Punk Story

by Neil Rowland

  Gina looked bashful as she rested her guitar against a speaker. ‘Really? These lads play the songs so fucking fast,’ she commented.

  ‘Right definitely, you can’t stop these blinkin herberts going off like a lot of bloomin trains,’ he commented. ‘No bullshit, like some bullet train with no blinkin handbrake pushed down the fucking hill. But fair play Gina love, this is a new little punk and I was really fucking impressed with how you was playing along,’ Marty said, twisting his anxious mouth in a very encouraging shape.

  ‘I hit a C sharp during Sandwich. Did you notice?’

  ‘C sharp, Gord elp us, no need to rip all your bloomin hair out about that, is there,’ Marty said, not missing an atom of the talent in front of him, smiling widely in appreciation.

  ‘How can you be so positive? Didn’t you listen properly, Mr Gorran? I made so many stupid little errors.’

  ‘Right, definitely, a few mistakes, yeah, but what’s a few blinkin bum notes among these gormless punks?’ Marty jested, crinkling his eyes and exposing his imposing gaggle of ivories.

  ‘The category of music isn’t relevant,’ she replied. ‘Mistakes are mistakes.’

  The rock mogul put a reassuring arm around her shoulders for a moment. ‘Right, definitely Gina, so why don’t you join Mortal and come down to the blinkin Mad Hatter to play their first big club gig?’ he hustled.

  ‘Truth is... don’t know if I have the time, Mr Gorran. Studying... I’ve got to practice for auditions... You know, for music college.’

  ‘Gord elp us, music college!? Straight up, don’t go bloomin studying and rushing into all that blinkin classical music crap, with all those fucking fiddles and stuff. Fair play, where’s all the blinkin fun and money in studying that stuff? You don’t want to throw away this huge fucking opportunity to make a massive splash in the bloomin rock business,’ he advised.

  ‘Well, you gotta appreciate, Mr Gorran that...’

  ‘No bullshit love, have you seen any of those classical music girls driving about in their own blinkin white Jaguar E Type with the fucking hood down on a bloomin country road, before their twenty first birthday?’ he suggested.

  ‘My parents don’t see it that way,’ she explained. ‘They want me to make an honest living from classical music.’

  ‘Straight up, honest, it’s easier to get into that royal fucking family on that bloomin balcony, than to tinkle the blinkin ivories in the Albert Hall,’ Marty argued, showing eye teeth.

  ‘Maybe,’ she agreed. ‘I dunno. But I can’t make any promises about playing with your band.’

  ‘Right, definitely, you want to listen up, cos Mortal’s the best bloomin little kick-arse punk group I’ve heard all bloomin year in the entire UK. And, no bullshit I’m taking em to the blinkin summit of this fucking pop music industry,’ Marty vowed. ‘Or I’m Alvin Stardust.’

  ‘Maybe. Good luck,’ she told him.

  ‘Right, definitely, so you gonna blinkin join them? Or, straight up, you gonna get clamped up into that fucking party frock all your bloomin life?’ he warned, with a doom laden nod.

  The punkette considered. ‘I’ll have to see what dad says. My parents would be disappointed. And I don’t know if I can play punk in front of all those other kids.’

  ‘You’re not recruiting her for anarchy, are you, Lord Cheese?’ Stan shot to the manager.

  ‘Right Stan mate, cos before Gina joined in you lot sounded flatter than a blinkin ‘edge ‘og squashed in the middle of the fucking road.’

  ‘Yeah, right, words of fucking wisdom. What do we want with her? She plays classical piano.’

  ‘What about it? I’m well into punk rock,’ Gina objected.

  Snot was looking furtively up through his thick eyebrows. ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Don’t be so juvenile,’ she said.

  ‘What do you expect?’

  ‘Gina sounded feckin’ good to me, bays,’ Urine added.

  ‘I liked her too, Stan,’ said Nutcase. ‘I want her. I fought she ‘ad a nice voice.’

  ‘You’re the singer, Nut! You’ve got no equal.’

  ‘Okay, so I don’t want to spoil your little party here,’ Gina remarked.

  Snot was doing something to his amp again.

  ‘I only asked Gina along as a friend,’ Anna-kissed insisted.

  ‘Straight up,’ Marty addressed them, more sternly, ‘are you gonna invite her or are you stupider than Ronnie Reagan’s blinkin arsehole? No bullshit, she’s the one difference between being up there in the bloomin charts at number one for six months, or going down to number six after one week at number blinkin fifty nine.’

  Gorran grimaced at the bitter irony of failing to dent the charts for long enough.

  ‘We can’t play my crap tunes,’ Stan pointed out. ‘Now we’ve got her and she can play fucking Gershwin.’

  ‘Right, definitely, but if you want my advice you’ll get Gina into your band faster than a fucking squirrel up a pole. Otherwise, no bullshit lads, I don’t have an ear for blinkin music in the first place,’ Marty winced. ‘Straight up, I must have cut it off and sent it off in the post again in a fucking envelope.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Nutcase said.

  ‘Mind fucking what?’

  ‘I’m not able to full commit anyway. Not yet. I’ll see how my studies go, right? I’ll have a word with my dad.’

  ‘Fucking ‘dad’, listen to it,’ Snot objected. He extracted weird impatient noises from his axe.

  ‘Right you lot, hurry up and run through your last set. Fair play, get this session done, cos I’ve only squared off with Crock for another hour.’

  ‘Come on, punks,’ Stan urged, plugging back in. ‘I’ll try you with another horror story. If I get anything out of this crap guitar. And no backing vocals, Gina. This isn’t a Van Morrison record.’

  ‘Don’t be such a non-musical nob,’ Billy told him.

  There was going to be turmoil. I had a sense of it.

  Mortal had to agree on putting together three chords. Still, I noticed that Stan was enjoying himself, playing with Gina Watson. Why would you start a band, if it wasn’t fun? There was a clash of personalities. Musically they bounced off each other.

  A motley collection of individuals can turn into a great band. Rivalries, tensions, egos can be forgotten as musical chemistry flows. A special group will discover their own sound; and it’s brilliant to feel that happening. I knew that and was privileged to be there. For future audiences, it’s something they want to hear.

  Even by the end of that first session I couldn’t think of Mortal without Gina. She definitely sprinkled a bit of magic dust, and it was hard to remove.

  Snot tried to be difficult. You couldn’t come on as Sid Vicious all the time. Not even Sid Vicious could.

  8. Ob-scene is Born

  As usual on a Saturday, I was busy in my student job at the Co-op Superstore all day. After turning fifteen I got a part time position in the grocery department, and built my hours up from there. The whole building was bulldozed, ‘redeveloped’ and replaced by something cheap and nasty, only a few years after I left. I don’t know if (or how) that was significant.

  Circa ‘Silver Jubilee’ year the Co-op was still the only proper department store in town. For my brother and me, accompanying our mother, it was a romantic adventure just to arrive at the entrance and push through the revolving doors. It was like Selfridges to us. Set over several floors the place looked massive, and stocked everything under the sun. The store even had a customers’ lift.

  If you ascended the carpeted central staircase instead, to the first floor, you would arrive at a very nice cafeteria. A pot of tea for three and an iced bun or a custard tart was my favourite. All those kind old people in flat caps and plastic rain capes, retired factory workers, blue or pink rinses and bad dentures (like orig
inal punks), with big smiles and kind words for the kids, between steam and smoke... What happened to them all? Where did they go?

  If I remember the Co-op cafe was busy, the actual sales floors were comparatively empty. Other than for the presence of staff that was. You’d find at least half a dozen sales assistants, a manager and a deputy manager, for every customer. They’d generally be stood about, waiting to be mobilised. It felt like the communist block except that, either side of the January sales, you never had to queue. This army of assistants would gather together around the impressive wooden counters to enjoy sociable banter. The cash registers were not exactly over worked either. Purchases involved some type of tubular communication system, which fired metal capsules around the building. Whatever it was, it was fascinating for my brother and I to observe. If our mother bought a packet of buttons or a ball of wool for instance, this would trigger some sort of missile launch around the whole building. Eventually, following a suspenseful wait, the projectile would return to base, mission accomplished, containing - not a hydrogen bomb holocaust - but Mum’s change and receipt.

  Occasionally my parents went in for a bigger purchase, such as dining room furniture or beds. Finally, I remember, some be-quiffed bloke in a three-piece suit with a tape-measure, would notice and sashay over to investigate. Chuck and I were fitted here for our new school uniforms, as the summer holiday came to a close. Mum could always count on the price and the quality. Otherwise the superstore was a bit challenged in the fashion sense, even before I started dyeing my hair in bright colours.

  ‘Look at this box-set matching tie and shirt,’ Mum would point out. ‘Come on Paul, try it on. That’s so stylish. Put it up against yourself in the mirror. What’s wrong with it? Stripes suit you. Don’t you like seahorse patterns? What’s wrong with you? That’s smashing that is. You’re not with it. Try it against the red blazer.’

  Then there was our grandma, who’d rustle the sweets section like a hungry horse. She didn’t worry because she didn’t have a tooth in her head.

  As a student worker on groceries I wore a brown overall. It was badly ill-fitting. There was enough play with hot wires and packing machines to satisfy a prog rock keyboardist. In the yard outside there was a storage shed, where Saturday staff lads would huddle between boxes of apples and cabbages. Here they’d keep out of view, chatting and smoking to kill time between tea breaks and going home.

  One particular Saturday I was out labelling, sticking on prices and stacking product trays on display shelves. And who should show turn up on the floor? None other than entertainment chief Marty Gorran himself, like a night creature showing in the day. The Co-op employed him freelance, and his assistant Steve, to create signs and displays around the store. I’d spot Marty at the centre of a shop floor gaggle, including managers and employees, animatedly in conference, offering his creative advice. Or I’d notice the outer atmosphere of his kinky blonde hair, resembling a giant dandelion, bobbing about and moving along over the top of display units; along with the soundtrack.

  Although I rubbed shoulders with Marty socially, I never thought he’d take specific interest in me. Marty had little cause to shop at the Co-op supermarket either, because his local newsagent supplied most of his essential needs. I was startled to find him heading along the aisle towards me, where I was occupied putting fruit on display. And it could not merely be a coincidence, as his face was firing up a five-cylinder grin to burn off any doubts; as if I was his special mate, lost for years: as if the sun was shining out of my arse, and he drew my attention to that miraculous phenomenon.

  I decided to neglect the apples and stuff and find out what he wanted.

  ‘Straight up, I thought I’d catch you down here with the fucking fruit and veg,’ he said.

  ‘It’s my regular date for a Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Yeah, fair play Paul, and I reckon you graduated from that blinkin Nulton Arts College by now, didn’t you?’ He winced affably, while treating me to his undivided attention.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

  ‘Straight up, I was a blinkin student there myself once,’ he reminded me. ‘Gord elp us, it’s been blinkin donkey’s years, more than I care to bloomin think about, since I graduated. Fair play, it must have been round the time of fucking Sticky Fingers getting released,’ he said and beamed ironically.

  Why the sudden charm offensive? I felt uncomfortable to be the centre of this attention. I was a background boy.

  The rock maverick noticed this and changed direction. ‘Gord elp us, I know you an’t going to stick down here forever, with all these bloomin fruit and veg,’ Gorran predicted.

  ‘Well, I hope not.’

  ‘No bullshit, no matter how fucking fresh, you don’t want to make a blinkin career out of it. Straight up, I expect you’re gonna move on with the whole rock ‘n’ roll circus. Cos I knew right away you got bigger blinkin ambitions than bags of bloomin mixed salads and bunches of cut fucking flowers.’ He grinned out affectionately.

  Although I was part of the Co-op romance, I didn’t consider this job permanent.

  ‘Sometimes I envy Stan, cos his parents give him generous pocket money,’ I admitted.

  ‘No bullshit, Bottle, we all need a bit of blinkin loose change to rattle around in our fucking pockets,’ Marty confirmed, refocusing on my dissatisfied expression. ‘And Stan was offered that apprenticeship down at Drew Spiro’s Design Agency in town, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, until he got expelled. Now it’s all off,’ I said.

  ‘Right, definitely, what’s going on there?’

  ‘Stan’s my next door neighbour,’ I boasted.

  ‘That so? Right, definitely, a good lad to have bloomin growing up in the next house along the same blinkin street,’ Gorran agreed. He began to sort out his awkward teeth with the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Yeah, the gig blew his chances of that apprenticeship. He’s never going to find a job... not equal to his talents.’

  ‘Straight up Bottle, Stan wants to be very fucking careful with that blinkin yellow goggled shark, Drew Spiro.’

  ‘Really? So you know this Spiro bloke?’

  Gorran’s glad expression crumbled in uneasiness. ‘Straight up, I wouldn’t trust that Spiro as far as I could fucking spit, after I’d had all my blinkin teeth pulled out.’

  ‘Oh? How would you know that?’ I wanted to know.

  ‘No bullshit Bottle, I’ve done a lot of blinkin jobs for Spiro’s,’ Marty told me. ‘And I an’t planning to get commissioned by Spiro for any more blinkin design work. Fair play, not even a blinkin casual doodle on me serviette at the Chinese takeaway.’

  ‘Oh well, that’s reassuring,’ I considered. ‘Then I should pass that on to Stan, shouldn’t I.’

  ‘No bullshit, get Snot fully blinkin clued up on that dodgy fucking company,’ Marty winked and grinned.

  ‘It was a fantastic gig Mortal Wound played at college,’ I enthused. ‘Almost worth getting expelled for.’

  ‘Straight up Bottle, who needs that qualification when Snot’s gonna get his first blinkin plat’num disc hanging at the end of his fucking bed,’ Gorran argued.

  I must have given Marty a look that said, We agree that Mortal are brilliant, but how does it relate to me? As a brilliant publicist and media-manipulator Gorran instantly picked up on it.

  ‘No bullshit, I was chatting to that Julie Buckle in ‘Women’s’ this afternoon, one of our top fashion designers, when I said it was about blinkin time I spoke to Paul Bottle about going places together in the fucking Nulton music scene.’

  ‘You and me? Together?’ I gawped.

  ‘Right, definitely Bottle mate, we can get all my local bands up in blinkin lights, with the right type of bloomin publicity and press coverage. No bullshit, if there’s somebody who knows his way around the fucking typewriter keys. Somebody who agrees with me that Mo
rtal Wound can make a bigger bloomin splash in this country than fucking Windsor Safari Park,’ he argued, reaching out.

  ‘What’s this about press coverage? How’s that to do with me?’ I asked. I was struggling in the backwash of this media blitz.

  Other Saturday staff were staring suspiciously at us. They wondered what we were chewing about, not being able to connect Gorran to the world of rock and pop yet.

  ‘Straight up Bottle, the band’s gonna need some clever bloomin interviews and articles behind them,’ he persisted.

  ‘All right, but...’

  ‘No bullshit Bottle, this little punk group needs some blinkin media promotion from a sharp little fucking local rock writer. Fair play, that’s where I reckon you come in,’ he suggested. The full-beam grin was at a full stretch. The guru’s eyes twinkled over me as if I was Tom Wolfe in embryo; as if he could see the first cells dividing.

  Who isn’t partial to a bit of flattery?

  ‘Okay, Marty, so you want me to help out? How do I fit in to your company?’

  Gorran’s beam of admiration held me in the circle, like a World War Two searchlight. The idiosyncratic map of wrinkles, dimples and crevices was put into freeze frame. He’d got an amazingly complex dial for a man in his twenties. Part of it was down to the round-midnight lifestyle, or maybe the wear and tear of big ambitions, knowing that it was never an easy road.

  ‘Straight up Bottle, cos our Stan wants you involved and I blinkin well agree with him for once,’ Gorran was delighted to inform me.

  ‘Stan suggested me? I can’t play any instrument or sing either.’

  ‘Gord elp us, Bottle, nobody’s going to ask you to fucking play any bloomin instrument. No bullshit, we’ve already got enough blinkin non-musicians making a fucking noise here in Nulton. Straight up, to get the rats running out of the venues with their bloomin hands over their fucking ears,’ he said, half in jest.

  ‘In punk you don’t need to play well. I just don’t fancy any instrument. So what else can I do?’