I’ll play mine if you play yours.

The snow came tumbling down last month. I was out and about getting wet, wet, wet as the metropolitan city ground to a halt and I ended up staying over at a top soul brother’s residence.

Not getting home to the kids.

I guess there’s a presumption that because it’s the city you can get straight home – that somehow the snow won’t wreck the plans of commerce and pleasure. But it does and it will. So stood drinking and discussing George Harrison’s Electronic Sound and the reverb set ups created by Larry Levine – we didn’t notice that the snow was settling that little bit faster and traffic was slowing up and coming to a standstill – The Pineapple can have that effect. It’s a wonderful public house The Pineapple – a stone’s throw from the Imperial War Museum.

Back in Scunthorpe – getting home meant a walk if it snowed – wet trousers and cold feet – falling over and falling in love as you negotiated the ice around Britannia Corner and over the railway bridge. Through bends and drifts hands held and helping hands. Here it was wet concourses and low level announcements – basically a mild apology but a certainty that you’re not getting home.

No headphones – just cold ears and the beers that I’d drunk swishing inside – well cider – you know me – I am a cider drinker.

But as we were wont to do in that flat – we played music. Not overly loud – you know we’re in our forties – we get on with our neighbours – we’re not a bunch of ravers – diddlee di di sharing tunes and experiences late into the night with brandy and cigarettes. Over the years I have found myself in rooms with friends playing songs that cheer the heart as the head begins to hurt. Those morning moments that lead to a find that stays with you forever – where once it was 7 inch singles revolving on stereos or 12 inches on 1210s – it’s mostly digital digging that we’re doing – but with the same outcomes.

Richard played me Nilson. I played him Euros Childs.

We marvelled at the simplicity of music to bring us to our knees. It seems that music has a habit of running at you head first in the dark – when it’s different outside – when the curtains are drawn and you know you should be sleeping. It’s that hazy appeal as your head fights the inherent tiredness creeping into your bones but you feel alive as the tune brings a rush of energy sweeping through those old [and in this case cold] limbs. And this post could be about so many of those late moments – in cars, in clubs, on tapes and vinyl as people played tunes that would you would never tire of listening to.

But this one is about the mamas and the papas.

Paul and I used to travel to Leeds and other northern towns in search of heady inspiration. And as we would often be found waiting – after Kaleidoscope Pop had shut its doors – for a milk train to take us back to the old town we would sometimes end up at kind soul’s house. Two Scunthorpe waifs and strays – avoiding the return to the industrial streets and skies. That house was invariably on Harold Avenue – the home of pop – past the menacing streets of Sutcliffe’s stalking to inviting cups of tea – or take out bottles and Big Star’s Third or Dinosaur’s first. We sat and talked with like minded fellows about this and that – as tiredness crept in but the tunes would flow and somehow I knew I would make it in on time to college the next day – because I had heard ‘Kangaroo’ and that would keep me going – as it still does.

But Ian of Pale Saints placed a simple greatest hits record on the downstairs dansette – and out of the speaker came that simple strum and build of Twist and Shout. Yet this wasn’t the cacophony of Lennon and company in full leather and volume. No this was all delicate chiffon and corduroy and harmony and yearning. I don’t think at that point I had quite got the mamas and the papas – but in that sleep deprived moment – it worked. And I haven’t been able to escape it since.

The simplicity in slowing it all down and turning that twisting and shouting into romance and wanting – as John Phillips tells us that she’s got him going – like she knew she would. And the harmonies build and fall and lap over one another until we’re wrapped right inside the song. That walk for the train as the dawn exploded in Leeds was a joyous one as Mama Cass rang in our ears and our hearts.

Whenever I’m stuck as to what should come next on a compilation tape [ok – CD – we don’t make tapes anymore or should it be some sort of ‘playlist’] then this seems to worm its way on to it. Too be honest it’s obvious why. Those late night moments hang around – I find I can’t do them anymore. I mean it took days to recover from my night ‘on the town’ with Richard and small children waking in early hours means that listening in daylight can be hard enough.

So here’s to the beauty of one person playing something different to another. It’s called sharing and the world is a better place for it.

'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.