‘I Don’t Wanna Be Friends With You – Shop Assistants (1986)

“Say you want to leave while you still like me.
Is this what you do to the people you like?”

People say that it’s hard to find presents for me. It’s not. Just buy me badges – or buttons, if you’re reading this in the US.

At school, my bag and coat were covered in badges I’d bought in Kensington Market and Carnaby Street. Or made myself, by cutting pictures from the music papers. They always featured the names or album sleeves of obscure indie bands, such as the Shop Assistants. It was all part of my social vetting process. A nod of recognition would spark a lifelong friendship. More often than not though, it was shrugs of indifference from my Bon Jovi-loving classmates. My friend Chris took another approach and would try to antagonise the teachers with badges declaring his love for Gaye Bykers on Acid and Alien Sex Fiend.

Let’s take a peek at my bag and coat today. ‘Home is where the record player is.’ ‘Can’t sleep; clowns will eat me.’ ‘Ninjas are watching you.’ And a fab weather-worn Moomins badge my friend Tarnie made for me (and some woman on a train once wanted to buy).

I recently lost a wonderful Pat Phoenix badge that I’d had since school days. Shop assistants (ooh ... nice bit of symmetry there) would often ask me who it was … and then quickly wish they hadn’t bothered when I used to start recounting tales of 'Coronation Street' from the 1970s. Anyhoo … now you know what to get me for Christmas.

Spotify linky:

The Shop Assistants – I Don't Wanna Be Friends With You

On this day ... 1986 (aged 15)

Scribblings from my diary …

“A new burger bar opens in Frimley. Madden and I get half price off lunch at our usual chippy ‘cos we don’t go to it.”

Now playing: ‘Home’ – Edward Sharpe And The Magnetic Zeros (2009)

“Jade.”
“Alexander?”
“Do you remember that day you fell out of my window?”

You know when you buy a compilation album and a couple of tracks immediately stand out? Yes? And then you put it on again a few months later and a whole new song grabs your ears. That’s what happened here.

Apple’s Genius thingy told me that if I liked The National then I’d probably like to listen to this track from the latest ‘Counter Culture’ collection from Rough Trade. And it was right. As I walked from Farringdon down to Temple t'other night, I listened to ‘Home’ over and over. And then over again. There were tales of adventure and deep longing. There was whistling and tambourines. And a little bit of banter in the middle. I always love a little bit of Nancy & Lee-style banter in the middle. Glorious.

I loved the fact they’d sprung from nowhere that evening and I knew nothing about them. That’s how I want it to stay for a while. I refuse to discover anymore about them. All I need is this song. See if you agree.

Spotify linky:

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Home

'Heroes' - David Bowie (1977)

“I …

I wish I could swim.
Like the dolphins.

Like dolphins can swim.”

Bowie popped up in my life a number of times before he really caught my attention. Not literally, obviously. It wasn’t like I’d be staring out the window in Geography class and he’d be waving furiously at me from the playing fields. Though that would have been cool.

No, the reality was more the odd song on the radio here, the odd Top Of The Pops performance there. But none of them made me want to dip into his music any further. I think this was because my Bowie was 80s Bowie. I’d just missed the real good stuff.

The first time I clearly remember hearing one of his songs was at a disco (yes, kids, a disco) on another dreaded school trip. My first and last disco. The song was ‘Let’s Dance’ which was number one at the time. It stood out because it wasn’t Duran Duran, which was about the only thing the DJ (or Mr Abbott the PE teacher, as he was otherwise known) had been playing all evening.

My second encounter of the Bowie kind was in ‘Labyrinth’. At some point, this film appears to have achieved cult status and everyone in their late 20s seems to love the Goblin King. But at the time I just remember thinking, “Who’s this guy getting in the way of all the ace muppets?”

And then, in 1990, EMI began reissuing all Bowie’s albums as he went on tour to play all his big songs (except ‘The Laughing Gnome’) one final time. (And then one final time again a few years later. And then again a few years after that, etc.) At this time, Chris Roberts (my favourite music journalist then and now) wrote a review of the ‘Sound And Vision’ greatest hits collection in Melody Maker that I can still picture to this day. I’ll thank him now for it. The way he wrote about ‘Heroes’ made me want to immediately hear early Bowie. And he even brought new depths to later songs I’d already heard, such as ‘Blue Jean’. I went out that lunchtime at college and began building my Bowie collection. Yep, even the 'Labyrinth' soundtrack is in there. But that’s another post.

Spotify linky (the full length album version):

David Bowie – Heroes

On this day ... 1991 (aged 20)

Scribblings from my diary …

“Help Lara with an English essay on dreams. I make up a simply stupid story about a pillow that fills your head with dreams, but it obviously goes wrong and the person using it never wakes up.”

Frank Sidebottom (1956 - 2010) RIP

Sodden nights in Berkshire fields. Sticky donut sugar fingers. Stench of burning polystyrene. Watching a man with an over-sized papier-mâché head sing to a hand puppet with a matching papier-mâché head. “Guess who’s been on Match of the Day.” The raucous crowd chants back: “You have! In your big shorts!” These are some of my fondest memories of the Reading Festival in the late-1980s.

Frank Sidebottom defines ‘one-of-a-kind’. Unless you count little Frank. Which we should. So, ok … ‘two-of-a-kind’. His annual Reading Festival appearances in the comedy tent made me and my friend Chris huge fans. And when he began popping up on Saturday morning telly shows such as ‘Number 73’, I could finally share his genius wonky-voiced comedy nonsense and hatstand bobbins pop covers with my younger sister. ‘Bemused’ would probably be the kindest way to describe her reaction.

It’s been over a decade since I last saw Timperley’s finest on stage, but I always hoped one day I’d share another sugary sweet donut and rainy Reading night with him. Sadly, that’s not to be as Frank Sidebottom (real name, Chris Sievey) collapsed and died at home in Greater Manchester today, after recently recovering from treatment to a tumour on his chest.

Frank, we dearly miss you. “You know we do. We really do.”


Spotify has yet to recognise the mighty Frank, so we turn to YouTube for two tip-top live clips:

‘Manchester Medley’
http://tinyurl.com/dfwwtp

‘Hit The North’
http://tinyurl.com/3xx9sue

'Little Star' - Stina Nordenstam (1994)

“You must have wanted him to know.
You must have wanted the world to know.”

On the first day of my first job, I was savaged by a table of directors at ‘a big British energy company’ for a documentary script that wasn’t mine. It wasn’t the comfortable day of settling in to life in a Soho video production company that I had imagined. I should have taken it as a warning of things to come.

My new boss (the one who thought I looked like a penguin snatcher) had in fact written the script, but knew they weren’t happy so I had been sent in with instructions to pretend it was mine. It was a gruelling hour of four old men looking dismissively at me while I had to nod along in silent acceptance of every mistake I hadn’t made.

I arrived back at the office with my new pad full of notes and amends which I handed to my boss so he could crack on with a new draft. But it seemed that wasn’t the plan. This was now my project and was to be my first script. And I had two days to turn it around.

Sixteen years later, I’m actually grateful for having such an eventful introduction to life as a writer. It makes you pretty fearless. And my revised draft got the thumbs up, which was a big confidence boost. But at the time, the only bright point to the day was buying Stina Nordenstam’s new album ('And She Closed Her Eyes') at Selectadisc and hearing this exquisite song. I’d need many more songs like this to get through the next five years in that job.

Spotify linky:

Stina Nordenstam – Little Star