The Ned Wood Archive

We’re back to nature on the farm

Cosmic Rough Riders, 1999

Ellie

They are mostly talking about music.  Up at the Park, after Mysterines. What they’ve seen that day, what they are planning to see.  She’s wondering whether he would have seen any band if she had insisted.  You know, if she’d said they must go see Lady Gaga or Lathums.  He says yes.  Really? Even if it was a band he hadn’t heard of?  Yes.  That way he might discover something great.  That’s what really makes his day.  Yes, but, really??What if it was a band he didn’t like?  Maybe, he says.  You never know.  Keep your mind open.  He tells her he doesn’t really like Haim but saw them at the Park and was impressed when they did that old Fleetwood Mac one.  I can’t help about the shape I’m in. I can’t sing, I ain’t pretty and my legs are thin.

“So, if you could choose any band from any era, who would it be?” he asks.

“Difficult one.  Any era?  Arctic Monkeys.  Killers.  Strokes.  Any of those big acts.  Beatles, obviously.”  

Joe agrees about the Beatles.  What he’d really like to do would be to go back to when they started.  Cos you always hear people saying about when they first heard Elvis.  Or when the Beatles started.  Or when Bowie was on TV with Starman.  He’d go back to when something special was new and he’d be there when it kicked off.  Joy Division for example.

So, she wants to know,  was he ever there for the start of something?

“Bastille.  Like I just said.”

“Stupid Fucken White Man.”

Ellie likes Mysterines.  She already knew a few of their songs.  They’re powerful.  Feminine.  She’d say they were witchy and mean that as a compliment.  Gothic, but not goth.  So she very much enjoyed the show they did at the Park that evening after they’d eaten.  The four of them stood on stage, all dressed in black.  That heavy deep relentless driving sound.  That deep black strong chocolate and honey voice.  That pounding groove.  The moody sound.  The mystery.  The name suited them. 

Hung Up is rock n roll, though.   

She’s vaguely aware that they’ve been away.  They cancelled some gigs a couple of years ago and are just now coming back.  They’re needed.  There isn’t really anyone like them.  Afterwards she realises that they didn’t play one of her favourites.  Life is a bitch, but I like it so much.  Is that true, though?  No.  Yeah.  Ellie enjoys life, even though it’s hard.