whether it’s the clothes that lead to the finds or the songs which dictate the style – which takes me back to those pre-adolescent moments of developing a look to match the eclectic tastes being shaped through radio, film, television, friends and records, an older brother, record shops and market stalls.

I wore a bootlace tie. It was purchased in Scunthorpe Market. It may well have had a skull on it – or something rockabillyesque. I bought it because I liked Showaddywaddy and Matchbox. There was a rock n roll revival taking place – the late seventies a throwback to the fifties. All crepe soles and blue suede. A friend even had a drape made.

He was ten.

He would wear it at our first year disco in Secondary school – I wore pleated trousers and a grey mesh vest. By then the bootlace tie had been discarded and Visage and the new romantics were taking hold – the beginnings of my love affair with the synthesizer carved out in tributes to Bowie and Berlin. I have vivid memories of venturing to Doncaster. A city. It didn’t make Scunthorpe seem quaint or backward. This was not cosmopolitan.

It was larger and just as violent.

We never seemed to turn out the bands like the North West did. There is no equivalent of The Beatles this side of the country. Our ports brought in fish not rock n roll. Doncaster. Like any good city had a shopping precinct. All concrete and glass with punks and that, sat around smelling of glue and cider. I had come with my mum and brother – I am not certain why. I would wear my jacket – it had a Shakin’ Stevens patch and a Stray Cats one on the back. I would wear my bootlace tie too.

I was scared of the punks.

I thought they wouldn’t like the rockabilly clothes that I wore with pride. These names pinned to my back to mark me out as a fan. If I am honest they didn’t even notice me walk by. Those moments of dwelling that blow up but don’t go pop in your (inner) mind (y’all.) As I have said before rock n roll music – which any old way you might choose it – has always been coursing around the fringes throughout my life. And dressing to demonstrate your idols on t-shirts and badges and patches and bags is all part of that allegiance and defiance of youth. I would always buy a t-shirt at gig. Sell the fanzines in my bag and give the loose change to the t-shirt sellers or invariably the members of the band at the beginnings or ends of set filled with shimmers and jangles – feedback and attitude. And my t-shirt said ‘I understand – I get all of this’.

Whilst wearing the patches of rock n roll across the concrete streets of Doncaster and Scunthorpe – I thankfully had not gravitated towards the wearing of my idols on fabric so close to my skin. I did not own a Showaddywaddy t- shirt – although I would wear one now – postmodern maaaan. I think the first t-shirt I bought to ‘rep’ the band was The Smiths. A black Hatful of Hollow one from the Meat is Murder tour – Sheffield City Hall – five pounds well spent.

I wore it till it frayed.

And then came countless other t-shirts – at first mainly Smiths ones – The Queen is Dead, Shelia Take a bow, Shoplifters – the list goes on. And The Primitives ‘Stop Killing me’ black and white number, The Groove Farm, The Cure and and and. I still wear them today – in a nod to the allegiance and cultural belonging that liking pop affords. I have an Edsel Auctioneer one, various Brian Wilson ones, My bloody Valentine ‘Feed me with your Kiss’, a Primal Scream ‘Ivy Ivy Ivy’ one, Public Enemy, the Pistols and the most recent purchase a grey one with Metroplex records emblazoned across the chest. These emblems of safety and tribal belonging have shaped the fan world since they cottoned on you could get the kids to part with more cash if you but a name and face on it. Okay so the The Sidddleys never had a pencil case made but I swear my brother and I contemplated the Brian Wilson dressing gown that was available on the ‘That Lucky Old Sun’ tour. It would have gone nicely with our Smile bags – mine is currently gathering dust in a cupboard.

It is unlikely that I will ever seize the zeitgeist again and rock up a look with patches and badges – not that my rock n roll tributes were ever of the moment. I may occasionally venture out to Sainsbury’s proclaiming my love for the valentines as the young folk busily stay hip to music’s ever changing moods.

They’re wearing the crepe soled shoes again. They are as yet not modelling The Edsel Auctioneer gear.

This is The Edsel Auctioneer – they were/ are from Leeds – I will write about them at some point in the future. I did like them so much that I bought a t-shirt – so they’re worth a listen. Kind of like a northern Buffalo Tom – but much better.