Can a urinal be a work of art?
When Marcel Duchamp’s ‘elegant pisser’ was nominated the world’s most influential piece of modern art it highlighted once again our love-hate relationship with the loo. For some the modern plumbing system is a work of art in itself and the toilet one of man’s greatest inventions – up there with the wheel and printing press.
Although Duchamp’s Fountain scandalized polite society when it was first shown in 1917 and inspired the concept of low art, the porcelain pot, because of its very function in society, has been locked away in a dark room and only used on a needs must basis. The first time a toilet scene was shown in a mainstream movie was in 1960 in Psycho in the clean up shot after the famous shower scene.
But when the humble lavatory breaks out of its self-imposed stretch of solitary it does so in headline-grabbing style. Two of the more famous examples are in 1977 when the King of rock ‘n’ roll was literally toppled from his throne and died on the bathroom floor with his bum sticking up in the air. And then there was George Michael’s little act of indiscretion in a Beverly Hills ‘comfort station’ in 1998 when he was arrested for going solo in a lewd act by an undercover cop. This prompted one of the best ever headlines in the Sun newspaper: Zip me up before you go go.
Some people have a real fear or embarrassment of going to the toilet, especially public conveniences and when you see stuff like the ‘worst toilet in Scotland’ in Trainspotting it’s enough to scare anyone shitless. One of the worst fears is being caught without any toilet paper so spare a thought for Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 2 when he goes on his - only to find those naughty bad guys have planted a bomb under the khazi that is liable to go off on any plop. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction got caught coming out of the crapper looking like he’d just shot-up, which he probably had, only to get blown away by Bruce Willis.
The funniest toilet gag in the movies has to be in Naked Gun when Leslie Nielson goes for an extra long squirt with his lapel mike still on and the audience is treated to all the sound effects that blokes tend to do at the urinal.
Going to the toilet is a guilty pleasure, a place of piece and quiet, for contemplation and reading. For all we know Beach Boy Brian Wilson may have found inspiration for Good Vibrations while enjoying a quiet moment; it’s amazing where and when the muse can strike. Alexander Chase once declared: “Psychiatry’s chief contribution to philosophy is the discovery that the toilet is the seat of the soul.” A friend of mine, a magazine editor, swears that he gets all his best ideas for headlines and stories while sat on the bog.
Kurt Cobain revelled in all things scatological and recently actor Bob Hoskins revealed at the British Independent Film Awards that he reads scripts he is sent in the bathroom. "I take it to the loo. If I've suddenly got a cold bum, I think, 'hello, this must be a good script'. So it gets the cold bum test - that's the only way," he said. And in Uma Thurman’s reasoning never forget to flush: “It’s better to have a relationship with someone who cheats on you than with someone who does not flush the toilet.” So that’s why things didn’t work out between her and Gary.
Of course there are other things one can do in the loo apart from excretory functions and it can be a seat of power: “I was the one sat in the toilets and smoked and made the other girls cry,” said Tracey Ullman of her early years.
Back to Duchamp, who started this train of thought anyway. Can a urinal be a work of art? In an article by Max Podstolski on Spark-online he argues, “While the urinal was certainly not intended as an aesthetic object, it clearly emerged as a brilliantly-paradoxical aesthetic concept.” In the cause of artistic freedom an ordinary urinal had, in effect been metamorphosed into artwork. “It was no longer what it used to be, a ‘pisser’ in the vernacular,” says Podsolski, “because it had been disconnected (literally and figuratively) from its usual toilet context. It no longer existed to be pissed into, and there were no more pipes to drain the waste liquid away.”
Because there was no direct functional relationship, the act of peeing became symbolic and viewers, male ones anyway, were reminded of the sensations on viewing the object. “While the actual physical object is totally static, the concept of it as an artwork sets into motion a mental conundrum which is analogous to the 'ghost in the machine' of mind and body,” says Podsolski. “A person is not just a body, but a body with a mind. Similarly Fountain is not just a urinal, but a urinal activated in our minds by being an artwork.”
Although I’ve had lots of nasty experiences in toilets and had a bit of a phobia about going as a child, the best public toilet experience ever has got to be in The Peninsula hotel in Hong Kong. Take the lift up to the 28th floor to the Felix bar, designed by Philippe Starck. If the interior design and views doesn’t grab you – guys at least can visit the bathroom where a wonderful experience awaits when they take a leak. Part of the experience is the element of surprise so I won’t spoil it but enough to say if you want to piss on the world, then here’s the place to do it.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Thursday, December 30, 2004
The Kids Are Alright
The story of Rough Mix and of love and friendship
"The committee’s just taken a vote," said the club’s secretary," as the band was packing up its equipment. "It was our best night for takings in ages, can you lads play again next Saturday?" He was a piggish looking man with glazed over eyes, purple face, hunched up shoulders and a gait only achievable from a constant diet of beer and pies. We looked at each other and laughed: he had no idea who we were and how far we had come to play this gig. It had been 15 years since we split and the venue for our reunion was the legendary Crescent Working Men’s Club in York. The occasion was Al, the singer-songwriter’s 40th birthday, and he had decided to get the band back together for one last gig.
On satellite TV there is a programme on one of the music channels called Bands Reunited. Usually the presenter tries to get together the members of say Squeeze for a one-off gig. Invariably it fails because the fall out between personnel has been too bitter, the wounds too deep and egos damaged beyond repair. Maybe if Rough Mix had stayed together and become rich and famous, we would no longer be friends. At the time the realization that we were never going to make it was a huge disappointment and luckily we ended it before it got really nasty. We were working class kids and playing in a band was supposed to be our salvation. It was not as if we’d gone to college and could something else: we couldn’t. The band was our whole life and when it was finally over - there’s only so much lugging of equipment and playing shitty venues for little or no money that you can take - it was a case of ‘oh fuck, what do we do now?’
Rough Mix, named after a Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane album, never set the rock world alight in terms of achieving mega-stardom, but the group was tight. Like all the great bands such as The Who and U2 we were friends first and had known each other at school and playing in a band represented a way out of the mediocrity of life without privileges. There is a bond that it is hard to break and although I had turned my back on the band a long time ago, we were still firm friends and at the end of the day that is all that really counts. We may not have achieved U2’s global success, but the reunion gig was on a par with Zooropa in terms of organization – I flew in from Hong Kong to play drums, Olly, the bass player, was living in Holland; Al lived in London and Dave (lead guitar) resided in Teeside.
I had given up music for good when the band split and had no regrets and never looked back. After years of struggling as a musician I became totally disillusioned with the music business and found playing in a band frustrating because I felt I did not have control over my destiny. In a band you have to rely on others, and when the others are less committed than you are then you are fucked. Although they were my mates, I was glad to see the back of them at the time; from now on it was every man for himself. At least with journalism I could dictate my own future and if I failed I only had myself to blame. The fact that I found my new career just as enjoyable and exciting as rock’n’roll enabled me to bury the past like a callous executioner, I tossed away the rear-view mirror and found another road less travelled to get me where I wanted to be. But I also found you can never really let rock ‘n’ roll go; the vibe of being on stage in front of an audience is a feeling quite unlike any other I have experienced. When it’s good it’s very good and for a few hours you are no longer the little insecure guy, struggling to make sense of the world. You are at the centre of the universe, elevated to a higher level, a creative genius: and the girls were good too.
I now understand that playing in a band was never about making it in the first place. It was all about finding an identity, a direction and focus. It is testimony to the band that we all went on to do other things when our short but sweet music career was over: we carried the creative energy on and each of us achieved success on an individual level. I became a journalist, Al went into audio-visual, Dave is a teacher and Olly a photographer. When we got together again we may have been respectable professionals with families, but we were really still punks at heart. Although we had gone our separate ways since the band split, we had stayed in touch, meeting up occasionally even though at one time we were all living in different countries. I had known Al and Olly since school and our friendship stretches back 30 years. We picked up Dave in London, a brilliant guitarist from Dublin and persuaded him to move to York and join Rough Mix. His Stones’ influence helped counter- balance the all too persuasive Who style that the three of us had grown up with. Dave could play the blues as good as anyone. His formative years were spent listening to fellow Dubliners U2 and he was all rock ‘n’ roll and therefore had our total respect as a musician and a geezer.
For a time Rough Mix was a five-piece with Andy Reed playing acoustic guitar and vocals. In many ways Andy was the heart and soul of the band; he had a wide-eyed innocence and laidback persona that you couldn’t help but love, and he lived for the Mix. He looked and sang like Tom Petty, wrote songs like Bob Dylan and had the melancholy of Neil Young, but he was one of those guys who just couldn’t be in a band. The dynamics, egos, stress of playing live and all the other general bullshit that goes with being in a group with three or more people means that not everyone can handle it. Sadly he died of a heart attack two years before the reunion and he was missed at the gig – which was also in his memory.
The schedule was hectic. I arrived on the Tuesday night and started rehearsals the following day. There was no time to get over the jetlag - it was straight down to work. The gig was on Saturday and I’d completely forgotten the set. Luckily I had been playing drums in a band in Hong Kong for the past year, so I felt relatively sharp and easily slipped back in the groove. What I wasn’t prepared for was the weather. After six years living abroad I had forgotten how cold the north of England could be in January. It didn’t help matters that I was completely unprepared in the clothing department and essentially I wore all the clothes that I brought with me at the same time, all of the time. The rehearsal room was a disused barn in the middle of nowhere and we were almost stranded on a couple of occasions during severe snowstorms. I was at the wheel when the car almost landed in a ditch as we attempted to drive through snowdrifts three feet high down a narrow farm track.
As with all rehearsal rooms there was little comfort inside. A measly fan heater blew air about as warm as your breath around a cold cavernous space. It wasn’t until we generated our own body heat that the place warmed up and I began to strip off the layers as the band started to cook. The place stank of stale beer, farts and cigarettes. A half-eaten pastie was turning mouldy on the floor-tom next to a crowded ashtray. It reminded me of previous times in damp cellars, beer and BO, which somehow never bothered us when we were young. ‘Where’s the fun in this?’ I thought to myself as I desperately tried to get the blood circulating through my fingers so I could hold the sticks. But it is in such conditions that the best music is made. When there’s energy and harmony the music transcends its surroundings and when the band gels it doesn’t matter that the performance is taking place in a cowshed. At first we played as a trio – drums, bass and rhythm guitar. Dave was due to join us on lead guitar later in the week so for two days it was just the three of us, the way it was 25 years ago when we started out as young punks. At first we were apprehensive, nervous even, and we started by exploring safe territory by revisiting Substitute by The Who. It was the first song we ever learnt and we played it with energy and passion, no bum notes, no missed beats; we were ecstatic. This rehearsal time was the most enjoyable part of the week. The sessions were relaxed and it gave us an opportunity to reconnect. The village pub had a blazing fire, served fantastic food, and handpulled Sam Smith’s beer. Outside the scene was of a winter wonderland; the village pond had frozen over and the branches of the trees buckled under the weight of snow. We talked about the old days, of growing up together and the numerous adventures we’d experienced along the way. We were all in long-term relationships and we talked about fatherhood, commitment, shared dreams and individual successes and failures.
Everyone was on top form; Al had carried his songs in his head and heart for such along time and did a fitting job as musical director. Olly had been relentlessly practising his bass parts for the past 12 months, playing along to old demos and live recordings. I was on fire behind the kit and was confident and solid once I’d learnt the arrangements, which had long been buried in my past. The missing ingredient in the Mix was Dave’s lead guitar. He hadn’t picked up the instrument in years and was a little rusty and nervous. He had got pissed on the train and arrived at the rehearsal room worse for wear after a stressful day teaching. It must have been daunting for him to arrive and see us playing so tight, we had had two days to work on the rhythm section and we were hot. It’s as if the brashness of youth had been transformed into controlled energy, the music was powerful and it all seemed so simple and uncomplicated. Dave soon found his guitar chops again and once he’d worked out the chords he played with his old genius. At last we were finally ready to meet our audience.
The Crescent WMC was close to where I lived as a child and I remember going with my dad, mum and sister on bank holidays. Flying in from Hong Kong to play there proved to be a surreal and emotional experience. I remembered the bingo, crap bands playing Mud and Shawaddywaddy covers, the horse racing on television and general drunkenness. The club’s best days were behind it. The décor looked the same as it did 30 years ago. The floral print wallpaper in the concert room had been suffocated by nicotine; the borders were hanging off and the upholstery was obscenely ripped. I remember the table where my sister and I sat; it was always the same one facing the stage at the back of the room. I sat there and recognised the same gold curtains behind the stage and I could hear the bingo caller, the noise from the bar and the excited shouts of “HOUSE!" I looked inside the bingo-caller’s booth and saw a CD of Alvin Stardust’s Greatest Hits.
In the foyer a badly hand written poster for a forthcoming event read:
Tuesday
Line Dancing
Book Early For This One & Bring Yer Own Grub
£5
Disaster struck almost as soon as we arrived in the afternoon to set up. The club’s ancient wiring system was obviously not up to the demands of a 21st century rock gig and the lighting rig blew the electrics. We were hardly planning a Who-style show with lasers, but never mind, the place was in darkness for two hours until someone managed to locate the key for the fusebox. My mood was darkening and I was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing. The humping of gear, the hanging around for sound checks, frayed nerves, terrible tempers, clashing egos, all the bullshit that seems to go with being in a band came back to me and now I understood why I didn’t miss the whole rock ‘n’ roll circus. I needed to get out; the place was becoming claustrophobic and full of too many bad memories. I went to the Chip Shop opposite and it was there that I heard the Shuttle had crashed on its approach back into the atmosphere. It was teatime on a Saturday and people were queuing out of the door. News spread down the queue, but unfortunately the message got confused with the local shuttle-bus for the park-and-ride shoppers. "I’ve just seen it leave," exclaimed one chap, "it’s just passed by here a minute ago." Outside, a snowstorm was blowing and for some reason I was reminded of the suffering in the seige of Stalingrad. I wished I was back in Hong Kong: York was beginning to close in on me again and I was reminded why I left in the first place.
I always knew that I would leave and music had helped paved the way for my escape.
The gig was really a private party and there were people in the audience that I hadn’t seen for 15 years or more. With the place packed and the lights down, the club took on a semi-semblance of a rock venue and my mood started to lift as I got into the music. I felt as though I’d peaked a day earlier in rehearsal and the combination of the jetlag kicking in, the emotional turmoil of the occasion, the exhaustion of three days’ rehearsals and the late nights had taken their toll. I was playing on nervous energy and I was lucky that the band were all up for it. Al sang as if his life depended on it, Olly had matured into a solid and dependable bass player and we locked into a groove that somehow eluded us first time around. Dave’s guitar leads soared: I had always admired his playing and he had to dig deep to reach such majestic heights. You was a classic song and it was the first tune we ever played together. I hadn’t heard anything like it until The Libertines came along with Can’t Stand Me Now. Like the Libertines’ single, You starts with a lengthy intro and builds and builds with energy and passion and a sense that it could not possibly be sustained until the end of the song and the whole thing is literally going take off before its climatic end. We played two Who covers, Substitute and the fitting Kids Are Alright and some of our own classics, Kind Of Love Song, I’m Sorry, With Respect, the haunting Have You Ever, Flame and the punk piledriver Boys & Girls. The most poignant song in the set was Things I Know, with the line: ‘I know a few people I couldn’t live without’.
Rough Mix was back. We had lost some friends on the way, but the core of the group was still strong and the group was not only comprised of the four people on stage but many of those in the audience who had supported us and believed in us at the time. The band brought us all together, it was a common bond and many of us in and around it had drawn inspiration from its energy. Music was undoubtedly the driving force and the catalyst for such great times and fantastic memories. Without music I would not have seen the world through a different perspective and I would not have had the confidence to make something out of my life. More importantly I would not have met the people whom I love so dearly.
The Kids Are Alright.
Andy Reed 1963-2000
"The committee’s just taken a vote," said the club’s secretary," as the band was packing up its equipment. "It was our best night for takings in ages, can you lads play again next Saturday?" He was a piggish looking man with glazed over eyes, purple face, hunched up shoulders and a gait only achievable from a constant diet of beer and pies. We looked at each other and laughed: he had no idea who we were and how far we had come to play this gig. It had been 15 years since we split and the venue for our reunion was the legendary Crescent Working Men’s Club in York. The occasion was Al, the singer-songwriter’s 40th birthday, and he had decided to get the band back together for one last gig.
On satellite TV there is a programme on one of the music channels called Bands Reunited. Usually the presenter tries to get together the members of say Squeeze for a one-off gig. Invariably it fails because the fall out between personnel has been too bitter, the wounds too deep and egos damaged beyond repair. Maybe if Rough Mix had stayed together and become rich and famous, we would no longer be friends. At the time the realization that we were never going to make it was a huge disappointment and luckily we ended it before it got really nasty. We were working class kids and playing in a band was supposed to be our salvation. It was not as if we’d gone to college and could something else: we couldn’t. The band was our whole life and when it was finally over - there’s only so much lugging of equipment and playing shitty venues for little or no money that you can take - it was a case of ‘oh fuck, what do we do now?’
Rough Mix, named after a Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane album, never set the rock world alight in terms of achieving mega-stardom, but the group was tight. Like all the great bands such as The Who and U2 we were friends first and had known each other at school and playing in a band represented a way out of the mediocrity of life without privileges. There is a bond that it is hard to break and although I had turned my back on the band a long time ago, we were still firm friends and at the end of the day that is all that really counts. We may not have achieved U2’s global success, but the reunion gig was on a par with Zooropa in terms of organization – I flew in from Hong Kong to play drums, Olly, the bass player, was living in Holland; Al lived in London and Dave (lead guitar) resided in Teeside.
I had given up music for good when the band split and had no regrets and never looked back. After years of struggling as a musician I became totally disillusioned with the music business and found playing in a band frustrating because I felt I did not have control over my destiny. In a band you have to rely on others, and when the others are less committed than you are then you are fucked. Although they were my mates, I was glad to see the back of them at the time; from now on it was every man for himself. At least with journalism I could dictate my own future and if I failed I only had myself to blame. The fact that I found my new career just as enjoyable and exciting as rock’n’roll enabled me to bury the past like a callous executioner, I tossed away the rear-view mirror and found another road less travelled to get me where I wanted to be. But I also found you can never really let rock ‘n’ roll go; the vibe of being on stage in front of an audience is a feeling quite unlike any other I have experienced. When it’s good it’s very good and for a few hours you are no longer the little insecure guy, struggling to make sense of the world. You are at the centre of the universe, elevated to a higher level, a creative genius: and the girls were good too.
I now understand that playing in a band was never about making it in the first place. It was all about finding an identity, a direction and focus. It is testimony to the band that we all went on to do other things when our short but sweet music career was over: we carried the creative energy on and each of us achieved success on an individual level. I became a journalist, Al went into audio-visual, Dave is a teacher and Olly a photographer. When we got together again we may have been respectable professionals with families, but we were really still punks at heart. Although we had gone our separate ways since the band split, we had stayed in touch, meeting up occasionally even though at one time we were all living in different countries. I had known Al and Olly since school and our friendship stretches back 30 years. We picked up Dave in London, a brilliant guitarist from Dublin and persuaded him to move to York and join Rough Mix. His Stones’ influence helped counter- balance the all too persuasive Who style that the three of us had grown up with. Dave could play the blues as good as anyone. His formative years were spent listening to fellow Dubliners U2 and he was all rock ‘n’ roll and therefore had our total respect as a musician and a geezer.
For a time Rough Mix was a five-piece with Andy Reed playing acoustic guitar and vocals. In many ways Andy was the heart and soul of the band; he had a wide-eyed innocence and laidback persona that you couldn’t help but love, and he lived for the Mix. He looked and sang like Tom Petty, wrote songs like Bob Dylan and had the melancholy of Neil Young, but he was one of those guys who just couldn’t be in a band. The dynamics, egos, stress of playing live and all the other general bullshit that goes with being in a group with three or more people means that not everyone can handle it. Sadly he died of a heart attack two years before the reunion and he was missed at the gig – which was also in his memory.
The schedule was hectic. I arrived on the Tuesday night and started rehearsals the following day. There was no time to get over the jetlag - it was straight down to work. The gig was on Saturday and I’d completely forgotten the set. Luckily I had been playing drums in a band in Hong Kong for the past year, so I felt relatively sharp and easily slipped back in the groove. What I wasn’t prepared for was the weather. After six years living abroad I had forgotten how cold the north of England could be in January. It didn’t help matters that I was completely unprepared in the clothing department and essentially I wore all the clothes that I brought with me at the same time, all of the time. The rehearsal room was a disused barn in the middle of nowhere and we were almost stranded on a couple of occasions during severe snowstorms. I was at the wheel when the car almost landed in a ditch as we attempted to drive through snowdrifts three feet high down a narrow farm track.
As with all rehearsal rooms there was little comfort inside. A measly fan heater blew air about as warm as your breath around a cold cavernous space. It wasn’t until we generated our own body heat that the place warmed up and I began to strip off the layers as the band started to cook. The place stank of stale beer, farts and cigarettes. A half-eaten pastie was turning mouldy on the floor-tom next to a crowded ashtray. It reminded me of previous times in damp cellars, beer and BO, which somehow never bothered us when we were young. ‘Where’s the fun in this?’ I thought to myself as I desperately tried to get the blood circulating through my fingers so I could hold the sticks. But it is in such conditions that the best music is made. When there’s energy and harmony the music transcends its surroundings and when the band gels it doesn’t matter that the performance is taking place in a cowshed. At first we played as a trio – drums, bass and rhythm guitar. Dave was due to join us on lead guitar later in the week so for two days it was just the three of us, the way it was 25 years ago when we started out as young punks. At first we were apprehensive, nervous even, and we started by exploring safe territory by revisiting Substitute by The Who. It was the first song we ever learnt and we played it with energy and passion, no bum notes, no missed beats; we were ecstatic. This rehearsal time was the most enjoyable part of the week. The sessions were relaxed and it gave us an opportunity to reconnect. The village pub had a blazing fire, served fantastic food, and handpulled Sam Smith’s beer. Outside the scene was of a winter wonderland; the village pond had frozen over and the branches of the trees buckled under the weight of snow. We talked about the old days, of growing up together and the numerous adventures we’d experienced along the way. We were all in long-term relationships and we talked about fatherhood, commitment, shared dreams and individual successes and failures.
Everyone was on top form; Al had carried his songs in his head and heart for such along time and did a fitting job as musical director. Olly had been relentlessly practising his bass parts for the past 12 months, playing along to old demos and live recordings. I was on fire behind the kit and was confident and solid once I’d learnt the arrangements, which had long been buried in my past. The missing ingredient in the Mix was Dave’s lead guitar. He hadn’t picked up the instrument in years and was a little rusty and nervous. He had got pissed on the train and arrived at the rehearsal room worse for wear after a stressful day teaching. It must have been daunting for him to arrive and see us playing so tight, we had had two days to work on the rhythm section and we were hot. It’s as if the brashness of youth had been transformed into controlled energy, the music was powerful and it all seemed so simple and uncomplicated. Dave soon found his guitar chops again and once he’d worked out the chords he played with his old genius. At last we were finally ready to meet our audience.
The Crescent WMC was close to where I lived as a child and I remember going with my dad, mum and sister on bank holidays. Flying in from Hong Kong to play there proved to be a surreal and emotional experience. I remembered the bingo, crap bands playing Mud and Shawaddywaddy covers, the horse racing on television and general drunkenness. The club’s best days were behind it. The décor looked the same as it did 30 years ago. The floral print wallpaper in the concert room had been suffocated by nicotine; the borders were hanging off and the upholstery was obscenely ripped. I remember the table where my sister and I sat; it was always the same one facing the stage at the back of the room. I sat there and recognised the same gold curtains behind the stage and I could hear the bingo caller, the noise from the bar and the excited shouts of “HOUSE!" I looked inside the bingo-caller’s booth and saw a CD of Alvin Stardust’s Greatest Hits.
In the foyer a badly hand written poster for a forthcoming event read:
Tuesday
Line Dancing
Book Early For This One & Bring Yer Own Grub
£5
Disaster struck almost as soon as we arrived in the afternoon to set up. The club’s ancient wiring system was obviously not up to the demands of a 21st century rock gig and the lighting rig blew the electrics. We were hardly planning a Who-style show with lasers, but never mind, the place was in darkness for two hours until someone managed to locate the key for the fusebox. My mood was darkening and I was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing. The humping of gear, the hanging around for sound checks, frayed nerves, terrible tempers, clashing egos, all the bullshit that seems to go with being in a band came back to me and now I understood why I didn’t miss the whole rock ‘n’ roll circus. I needed to get out; the place was becoming claustrophobic and full of too many bad memories. I went to the Chip Shop opposite and it was there that I heard the Shuttle had crashed on its approach back into the atmosphere. It was teatime on a Saturday and people were queuing out of the door. News spread down the queue, but unfortunately the message got confused with the local shuttle-bus for the park-and-ride shoppers. "I’ve just seen it leave," exclaimed one chap, "it’s just passed by here a minute ago." Outside, a snowstorm was blowing and for some reason I was reminded of the suffering in the seige of Stalingrad. I wished I was back in Hong Kong: York was beginning to close in on me again and I was reminded why I left in the first place.
I always knew that I would leave and music had helped paved the way for my escape.
The gig was really a private party and there were people in the audience that I hadn’t seen for 15 years or more. With the place packed and the lights down, the club took on a semi-semblance of a rock venue and my mood started to lift as I got into the music. I felt as though I’d peaked a day earlier in rehearsal and the combination of the jetlag kicking in, the emotional turmoil of the occasion, the exhaustion of three days’ rehearsals and the late nights had taken their toll. I was playing on nervous energy and I was lucky that the band were all up for it. Al sang as if his life depended on it, Olly had matured into a solid and dependable bass player and we locked into a groove that somehow eluded us first time around. Dave’s guitar leads soared: I had always admired his playing and he had to dig deep to reach such majestic heights. You was a classic song and it was the first tune we ever played together. I hadn’t heard anything like it until The Libertines came along with Can’t Stand Me Now. Like the Libertines’ single, You starts with a lengthy intro and builds and builds with energy and passion and a sense that it could not possibly be sustained until the end of the song and the whole thing is literally going take off before its climatic end. We played two Who covers, Substitute and the fitting Kids Are Alright and some of our own classics, Kind Of Love Song, I’m Sorry, With Respect, the haunting Have You Ever, Flame and the punk piledriver Boys & Girls. The most poignant song in the set was Things I Know, with the line: ‘I know a few people I couldn’t live without’.
Rough Mix was back. We had lost some friends on the way, but the core of the group was still strong and the group was not only comprised of the four people on stage but many of those in the audience who had supported us and believed in us at the time. The band brought us all together, it was a common bond and many of us in and around it had drawn inspiration from its energy. Music was undoubtedly the driving force and the catalyst for such great times and fantastic memories. Without music I would not have seen the world through a different perspective and I would not have had the confidence to make something out of my life. More importantly I would not have met the people whom I love so dearly.
The Kids Are Alright.
Andy Reed 1963-2000
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