The Distractions told us that Time Goes By So Slow, and I cannot argue with their perspective.
However, here’s a thing. This photo is The Primevals, just off-stage at Level 8, Strathclyde Uni, Glasgow, supporting The Gun Club, on 20th October 1984. Everyone in the photo is still in some level of contact, and 3 of us are still in The Primevals.
That gig was forty years ago. Forty years before that, on 20th October 1944, the Second World War was still in full flow. General MacArthur returned to the Philippines, and Soviet and Yugoslav troops freed Belgrade from the German Occupation that had lasted 1287 days.
In some ways, that gig feels like last week – I can still picture the shenanigans of getting in – “of course a five piece garage band requires an eleven man road crew”, as we blagged our friends in, setting up my ACTUAL SPARE GUITAR alongside a fur-covered monster that our bassist wanted to have represented at the gig, and two other pretty guitars that were not actually gig-ready but looked nice in front of my Fender Twin Reverb, and, of course, the frenzy of the gig. We plated our asses off, and The Gun Club were magnificent.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an incendiary, shamanic showman. We were invited up to their dressing room for a drink after our set, and JLP was very welcoming, encouraging us all to “drink some of this rum before my guitarist [Kid Congo] drinks it all”, as he poured 4 fingers of Bacardi into my half-drunk pint of Furstenberg. The Gun Club were amazing that night, inspirational, wild, driven and free.
About 25 years after that, I went to see Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds at a funny wee venue round the back of the Daily Record building. Mickey [singer] and Rhod [drummer]. We went up to say hi after the gig, and Kid said “Hey – do I know you guys? Wait – did you play with us here back in the day?”. Astonishing memory.
I am lucky to still be in touch with people who have known me for a long, long time. Still dear friends.
It’s a mighty long way down rock and roll, for sure.
For anyone interested – L to R – Don Gordon (Guitar), Rhod Burnett (Drums), John Honeyman (Bass), El Hombre Malo (Guitar), Michael Rooney (Vocals)
Wonderful story and a brilliant photo. I suspect you are very glad that someone had the thought to record that moment for posterity,].
The same scuzzy room is on the cover of the first Primevals mini-LP.
Indeed so – and that photo was taken the same night, before the show. New Rose had already been in touch to ask for photos for the cover, and in a classic moment of the time, Mickey and I managed to arrange a quick meeting at Park Lane studios, where we took turns squinting a the slides, holding them up to the lamp in reception. We picked half a dozen where (as far as we could tell) we all looked ok. It was much later, after we had received the vinyl, that we noticed that there is a table, groaning with half drunk beer, right at the very front of that shot. Keepin’ it real, yo!
https://www.discogs.com/release/3128185-The-Primevals-Eternal-Hotfire/image/SW1hZ2U6ODU0MDc3Mw==
Nice to see the Distractions – one of those great ‘if only’ bands get a mention here.
While never saw them play and only caught up with their solitary album when it got re-released years later, used to know drummer Alex Sidebottom when I lived in Manchester
In the late 70s/ early 80s
Just to point out that The Distractions released a couple of albums in the 2010’s that are well worth a listen – as well their iconic debut.
https://thedistractionsmcr.bandcamp.com/
That is a proper band photo. It’s definitely a cool off between EHM and JH the bass player. I think the shades shade it over the red jacket.
They really don’t make ‘em like that anymore.
Yoiks! Level 8 at Strathclyde’s student union building – that takes me back!
Great story Hombre. Keep on rocking.
Skol was on the rider I assume. I bet it’s Cristal nowadays. 😉
Cool story and pic, but it does of course immediately raise the obvious question: are the physical and psychological pains that come with the increasing decrepitude of old age a price worth paying in order to experience the innocent joy of childhood and the hedonistic fun of youth or would it have been better never to have been born at all?
Slightly overcast morning today Gary or the sea temperature one degree lower than optimum? You OK hun?
I’m very fine thanks, weather’s shite though and sea very rough. No more sea swimming this year, I suspect, and I have yet to enrol back at the pool as they require a medical certificate and, because I’m over 60 (62-and-a-half), I need to first organise an electrocardiogram before they give me one, plus my new GP is an idiot.
My GP is an idiot too. He doesn’t even offer me a lollipop when I’m being a brave little soldier.
Mine is what a disablist, ageist, sexist might describe as “a dotty old woman”. My previous GP was the complete opposite: very professional, always wore a white coat, never late for his (easily made) appointments, immaculately clean studio. This new one blew me a kiss on our first meeting. I was aghast.
It’s perilous being so desirable Gary. A young woman helped me to cross a busy road yesterday morning which proves of course that I’ve still “got it”. I feel sorry for lesser men.
A GP in a white coat? That’s your surgeon.
We played in Northampton earlier this year, on our way to London to play with Stewart Lee.
Here’s a video from Northampton, The Drop – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hwMKVWVpSM
Some things change, some stay the same
I was thinking about the passing of time this week as on Thursday night I was listening to the Crazy World of Arthur Brown album, in the presence of Arthur Brown, an album that came out in 1968 some fifty-six years ago.
Some fifty-six years before 1968 would have been the outbreak of the First World War and so in 1968 it would have been like listening to a music hall singer talking about singing patriotic songs to boost recruitment for the war effort.
Time does indeed fugit and nothing we can do can stop it.
How apt.
I awoke this morning in the bedroom I slept in from 80-86. We are back in suburban London (well, Hillingdon -ish) visiting family. While it all looks a good bit different it’s somehow quite comforting that the early morning sounds outside are familiar. The same whoosh of cars heading up the hill. The same bird noises. The same creaking and ticking as the central heating kicks in. We’ll take a walk along the canal later. I do get a little sentimental about this stuff from time to time but I find myself appreciating the subtle beauty of it all so much more than when I actually lived here.
See what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter