Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands

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Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands Page 27

by Will Carruthers


  Finally, I chose a scrap of red leather for the handle, wrapping and cutting it precisely to fit, and then binding the top and bottom edges with green silk cord.

  I strung the bow for the last time, gripped the handle, drew my left arm level with my face and drew the bowstring back to my nose with the fingertips of my right hand. I held it there for a few seconds, enjoying the tension, before returning the string to its resting position.

  I was ready for the test firing, so I rang Peter Prince and we arranged to go out the next day for a little practise.

  We arrived at the car park at Badby Woods near Daventry and unpacked the bows.

  It was a bright summer morning and the dew was still light in the grass as we walked across the low hills beneath the old gnarled oaks and copper beech that stood at the edge of the forest. We found a place beneath the shelter of one of the trees and set up a target against the grassy bank in front of us so that no stray arrows would prang any unsuspecting dog walkers. We strung our bows and nocked up the first of the aluminium-tipped practice arrows.

  Whap, whap, whap. The arrows buried themselves in the bank with satisfying force. It seemed like my bow could sing.

  ‘Nice job, Willie,’ Pete said. ‘Not bad at all for a first attempt.’

  I was pretty pleased with it too.

  We fired a few arrows towards the empty beer can and then turned out towards the open fields for some distance shooting. The arrows looped away from us into the empty green fields and we followed them out, retrieving them from deep in the grass as we went.

  I never used that bow for anything except entertainment.

  In the end, I chose music instead of revenge, creativity instead of destruction, and something else instead of money.

  The making of it had been enough to persuade me that blood, cold or warm, was not the cure for what ailed me.

  It was only business, after all.

  Thoughts on Being a Musician

  As a musician, my greatest struggle has not been with the audience, or with poverty. It has not been with a reluctant muse, or addiction. The strange hours, the many miles, and the days spent working away in lightless, stinking rooms have not dented my resolve. My main problem has not been with illegal downloaders or dishonest managers, or with a greedy and rapacious industry and my own ability to make everything except money. My greatest challenge has been within myself. In the ways I have reacted to these situations. My greatest battle has been with my own bitterness and cynicism. There is nothing worse than bitterness. If you lose your love of music, they get you twice. It doesn’t matter if you are right or if you were wronged, ripped off and left for dead by your companions at the side of the road.

  Bitterness will get you nowhere. It will eat you, beat you and leave you washed out and burned up more than anything else ever could. It will lead you to see the world as a rotten place and your friends as enemies. It will sour every breath you take and leave you coughing ash at the walls of your self-made prison.

  Did somebody take your idea and not give you any credit? Great. You’ve got another one, right? What are you going to do with it, lock it in the attic? You should be glad they took it. That means you can move on to the next one. Get out there, keep losing, learn from your mistakes, and move on. Remember why you started to play in the first place, and if that was for adulation and a Rolls Royce in a swimming pool then maybe you fell for the biggest scam of all. Just remember, reward and praise can be as much your enemies as privation and obscurity. Music is a grand tradition. We keep the night out, we sometimes quieten the angry spirits, and we breathe hope that we must first breathe ourselves.

  Nobody said it was easy, but it gets a whole lot more difficult when you are carrying round a big sackload of grudgeful blame and hurt.

  Remember what music has done for you? All those times a rhythm, a little melody and a few words helped you to understand that you were not alone? You are the crest of a wave, not some lofty pinnacle doomed to tragedy and worship. You are not there to have your arse kissed like a splinter off the deity, or to be kicked around like a dog. Ego trips are horrible and inevitable. Be part of the muck and mire, spread your grateful arms and pour it out. Remember the song that played when you fell in love. Remember when you were so damn angry, and when music turned that rage into a dance and a righteous howl that felt so much better than your mumbling, incoherent hurt.

  This is a noble tradition. I am glad and honoured to have given back a little of what I got from it. I am glad to have given a little to someone who might give a little bit back to someone else someday. If you must lose, lose again, and at least lose gloriously. They don’t call it playing for nothing. Grumpy old fuckers don’t play, and nobody wants to play with them. Start from the end.

  EPILOGUE

  Thanks to the Ghostwriters

  Most of this book was written in an attic room in Zagreb. The window allowed me a view of the whole city and, if I leaned out far enough, I could watch the sun rise and set. There was graffiti on the wall when I arrived that let me know I was in the right place. Written on the white chipboard that faced the bed were the words ‘You can’t kill me I was born dead’. There was also a drawing of a pyramid with an eye in it and the number 33 written close by. The person who had drawn them was not a fan of Spacemen 3.

  I did not set out to write the book I wrote. I wanted to write a funny set of short stories drawn from nearly thirty years of playing in bands. I did not want to revisit some of the difficult moments of those first few years. This book dragged me in. It dragged me back to Rugby and the beginnings of the unlikely journey that led me to Zagreb and all of its heavy stories to live in an attic room in an apartment where an old lady had recently died of cancer. I wrote the bulk of this book in two months, snacking on cheese sandwiches, drinking red wine and mostly demanding to be left alone. I did not want to write about drugs, but then to write a book about Spacemen 3 without drugs in it would be absurd. The woman who lived downstairs was a methadone addict. The war had pushed her into addiction, as it had many people. War and painkillers go hand in hand. Pain and painkillers go hand in hand. Sometimes painkillers are so strong that you forget about what is causing the pain in the first place.

  Many of the events that I describe in this book happened over twenty-five years ago. Many of the people described here have changed in some ways. Some are dead. A couple died during the writing of the book. I guess everybody in the book is different these days.

  It was a long road to Zagreb, to be sitting in the chair of a man who had kicked his own habit after enduring the siege of Vukovar and who then killed himself before he got a chance to meet his beautiful grandchildren. I wrote most of this book sitting in his old armchair. Although it was difficult to write some of it, and to revisit the past, I found that my attitude to the events I described changed as I wrote. I felt like it helped me put the past where it belongs. In the past. What I didn’t like in it, I learned to accept and come to terms with. We were young and we all made mistakes. That’s forgivable.

  We can’t really escape the past, and if we run from it … we’ll spend a long time running. Sometimes the way through is to turn and face the things you are scared of, learn what you can from them, and then try to move on. Those noisy ghosts of memory only want to be heard, and sometimes they aren’t as scary as they seem.

  I had started the year with a painkiller habit I didn’t want. It had caught me at a low point and I felt like I needed it. That old taste is difficult to forget sometimes. I kicked that habit in the spring (with the help of a good friend, a fine dog and a beautiful view). After that, I went out on the road and embraced the changes that I had resisted, with my final intention being to end up in Croatia and write a book. And that is what I did.

  With Thanks to:

  Baldvin Dungal, Kristina Mavar, Kruno Mavar, Don Santos, Iva Ilakovac, Tofa, Uli M. Schueppel, Tino, James Masson, Lee Brackstone, Hannah Bowen, Liz Carruthers, Carole Carruthers, Sue MacDiarmid, Michael Roumen, Bev, Kit and Will
iam, Oscar Van Gelderen, Craig Ferguson, Lorena Casal Iglesias, Anna Hiebsch, Mauer Park, Renata, the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path, Craig Bodsworth, the Druidstone hotel, Philip Wood, Sada Leigh, Sheila Sarup, Þingvallavatn, Gísli Pálmi, Hashi, Heidrun, Teddy, Nairi, Hannah Moorhead, Josh T. Pearson, Paolo Vizio, Greg Jarvis, the Thirteenth Floor Elevators, and everyone I ever played in a band with.

  In loving memory of James Cruickshank, Natty Brooker, Sean Stewart, Rowley Ford and Bill Carruthers.

  About the Author

  Will Carruthers has played the bass in three great, pioneering psychedelic bands, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized and The Brian Jonestown Massacre.

  Copyright

  First published in the UK in 2016

  by Faber & Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  This ebook edition first published in 2016

  All rights reserved

  © Will Carruthers, 2016

  Design by Faber

  The right of Will Carruthers to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–32998–4

 

 

 


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