I don't really want to begin this by getting all
philosophical, but I will allow myself this slight indulgence. The philosopher
David Hume suggested that what we call personal identity, a sense of unified
self, is an illusion. Instead we are mostly a 'bundle of perceptions'. Think
about yourself right now - you are perceiving a multitude of things (the screen,
words, cold, perhaps even breathing) but there is nothing that could really be
understood as your self - an identity holding it all together. Anyway, I say
this as a means of introduction and a rationale. When I look back on my teenage
years - or almost any years beyond the most recent - all I have a bundle of
largely fragmented memories, but nothing that quite holds it together beyond
the fact that I have them. There are huge gaps - gaps not only of the mundane,
but also of people, events, places.
And this bothers me. I have recently joined a Facebook group
populated by people that I was very close to for a couple of years. Names and
photographs are appearing and I am struggling to unearth their significance. I
feel bad about this. People have done me the service of remembering me. I have
not done the same. Not out of malice or disregard (not consciously anyway), but
those memories have simply deteriorated. So I thought that I would write what I
remember down. Perhaps once I have done so, others, if they are interested and
kind enough, might be able to fill in a few of the gaps - do a little excavation
work. I am certain that hidden in my mind are the people, events and places
that were all so incredibly important to me for a time.
As I set out on this task I am very aware that this will not
be very interesting to anyone, perhaps even myself. Maybe one or two people
will read it out of sheer boredom. So why do it? I figure that the only way to
properly unearth these memories is to approach them systematically. It is only
by going into the nooks and crannies of what I do remember, that I will
remember more. If I rely on my occasional ruminations then it is unlikely that
much will come, and that which does will fade away as soon as it emerges.
Aside from potentially boring people to tears, I want to
apologise in advance for all the people that I have forgotten, or have failed
to give a proper place to. Should anyone read these and feel slighted, I ask
that you prompt me - take me to task. Again, I am confident that it is all in
there - all that is needed is the appropriate stimuli.
So, to begin....
My teenage years begin properly in the months leading up to 5th
July 1986, while I was still 15. I will skip any long introduction to this
period at this point. As and when it is required, I may digress, but for the
time-being it will suffice to note that my birthday is in October, so at this
point I was 15. I grew up in the posh end of Garston, but had lived for a time
in New Zealand and London between the ages
of 9-11. I went to New
Heys Comprehensive
School
If there is a hero of the piece (or villain if you happen to be my Grandmother), that honour goes to Justina Heslop. Through a church youth
group in Aigburth, I had met Justina somewhere around 83-84. In that clumsy
pre-teenage fashion we had gone out for about six months. For reasons that are
utterly lost, and probably worthless even then, we broke up and lost contact.
Life went on. Somewhere towards the end of 1985 or beginning or 1986, I
realised that I had left something important at Justina's house and I wanted it
back. It was a Frisbee and accompanied by Ian Webster, a friend from school, I
went to her house to retrieve it. Her mother answered the door, greeted me and
invited us in. She called up the stairs to Justina, who stuck her head over the
bannisters to see what the matter was. What I saw was a shock of black and
white.
In the time since I had seen her last, Justina had become a
goth. I did not really know what this was or what it entailed, but it evoked a
significant change. She invited us upstairs and we sat in her room for a little
while before claiming the Frisbee and moving on. Before we left, however, we
spoke about the clutch of records that littered her room. I had been into music
since early childhood, but these were bands I did not know at all and I was
intrigued. There were albums by Bauhaus, The Cramps, The Cult etc. Justina
played me odd tracks by some of these - most notably 'Rose Garden Funeral of
Sores' from Bauhaus' 'Press the Eject'.
My own tastes, while nowhere near so refined, were fairly
broad and had left me receptive to new things. Of course, I had a general
appreciation of the pop music of the period but there was plenty beyond it. Through
my childhood, I was a fan of Blondie and New Wave bands in general. Thanks to
my uncle, who was at that time a big fan NWBHM, I had been exposed to a variety
of metal bands. While he preferred the more technically proficient end of the
spectrum, I gravitated towards Black Sabbath and Motorhead. Thanks to my parents,
classic 60s and 70s rock and soul were covered. I had recently developed a
particular fascination with Jimi Hendrix. Beyond this, I had begun to be aware
of music beyond these parameters; I had fallen in love with the aesthetic of
Strawberry Switchblade, and, not unrelated, had found myself oddly drawn to
'Swimming Horses' by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Even though I had little notion
about what these hairstyles related to, I was intrigued.
So when I heard these records of Justina's, I was hooked. I
quickly got back in touch with her again. She kindly arranged for her boyfriend
of the time, some older kid called Gary
from the Wirral, to do me some tapes. Over the course of the following weeks,
the following albums were acquired, either by tape from Gary or by going to the WHSmiths on Allerton Road and
seeing what was in the budget pile:
Alien Sex Fiend - Acid Bath
Bauhaus - Press the Eject and Give Me The Tape
Cabaret Voltaire - Red Mecca
Elvis Costello - King of America
The Cramps - Off the Bone
The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
The Cult - Love
The Damned - Phantasmagoria
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - Paint Your Wagon
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Audience Participation
Version)
These albums formed the starting point of a new chapter of
my life. But the real point of change occurred when Justina rang me a few weeks
later to tell me of an upcoming Peter Murphy gig at the Liverpool Royal
Court Theatre
No comments:
Post a Comment