Getting High

by Paolo Hewitt

  ‘Look,’ Bonehead said, ‘the man needs his own gaff. He’s Liam Gallagher and he needs somewhere. I’ve got a house, it’s my house and it’s got an attic and I’m going to give it to him. Here you are mate, here’s a key, here’s your place. ‘Cos he’s right. We’ve all got places where we can get away from the madness. He hasn’t. He’s permanently on tour.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Marcus agreed.

  ‘I’m going to get him sorted,’ Bonehead vowed. ‘We’ll get in the car and I’ll take him round. You want this gaff? Here, have it. He’s unhappy and that’s not right. He’s my mate and he’s not acting like the person I know. He’s unhappy. We’ll sort it out.’

  Bonehead drained the last of his lager and then left for the after-show party.

  Noel who had been half-asleep throughout the whole incident now motioned to Meg that he wanted to get on the coach. He stood up shakily and he and Meg left, accompanied by Kevin. That left Emma and Johnny in the room.

  Emma shook her head. ‘I knew it was wrong to give them those Christmas presents,’ she said, ‘they should have all got the same thing. Noel shouldn’t have been singled out.’

  Liam meanwhile had walked out of the venue and got on the coach. He went up the stairs and then in a fit of fury he started smashing the back room up, kicking this, punching that. When he had finished, when the demon inside had subsided, he broke open a can of beer, sat down and glared out of the window.

  His brother meanwhile lay on a cot bed downstairs, exhausted and sick.

  Finally, everyone was on board and the coach began the all-night drive to Edinburgh. As it passed the Windsor Hotel, Tracey was stood at the bar telling some girlfriends about the day Liam Gallagher had chatted her up.

  ‘He’s so tall, and those eyes of his,’ she said.

  ‘I like Noel,’ said her friend, ‘he’s cute.’

  A boy standing by the bar heard them talking.

  ‘Bollocks,’ he sneered. ‘Those Gallagher boys have got it fucking lucky.’

  The Downside of Smoking Pot

  On 22 February 1995, the week that (What’s The Story) Morning Glory? stood at five in the US charts, Noel Gallagher took over Gary Crowley’s show on Greater London Radio for one night.

  NOEL: ‘Good evening, it’s Thursday night, it’s ten o’clock, you’re listening to Noel Gallagher on 94.9FM. For the next two hours we’re going to be talking to somebody who isn’t very important and you’re going to be listening to someone who is very important play his favourite music.’

  Noel then plays ‘Anarchy In The UK’ by The Sex Pistols, ‘Helter Skelter’ by The Beatles, ‘Tramazi Parti’ by Black Grape and ‘Jimmy James’ by The Beastie Boys.

  NOEL: ‘...And we’re going to be talking to a mate of mine in a bit. His name is Digsy, he’s been titled in the press as the Great White No Hoper, he’s in the most unimportant band in Britain, he’s going to be playing a few tunes later and hopefully we’ll get him out of the studio without him pinching everything. That might be quite hard.’

  Noel then plays ‘Fight The Power’ by Public Enemy, ‘Get Your Rocks Off’ by Primal Scream and ‘Alright’ by Cast.

  NOEL: ‘If you were reading the press a few weeks ago, John Powers, who’s the singer out of Cast, was apparently visited by an alien who came into his bedroom and started mumbling, “Human, human, human.” [pauses] That’s the downside of smoking pot, kids. Just say no! We’re going to move on with a band that is on my record label, which I actually own now; it’s Creation Records and a band called Heavy Stereo. And when you listen to those DJs on the radio-stations who seem to know a lot about these bands what you have to remember is that they have these stickers on the back of CDs which say things like [adopts a DJ style voice] ‘”Chinese Burns’ is Heavy Stereo’s third single and the follow-up to ‘Sleep Freak’, and ‘Smiler’, and was recorded along with the rest of their as yet untitled debut album at Ray Davies’s Konk Studios.” Like anyone cares where it was recorded. Anyway, this is “Chinese Burns” by Heavy Stereo.’

  Afterwards,

  NOEL: ‘I’ve just been told by my mate Arthur who’s actually quite famous because he’s on the cover of a video which is about football hooliganism, if there’s any police officers listening out there, the geezer with the old 1980s England top and with a golfball stuck to the top of his cheek, shouting, “Enger-land, Enger-land, we’ll take them on the beaches,” well, he’s a geezer called Arthur and he’s just told me that if you ever want to get your kids to go to school, the best thing to give them is a Chinese Burn. That’s not a cocktail, it’s when you pull up the sleeves to your elbow, and you grab a wrist with both hands and you twist your hands really hard in an anti-clockwise and clockwise motion – to all you students out there, that’s one back and one forward – and apparently they go off to school without a word out of them and they become proper car thieves. That’s what I’ve heard. Anyway, next up we’ve got Northern Uproar, but if you come from down here it’s Northern OOP-Roar.’

  Noel plays ‘From A Window’ by Northern Uproar.

  NOEL: ‘Next up we’re going to play three tracks, and these are by yer Mod bands, you see, these are your Mod groups.’

  Noel plays ‘The Riverboat Song’ by Ocean Colour Scene, ‘Out Of The Sinking’ by Paul Weller and ‘The Comfort Of Grace’ by Dr. Robert.

  NOEL: ‘That was yer Mod squad and this is music.’

  Noel plays ‘This Is Music’ by The Verve.

  NOEL: ’And I’ve got with me – I wouldn’t say he’s my best mate but he’s one of them – Digsy from Smaller. Would you like to tell the listeners out in radio-land about your group and what you haven’t been up to?’

  DIGSY: ‘Okay then, I didn’t batter my kids yesterday, I didn’t take them to school. But I’ve written some great songs.’

  NOEL: ‘Have you? So you’ve got a new single coming out on Better Records – it’s getting better all the time, kids – but when’s your album corning out?’

  DIGSY: ‘I don’t know, mate.’

  NOEL: ‘Don’t you think you better find out?’

  DIGSY: ‘Well, probably end of summer.’

  NOEL: ‘Now there’s a rumour being spread around here – it’s not the one about you wearing false breasts – but you were in a group called Cook The Books. Is that right?’

  Digsy remains silent.

  NOEL: ‘All you sad students will probably know who Cook The Books are, and Digsy was actually on Top Of The Pops before I was, if you can believe it or not.’

  DIGSY: [now animated] ‘Why are you telling them that for? C’mon. Jesus wept.’

  NOEL: [laughing] ‘I have to. It’s going to get exposed in the ##News Of The World sooner or later. So it’s better coming from me, isn’t it? I tell you now, kids, if you’ve got any Cook The Books records, • keep hold of them. They’re going to be worth at least... four or five pence in six years time. You’re embarrassed now.’

  DIGSY: I’m not embarrassed. I’m stunned.’

  NOEL: ‘Now the other rumour is that when they have open-day at his school, he has to borrow the kids next door.’

  DIGSY: ‘I do, I do. It’s not my fault they’re ugly.’

  NOEL: ‘It’s not my fault, either.’

  DIGSY: ‘It better not be.’

  NOEL: ‘Live radio kids!’

  Noel plays ‘God I Hate This Town’ by Smaller and ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ by The Stooges. Digsy then plays an acoustic version of his song ‘He Loves You’.

  NOEL: ‘I’ve got in here a young chap, and this is the first time he’s been on the radio since the last time he was on the radio, and the last time he was on the radio he was big, and I mean big. Huge! Robbie Williams, how are you?’

  ROBBIE: ‘I’m a bit tired actually because I spent the weekend with your brother.’

  NOEL: ‘You weren’t going in any toilets, were ya? Because he’s apt to go into toilets when the ##News Of The World are kicking about... So what have you been up to? Since you got sacked
!’

  ROBBIE: ‘I’ve been blaming you and your brother ’cos it all happened after Glastonbury.’

  NOEL: ‘I know it did. But it wasn’t our fault.’

  ROBBIE: ‘It was your fault.’

  NOEL: ‘No, no, no.’

  ROBBIE: ‘It was your fault. I went in and said, “Lads, I’ve had a great time. I met Oasis.” And they went, “You’re sacked!”’

  NOEL: [serious tone] ‘I’d just like to say to all the Take That fans listening... We planned it! We split them up! Seriously now, are you going to put some records out or are you just going to ponce about?’

  ROBBIE: ‘No, I’ve done the ligging for eight months now so I’ve got to come out with a record now. It’ll be out in about a month’s time. I hope.’

  NOEL: ‘Now, I keep reading in the papers that I’m actually writing it for you. Is it any good?’

  ROBBIE: ‘It’s top. You’ve come out with a banging tune.’

  NOEL:’ A banging tune? Is it the one with the saucepan lids?’

  ROBBIE: ‘That’s the one.’

  NOEL: ‘It’s a smash then.’

  Noel then plays ‘Aquarius’ by Fifth Dimension, ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon (‘What do you mean it sounds like “Don’t Look Back In Anger”? That’s out of order. He had us over. I’m telling ya.’), ‘Jet’ by Wings, ‘Come Together’ by Desmond Dekker And The Israelites (‘except none of them came from Israel’), ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ by The Stone Roses, and ‘Staying Out For The Summer’ by Dodgy.

  Digsy then plays an acoustic version of his song ‘Just As Bad’, and Noel continues with ‘Eton Rifles’ by The Jam, ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ by The Who, before Paul Weller arrives to play an acoustic version of The Style Council’s ‘Down In The Seine’.

  NOEL: [clearly bluffing] ‘You don’t need me to tell you what that song was. Here’s one of the other great British songwriters ever.’

  Noel plays ‘Waterloo Sunset’ by The Kinks.

  NOEL: ‘I’d like to thank everyone who’s been on the show tonight. That’s Diddly Digsy Dairy from Smaller, Robbie Williams from the dole office, and Paul Weller from the top of the tree. This is Noel Gallagher saying thanks for listening and if I didn’t play your record that’s because it’s crap! This is “Tomorrow Never Knows” by The Beatles.’

  PART TWO

  Seven

  A cow. A fucking cow. The geezer wants to steal a cow. Can you believe it? Paul McGuigan and Noel Gallagher sit in a Manchester flat above a butcher’s shop and exchange amused glances.

  Tonight, no one in this room has any money. Not a penny. They have no spliff, no cocaine, no mushrooms, not even enough to buy a stick of glue to rub under their noses. One of the elder boys has already questioned everybody.

  ‘You sure you haven’t got any spliff, Guigsy. You’re fucking mad for it, you pothead. Come on, you must have some.’

  ‘I haven’t, I swear.’

  ‘Don’t fucking lie.’

  ‘Look, search me if you want.’

  The TV is silently flickering in the comer, the curtains are pulled and there is music playing in the background.

  The mood is depressing, claustrophobic and is only broken when this guy, the one with the disturbed eyes, suddenly comes out with this hare-brained scheme to procure some much needed cash.

  ‘Here are, here are, how about this? We go up to the abattoirs, break in and nick a cow. We take it away, kill the fucker and then tomorrow morning take it down to the butchers and sell it. How top is that idea? Plus,’ he excitedly adds, ‘later on we can sell its skin as leather.’ A couple of the guys look up eagerly. ‘Yeah, up for that one. Right, who can steal a car?’

  Noel wearily raises his hands. Ten minutes later, when it’s all gone silent again, Guigsy and Noel make their excuses and leave.

  ‘They’re fucking nutcases,’ Noel says as they tramp home.

  ‘I know,’ agrees Guigsy. Then he reaches into his pocket.

  ‘Here, Noel.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Got a bit of spliff, here.’

  ‘Top fucking man.’

  Paul McGuigan was born in Manchester on 9 May 1971. His father, Gerard McGuigan, was from Belfast, and had arrived in England on the same ferry as the young footballer George Best, who was nervously returning to Manchester United.

  A few weeks previously, Best had walked out of United suffering from homesickness. After a brief spell in Belfast, Matt Busby, the United manager who signed him, had persuaded him to return.

  Guigsy’s father knew the brilliant winger but, as a fully paid-up Manchester City supporter, he wasn’t overawed by Best’s mercurial talents. But the men were friends. Indeed, some Sunday afternoons when Guigsy was a small child, Best would occasionally visit the McGuigan household where he would try to give Guigsy his United shirt, but Gerard would have none of it. He saw Best’s ‘kindness’ for what it was, a wind-up.

  ‘Best was always trying to get my dad at it,’ Guigsy recalls. ‘But,’ he regretfully adds, ‘I could have had his shirt.’

  One time, Best gave Gerard a leather football signed by all the Manchester United players. Guigsy was told to take it outside and kick it against a brick wall until the leather became so scuffed, the autographs were illegible. Only then was the ball allowed to stay in the house.

  On his arrival in Manchester, Gerard had met a young girl called Teresa.

  They married and settled down in the Levenshulme area. Guigsy was their first child; a sister, Mary, following two and a half years later.

  When Guigsy was but three and a half years old, Gerard took his son to see Manchester City play. ‘There you are, son,’ Gerard said, ‘that’s your team.’

  Gerard’s ambition for his son was simple. He wanted him to play professional football.

  To that end, he would take his naturally right-footed son to the park and tie his right leg in three different places to a young sapling tree. Then he would pass a ball to his son. The point of this exercise was two-fold; to shape Guigsy into a complete footballer by becoming two-footed, and thereby emulate the playing style of Rivelino, the great Brazilian player that Gerard idolised.

  When Guigsy started playing in football matches, he played left midfield. And he was good. Very good. He had balance, skill with both feet and instinctively knew how to read the game.

  He also excelled at other sports, all of them ball games, such as squash, badminton, tennis and basketball. He represented his primary school, Chapel Street, at badminton and went on to play for Manchester.

  At nine years of age he started boxing. Being short and stocky, he found it hard to box taller opponents who could keep him at bay with their longer reach. But the sport taught him how to land effective punches. It was a skill that would prove to be very useful in his later years with Oasis.

  His secondary school was Burnage High School. This was an all-boys school, one of the biggest in the Northwest. There were about 1,500 pupils and the school was divided into two sites.

  But a family tragedy interrupted Guigsy’s schooling. When he was eight years old his father was diagnosed as having cancer of the stomach. The doctor gave him six months to live. Gerard died four years later.

  ‘He had it for a long time,’ Guigsy says, ‘and in the end you want if to end. He went down to six stone and he was in hospital for a long time. When he came home I didn’t really want to see him in that way.’

  With the passing of his father, family life changed dramatically. If there was one lesson his parents gave their children it was that in life you can do anything you want to do. All you have to do is put your mind to it because nothing in life is impossible.

  Now, following her own advice, Guigsy’s mother, Teresa found work as a dinner lady and also enrolled at Fielding Park college. She took a year’s refresher course designed to ease people back into studying, and later studied sociology, ending up three years later with a degree. She then found employment with British Telecom.

  Mary McGuigan was also ac
ademically inclined. She left school with ten 0-levels and four A-levels. She went on to university where she gained an English Literature degree.

  Guigsy would pass five 0-levels. But not before he found himself suspected of murder. In 1985 a young Asian kid was stabbed to death at his school. As Burnage High was made up of predominantly Asian children, the murder was seen as racially motivated.

  While the police investigated, Guigsy and six of his friends were suspended from school. They were made to sit their exams in a special building. The mothers of all the suspected children mounted a campaign, later successful, to have their children reinstated. Six months later a report, the Macmillan report, exonerated Guigsy and his friends of all wrong-doing.

  Guigsy had always been a bit of an outsider at school. Through excelling at sports, he had come into contact with a lot of older boys and preferred their company. This trend carried on in his teenage years. One year, he bought a scooter, a white Vespa 50 but with a 125cc engine.

  On a ride back home, it broke down. Guigsy was fixing it by the side of the road when a member of the Manchester Aces, a local scooter club, pulled up to assist him.

  It was through this connection that Guigsy was exposed to Northern Soul music, Motown and Stax. The rawness of much of this music directly appealed to him.

  At school most of his friends were into The Smiths or Bronski Beat. Their clothes were correspondingly quite drab. In contrast, the neatly attired Guigsy would drive into school on his scooter and enthuse about Marvin Gaye or early Who albums. Through his parents, he was also conversant with The Beatles and a lot of 1960s pop music.

  They regularly received, through a mail-order scheme, a series of LPs that featured 1960s chart hits. Each year would be represented on either side of the record. There was also a copy of The Beatles’ compilation Love Songs in the house, which Guigsy’s mum played every Sunday morning while doing the housework.

  But, as with Noel, music wasn’t an overriding obsession at this point in his life; football took precedence.

  Guigsy followed City religiously. He attended all their matches, home and away and at night, he dreamt of fulfilling his dad’s ambitions.