by Neil Rowland
‘Cheers, Dennis mate! Really sound. I ‘n’ I says crucial!’
‘Okay, Paulie man, it all sound cool to me.’
‘Meantime I’ll get my group rehearsal time booked. How long do you think it’ll take? Maybe a couple of hours or so, mate?’
The drummed believed this was a droll comment. He threw back his head and laughed richly at the reporter’s witty repartee.
‘This feels good, Paulie man. We likes the relax’ character!’
If only he’d noticed the reporter’s bafflement. But as leader (song writer and vocal genius) Paulie had to deal with these eccentric musician types, (so he reasoned with himself). ‘All right then, Dennis mate, so I’ll take down your home telephone number. Roy and me don’t have a home telephone yet. So here’s my office number, mate. Top secret. If you get through to another journalist don’t mention anything about me moonlighting in a band.’
‘Your secret’s safe with me, man.’
‘My bloody sub-editor will get on my back. Maybe it’s best to wait ‘til you hear my voice, before you say anything.’
‘All right, Paulie, I got it clear,’ the drummer assured him.
Wellington pouted thoughtfully. ‘Then I’m looking for some girl backing singers. Any ideas about that? Maybe two or three... or even four, if they’re really good.’
The drummer’s eyes widened. ‘Four girls, man?’
‘Phoo, yes, why not, mate? Why not, if this is a feminist band? Yeah, if they are really clued up, with great stage presence, mate.’
The sticks genius pondered. ‘Okay, Paulie man, let me have a think... I took down yer number. Get on the blower, when you got it all worked out.’
‘Great, cheers Den! I ‘n’ I says get playing. So what kind of reggae sound do you make, mate?’
Paulie has orgasms as Dennis checked off Bob Marley, Gregory Isaacs, Bunny Wailer, the Twinkle Brothers and other classics; or closer to home, Steel Pulse and Aswad.
‘Dennis is mates with Eddie Grant,’ Snot put in. ‘Well, Dennis played bass on some early recordings a’his.’
‘Crucial.’ Wellington stared with numbed awe at the global recording star in front of him.
‘No need ta mention that, Jon man. I just puts down a few lickle lines on Eddie’s demo tracks.’
Not long after Paulie noticed a girl in the pub and left with her. Their eyes had met across the bar room, he made over there, almost before we could notice. After a quick conversation between the pair of them, a snog and a hug, she was putting her coat back on to leave. This scene put my young ego (and zero experience) into traumatic meltdown. Smithy witnessed the same horrifying scene. Our panicked glances met:
- Did you see that?
- Unfortunately I did, marra!
- But he doesn’t know the girl
- That’s the score, comrade
- She’s never seen him before
- Nothing new, comrade
- Didn’t even speak to her
- Ai, he doesn’t need to say anything mind!
- So how often does this happen?
- All the time, marra!
- Terrible! Shocking!
- Nothing we can do about it, marra
My brother Chuck always goaded me about never finding a girlfriend. I didn’t have my older sibling’s little red book, only a catalogue of humiliation. How long did I intend to be stuck on zero?
This was a nightmare for The Smith and me. We’d watch Paulie scoring and scoring again, night after night, like Pele in a testimonial match.
***
Short of Paulie’s company we all decided to go for a curry. That evening, it was Stan, Roy, Dennis, Fiona (the drummer’s girlfriend) and me. Roy had his final DHHS Giro through and he wanted to treat us all to a meal. That was typical of the revolutionary. There was never a more generous and self-less lad - he lived up to the left wing propaganda. Around this time he’d applied successfully for a job at the Inland Revenue Office. Even if you disagreed with Trotsky’s take on socialism (and everything else) you had to admit Roy was true to his word. He didn’t talk politics with the Inland Revenue. The topic hadn’t come up at interview. After the revolution he’d probably be Chancellor of the Exchequer anyway.
We took our window table at The Star of the Taj Mahal restaurant in town. We ordered Tiger beers and began to leaf through the menus, ceremoniously handed to us by Bangladeshi waiters.
‘Away, comrades! Choose whatever you want tonight. Come on, have a proper read. Fill yer boots, lads. Enjay yourselves. Here’s to the revolution!’ Smith declared, a bit inebriated.
A crackly tape of Raga music was playing, so it was a good place to talk about punk and revolution.
I’d warmed to Roy - with his political principles and obsession with Doctor Who and Star Trek. As a fellow flatmate I could easily tolerate Paulie. I was determined to take the spare room, assuming I could find another lad to move in with me.
‘Yeah, Fi-ona, so this boy comes up to me, an’ he begins tellin me how he’s got dis lickle band startin up. How he wants me to come back and play some drums for him.’ Dennis is explaining the situation to Fiona.
‘That’s wonderful. You can start playing with a band again. A long time since the Kingston Klingons broke up,’ Fiona said.
In truth she was a dead straight kind of girl; the type that danced around her handbag at the Flamingo. Course she must have liked the reggae and Ska sounds too.
‘Yeah, Fi, like he wants another boy to come in an play riddum, so I thought like I was ‘vailable... and it’d be nice and relaxed to mek some music agen with this boy’s group like,’ he said. ‘So I tells this cat to tek down me ‘oome number an keep in contac’. The plan is that we start rehearsin soon as possible and put down some wicked tunes.’
Nobody wanted to disillusion the lad. We’d have to leave that to Paulie.
‘Bottle, mate. Did you know Les Phoenix got a big support slot for Betsy Dandie?’ Stan told me. ‘She and the Screamers are gonna open for Pat Benatar.’
‘No? They pulled that off?’
‘They’re the first act on the UK leg of the fucking European leg of the World tour,’ Snot explained.
‘Straight up?’
‘That’s what the big cheese told me. Just be grateful they’re not giving out free tickets.’
‘Right, definitely,’ I said, with a laugh.
Stan’s punk sneer cut through the restaurant’s subdued lighting and chintzy red atmosphere.
‘Make sure you’re not a hundred miles of the concert hall. You’ll be able to hear her play Birmingham from fucking Coventry,’ he predicted.
‘You’d expect a good PA at that venue,’ I said.
Anyway, main courses were served. We lost further track of those real life boring issues, such as work, money and somewhere to live. Discussing new bands, the local punk scene, the SWP and watching Smith’s glasses steam up, we forgot about our problems. Dennis insisted that, with his thunderous, metronomic style, he could back any singer, even Paulie (who allegedly only sung badly in the bath).
Unfortunately this lively varied conversation was cut short. We had to recoil, to cover our faces, because the glass of restaurant’s front window shattered over us. There was hardly time to gasp or to scream or comment. The big pane broke over us in dangerous pieces like an enormous jigsaw puzzle. There was a variety of lethal bits around us; fragments in our hair, in our meals and sticking out of fingerbowls and wine glasses.
After a delay of disbelief and confusion, Fiona - a secretary at BHS - screamed out hysterically and shook glass from her hair. Dennis, raised gingerly to his feet again, gaped in shock through the empty space where the window should have been (used to be).
Smithy was stunned breathless: he trembled violently from head to foot, juggling with his s
pecs and temper. Our Trotskyite benefactor started to gasp and battled to locate that vital inhaler. Stan and I were glued to our seats, horrified at the scene, with our meals still before us; but we were not enjoying our mouthfuls of biryani.
In a flash the waiters swept in to clear up, brandishing brushes and pans, as if they were used to bricks coming through the windows. We struggled to make sense of this, while freezing air struck a nasty surprise and flapped the ends of tablecloths.
‘What the fuck?’ Stan began.
‘I’ll tell you, Stan man, it was dem National Front boys,’ Dennis said.
‘I don’t know, I had my back to them.’
‘Yeah, I see’d em as clear as I see you man. They must be out on their curry run.’
‘Fascist bast’ads!’
We heard another window getting smashed, with commotion around the ‘Asian’ district of town. The manager of the The Star of the Taj Mahal was calling up the local cop shop, with a confident middle finger. But we knew the NF boys would be tucked up in bed before the law arrived.
Roy pulled a reformist twenty quid note from his jeans’ back pocket; and he tossed it down on the wrecked table arrangement. Then he inflated his chest manfully and urged us to join him on the street.
‘Away, comrades! Let’s go and fight them fascist bast’ads!’
He pumped himself up and punched out an SWP salute, before jumping back outside through the now vacant window bay.
‘You not having any dessert?’ Snot asked.
‘Away, comrade! No time for pudding now. The struggle’s on. We’ve got to tackle em on the streets!’
‘I’m full up,’ I announced.
As we negotiated the back streets - emptier and darker than Alexandria Palace after it was burnt down - we began to hear echoing chants and steel-capped boots ahead. Either Nulton Athletic Football Club had been playing a mid-week fixture, the territorial army was out practicing for World War Three (which was a risk) or those NF boot boys were out ‘Paki bashing’. None of these activities had any appeal to me.
‘Watch out boys, here come dem NF t’ugs now!’ Dennis warned. At which we stared down the gloomy street, to distinguish the acned shock troops of those neo SS dickheads.
‘Away comrades, stand your ground and fight!’ the Smith called.
‘Not on your life, Roy. We’re going home,’ Fiona objected.
‘Away man, fightin’s the only language these fascist bas’tads understand mind!’
‘We came out for a quiet meal.’
Roy had assumed the middle of the road (as opposed to his musical tastes) shouting and clenching revolutionary fists. The Trotskyite awaited a gang of shaven-headed, big-booted thugs, as they marched in our direction. Even if the Tyne and Wear-sider was brave enough - which we couldn’t doubt - would he have the breath to follow through?
‘He’s dangerous,’ Snot told me.
‘Political apathy can be attractive.’
‘Yeah, especially when you wake up tomorrow.’
‘Away comrades, we can’t let these Nazi bas’tads gerraway with violence an’ intimidation. It’s about time the working classes got organised for the fight back!’
‘You can fight for yourself,’ Fiona argued.
‘Not fer much longer Fi. This lad’s got a wheezin’ chest an they go break his neck.’
‘Come on, Dennis lad, remember Cable Street when the working class united... and they kicked Mosley’s Black Shirts off the streets man!’
‘These are the Nulton streets,’ Snot objected.
‘Brave talk, Roy man. But there’s too many of dem boys.’
‘You’ve got to listen, Roy. He’s bloody right,’ I insisted.
‘Fancy the long scenic route home?’ Stan confided.
Without a guitar in his hands he was lost.
‘No Stan, they’ll get you.’
‘Away comrades, no retreat in the face of Nazi thugs! No surrender to threats and intimidation!’ The Smith foamed. Already he was fighting for breath. The inhaler was pumping like John Wayne’s shotgun.
‘Spe’k for yourself, Roy man!’
‘Come on Dennis, we got to make the streets safe. Overthrow capitalism and fight for the socialist alternative, man!’
‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ Fiona said.
‘Look wh’appen she!’
Roy strutted off towards the drain-piped thugs, stomping down the narrow street, assuming that we were following closely behind. Drawn up to a size and strength beyond the usual, he was a socialist man of steel. Roy was up on his toes, shouting slogans, as if on the terraces of Roker Park. In seconds he was way ahead, like a revolutionary majorette.
Stan put his chest through a marathon of stress. A cat shrieked and dustbin lids crashed, and shutters came down and buildings fell into dark. Apart from an express train, rattling through the ghostly station, there wasn’t another sound or movement.
Before long we got a view of the fascist gang. They may have thought we were a group of Pakistani lads. Until they began to hear surprising left-wing slogans and - in amazement - spotted a strident lad stomping towards them, pumping a clenched fist and with the hood of a parka coat pulled up, with a pair of thick NHS specs poking out between the rabbit fur trim.
‘The workers united’ll never be defeated. Kick the fascists off the street, let Asian workers speak!’ Roy yelled angrily. I recognised these lyrics from his newspaper.
Meanwhile the rest of us followed in a timid huddle, not in any hurry to join the fray. If Roy had looked back over his shoulder, he would have realised we were many paces behind. It looked like the Smith and the revolution had lost its vanguard.
Stan was no coward - as Nulton Arts College knew - but he wasn’t a street fighting man. I’d never seen him in a violent situation, off stage. Obviously we didn’t want Snot to come to any harm. Of course his hands were not insured. To my mind his fingers were worth a million each. We didn’t want him throwing punches.
So Roy was unaware of being a single-comrade Marxist army. Punches were soon flying as Roy plunged into the suede head group. Dennis had no choice but to get involved. Fiona shrieked as he lunged forward to help out the Darlow radical. The sight of an NF boy being launched into orbit possibly calmed her nerves. When this lad landed again he seemed to believe that reality was an extended dub re-mix by Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry.
A chunky thug in a cap-sleeve tee-shirt took hold of Stan. This meaty extremist began to swing the Mortal guitarist around, holding him by the collar of his leather jacket. The sight angered me so that an almost communist red mist rose before my eyes. In blind rage I landed a punch on the beefy boy’s jaw, before he put any more extreme views into Stan. I just leant back, closed my eyes and launched. Dad’s home boxing lessons came in handy. A split second later the young fascist’s wiring started to short, and he was crumpled up on the seat of his drain-pipes. I felt a spring had snapped in my wrist. That took weeks to repair itself. Luckily I was not a musician. It wasn’t too much trouble at the typewriter.
A lot of mayhem resulted. Stan was on the floor, so was Roy before long, and many of the fascists dropped on the battlefield with only dreams of the Fuhrer. Our friend Fiona tried to smother her tears in Dennis’ silky shirt, while he was wiping away smears of blood. The drummer was a quiet lad who only enjoyed action behind his kit.
As we tried to recover from this painful mayhem, I recognised Mick Dove among the retreating mob. He recognised me too. His pinched ghostly face took it all in. After that he was out of there at a quick march.
I understood what Dove and his Steel Dildo group was all about. You couldn’t say ‘stood for’, could you.
15. Stan’s Move
Limping back to the Mansion, we made as many horrible groaning noises as the building’s plumbing.
Roy c
ontinued to be puffed up with revolutionary fervour and whatever was in his inhaler. ‘Away comrades, no need to be down-hearted at the setback. Ai, we put up a good fight mind! We stood up to that fascist scum, comrades!’ he declared. Wound up, surging with adrenaline, The Smith was springing up and down the living room, menacing the dodgy floorboards.
‘Tek it easy, will ya man,’ Dennis advised.
‘He’s making my head spin, just watching him,’ Fiona complained.
‘Yeah, Roy man, in foo-tcha fight your own p’lit’cal battles. Gettin me street fightin with dem Nazi boys,’ he objected. ‘Las’ time I voted Liberal, man.’
That came as a shocking revelation to the Darlow communist. ‘Ai, c’mon Dennis, you don’t vote for those reformist parties, man! Away, those Nazi bas’tads only respond to a united front on the streets! There’s no two wees aboot it man... cos only an organised mass protest from workers and students can stop these bas’tads!’ He fulminated, eyes bulging brightly. He had to pump down another two shots, as he turned around at the top of the room and began another length of paces in front of us.
‘Ya don’t wanna go looking for punch ups, Roy man.’
‘Don’t go and spoil Roy’s evening,’ Fiona said. ‘This was one of the best nights of his political career.’
‘Away Fiona, it might not be pretty, but you’ll never defeat those scum from the comfort of an armchair mind. Nawh, we don’t want to hear that type of defeatist talk here at the Mansion, marra,’ he said, chopping the air.
‘I bruised my bottom,’ she objected.
‘If that’s what it takes, comrade.’
‘Give the Trot manifesto a rest,’ Stan suggested. Scuffs on his jacket were the biggest worry. ‘I’m not going to eat out with you again either.’
I was sitting next to him rubbing my swollen hand.