I got a letter this morning.

There’s a long history of rock and the post office – a long history.

I had returned from university and found myself temporarily in charge of a red framed bicycle and post bag. My degree had been in Sociology and Communication Studies and wandering back into Goldsmiths’ to pick up my ‘award’ for best UK animation etc and explaining to my previous tutors where I was currently at I was met with the line – ‘well it is a form of communications I suppose – the post office’.

Yes thank you for the support – it was reminiscent of Casper receiving his careers advice. Still I had to leave the capital [Exit this Roman shell] at that time – I had those empty pockets and I couldn’t afford the beer.

I used to sing to myself when I was on the post round. Post rounds have that kind of freedom. I was living out a Bukowski phase of my existence. The round was a means to an end – the round was clouded in the rounds I’d had the night before.

Bagging up and off into the emerging morning – sometimes wide eyed from the night before or tired eyed from the weekend – that sense of camaraderie and then emerging isolation all thrown into one. Shouting out inanities as letters were thrown in racks and bandied up in elastic and then just you and your bike – riding to deliver the good, the bad and the ugly.

I used to get a whole heap of things through the post.

Having attempted to write [insightfully] about music on the page – and then thrust it on unsuspecting bowl headed youth at gigs and concerts – somehow my late night ramblings as to the power of The Impossibles to change the world or how the next Clouds release would bring down western capitalism had broken into the ether and people would scrawl letters and sellotape fifty pences to card asking for a copy from all over the world.

Letters with suggestions of bands and sounds – places to visit and voices that chimed with mine. It was an indie scene see? All wrapped together with staples and photocopies. It was the Post Office uniting minds and [teenage] dreams [so hard to beat] so that we felt part of a gang – a movement – a wave – even if we walked our sodden towns’ streets alone.

I didn’t by the way – I had friends – real ones.

But postmen – like me - would have to deliver these letters with scrawls about ‘that’s love ba ba ba ba’ or ‘see it glow and paint a rainbow’. Our own S.W.A.L.K as we borrowed Stephen Pastel’s words to give our ideas a voice. It was fun really. And inside these delicate envelopes came outpourings of independence – of fight and fury as we rallied against the world with our band allegiances proudly displayed on our [t-shirt] sleeve or in my case [my college folder – lever arch maaaan] You had to wait for a letter – a correspondence between two minds – feverishly trying to drop a new piece of indie news into a letter. Have you heard Dolly Mixture? Here’s a tape of my band – a friend’s band – my dad’s band. It was counter to all the NME blurgh – it was social networking without technology. It was different. We didn’t ‘like’ one another’s page see – we wrote letters to each other – if we disagreed – we either worked it out in ink – or stopped writing. No flaming or trolling for us. So sounds emerged slowly, with less fanfare. You could argue that it gave everyone time to make a decision about music – about selecting and rejecting – living with the listening rather than flipping and shuffling. You had a cassette from someone – they’d taken some time to tape it – it deserved a listen – a real listen – you were going to have to write back.

I ‘liked’ a page on Facebook this morning – and then had a quick skip through a ‘deep house session’ on Soundcloud that I was directed to from the page and haven’t really given any of it my attention. I left with little opinion. But when Stephen from Middlesborough wrote and asked again what it was I didn’t like about the tape he sent – I had to return and listen - form judgements and write down my reasons – perhaps this naïve correspondence of hurt feelings and the race to impress shaped my thinking processes – perhaps I just pause for thought sometimes.

You have to take a breath to read - to listen.

Which brings me to this – a simple song – that I discovered through a shared love of anoraks and bowlheads – or should that read rock n roll and anger. And of course Paul’s recommendations too. There wasn’t anything twee in digging The Pastels - it was about the real rock in roll. There’s that simplicity in all The Pastels songs – chugging guitars and heartfelt responses. Melodies that linger and race around your brain.

Stephen and Aggi making beautiful noise and shared cassettes and memories scrawled down on paper making connections.

They’re raising the price of the post. No more time to pause then.

Put away your pens.

I took on the industry and it won

In this bloated world of pop culture excess I find myself caring less for the mindless operations of capitalist music companies and more so about the endless betrayal of the working class and all we could have amounted to. This exercise in eradicating our common collectiveness and sense of equality for all galls me somewhat. I was watching Upside Down the other night –the documentary about Creation records. I started a record label when I was younger [in my mind it was going to become a pure egalitarian operation – with no strings attached – a Factory [records] for the future.]

I think it mattered to us all once. Taking a stance against the man.

You see vinyl mattered – it was bound to – it was all we knew. There wasn’t CD, mp3, download it straight away from i-tunes without the sweat of the wait to see if it had arrived on its day of release. Those trawls to Record Village, invariably with Paul to see if the Chain with no name reps had offloaded the latest independent release we’d set our heart on that week.

And then there were the floppy bits of plastic – that scratched and buckled in an instant. This was music for the masses. The flexi disc was a part of my youth – a disposable pop aesthetic – we did not need the industry – we would be our own industry – without the hang ups of capitalism – we just wanted to distribute sounds – cheaply and quickly. In some ways if we had had the internet then we would have invented myspace.

I still have most of these ephemeral pieces of pop. Sold a few and lost a few along the way. But that’s the nature of disposal pop. Except this writing is setting it all in stone – elevating this group over that group and rolling around memories of past musical exploits and placing it all in rank order. There is no rank order and there is no hierarchy.

It is all music.

Some of it good and some of it bad. And I guess that all of it is really an attempt to extract the cash from the masses – through feel good times and sounds that puncture the mundane. I remember getting all the Are You Scared to get Happy fanzines and Trout Fishing in Leytonstone, Simply Thrilled, Sowing Seeds, Woosh all sorts of stuff – you’d buy them at gigs – 50p and a free flexi – how could that be wrong? That fizz and pop as you placed the needle – wating for the next sha lal la experience. I seriously fell in love with the Baby Lemonade one and The Clouds [a seriously underrated band if there ever was one] But now I’m thinking about them there was Remember Fun, Emily, the Sea Urchins all were special and brilliant in there way. I still play Summershine in the car – it’s on a compact disc full of sounds for journeys and trips to the Thames Barrier. It’s that kind of tune.

Fanzines got me through my teenage years. They just summed up stuff at the time.

I started my own fanzine Get That Anorak Off when I was 15 – Paul and I alongside Darryl and chris had been following The Primitives around the north in Hillman Imps and rented cars and I wanted to tell the world that we kind of knew them – it’s always been a vanity thing – a fame thang. So I just wrote up the experience – sowing the seeds right there for this – there wasn’t a great deal inside it - I remember Paul did a review of The Fall’s new album and there was stuff about other groups – what I was listening to– I got it photocopied in the steelworks office where my dad worked – he did it when the foreman wasn’t there and then I tried selling it round Scunthorpe and gigs I was going to at the time.

It sold – so I did another one – this was more indie based – I started interviewing more bands – a kind of Smash Hits meets Record Mirror type approach – banal questions recorded on mini tapes or the trusty Phillips tape deck. By the second one I was getting professional in my eyes I had interviewed The Brilliant Corners, The Chesterfields, Razorcuts and bands that made true independent music. It came with a crayoned cover sold out fairly quickly and basically I kept producing them until I started university. The final one [I think there were five in all] was finished at university [it had Dinosaur/ Spacemen 3/ The Telescopes/ Primal Scream in it] and by then I was drifting into the whole acid house culture and the indie scene felt a little backward looking – I know now it wasn’t but I was getting my energy from other sources – so fanzine culture wasn’t a big part of it and all that writing got lost in the warehouses and repetitive beats of the late late eighties.

However, I think the whole thing about fanzines and the culture that goes with it was/ is the sense that you can put your thoughts down – you don’t mediate the same way as a newspaper – you have values and ideologies but they really are your own. You end up getting letters from Singapore from Collin – or Australia from like minded people who are into the same scene – it was about having a voice and during that period I felt I could express it – on the most part in a clumsy, inarticulate manner – but it was my voice nonetheless. And this is my voice again. Not dictating this time and with a readership in single figures – but the writing is better believe me. In that way I think blogging is the way forward, I’m not always sure that it reaches the audience in the same way – but young kids are fairly hip and tell each other about what’s going on all the time. I’m the paper generation but the blogging community is keeping that independent spirit alive – more power to it.

But that bedroom writing led to bedroom recording – led to connections coming out the boredom and ideas and ambitions above my station. As I said before you do lots of thinking in small rooms as a teenager – small rooms and big ideas. Sort of. So why not start a record label. If McGee could or Martin Whitehead or Matt and Clare – why couldn’t I?

So a record label was born – and promptly closed – but it felt good getting it started. Deciding to release tunes for others. A flexi disc – a cheap, convenient and disposal way to share ART maaan.

Suffice to say my band was going on it – so in some ways it was a vanity press sort of thing - recorded on the strangest 4-track recorder in our bedroom. I’d met Jo in Leeds- a true independent spirit – she was writing fanzines promoting gigs – living the scene dream - she sold me her fanzine ‘What’s it like to be Scottish’ and introduced me to pale saints – we hit it off and discussed the possibility of doing a joint flexi together. Through letters and telephone calls on phones joined to walls we would hatch out a plan. She knew a band from Leeds called Esmerelda’s Kite – of whom the singer would go on to become The Gentle Despite who released some fragile and beautiful songs on Sarah records. At the time finding the money to do it was difficult – but we made it back from the sales – she sold out [of the flexis – not to the man – if you get me] – by now her fanzine had changed its name – mutated to Shoot the Tulips instead. Whether this was a veiled reference to killing the Fat Tulips I do not know – although there where times I had a seething animosity towards them – borne out of no reason at all – but that was the independent scene. And I sold all of mine.

Jo hated the fact that I called the label Sunshine [in retrospect she was right] and when we got it back from the manufacturers it had three tracks as opposed to the two listed – so it was even better value for money. And then John Peel played it on the radio – Jo rang and said he was going to play the flexi – and we thought he’d play Esmerelda’s Kite – it sounded more garage – well to be honest it sounded much better – it had been recorded properly but we had forgotten that he had a son named William. I remember him introducing it and Paul and I just trying to tape it – it was weird to hear it on the radio. So we were walking tall the week after – indie giants of Brumby corner. After that it got picked up by some other European stations and even ended up in some charts.

Having John Peel play your record means he had to listen to it – make a decision and put in the show – those two hours a night when he put out the sounds of the underground for the fringed mass(ive).

I listened to him every night. Still he never gave us a session – despite the hundred of tapes we gave him.

But getting back to some sense of where I began. I wanted to take on ‘the man’ – and for a brief moment it felt like I could break him. Perhaps because I was yet to read to Marx and hadn’t quite understood that when you think you want a revolution – you can count me in but most people out. Because they want curfews and long sentences and quiet nights of compliance and restraint. They want to take fucking brooms to the streets and be state cleaners.

And watching McGee discuss the creation of Creation – it reminded me why some things mattered then.

But ultimately even McGee with all the right intentions killed it all.

The industry wins every time and I haven’t got the energy to become an industry. The Man don’t give a fuck. So here’s to fizzing and popping and warping and cracking – let’s start a flexi disc revival.

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.

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.

'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.

There are many things I would like to say to you [and you and you and you]

There have been thousands of words written about sounds. That imminent response to the music. That desire to share our thoughts with others. Or sell our thoughts. When I started my fanzine – I was 16 years old – feeling the world was ready to listen to my voice. There were those that read ‘em and those that writ ‘em. I in my youthful zeal wanted the world to know about the bands I liked – I wanted those bands to know that they were liked and in all of that came correspondence and shared dreams.

I remember putting the first ‘Get that Anorak Off’ together – not certain it would ever see the light of day but writing it nonetheless – because when you’re holed up in a dark northern world perhaps the primitives can add some brighter times to it all. And from that grew all this. The writing now I guess is a throwback to typed evenings about The Nivens or The Impossibles.

I would receive letters – tenfold through the box – from Sheffield, Rotherham, London and Derby. And sometimes a letter would wind its way to our Scunthorpe address postmarked New Zealand or Singapore. Those anoraks get worn around the world- and to have someone request a fanzine from another country felt exotic – we weren’t global connected by the technology – only by the pen and our shared understanding of The Brilliant Corners – Collin communicating from other worlds through a communal love of cheap guitars. I let him down to be honest – Collin was a charming, exciting, energetic young man – who ventured to these very shores – to study – to swallow the independent vibes. He rang me up – several times – and I was so far inside my love of the self – this club scene maaaan – that I never met the bloke. You know he’d taken time to write me a letter – about music and I never took the time to get on a bus and visit him in Huddersfield – it’s not on really. We could have talked about music for hours.

And I didn’t bother.

And one from a girl named Lucy. I let her down. And this post is the one where I say sorry – we’d communicated about this and that – about music that touched our hearts and fanzine writing and reading. She ventured to China – you can do that when you’re confident – or you do that to make you confident. And she sent me a fanzine – her fanzine – in a padded envelope – hand written – typed in places – and I still have it.

Our correspondence dry and fading.

I wish I could give it back to her – I don’t know where she is – but I should have made it up and put it out there – but the London life had curtailed friendship – as I fell in love with acid house. It isn’t a good enough excuse – it’s running away from responsibility. If only I had had a little more conviction back then instead of filling my poise with arrogance and wishful dreams of teenage romance. It takes guts to be gentle and kind and I was full of barbarism [it had most likely began at home] and that is not a state to be repeated, treated or re-heated.

So it still resides – in the envelope – all her expressions of excitement – locked down and going nowhere [fast]. I feel guilty about that – I feel guilty about lots of things but that one resonates at times. Because she trusted me to do it – and I didn’t.

I didn’t do it clean – I didn’t do it at all.

Aggi was another – all swirls and ink. She could write her heart on a page – all open and honest and beating to the sounds of the underground. I let her down too. All London trains and shared rooms as we made our way to The Pastels at the ULU. Where Ride played their first ever gig in London and she’s dragging me in from the bar to make me listen – and I’m talking rock n roll with Bobby G and being a shit host – I feel bad about that too. Perhaps I never professed to be a jingle jangle fey pop lover – but a little bit of common decency wouldn’t have gone amiss. Too much Thunderbird and fawning over myself.

You see gigs like the pastels united the fray. That simple response to rock n roll – without the posturing and posing. We weren’t looking for heroes – we just liked music. We like guitars that fed back, twanged and jangled. We liked singers who sang about simple things – but simple things that mattered. There was simply nothing else to be done. It was the love of the sounds and our fanzines allowed the magical connections to keep on firing. Music unites like that – so here’s to simple responses. I first heard The Pastels in the 1980s – this Scottish drawl over repetitive guitars. This DIY approach to POP – The Pastels were never twee – they often get held up as this overly fey group – but Stephen Pastel was a PuNK as the rest of ‘em. Their brand of pop – fizzed and chugged – it fell apart and fed back. It was independent.

And so was fanzine writing.

Fanzine writing was about connections – making friends through words and sometimes we were all looking for friends. So what has any of this to do with the music? I suppose that music whilst a solitary act of appreciation and aesthetics is a shared understanding – it’s a glance or a look – a smile or cheer in the right [wrong] direction.

And sometimes you should look people right in the face – right in their eyes.

I would now

And I would say sorry

And hopefully a tune would be playing that made everything that little bit easier.

we mean it maaaaan

and here we are again - with no future in England's dreaming. this 'coalition' running every thing into the hands of their public school educated friends companies - sell it off cheap and reap the rewards. so as i drift through this green and [un]pleasant land - i return to the original DIY aesthetic - PuNk RoCk. Scrawled sleeves and instructions as to how to release a record. [Or in Macolm's case - a manifesto - how we'll miss him. Next question.] This was the beginning for the kids like me - not that i was part of a scene [heavy on the music scene]. I was only 7 when the PiStoLs imploded - so i'm not going to claim that I was at the Manchester Free Trade Hall and witnessed it all.

But something was lit in these pitiful industrial towns - that would lead to youth congregating round 'the clock' [insert other suitable central town monument - where young uns can meet] and scaring the 'old' folks with their sub cultural two fingers waving in the air.

Not that the old were scared - you see they'd fought in wars - so a couple of pierced - bondage clad - post punk teenagers were hardly the nightmare vision of England that had really been fought and defeated. To be honest - i always thought PuNk was a fairly individualistic ideology chiming happily with the advent of Thatcher's Britain. In fact if you ever have the chance to watch PUNK:ATTITUDE by Don Letts - that's the mantra repeated ad nausea - except for Wayne Kramer - but i'll save the MC5 for another post - another time.

I mean - Siouxsie Sioux - 'You could wear what you want - it was liberating' - you know give me a fucking break.

And this is where we came in - seeing this country changing into something that will be alien to me - the dismantling of education, the NHS, public space and the capitalisation of every element of existence - brings me to those 'sparks' that lit fires in young scunthorpe hearts.

My brother and I used to walk to the town centre - on a Saturday - early morning - less people around. we never caught the bus - he didn't do that much human contact and besides we would have more money for records, tapes and in my cases crisps [scunthorpe market - Christies Cheese and Onion - stock up for the week - you get me] We were typically obsessed with music - i with Rock and Roll and him with the new wave - post punk cacophony of the Ants/ Blondie and stuff - to be honest - i'm not sure how he tapped into that post punk thang - he was good with picking this up - not that he spoke to anyone about it other than me.

And there used to a number of places to buy records in those days - you could work your way across town hitting the shops and picking up sounds from the end of Doncaster Road - right down to the Market. Independent retailers,secondhand stores, established players and market stalls. You see we wanted something to hold - something to look at - to cherish and love. I don't want my MP3.

admist the retro seditionnaires t-shirts - where Tom of Finland met John of [middle] England and wool stalls and jeans shops was a record stall located in the outside part of the market - deep in the back that stocked a range of left of field sounds, t-shirts, posters, badges and patches. To be honest we thought it it was too metal for our liking - but he had a new wave/ punk section and we often gave it a look.

now - we weren't rocking a post punk look - i didn't have a piercing - i wasn't spiking my hair and rubbing butter on my face - we weren't and never would be postcard punks and all that went with it. He had a leather biker jacket - i had a green bomber with patches on - he wore 14 holed docs - i had a pair of Dr Peppers - i kid you not - my mum wouldn't let me have docs [why my brother was allowed - doesn't quite make sense - but there you go]- so i had these clunky steel toe-capped monster boots.

We both had coloured laces.

so on this typical heavy grey skies sort of morning we had arrived at the stall - and were looking through the seven inch singles - i think this was most likely 1980 i should get better with dates [you see PUNK'S NOT DEAD - i know - PUNK's not DEAD - i know it's not]and Paul pulled out this record - it looked al hand drawn and amateur and chaotic. THE FALL - TOTALLY WIRED b/w PUTTA BLOCK - it was a Rough Trade record - it was ours for 99p.

To describe the The Fall is a waste - you just have to immerse yourself in Mark E Smith's world and you end up better off. This was small town punk - this was taking the mother right on - 'you don't have to be weird - to be weird'

herein lies the philosophy - the ideology - sometimes you have to work harder to hide your hate and contempt.It's too easy to opt [in] and out - i wasn't a rebel - but i had a rebellious jukebox [now]- and last night when we started arguing over the futility of PuNK and it's sell out - no holds barred capitalist sprint to the finish with off the peg AnARchY [whimsy]and i got all defensive - it's because of moments like discovering the FALL and realising that yes - all of this is vacuous throwaway rubbish - but it meant something and made me laugh and carried me through the northern nights of sulphur and smoke.

I said Doncaster - eat this grenade.

so here is THE FALL - Totally Wired[Live]

we find a way back in to this

And the music seemed to fade into the background - it wasn't so constant and so consistent as it used to be. I guess I had fallen out of love with it - out of having any respect for it - and who was/ is going to guide me through this moronic culture [club] I now inhabit?


Those early memories of hope and positive attitudes came tumbling back to remind me of simplicity and shitness - the times when things ceased and hedonism reined [a love] supreme. I was driving into work this morning, the greatest hits of Primal Scream [not even a named album - things have slipped so far] raised in volume to awaken the [soul] power within. Not thinking - just feeling- as age grabbed my throat and wrestled the final vestiges of 'hipness' out of the electric windows.


So i decided as I trawled the digital zine scene - now our thoughts really do cost nothing - that perhaps I could/ should/ write again. In small bursts - like scatter bombs on the unsuspecting - the thoughts and stuff that revolves in here on a daily basis.


And also because I want to write about music and parenthood and all that shit in between - all those moments that come [and go] in Greenwich Park - and those looks and laughs we have as adults. And ultimately I want to remind myself of this beautiful city and all the things it offers.


I have - like most of us - moved on - but every now and again that relentless DIY spirit is channelled.


Sometimes listening is not enough.