Set the Boy Free

by Johnny Marr

  When we got to the hospital and the shock wore off I was in agony, and I was rushed into the operating theatre to fix my right arm, which was broken in two places. When the doctors were done I had a huge plaster cast on it, and was told it would come off after six weeks, which meant I’d have it for the rest of the holidays, right up until I started my new school. A nurse said to me, ‘That’s so unlucky, breaking your arm on the first day of the holidays,’ but all I could think of was, How am I going to play the guitar?

  The holidays were torture, as not only could I not play the guitar, but I couldn’t ride my bike either. I’d sit by my record player and listen to a pile of 7-inch singles, but not being able to play along with them was really frustrating. There was one record that came out that summer that I listened to incessantly: ‘Disco Stomp’ by the intriguingly named Hamilton Bohannon. The guitar in it was hypnotic and infectious, and I couldn’t wait to work it out as soon as my arm was healed. Not being able to play meant that I had to focus on something else, so I taught myself vocal harmonies by singing along to The Hollies’ Greatest Hits, which had the added bonus of some good guitar parts by Tony Hicks.

  The day finally came when I could have the cast taken off and start my new secondary school. I left the hospital and walked into class late, wearing the new regulation navy-blue blazer, which the school had just changed from the traditional blue with pink stripes, and which had been the bane of previous pupils’ lives – as well as being known to rival schools as ‘pyjama boys’, the owners of said striped blazer stood out a mile and would often get beaten up for wearing it. I adapted my new uniform so that it looked suitably modern: my tie was as wide as possible and my trousers were 14-inch flares. I also appeared to be much taller than I actually was, as under my flares were shoes called wedges, with giant platform soles, in regulation black.

  I was ambivalent about going to St Augustine’s. On the one hand I was supposed to feel privileged to be there on account of its former academic achievements, which was something the school were never slow to remind you of; but on the other hand all of my friends who hadn’t passed the entrance exam were at the less prestigious and far more appealing St Paul’s Secondary School down the road. The other thing I had a problem with was that St Augustine’s was an all-boys school, and having been around girls all my life it was a bit of a shock and something that took me a while to adapt to.

  The headmaster of St Augustine’s was the infamous Monsignor McGuiness, aka Spike, who had been given his nickname on account of his enormous hooked nose, and was known for liberally dispensing six of the best to boys with a leather strap. He was an imposing barrel of a man who loomed over us in the corridors in his clergyman robes, giving off an air of holy menace and completing the sinister look with his shiny black hair, scraped back in the style of a fat vampire. It was also common knowledge that he was usually very drunk, and you would notice this if you had the misfortune to encounter him. The Monsignor’s title meant that in the Catholic Church he ranked higher than a priest but lower than a bishop, which the school regarded as practically the same as having their own man in the Vatican. That the neighbourhood and therefore the school was becoming more working class was a source of consternation to Spike, and he tried to maintain the appearance of upper-class entitlement and old-style English elitism, despite the fact that the school so obviously didn’t warrant it. The teachers, who were referred to as ‘masters’, were required to wear gowns at all times, with some of the more enthusiastic electing to parade around with mortarboard hats on their heads, like it was Oxford in the 1940s and not actually Manchester in the 1970s. There was also the depressing matter of the school’s reputation for physical violence by teachers on pupils, which I saw plenty of, and the rumours of sexual abuse, which I’d heard whispers about and which was eventually found to be all too true, with at least one teacher convicted and serving a prison sentence some years later.

  I took to the business of grammar school well enough and tried to learn to adapt. For the first time I was around some kids from middle-class and upper-class backgrounds, and I discovered that a nice house and exotic holidays might sound great but privilege can sometimes make you timid. It was also the first time I’d met kids whose parents had divorced, which was something that you never heard of in working-class circles. Some boys were intimidated and I felt sorry for them; I was relieved that I didn’t feel like that myself. After a while I found I was only interested in a few subjects, English literature being one of them. It was inspiring to discover W. H. Auden and T. S. Eliot and to learn about the classics, and I liked something in all of the poetry that we studied.

  The very first art lesson was memorable. The teacher, Mr Addis, started off with an explanation of the Union Jack and why it was such a poor design. I warmed to the theme immediately, having always disliked the national flag for its association with racist skinheads, and viewing it as aesthetically lazy and charmless. Mr Addis then instructed us to design our own national flag, and I took to the task enthusiastically by painting a ship on to a white, blue and maroon background; someone then pointed out to me this was a flag designed entirely for people from Manchester, as the ship signified the Manchester ship canal. The teacher thought it was a good design though, and from then on I would visit the art room as much as possible at break times to paint and to make collages.

  Aside from English and art – and maths, which for some reason I found I was good at – the only other things that engaged me in school were football and music. I got on the football team and was put on the right wing on account of being small and fast. I liked being a winger, it suited my mentality. I enjoyed being speedy and swerving around, getting chased down and chasing something down. I had little interest in being up front in the centre, and was more than happy to leave that to someone else to make a big deal about. I liked the tricky stuff and making something happen, being flash on the side and then setting up your mate up front, and if the centre forward wanted to run around taking all the glory, then fine. To me the winger was cooler, and I felt the same way about guitarists and singers.

  Getting on the football team was a blessing and a curse. It gave you a bit of status and was fun while you were doing it, but it also meant that you had to give up your Saturday mornings to play, something I was not at all eager to do. The games teacher who ran the team was particularly sadistic and took my attitude as insolence. He would go out of his way to single me out and punish me by sending me on long runs, which wasn’t actually a problem for me as I didn’t mind running at all.

  Every so often the bus ride to school would be notable if not downright spectacular because of the presence of one passenger. Wayne Barrett would get on at Sharston Baths and make his way to the back of the bus, wearing a polka-dot blouse and black velvet pants, with a bright green Ziggy Stardust haircut and shaved eyebrows. Aside from his image, he was notorious for being tough and had the distinction of being the only person expelled from St Augustine’s purely for being a badass. I’d seen so-called boot boys and effeminate glam rockers before, but never as the same person. Wayne Barrett was the lead singer of the local band Slaughter and the Dogs, and he walked on to the 371 like he was walking onstage at Madison Square Garden.

  One downside of coming from Wythenshawe was that its reputation for violence was well deserved. You had to watch yourself walking through subways or cutting across parks in case you bumped into the wrong people, and you had to be especially streetwise if you were carrying a guitar. One evening, coming back from a mate’s, I took a detour across some derelict land near my house and saw two hooligans in the distance. They were people I knew but were also the type of guys who would be friendly one day and jump you for no reason the next. As I walked past them, hoping it was one of their friendlier days, I felt a chunk of brick hit me on the back of the head and heard a dull buzz in my ears as another rock hit me on the side of the face. I couldn’t let myself run, something in me wouldn’t allow it, and I knew that if I did they’d come after me and g
ive me a kicking. Blood was coming down from the gash in my head and was all over my hands when I got to my house, and my mother took me to the hospital once again to get my head stitched up. I’d see the guys who did it knocking around, and they both acted like nothing had happened. It was just the way it was.

  My friend Tony was a beautiful creature, another Bowie fan, with a blonde Ziggy haircut, high cheekbones, and green eyes like a Siamese cat. He wore red Oxford bags with white platforms and a black Harrington jacket. Tony was three years older than me and was the first guy I knew who was openly gay. The trends and times meant that boys who looked like girls, and girls who looked like boys, were fairly commonplace, especially if you were into David Bowie, and plenty of straight men were fashionably camp and effeminate. Tony came from a family of three brothers who were all hard and rarely needed to show it. Most people assumed that you shouldn’t mess with Tony, because of his brothers, but they would find out that he didn’t need protecting by anyone anyway. Tony wasn’t camp but he was cutting and had a serene self-possession that gave him a feline poise and inscrutability. A lot of boys found him intimidating, and most of the girls I knew were either in love with him or wanted to be him.

  We were together a lot, and it got some people talking, which didn’t bother me at all – we had a lot of things in common and plenty to talk about. The two of us were in Piccadilly Gardens one Saturday afternoon just after I’d had my hair cut. We were waiting at the bus stop when two big uglies with north Manchester accents came over and started making cooing noises and blowing kisses. I looked at Tony’s face as he continued talking to me, and I could see he was aware of the situation. ‘Eh,’ said one of the lads, ‘are you queers?’ They were obviously up for a fight. I readied myself for the inevitable as Tony continued to talk to me with his back to the goons and appeared to be ignoring their remarks until one pushed him in the back and said, ‘Eh, y’fuckin’ queer.’ With that, Tony grabbed my head and kissed me on the lips for what seemed like a very long time, then spun around and attacked the biggest of the two with really hard punches to the face until the lad went on to his knees. He then grabbed the other guy, who was backing off, punched him very hard in the face and threw him down into the road full of traffic. I thought the guy was going to be killed, and as we ran off towards the train station Tony turned to me and said, ‘That was nice’ and then, laughing, he added, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t do it again.’

  On the train home in my platforms and Budgie jacket, I looked at Tony and thought about ‘All the Young Dudes’: ‘Now Lucy looks sweet ’cause he dresses like a queen. But he can kick like a mule, it’s a real mean team.’ I loved the song, and there was no doubting it, pop music was for me and my friends.

  The first show I ever went to see was Slaughter and the Dogs at the Wythenshawe Forum. Fronted by Wayne Barrett and Mick Rossi, this band were local heroes and had built up a following of kids from all over south Manchester. I got into the show because my friend’s brother was in the support band, Wild Ram, who would soon change their name to The Nosebleeds. Although I was only twelve years old, my parents were relaxed about where I went and assumed I knew what I was doing even if I didn’t. The atmosphere in the Wythenshawe Forum was a riot. Slaughter and the Dogs were introduced by Tony Wilson, who I recognised from being on the TV, and during their set 300 kids threw themselves and each other around in a way that was both dancing and fighting at the same time. I stayed on the outskirts of the fray, just watching it all. Slaughter were exactly what their audience needed, a young band from the same streets who looked like stars, and with a guitar player in Mick Rossi who knew what he was doing and was blazing a trail. Very soon afterwards they changed their style and image, but to me they were best and most true to themselves as street glam kids. I saw them at their teenage peak, and it was a great first show for me to see.

  I don’t know what would have happened had I stayed in Ardwick, because in Wythenshawe there were kids everywhere playing music. Different parts of the estate were represented by fledgling bands with names like Moonchild, The Freshies, Four Way Street and Sad Cafe, and there were at least two bands called Feedback. It may have been the times or because of the sudden migration of kids into the area, but wherever I went I’d hear about someone with a guitar or drum kit. Maybe it was because I was looking out for it, or maybe it was looking for me.

  West Wythy

  ‘I HEAR YOU’RE forming a band – you should get me in on drums.’ That was how Bobby Durkin introduced himself to me. I was happy to have encountered a drummer so easily, and I knew he was good because he told me so: ‘I’m good. Come around to mine on Saturday and we’ll have a jam.’ Bobby was a likeable fella with black Bolan hair and, like me, he came from an Irish family. He was a typical drummer, outgoing and full of energy. This meant that I now needed to get an electric guitar so that I could be heard, and acquiring one became my main preoccupation.

  I had been going into a guitar shop in the nearby town of Altrincham religiously every Saturday so I could be around the guitars and hear the owner’s stories of life on the road as the soundman for The Sweet. I never had the money to buy strings or plectrums, but my devotion to the place was such that eventually the boss, Duncan, let me make cups of tea for him and run out for sandwiches and cigarettes. After several weeks of free labour my persistence paid off and Duncan agreed to give me a discount on a second-hand Red Vox Ace that I’d set my heart on and which happened to be the cheapest guitar in the shop. My mother said that if I got a paper round and saved the money then she and my dad would help out. I delivered papers twice a day and saved up all the money I got, and with my parents chipping in I bought my first electric guitar for £32.

  Dave Clough was the first real guitarist that I knew. He was sixteen and he dressed like his hero Nils Lofgren in scarves and patterned shirts. I’d met him at the youth club, which was the haunt of Claire and her friends and all the switched-on kids. It was known as ‘West Wythy’ – or ‘West Wivvy’ as we all pronounced it – on account of it being held in West Wythenshawe College. Like the fair, West Wythy was a place to dress up and hear music. Open three nights a week, it was a hotbed of hormones and fashion.

  It was important that I got there early, because before the DJ started his set at seven thirty I would hang out with a gang of older boys who stood around the jukebox, playing old records that I wouldn’t hear anywhere else. It had been a while since I’d seen people playing old records, and it was fascinating to watch these older boys make selections in the manner of connoisseurs. I’d look into the jukebox as an old Decca or Track label spun around. ‘Wishing Well’ by Free, ‘Crosstown Traffic’ by Jimi Hendrix, ‘Substitute’ by The Who and, best of all, ‘The Last Time’ by The Rolling Stones introduced me to a musical philosophy and the sorts of records where the guitar was the star. The older guys in West Wythy regarded themselves as real guitar players, and regardless of the fact that I was a little kid they treated me as a junior one of them, and that was something that meant everything.

  There was one kid at West Wythy who didn’t play or sing but was very cool. Andrew Berry had a dark red soulboy haircut and wore peg trousers and a black cap-sleeved T-shirt with the word ‘Roxy’ on it. Growing up with three sisters, he had worked out that the best way to meet girls was to cut their hair, and he was already a great hairdresser by the time he was fifteen. Andrew and I really got along. He was sharp and funny, and he carried himself as if he was a cut above the scruffy musicians. We started to look out for each other, and we would make time to talk whenever we could.

  I needed an amp so I could play with Bobby Durkin, and Dave Clough let me borrow his. It was a nice gesture, and unusual for someone to part with their precious amp for an afternoon. Bobby’s was a lively Irish household, with his little twin brothers running around and his older brother Billy making dry quips about us being ‘on Top of the Pops tomorrow’. I squeezed myself and the amp up the staircase and into the bedroom, and as I stood in front of the drums I plugged
the guitar into the amp. I held the guitar and heard a buzz and a crackle and then Kraanng! I hit the chord and the drums kicked in, and I was playing an electric guitar along with someone else, just like a band. It was happening, I was a real musician. I played with Bobby for the rest of the afternoon. We were rough, but it felt good and I could have carried on doing it all night.

  The word got around about me and Bobby playing, and I soon got a recommendation about someone with a guitar who was interested in playing with us. Kevin Williams lived over the railway bridge on the estate. Lanky and sporting nerdy spectacles, he didn’t quite fit the image of the rock star, but it didn’t bother him one bit as he was a natural showman who gallivanted around the neighbourhood, entertaining everyone with songs and jokes he’d memorised from television and things he had come up with himself. Kevin and I went through some songs from a Beatles book at his house and I saw that he was good, so I started looking for a place for us to practise while coming up with some songs that we could all play.