He played records and we danced

Last week I was in Clerkenwell – all gastro pub and the rubba dub dub as old friends discussed eventful weeks and weekends. And I fell into talking about [not] going out, about the 1210s and nights of simply turntable celebration. I have been fascinated by the spinning decks for years. Those early formative years in school discos and clubs as DJs spun 45s on mobile systems. It wasn’t like this was Kingston and we were in Tivoli Gardens skanking to DJ Coxsone and those heavy heavy sounds.

We were in Scunthorpe. We were at teenage discos.

This was playing records for steelworkers kids. We liked Wham, Adam Ant, The Sweet, Duran Duran and Tina Turner’s Nutbush City Limits. We weren’t yet grooving to our own choices. You made a request to the DJ – if he had it he might play it. If he didn’t he wouldn’t and if he thought that your taste was questionable he told you so.

But we also had the Baths Hall in Scunthorpe a sanctuary from what I considered the mainstream at the time. But this was just as mainstream in many ways except you heard The Smiths or The Fall playing. It was all escape from the grind. No different to the beer monsters at Henry Afrika’s [I kid you not - all garish fibre glass models of explorers and natives outside – we’ve come along way since the Windrush docked] We just wore more black than the sport Billies back then and got to dance to a different beat rather than the drummer’s – it was and is the same as it is then as it is now. Put your hands in the air and wave them like you do care – you care far too much – as I’ve said I was the type to dance to my tunes and slip from the polished floor when the sounds moved me no more.

But talking about wanting to go out and hear a DJ brings those moments flooding back. This post could detail countless nights getting ready for the dancefloor – waiting for the ‘jam to start pumping’ but I think I’ll make it about John Peel. John Peel was a regular visitor to the Scunthorpe Baths Hall. A veteran of Doncaster Road and all that walked up it. He would play and talk – not exactly MC – with tunes from his bag and always finish with The Undertones Teenage Kicks. The Baths Hall was like a rite of passage for all alternative teens in the Scunthorpe scene. It was where you went to be part of it all. Drink cider and sway – cadge cigarettes and be sick on the streets and steps. It was for the argy bargy with burly bone men on the door and the thrill of the getting in when you were far too young. I remember once that Paul was turned away – even though he was eighteen and they let me in when I was three years younger. It’s what you do – try and pull a fast one – because we were a generation going nowhere fast – so the antics of youth were all we had.

And every year John would appear. This familiar sound in the flesh. That voice from the radio – a real DJ – but one of us. The every man with a record collection we all wanted. You can visit his records now – not in person – you can’t turn up at Peel Acres and riffle through it – it’s virtual and photographed – it’s arrrtttt maaaaan - it isn’t meant to be a shrine – but it’s a dead man’s vinyl. Sometimes listening is not possible anymore. But you can see the dedication – the connection he had as he gently sorted the Ds from the Es. Shelia’s going to get rid of them - you can’t leave them lying round the house forever. Yet every year he would sort through the ever growing collection that rules from the centre of the ultraworld – well Great Finborough actually – to find tunes that would make teenagers rock [in Scunthorpe]. And I believe he thought about it – what new ones to bring and which Fall ones for Pete Lazenby – because you knew he was going get on the dance floor.

He would arrive without fanfare John that is – not Pete – Pete would arrive with fanfare. This was not a ‘roadshow’. It was not a show at all. It was the selection of records to make you dance – to jump about with joy and abandon and forget the morning and work ahead. Be it industrial or school. It was escape. Peel knew this – he didn’t mock us – he escaped every night with the spin of the turntables – in his studio or at home. Here in the echoing hall of the revamped municipal baths - beats would bounce of walls and bass bellow in corners as we glanced and romanced and dreamt and danced on carpet and wood to the sounds of the underground – made overground by our very own vinyl womble.

I don’t necessarily want to go out and listen to this – although the Baths was good – sensible opening and closing. The conversation in Clerkenwell was about Derrick May – he played last week – a set in a series from the innovators of Detroit – he was number one – Juan’s coming and Kevin. And there was a realisation that the sets would start late and end in the early hours. I can’t do it. I can’t do that. They should play from 5pm till 9pm – I could fit it in then and get a decent night’s sleep. Still completely stomp it – but sleep too, without losing touch with reality and being there to help in the morning.

Families not forty fives come first – I guess.

Instead I will select for the kids. My kids until their taste is foisted on me. I remember Paul and I asking my dad to play a Nick Cave live cassette on the way to Scotland – to Edinburgh. It didn’t go down too well – I don’t think it helped his concentration – what with the poor quality recording - the hiss and the malevolence inherent in Cave’s performance. Still Blind Lemon Jefferson would still make it on to my playlist.

But that pull of the DJ to select and make a crowd rejoice – to join together for whatever the length of the tune is a pleasure that I will always crave. I may not witness this again in a club setting but I can still tap into those teenage dreams – so hard to beat.

This is the recording of the single - something different - if you wan to hear the song you can look it up - it's everywhere.

 

From the Bronx to Scunthorpe: breakin' in back gardens

I attempted breakdancin’ in my garden – I was on my own – except I guess the neighbours could witness the spectacle of a skinny youth slowly slamming his body onto lino and cardboard in a hasty representation of the Bronx created in a Scunthorpe yard. When I say on my own – I mean I was not in a ‘crew’ – my parents, brother and sister were all home. They could look out and see me too – if they had  wanted.

Practicing the ‘caterpillar’ to show to nobody. Although I had perfected the ‘the robot’ and used it to good effect at school discos as Blue Monday was slipped on the decks. Those moments when a crowd gathers round – circular and sinister – watching. Invariably a teacher would join in and credibility would seep out and embarrassment creep in.

Thinking back to those faintly ridiculous times it pains me to say that I didn’t even have a ‘ghetto blaster’. I was simply lockin’, poppin’ and breakin’ to my own internal beats and scratches. Replaying Rock it and Bambataa’s electro groove. That’s not to say I didn’t hear those tunes on a regular basis – at staged shows, meets and battles– whilst we all had fun [family] weekends or watched by the clock or the leisure centre paved car parks. As crews from various parts of town came to get down – came to get down. And then up rolled the Hull crews, the Donny ones – it was a touch of the spray paint fuelled NY times – right here in the industrial landscape of northern Britain – it was a culture shift really – a separation and recognition of futures both scuppered and starting. Which I guess the whole NY scene was to. Futility, fury and freedom. Rock a funky beat and dance. We’ve always danced to forget.

There was even an all female crew – Break Three – geddit – ratcheting up the rights of women’s liberation through synchronized windmills and headspins [okay- so I probably made up the political angle – but it was liberating in a way] You could say the ‘elements’ were in place – hip hop had arrived in the North East. As I’ve said before – I kind of got lost in the mix – that indie blender of jangles and jeans and missed out on the hip hop scene to some extent – my education coming from Lou Reed not Marley Marl in 1984. But luckily I had school friends who did. And they would eventually play me those ‘lost gems’ on 1210s in smoke filled bedrooms as beats bounced off walls. You don’t lose your passion for those breaks – even if you do stop listening. There’s a wonderful book called Can’t Stop Won’t Stop that documents those breaking days of the breakin’ craze and the emergence of hip hop in New York. You should read it if you like hip hop – you probably have done.

I should read it again.

There is never enough time though. I just picked up Rotten again – a seminal book about a John – suddenly lost in ten pages as Lydon explains just how wrong everybody got it and Jones with his wonderful insight to those college students who at the time ‘were so fucking snobby’. You know the ones who became ‘ the upwardly mobile yuppies’ and as Jones’ puts it –‘they were so damned self-righteous at their hippy festivals, never connecting with the general population’. You can imagine their [the hippies not the Pistols] reaction to the birth of hip hop – class, race and poverty all rolled into one –ready to exploit - it’s a shame it fell for the glittering jewels of banal capitalist gifts – you need to be looking back at the ghetto to change it – not forgetting why it was made as you race off in tha Benz from your endz.

As I type in a London home.

Not that my attempts at breakin’ would free the North and therefore working class Britain from the tyranny of the greed and systematic erosion of any identity worth fighting for. But the ways we set about creating sub-cultures were full with politics. I was talking last night – between the Great Bake Off and Midsomer Murders about the depoliticised nature of popular culture – we do that in our house – it’s all highbrow you know. Now clearly I am most likely wrong about this – but as the independent ‘spirit’ crossed over to mainstream acceptance and all looks became up for grabs – the ideology behind the putting on was lost.

Again don’t misinterpret the naivety of youth and the willingness to belong. But as those scraps of sub-culture were amassed we discussed why we looked like we did – be it the appropriation of a Kangol hat or the wearing of a studded belt – things like this mattered. Didn’t they – and do they now? Maybe I was just more neurotic and uptight [everything is [not] alright] Which brings right back to the music.

Music has and always will matter – I now accept it doesn’t change the world. But it can offer alternatives and through those clumsy attempts at b-popping and crazy legs rockin’ I have amassed a knowledge of the political infrastructure of New York during the 70s and how Bambataa and his Zulu Nation tried to fix a corrupt system amidst the Reaganomics of the 1980s - that shaped choices about purchases and listens in northern towns and Scunthorpe record shops – why KRS One mattered more than MC Hammer or 2 Live Crew. Don’t get me wrong KRS One was a misogynist too – but Sound of da Police could soundtrack last Summer and the next one. That relentless beat and as cars with sirens pull you up and stop and search you – it’s always about the wider power struggle with the state. I wasn’t expecting to arrive at the ways the brutality of the police can ultimately empower the masses from attempting a headspin in my garden – but somehow I have arrived here – questioning modern police methods.

Hip hop can do that – well it used to.

And it’s all trapped in the anger and hostility of this tune.

I love a party with a happy atmosphere

I have allowed the new year to pass quietly – to pass quickly with the classical work of Ligeti sound tracking our ascent into the Olympic Year – I didn’t play much music over the holiday period – couldn’t quite find the time to sandwich it in between the sandwiches. It was all rushing and wrapping from a slow start – and songs seemed to drift into the background.

Songs I would want to play.

I had my fill of carols and pop countdowns – as the hairy bikers leant more hair to Wizzard and Wood’s rendition of that well known popular Christmas tune and George Michael endlessly wandered round snow filled ski resorts lamenting his insistence to simply give his heart away and then find it in somebody else’s hands. All bloodied like and limp and cold.

But I never got round to playing some of the songs that make us smile.

So this writing is a short piece to welcome in the inevitable race that will be 2012 and look to the future [now] and the assortment of memories I will retrace and rewire and reword. I will find the time to do it. As I find the time to listen to the evergrowing pile of records that [rules from the centre of the universe] and sits in my room – my front room – well the only room – it’s open plan maaaaan.

I’ve told you that before.

It seems only right to start with Ligeti – that’s what’s been playing – well that and Black Dog by Led Zeppelin – it seems to bring out a response in my children that no other tune or riff has so far. But as they wildly strum with left hands and fury there’s a beautiful sense of chaos in it all. Chaos that drives me up the wall.

But it should. Music should annoy your parents and Led Zeppelin annoy me. It was never something I fully understood – it was a refusal to acknowledge the musicianship again. Being a punk – or a pain in the arse – one or t’other. Okay so I played them the track – they are the ones who embraced it – it may come back to haunt me – this Midlands thump and twang. I like my midlands more Wolverhampton and glam.

Anyway here’s to Ligeti and quiet composition – where ambience is at. I thought this was lost forever as I heard it in the bath on Radio 3 and caught syllables and sounds of a name – of a title – but having people who know things in your life helps. Emma’s brother saved the day with a discussion of Ligeti’s finest work and a box set of it all for Christmas.

Listen. I love a party with a happy atmosphere.

Play the record - just play the record

I found an old Stooges CD this weekend – stuffed in a draw – it was Funhouse. All that energy tucked inside a draw. Is this how my children will discover sounds – in draws on scratched CDs or mini-discs piled up in boxes shoved at the back of a cupboard? Or the record boxes in the garage – or on USBs - or even on soundcloud as we remix the oldies and throw them up for the youth.

Actually don’t get me wrong I think Soundcloud is wonderful – there are talents and possibilities now. It’s not looking for a drummer amongst four friends or having someone in your band who has a perm and thinks that’s alright – it is a remix – reload and re-present in the most open way. You don’t form bands down your street you run rings around the world.

I chance upon sounds these days. I don’t actively search. I read about them but I never go and search them out like I used to. I guess I’m not as immersed [bothered] in the same way – don’t have the time to be honest.

I look at all that vinyl taking up space in my house [and my life] and wonder – like the books on the shelves will I ever get round to listening to or reading it again? And then I think how will they discover it – not through shops and racks but downloads and apps. They will look at the covers and type in the tunes.

Never listening to the full album as it stands – as it is presented.

There was a time when you would wait for a record’s release – a journey in and a journey out of town – not knowing whether they had it or not. And then purchased and placed in plastic and carried round town – if there were other visits to make –to the market, the library or possibly Fosters for a new t-shirt. And then later in the small shop fronts with different postcodes shopping uptown in Ladbroke Grove or centrally in Covent Garden. New releases and racks upon racks of records.

The act of playing a record - of watching it revolve is both comforting and pricked with anticipation. Have your heroes lived up to your expectations? I was going to write a line about pop stars never being my heroes and then I remembered the long list of names and styles I have followed and appropriated over the years. I am currently devoting much time and energy to the mid 1970s Brian went to bed look. There are hundreds of these moments to mine – I think getting The Queen is Dead by The Smiths was a big un – all gatefold sleeve and grandiosity. From the opening chants to take me back to dear old blighty to the closing guitar refrain from Marr as we discovered that some girls were bigger than others - this was a successful purchase from Record Village and would not be returned.

There’s a scene in Control – the film about Ian Curtis – in fact it’s the opening scene after the bit about all hope and ending an that – that’s a bit depressing innit? There’s Ian walking through the concrete jungle of Macclesfield – all flares and purpose. A record tucked tight under his arm. Aladdin Sane by Bowie sound tracking the colour in this dreary landscape. But that was it – the impact of the 12inch piece of plastic. As Curtis takes his drag on cigarette laid on his bed as Bowie plays in his room – it’s clear he’s thinking. And all those grooves can make you think. Perhaps music doesn’t much these days – for me. It might for you. That scene, it taps into the power of the record – right there. I’ve said it before and I will continue to write it down. Immersing yourself in sound should be through conscious choice not passive and futile in its approach.

Turn the fucking radio off.

But I was reading about the Kaiser Chiefs all future technologies and that – you know come down our shop and pick a few tunes – you take the effort to make the album because we can’t be bothered. We can’t make decisions like you. So choose your top ten songs from the twenty or so on offer and we’ll throw in a cover so you can recognise it on the ipod.

And then the listening experience becomes removed from everybody else. Because Frankly Mr Shankly will not end and I know it’s Over begin. Because I put it in a different order – I bought different songs to you - in fact my The Queen is Dead opens with Panic.

So it will be odd to witness the ways they listen – because when I was growing up the world wouldn’t listen – well not to our tunes – our selections. The Clouds didn’t get a TOTP performance – nor BMX Bandits. But I was meant to be discussing the ways in which the whole experience of listening is caught up in the grooves of the vinyl – the breaks in between before the sound surges and wraps itself around the room. For every pulsating hit record comes the filler - side two of Parklife anybody? So what if you don’t return to it or you lift the needle and pass it by – you know it’s there. That song you didn’t quite like – but you might find it again – you might stumble on it and suddenly there’s a whole open road ahead – it happened with The Beach Boys for me. I had purchased a straightforward sounds of the sixties Beach Boys compilation, by its very nature it should have been the hits anyway – all killer – no filler. Yet once played it sounded weak, light and conservative. I wasn’t dazzled by the production, the harmony – none of it. Then a chance suggestion and a purchase of the Pet Sounds led to discovery and returning and retuning my ears to listen again – listen with brother.

And I’m not certain that those non single tunes will ever be listened to in the ways they were meant to be. Sometimes you have to make the effort to break on through to the other side. I once met a man – the owner of Glendevon Enterprises – on Broadway in Ashby. A place that has resisted change so much that even its shoppers rock a seventies look. Glendevon Enterprises is no more. He must have sold up, taken the Alsatian out the cot and dropped all the rot in a skip. It was a tantalising, illicit sort of place – all books and fag ends, electrics and magazines deep in the back – on a rack. Paul and I would go there and sell stuff – to make up the coppers for the records we wanted – selling this and that for £8 or a fiver. He ripped us off – it was daunting in there. But he liked his tunes and he told us – with a serious look on his face and no twinkle in his eye that he was saving the second side of Dark Side of the Moon for when he was truly depressed – because he marvelled at the majesty of the A-side and knew the B-side could bring him down from the ledge. Paul and I thought he was a daft fucker for missing out – you know - what if he died without listening to it. But there lies the power of all the songs on a long player.

The bands put them on for a reason.

They at least made the effort – so I think it’s worth a listen.

Not something to be skipped over because it wasn’t a hit. So getting back to that Stooges CD – Funhouse. I hope that at some point when Constance is digging through the crates and she comes across it – she doesn’t just skim over it. Rather she has a listen in full. Gives it a go. Like we had to and not resort to typing the stooges into a itunes and picking the hits.

Saying that did the Stooges really have any hits?

I’m not saying that there isn’t a whole heap of filler on the slabs of plastic in my house. But I do think I’ve given them a fair chance. That’s all I’m saying – give them a chance.

Here’s to the songs that follow the singles.

Loose The Stooges – coming after the single Down on the Street. It’s the second song on Funhouse.

Sounds from the overground - solitary rants from the listening man No.2

I have been using ‘garageband’ to recreate Stereolab tunes.



I made three new CDs for the car – they all jump.


I want to own the Housemartins albums in a digital format as I can’t remember where they are in the house.


I saw the animosity and boredom on Alex Turner’s face as the crowd sang ‘Mardy Bum’ and he couldn’t be arsed to dwell on all that old romance.


I uploaded various tunes – including ‘Slip inside this House’ by The 13th Floor Elavators.


I had a cup of tea in my Jonny mug.


I watched some of the Wu-Tang Clan’s set on i-player


I listened to Esmerelda’s Kite Vampire Girl.


I am still waiting to give the Oliver soundtrack to my daughter


I grabbed a handful of records and brough them downstairs


I looked at a photograph of my friend’s night out in Brighton with the Rhinestoned Immaculates


I wanted to get my hair cut


We played the pink vinyl 7inch of Candyfloss


I listened to the first Pink Floyd LP and got down to Interstellar Overdrive


We danced to the Machine Soul Funk Vol 1 EP on Rotters Golf Club

There’s a howling coming from that there room

In adolescent times you could kick over the statutes by turning up the volume and raging at the world from the comfort of your bedroom – safe in the knowledge that you were in your room and no one was going to know whether you were playing The Birthday Party or Showaddywaddy. What now sounds like a confessional session but merely is thinking is that those rooms saved our lives many a time.

If I think what went on in my bedroom – it was the carving out of this.

There is a sense of unbridled energy lurking in the walls of teenage rooms. I was watching the classic albums programme about Screamadelica and there in those photographs of McGee, Innes and Gillespie was that energy – that building of confidence through shared understandings and mis-timed joking. Of microphone posing and record jockeying.

Bedrooms are the catalyst to action.

Once Paul and I recorded a feedback fuelled tribute to the death of Shep in minutes of Noake’s announcement that his trusty dog had left his side or hit record on the Amstrad Studio 100 as we attempted to out do the Butthole Surfers with a one stringed kazoo version of Hurdy Gurdy Man – that simply revolved around the speakers on playback all muffled and sat on.

Or forming a hip hop group as we sampled and scratched our ways through the beastie madness .And the list goes on, the T-Rex salute to She Sells Sanctuary or the pulsating drones of the Juno 6 as I tried to recreate Pink Allen’s Rising High ambient ‘sounds’. The tribute acts to Mud and the hyponotic tremors of Spiritualised meets David Essex – all happened in rooms with beds in.

Time and imagination fuels production.

When I had moved out and then returned it was with a different set of records in my bag – but it was still about getting your tunes played – as tapes were placed in decks and records spun in an attempt to get to the root of  it all. I guess I should have been taking more time to actually learn things – find out stuff that mattered but playing Ill Communication followed by The Beach Boys, Denim an old funk 45 and the Dust Brothers Chemical Beats [purchased from Danny in Record Village that morning] was shaping the sounds and ideas in our heads. Ideas of escape for the most part.

I remember up in a loft in Brockley – sat with Richard as we listened, tipsy and smoke ridden, to demos of his band on portable tape recorders – all these moments of beauty locked into tiny spaces or staring out the top windows of grand houses on Granville Park as The Pixies or Teenage Fanclub provided a soundtrack to new living. Or cramped in Lee’s room as he played the solo from I am the resurrection by the Roses and we all sat in awe. Or seeing how far our Alba systems could go with young continentals and hard jazz sounds. In those rooms – you took risks and you were always looking to nudge that volume up – just that little bit more.

As I get older – and spaces become mine – not borrowed from others. Not that I resented my parents having a front room. A record player of their own. But now I am that adult – that responsible being with a record player in my front room – the bedroom is just that now – a bedroom. I don’t think I make the same racket as I used to – I know I don’t - the volume is louder in the car than in my front room – well only room. Open plan – maaaaan.

I think the responsibility of age is a good thing – it’s not endless late nights and german acid tracks making the walls bounce or atonal post punk rock that communicates with cats – it’s different now. At times I will seek to enlighten the family with an obscure gem pulled from the racks. But my selector days are quieter now. Currently the Jonny album is in the CD tray, it replaced Beethoven who slid in after the Aphex Twin Ambient Works Vol.1. The Minus records album is in the car, alongside Justin Robertson’s Art of Acid or Weatherall’s Fabric Mix [Number 19 if you want to buy it]

Still the thrill of hitting start and letting the music course through speakers whether tiny or woofing never really leaves you. Before we moved to this house – we had a place in Lewisham all Victorian stories and that and I put the record player up in the top loft rooms alongside the vinyl haul – and in part it felt like those early days in rooms with others letting sounds ring out and making us all scream and shout and talk about that production and this bass line and that snare and this sample. I have always been fun to live with. I listened to Smile for the first time – when Wilson had deigned to redo it – up there – up in that room – in my room. Blew my mind.

This weekend I will play a record in my front room.

Not loud. But just let it play in salute of all the bedroom revolutions taking place. And I am racking my brains and trying to tap into memories to decide on what it should be – so many times I stepped up to the record player and pulled a tune from a sleeve and waited with anticipation for it to begin. From the sha la la flexis to records that arrived through the post or were discovered in charity shops and caught my eye or cadged of friends to take home and tape. There are simply too many of them to choose from.

Perhaps it should be the first single I ever bought – XTC Sergeant Rock – a staccato psychedelic exploration of ‘manning up’ as John Terry would say – a Top of the Pops glimspse, a 7inch from Boots and descent into music autism for the rest of my life. Thanks Andy Partridge – thanks. Although now I’m not certain whether that was the first 45 I bought – it may have been Motorhead and Girlschool ‘Please don’t Touch’ that garage chug with a glint in its eye. No, I’m sticking with Sgt Rock – and so will you.

There isn’t a great deal to say about XTC – I was never really a fan. And then Paul got hold of the Dukes of Stratosphere albums and clearly there is a great deal to XTC.

Born out bedrooms see – it’s where it all begins.

XTC Sgt Rock – purchased one month before Motorhead [I googled it]

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.