Girl on a train: Sleaford Mods whilst the city never sleeps

I hadn't planned on being at this concert, gig, shindig - I was bought a ticket from the other half - a birthday treat as her birthday fell the very next day after it - late night outings and present opening mornings. She knows how much I love a rant - a rave - she know how much I love her - she lets me out - because this I guess this is what i'm about.

So it was with coughs and shakes that I made my way to the forum - to see 'em - to be with the mods again. To be honest - i was late to the key markets push - I hadn't listened as intently to this long player as much I should have. So with minimal plays in Zafira journeys I wasn't fully accustomed to the blast and rhetoric- the fucked off 'avin it - and downright funk of it. It was sitting there on the old itunes - not yet settling in the brain - but tonight I was going to see them live tonight.

Through phonecalls and garbled texts I let myself in to the venue without companions - zipped up parka and stares - grey hairs and semblance of attitude - with 4.80 a pint and a scant smile for the trainee bar staff.

I didn't want to waste the moments of big city life.

I hadn't been in the Town and Country club since god knows when - probably Ultra Vivid Scene or Buffalo Tom in the early 90s. Things still remained the same - but i wasn't bothered. 

Being there as the hall filled meant I got to witness York's finest (Iggy) pop - in the shape of Mark Wynn - all grapes and blouses and skinny black trousers. Not a Fall rip off ( even though he played Psychomafia )- a Formby punk warrior with tales of Claire ( if only she wore a name badge) from charity shops and doctored Bowie struts and grapes - 300 quid and we paid for the privilege - he felt so fucking modern - but reminded me of my youth - an absolute fucking trooper - wit and words and shapes and moves. 

Performance punk poetry. 

I wasn't expecting it - you know he basically danced - randomly recited poetry - ate grapes. It was good - but you know - I couldn't hear the words properly - it was hard to make out. (This is meant ironically - just go and see him - it's worth it) 

Steve Ignorant - heartfelt (like a moonlight shadow) all warrior folk and gesture and musical number - it wasn't getting me - but the guy's got pedigree - so you know - we'll see. Arch ranting over tinkling  - hand gestures and industrial language - because we matter - we are fucking human after all.

Before the wonder of Wynn - I had managed to have a brief chat with Andrew Fearn - all gentle and humble - not that I expected him to have gone all diva and not cared - after all we (the audience) were there for this bunch of cunts (Jason's observation). We talked of Nottingham - I asked why Beeston never gets a mention - mainly because I'd been a resident of Nottz (with a Z you...) and a part of that Beeston shuffle - apparently it's too posh - although I have witnessed the Sleaford Mods lyrics being played out on Beeston streets in real time - do you get me?  Anyway I left Andrew alone - he was with a couple who were telling him that the Mods music was right - for these times - right for right now.  I bet he gets that a lot these days.

And then at 9.30 - on came the Mods - straight up and no fuss - in your face and filling the space with fans and sweat - bile and gutteral soul searching about this nation's saving grace - it was ace. Jason and Andrew - prophetic proto punk poetry and rhythm delivered in bombast and bass - it was ace.  

It didn't seem as frenetic as last time - I think that might have been down to the fact I was ready for it - the first time was a fucking blast - this time I kind of knew what was coming. New songs peppered the set Bronx in a Six, Face to Faces, Giddy on the Ciggies, Arabia- Jason contorting and sweating - if he hadn't brought on his No.1 fan (an actually fan) then I think he may have lost all the fluid in his body. You get a workout from this band. A proper session - of self expression. As I said previously my friend - who was there (live) tonight -thinks they'll become all acceptable - used in adverts at some point. He may be right - this certainly felt like that step up - a big hall and playing to the balcony. I guess the bigger the venue the more likely you make sure it's a show. 

And it's always a good show. Let's be honest no else is doing this.

The bass is set to low - the crowd just wobble, wobble, wobble - united in the words of Williamson - crack headed garbage talk - inarticulate rage ranting - the mundane made magical in repetition and riotous commands. Whenever Williamson screams 'sack the manager' it sends the hairs on my neck soaring. There's something incredible in his ranting.

A modern day ranter - perhaps?

Now, if you look up the definition of a ranter from medieval times - you can see the straight up link to the Mods movement (if two people can be called a movement) Here it is: The Ranters were one of a number of nonconformist dissenting groups that emerged around the time of the English Commonwealth (1649–1660). They were largely common people, and there is plenty of evidence that the movement was widespread throughout England, though they were not organised and had no leader.

Do see what I mean?

What the Mods have done is wrap that discordant sound of modern living - that background fug - bass and (rowche) rumble - frustration and fuckery - into a set of songs that document both the past, present and the future. These repetitive bass thumpers - expertly handled from Fearn's fingers - allow laptops to connect with the oldest sound in the world - the voice.

This is modernism.

I'm getting older - and so are the mods - but the crowd is growing - young minds being opened by words from older guys. I can completely understand how Sleaford Mods came to exist - but every time I hear them - and in this case see them -I can't help marvel at the ingenuity of it all.  It's like they just came out of nowhere but perfectly capture - well - rupture the fabric of modern times. There's a wonderful line in 'Rupert Trousers' about Blur. They don't play it tonight. They don't need to get into those sort of fights - but they point a finger at the pomposity of pop life - they prick it and reveal it as the banal it actually is.

I hope this rise to super stardom doesn't diminish the wit and insight of Williamson or alter the relentless drive of Fearn's beats and bass and flickered melody.  I hope it doesn't come to an odd end.

I don't get in the mosh pit tonight - although I stand on the periphery.  I always did - and that's where the Mods are tonight - still on the outside looking in - or perhaps pissing in and causing a fuss.

And with that the show ends - tight - thumbs up and thank yous and I'm off to be a zombie and tweet ,tweet, tweet about it. It's what us London teds do.

So making my way home I arrive at Charing Cross. Sly fag outside the station. Suddenly approached. Blond hair and eyelashes. Off guard. A girl (well a woman) trying to find her way home - all lost and confused - taxi ready but just pissed up and unsure - she was working for Goldman Sachs- wedding in April - man in Munich - pissed up beer festivals and lost connections  - it gets like that - she drinks at Somerset house whilst we listened to rants and the diatribe of Williamson and Fearn - in the same city - different dreams and all that - all on the same train  - same place but thinking differently.

I didn't tell I'd just been in a room with the invective and froth from two top fellas. I didn't tell her that our worlds were probably quite different.  I didn't tell her that the man is a wanker - and that it don't get much better. She can find all that out for herself. 

She can find that all out when she stumbles across Sleaford Mods on the radio. 

It's going to happen soon.

Me, John and the masses

Last week I ventured to Kentish Town with old punks and grey haired romancers to watch a taut and well voiced Lydon sing with gusto and energy. I pogoed at one point, wrapped up in a moment of realization that this would, most likely, be my one time with John and me in a room.

I wanted that memory.

I created it amidst the mosh and the mass. Bespectacled and beered – well singing with cider that anger is an energy as I pushed myself on the shoulders of older men to ‘rise’ in the air and be part of it….maaaaan.

It was an odd concert to be honest. As I get older I tend to obsess more about train times than set lists – about routes and changes. I had met a friend early – soaking up the [unpretty] vacant Hirst exhibition [and we ‘should’ care – there was nothing pretty about his empty money grabbing greed and lack of style and grace – what a fucking rotter – next question.] We had settled near London Bridge  where the Shard stands like an intruder in the city and talked about this and that – but my mind was half on the clock and working my way up the Northern line to be on time for show.

Arriving only to be greeted by bouncers and barcode scanners. Like a supermarket where the staff wear tuxedos. Check your ticket -  that you printed – further saving costs – I used to keep hold of my old tickets – they had been designed – thought about – already providing the first steps of anticipation for an impending night,  sometimes weeks in advance. Don’t get me wrong – I do anticipate a night out – in fact I had done since I was given the ticket in a card on the morning I turned 41. Slowly clutching at middle age and tales to tell round the meeting table – not the public houses. But ticket design is a thing of the past. Perhaps it will help the hoarder in me.

So I arrived early – I wasn’t the first  - the place was filling up as men surveyed t-shirt prices and looked at flyers or simple wandered around holding carrier bags and looking lost. I had my bag over my shoulder – I knew where I was. Then randomly snapping photographs of empty stages – to capture and collect our moments – our nights out on iphones and apps to announce our attendance through digital means to all our other ‘friends’ on pages and sites.

The rituals. The motions.  All of us going through them.

There were no ‘special guests’ as promised. Just the incessant chug and fug of bass of the dub variety welcoming our hot bodies to relax and sway. I have always found the irony of the dub workout  - the slow and [rock] steady rolls and rimshot – as a means to generate anger and edge in confined spaces as bass shakes walls and floors and minds become ever more frayed as the subsonic shifts moods and moves. And on and on it played. I could feel that filling room filling up with the feeling that they’d been cheated – if it says guests – then give us some – because we knew that this PILzone wouldn’t be in effect until 9pm. But somehow through the fleeting appearances of ‘guitar techs’ we knew that something would ‘appen. So we beared with. We waited.

And then – once his manager/ guard was in place – stage right, PIL towel down – ready for the masses and the bass –there was John – all Carharrt camouflage and caterwaul. Not pantomime villain – but well rehearsed singer. The sounds were shrill and dense – echoing and reverberating off walls. I had gone fearing that the chorus and shine of the guitar would distract from the heavy bass bottom end. It didn’t. With Lydon’s scowl and growl, his scream and shout sitting and swirling in the mix. This was not for the faint hearted. This is not a long song. This was no easy trawl through the greatest hits, so far – this was confined space and bass in your face. You could see the whites of his eyes but we knew he would do us no harm – it’s the politicians who do that – as he took us out to deeper water and we were happy to bathe in it. Right until the final electronic sounds of Open Up he meant it. For real – as it where. There wasn’t a shout for a Pistols tune – we were there for PIL. For this public image of John.

I guess I got lost in all of that – and found myself bouncing up and down. Wild abandon in North London. No one got hurt. We police ourselves.

On the tubetrain on the way home – Johnny Cash arrived to serenade the midnight marauders with his Folsom Prison Blues as two young punks drank bottled beers and shared their wonder with one another. And as the train stopped and the Olympic hoards jumped on board  - I was struck by the fact that John still scares people. Clocked by a Team GB aficionado all indignant and self righteous – he looked at me and cursed in his suburban sounds that ‘he hadn’t seen anyone like those two fucking wastes of space on the Olympic field’ – trying to draw me in with a nod and a wink. All Daily Mail headlines – and leader columns – ‘Punks not Patriotic’. It’s if he wanted them to swap anarchy for Team GB. So he bristled and postured and muttered and he moaned all the while thinking I agreed but was just less confident to say it. What did he want me to do – lynch the fuckers?

I simply nodded. See as that other John said – the one who was vicious (so vicious) 'I’ve met the man on the street – and the man on the street is a cunt'.

I am an anarchist. Simple as that really. So is Lydon. It was good to be in his company. It was good to be with like minded people.

This is me jumping up and down. And this is a link to a wonderful Mayor in Spain. I think these things go together.