The Ned Wood Archive

Let all the children boogie

Let me tell you about that Twickenham game. No, instead, let me tell you about that Twickenham weekend and we’ll ignore the game, because the game was only a small and insignificant part of the weekend.

So, like I say, I was at Imperial for the year doing postgrad and staying in a postgrad hall up in Paddington. This hall has students packed in so tightly, we can hardly breathe. The rooms are double rooms and I’m sharing with Doug from Devon. He’s OK, but we don’t share any interests: not football, not music, not politics, not fashion, not rocks, not nothing; so I don’t hang around with him much – I hang around with Ralph and his room mate and other folk at the hall.

Anyway, this room I’ve got with Doug has two small twin beds and nothing else. No room for desks or cupboards or anything, just two beds. And the beds are so cramped that if I want to turn over in bed, I have to wake Doug up and make sure that he turns over at the same time as I do. We survive. But it means that there is no room for my stereo in the bedroom. Tragically, I don’t have my albums or my 45s with me. None of them. If I want to listen to music, I have to go down to the bar and live with what they’ll play on their stereo. Mainstream stuff. John Travolta and Boney M.

The other mistake I make when I start in London is to work too hard. The course is all maths which I’m supposed to be good at but which I find boring. The first term, I work hard to learn all the formulae and read up around the course. I don’t go out much – just a couple of gigs and the odd film and I don’t buy any vinyl as there’s nowhere to keep it or play it. And around Christmas, I realise that I’m completely wasting my time. I’m wasting the opportunities that living in London gives me. So I stop working. It doesn’t seem to make any difference to the marks I’m getting, so it must be the right choice. The music scene is getting its breath back after punk. There are loads of decent bands around, but you get the feeling that it is just another calm before another storm. Anyway, I set about exploring that wonderful city and I commit myself to discovery. And I start buying stuff again.

Then, in February, Bernie invites me down to Southampton for the weekend. Most of the folk I knew from Chamberlain were first years when I was a second year there, so many of them are still around, completing their degrees. Apart from the language students like Jo and Sonia who are all off swanning around Europe on the year abroad that they have to do as part of their course.

So I roll up at Glen on the Friday evening which is where Bernie is living and the two of us walk into Glen bar because what else do you do in Glen of a Friday evening? And the first thing that happens is that out of the blue some guy offers Bernie two tickets for the Twickenham game the next day. Bernie’s keen to go and with my new commitment to discovering whatever London has to offer, we snatch the tickets out of the guy’s hand and apologise to the rest of the gang and cancel plans for Saturday and Sunday in Southampton. Only one condition, Bernie: we’re going by train. We ain’t going to hitch up.

So we go up. By train. We fight through the crowds at Waterloo, fight through the crowds all the way to Twickers, fight through the crowds to get into the stadium, fight through the crowds to take a leak at half time, then fight through the crowds after the game. Bernie knows someone in Kew so we fight our way along the main road, over the bridge and into Kew, the same way that Annie and I walked after hitching up to see Viv 18 months before. Finally, around Kew Gardens, it’s quiet. It’s a relief to get away from the crowds.

Past the gardens, past Viv’s place, past the tube station, and across the line, we get to Bernie’s mate’s place. And this is the whole point of this story. Bernie’s mate has a wonderful, extensive, obscure record collection. Phil Ochs. Gram Parsons. Bruce Springsteen bootlegs. Old hippie stuff. The Incredible String Band. Kaleidoscope. And loads and loads of 45s. Northern Soul. Southern Soul. Blue label Stax. Yellow label Stax. And new 45s. Stuff I don’t know. All in picture sleeves.

He plays the Cure.

He plays Sore Throat.

He plays the Members.

And I’m hooked. OK, so when I went back home and set my three singles against Alex’s I came out second best by a long way. But, in Kew that weekend, listening to those three, I’ve discovered three excellent new bands. That was the beauty of music in those days. New sounds to get into every day. If you missed one, then, just like tube trains, another one would be along in a minute.

So, the first opportunity I get, I’m round at Rough Trade in Ladbroke Grove getting my own copies.

And a few days later, I’m at the Nashville watching them. First the Cure, then the Members.

The Members were a good live band. Not a million miles from Sore Throat. There seemed to be quite a few of them on stage, having a good time. The singer had a laugh. They did a version of Larry Wallis’ Police Car and had a couple of good songs: Solitary Confinement and the excellent, anthemic, Sound of the Suburbs which should be studied in English lessons up and down the land instead of Betjeman and his friendly bombs. Let’s hope Johnny is still upstairs in his bedroom, sitting in the dark, annoying the neighbours with his punk rock electric guitar. Our pleasant valley Sunday. But they fizzled out after the album was released.

And the Cure. They turned out to be the real deal. The first single was magic. A cerebral take on Albert Camus who I’d been turned on to by my old mate Jo back in Southampton. A bit pretentious, maybe, but eerie with the bubbling bass, the crashing symbols, and the pseudo arabian guitar. And the B side was even better. Echoing harmonics. A bubbling bass. Nagging, spooky, atmospheric, dark. Dissolving away into nothing. The benign indifference of the universe beautifully expressed by the monotonous dripping tap. They carried on in the same productive vein. Often using an upbeat, rushing bass line with Smith’s sneering, cynical downbeat take on life and his sharp inventive guitar parts.

So after that, I was back into spending all my cash on vinyl. Still didn’t have anything to play it on, so I was bothering the folk in the bar and bothering the folk I went to see to let me have a listen to it. And, when Even Serpents Shine came out, going back to see the old dears so I had a little bit of control over when I listened to it all.

Even Serpents Shine. Another wonderful album. There is a parallel universe where it tops the all time best album lists. A place where the music press and the public have evolved better taste and more acute perception. Where they aren’t put off by yet another rubbish Only Ones cover and can see the beauty within. More elegantly constructed songs. More thoughtfully assembled production. Mair and Kellie laying down a firm foundation, sometimes solid and clear, sometimes wild and inventive. Perrett endowing his beautiful melodies with sophisticated rapid fire lyrics. Perry decorating the tracks with an understated solo here or a mighty burn up there.

Phrases and melodies stick in your mind. “Always in the wrong palace at the wrong time.” “How come such love can be dissipated?” “Oh no you just can’t win. There’s no sense in suffering.” “I used to reach for the stars but now I’m reformed.” You listen again and pick up Koulla Kakoulli’s subtle sweet backing vocals contrasting with Perrett’s lead. Or Perrett backing himself on another verse. You notice the sax embellishing a track. And, on the B-side to their single, a celebratory organ riff under the main melody line. They even throw in an Albatross-era Fleetwood Mac-like number. Everything perfectly assembled to balance each instrument and voice. The pieces of each whole constructed to highlight the differences.

Some of it you could even call Pop: the beat, the guitar, the melody, the lyrics. It would be Pop, save for the disinterested, world-weary, whining, drawling, distasteful singing. And it’s this voice, this punky, sordid, go away and don’t bother me voice, this curtains for you voice, this I don’t have the time to pray voice, this you stand for everything I despise voice that makes these songs perfect. It’s not a beautiful voice, but then which voices are? Maybe just Scott, Dusty, & Billy McKenzie. Voices don’t always need to be beautiful. They just need to have character. This one does. This is why I get so emotionally involved in these bands. This is why I care so much whether they make it or not.