On this day …1991 (aged 20)

Scribblings from my diary …

“I’ve started chewing the side of my mouth. And picking at my fingers. And stumbling in to things. Which are sure signs that I’ve got a lot of work on. And I have. And there’s figures, so it’s not exactly very enjoyable. And everyone is in the library. And so am I. (Except when I’m out shopping for the new Curve and Cranes EPs.)”

‘Jewel’ – Cranes (1993)

“Sweet dreams,
I remember it all.
I remembered it all.”

Let’s skip back to this very day 17 years ago. I’m sitting in a small portacabin behind the local library for the beginning of a week-long Jobplan Workshop. Sitting down next to me is a man who will read the Sun newspaper and then disappear at the mid-morning break, never to be seen again. The dozen of us that remain will be taught the wonders of writing a business letter and talking to a potential employer on the phone. Through it all, I will be sitting here thinking only of lunchtime, when I can go down the Rock Box to hunt down the three new limited edition 7-inch singles from the Cranes (including a sparkling Robert Smith remix). Perhaps that’s why I’d been on the dole for two years at this point.

I’ve often wondered how different my life would be if I’d pursued other things as obsessively and devotionally as records. Would I have found a job sooner? Possibly. Would I have had a string of relationships instead of shelves of alphabeticised vinyl? I doubt it. Would I be happier? Who knows.

What I do know is that so many of my memories are linked to music that I can’t imagine my life without it. Even now, looking back at Monday 13 September 1993, I clearly remember the feeling of arriving back to the portacabin after lunch with my bag of Cranes singles. And new CDs by The Cure (Show) and Nirvana (In Utero) also out that day. And the debut Curve album. (I love days like this when you get a flurry of new releases - more than you can sensibly listen to in a day.) I then spent the afternoon longing to go home when I should have been learning about overcoming hurdles in the crowded job market. But it all worked out in the end: it only took me another year to find my first job.

Spotify linky:

Cranes – Jewel

‘Sweetness and Light’– Lush (1990)

“Only to stay, only to breathe, only to see,
That space and light are what I really need.”

Woodstock? Whatever. If there was one event you needed to be at it was the Slough Music Festival (on this very day in 1991). Never before have so many floppy-fringed students gathered in a field to gaze at their shoes all day.

Where’s the BBC4 music documentaries celebrating this seminal event? Slowdive. Curve. Ride. All present and correct. If Betjeman’s friendly bombs had fallen down on Slough that sunny day, Melody Maker and NME may as well have closed their doors for two years.

One band that wasn’t playing (somewhat surprisingly) was Lush. But flame-haired songstress and indie pin-up Miki was there (somewhat unsurprisingly) and I got to shake her hand and say embarrassing things. This isn’t much of a story as I think just about every one who went to a gig in 1990 got to meet Miki. It kinda came with the ticket.

Come 2011, it will be 20 years since we all moshed in a Slough park to Chapterhouse – time to start planning the anniversary festivities methinks.

(This post may seem all very well-timed and cleverly planned, and yes, it is, thank you. In reality though, it’s a complete coincidence as I already had it in mind to write about Slough today and was completely surprised to see it was 19 years to the day when I checked the date in my diary.)

Spotify linky:
Lush – Sweetness And Light