Status: Single
City: LONDON
State: London and South East
Country: UK
Signup Date: 3/16/2007
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008
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Category: Life
"Talk amongst yourselves". That was the schoolmasterly advice that John Peel would proffer if he were playing a record that faded in. He never spoke over a songs introduction or ending, so a song with a fade-in intro might perhaps give the momentary impression of dead air. In this particular instance the approaching sound caught me off guard. A glorious ramshackle mix of McGuinn-esque guitar, Dylan style harmonica and a curiously English intonation by the singer.
"Hand In Glove" by The Smiths was a clarion call of sorts. "The sun shines out of our behinds" yodelled 24 year old Morrissey, sounding like this was the moment he had waited his entire life for. "Everything depends upon how near you stand to me" he sang. "Hey! That's a Leonard Cohen steal", I thought. I'm going to like this band. I felt the initial rush that you sometimes get when you inadvertently hear a song you have loved for some time. But this was a new record! At Our Price records in Harlow Town, Rowan behind the counter said he had wondered who would be the first person to buy this record. Now he knew. It was tubby little me!
As great as "Hand In Glove" was, there was a part of me that thought that maybe this was an accidental one off classic, and that The Smiths would never be heard of again. I needn't have worried. Peel was playing and replaying sessions that the band had recorded for his show, and they had very strong material. Intelligent and melodic. In late '83 they released "This Charming Man". I was just 17, and I knew that "my" band had arrived. I went to see them at The Electric Ballroom in Camden and they were astonishing. Oh what a night, late December back in 83 (25 years ago this week!). I would see them a total of ten times over the next few years (It would have been eleven had illness not robbed me of my G-Mex ticket).
The Smiths held a mirror up to my own life with every new release. It wasn't just the music, it was the way they looked, the care taken over the record sleeves, the interviews that Morrissey gave, the stance they took against the monarchy, the government, the pop video, synthetic music and modernity in general. And, of course, the ever present, often over looked sense of humour.
At Glastonbury festival in 1984, my devotion to The Smiths was rewarded in a way I will never forget.
The Smiths at Glastonbury has often been sited by organizer and farm owner, Michal Eavis, as one of the defining moments in the festivals history. There was certainly no great fanfare when The Smiths came on at 5.30 to a bedraggled crowd. Myself, Dykey, Judge and Jo quickly made our way to the front of the throng which was growing rapidly. They played new songs like "Nowhere Fast" and old songs like "Handsome Devil". They then began to play "Barbarism Begins At Home", which I had heard them play live before, and which they had recently performed on The Tube TV programme. A thought occurred. During the end of this song there is a nifty little bass and drum work out that Morrissey and Johnny Marr would do a little circular dance to, as they had done on The Tube. In his book "Songs That Saved Your Life", Simon Goddard describes the dance as a "divine, ritualistic fandango". Johnny would stop playing at this point in the song. If I could just get a bit closer, there might be an opportunity that I could shake the hand of the man that produces these beautiful melodic creations!
Security at Glastonbury in those days was medieval. There was a 15 foot corrugated iron slope covered in grease that was to act as a deterrent to would be stage invaders. My mates Judge and Dykey gave me a leg up, took one of my muddy boots each in the palms of their hands and slid me up the greasy slope. My head was just above stage level and I gripped the serrated edge of the iron, cutting my fingers as I did. Johnny was right in front of me. I proffered my hand to him. He nodded towards his guitar. "Oh yeah" I thought, "he's still playing!" Then the moment came when Johnny was to stop playing and do the dance with Morrissey that had so delighted all of us who had seen it on TV a short time earlier that year...
"He'll think I'm idiot now" I thought, "He won't shake my hand now, not now"
Johnny stops playing. Rather than walk over to Morrissey, he walks over to me. He leans down and shakes my hand. "What a dude, what a guy" I think. Then I feel his hand grip my hand tighter and tighter. "What the fuck is he doing" I wonder. Dykey and Judge are still straining under my weight and wondering what in God's name is going on. Johnny Marr then pulls me towards him to the delight of the crowd (and the relief of Dykey and Judge!). I'm now on stage with The Smiths! Two security guards run towards me, "leave him" orders Johnny and ushers me over to Morrissey. The three of us begin dancing around each other to the pounding northern funk of Mike Joyce on drums and Andy Rourke on bass. I am terrified, but something has taken over. As natural as rain, we dance again and again and again. The dance is all shimmying on one foot to the other, raising the leg up, random pointing and gesturing, but all the time circling around each other, let's call it a Morrissey Dance. It's a hilarious confection. Tens of thousands of people are cheering for the little guy who's made it to the captains table! Dykey and Judge are no doubt pissing themselves laughing with the sheer surrealism of the situation. Then after what seems an age, the song is over.
It was all a bit overwhelming. I threw my arms around Johnny and thanked him. He smiled and said "It's cool". What happened next I have never been able to fathom out. I walked over to Morrissey and held out my hand. The Moz man shook it as I practically curtsied. WHAT!! Everyone hugs Morrissey! And here I was, following that old dictum that Richard Nixon apparently told his own mother: "Why embrace? When a handshake will do"! I muttered something about Oscar Wilde, to which Morrissey said "Good man, Good man" encouragingly.
Then my chutzpah took on Olympian proportions. I brazenly strolled off towards the wings of the stage as if it was the most natural thing in the world. There, I was greeted by the stony faced security guards who had been publicly rebuffed by Johnny. Their faces said it all: "you're going back the way you came". I went and sat at the stage edge, at the top of the greasy slope and stared down in to the abyss. After a while contemplating it, I took the long slide back to obscurity, only to be greeted by a huge "Wheeee!" from the ladies and gentlemen of the audience. I was now once again among their number.
The inevitable then happened. People began scrambling up the slope to do "a Paul", but were being ejected by the security dudes. The Smiths played one more number and were gone. Cut short. The crowd were upset. Do I feel responsible? No. Over the years this story has often been greeted with disapproval and general tut-tutting comments about "stage invaders". But, I have always insisted, I was invited, I did not invade. It was only when Johnny Marr admitted as much in The Word magazine last year that I finally had any evidence of this fact. He went on to say that The Smith's Mercedes had its tyres let down by the aggrieved security men because they thought that he had instigated a stage invasion.
Soon after I got my hands on a bootleg of the gig and my ascent can be followed by the reaction of the crowd at all the crucial moments. What larks! Jo Clack took a couple of photographs, and for the rest of the day I was walking on air, regularly being greeted by well wishing strangers. It was like being dragged on stage by Keith Richards or George Harrison to frug with The Stones or The Beatles. Only they would never have done such a thing. They weren't The Smiths.
When The Smiths split suddenly in '87 after five short years, I was heartbroken. If only they had taken a sabbatical instead instead of splitting. I understand now that Johnny was under enormous pressure, and was still very young. Even this week speculation is growing again that The Smiths will reform. I can't see it myself certainly not with Mike Joyce on drums! Maybe Morrissey and Marr will write together, and maybe perform, but not The Smiths.
I have followed Moz's musical career through highs and lows and I consider his best work to be as great as that of his former band.
Let me offer this anecdote as a footnote.
Very soon after me and Mandie had started "courting" in 1996, she came down to visit me in glorious Wapping. We went to a local old fashioned boozer called The White Swan and Cuckoo on Wapping Lane. While both standing at the bar, I turned and asked her what she wanted to drink (it was still that early in our relationship). I glanced over her shoulder to behold a familiar face. No, it was not one of the local characters I had become familiar with over recent years, but it was a face I could never mistake. I ushered Mandie to find us a table while I got the drinks in and quickly thought of the appropriate words to say to this man. Drinks in front of me, change safely in my pocket, I approached this crombie wearing, immaculately manicured man. Looking like a 1960's boxing promoter, swigging from a bottle of Pils, with a strange looking older fellow sitting next to him at the bar, he looked to be soaking up the atmosphere of this locals-friendly, ex Dockers pub.
"I am not going to bug you" I began, "but your music has meant so much to me down the years. Thank you. That's all I want to say".
Morrissey, for it was he, held out the same hand I shook 13 years earlier on the main stage at Glastonbury, and gave me a low bow. I shook his hand and floated over to Mandie, who was oblivious.
"Who were you talking to?" Mandie enquires. "Oh that?" I say "That's Morrissey".
Quickly dropping any pretence to this being a normal occurrence in The Cuckoo, I informed Mandie that as long as Morrissey was sitting behind me, I wasn't going to be the most attentive company. He eventually got up and left. We eventually got married.
I'm older now, and I'm a clever swine, but they were the only ones who ever stood by me.
6:36 PM
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