Punk Story

by Neil Rowland

  The gigantean screamer was at breaking point. Gorran was waiting to console him with open arms and a cold drink. The maverick was flapping a paint-spattered wallet at Dougal’s bar staff, without a moment’s hesitation, like any true manager. A pint of lager didn’t bring the voice back though: the iron throat had been breached, like a torpedoed battleship.

  Billy, Steve and Stan muscled through the last number. Talk about ‘no more heroes’. Snot wasn’t looking for sympathy votes, yet the judges gave them to Nutcase regardless. The band tumbled off stage in pools of sweat, too frazzled to acknowledge cheers from diehards. They got through that heat by the skin of a guitar string.

  Well, Turbo Overdrive was next up and won the heat. Marty was delighted and it almost made amends for the tragedy. Turbo’s charismatic, polished heavy rock was a hit with those judges. Turbo knew how to put on a great show for those guys out of the British blues revival. The group had a sardonic swagger, which adapted to the punk times and was not far removed from punk. Many almost veteran groups adjusted their sound to their times. They even tweaked their image to fit in with fashions; just as in the future rock bands transformed into electro dance outfits.

  To our amazement, Steel Dildo (playing their usual jagged and furious set) came through in third position. You couldn’t account for politics or taste. They should have been eliminated. Snot didn’t agree with me.

  ***

  Encouraged by weekly journalism classes, I began to write in to the ‘readers’ page’ of the Music Mail. The title was a national weekly music paper, in an age of ink before the glossies. To my surprise they eventually published one of these letters and others followed. The subjects I chose related to music controversies of the punk period. The sub-editor came up with titles for them:

  Why the Stranglers are Punk

  Get Tough with Fascism in Rock

  Punk Style in the North

  The Caribbean Sound in Camden

  These rock polemics were deadly serious to us during the period. I’d take hours writing them up, usually sat late at the kitchen table, avoiding Paulie’s sorties to find out what I was doing. The very curious cub-reporter would pretend to be making another cup of tea while trying to look over my shoulder.

  ‘So what you writing, mate?’

  Anyway I got to see my name in print for the first time. That was a great thrill in that - I wouldn’t claim otherwise. Every ‘winning letter’ would earn me a five-quid record token, to spend down at Our Price (not valid at the Record Shack). That was the equivalent of working a whole evening with string beans at the Co-op supermarket. And it impressed my mates.

  I was really excited to go into the newsagent’s on a Wednesday morning, picking up Music Mail and thumbing through to see if they’d published my letter that week. Possibly - just possibly - I’d filed my first paragraph as a music journalist.

  When he found out, Marty Gorran was hyping and praising the discovery of a new celebrity rock writer in town. ‘Right, definitely Bottle, so was that was your blinkin piece in the fucking Music Mail I spotted this week?’ he declared, beaming.

  ‘More like a letter,’ I argued.

  ‘Fair play Bottle, congratulations! No bullshit, how do you get all those blinkin long words down on the fucking paper like that? Yeah, definitely, I’ve got plenty of ideas in my blinkin head an’ all, but I can’t express them on bloomin paper the way you can.

  I shrugged, then lost for words.

  ‘Right, definitely Bottle mate, you got a fucking talent to make the blinkin music come to life for us,’ he said, as if in wonder. ‘So, no bullshit, why didn’t you mention something about your bloomin gift? How you got writing copy for the bloomin Music Mail?’ Marty took in the miracle and grinned gratitude at the god’s gift.

  Of course it was a bit overwhelming and embarrassing. ‘Well...’ I floundered.

  From that point Gorran spread my rock writer celebrity status around town. Everyone assumed I that I had to know what I was talking about. Marty was convinced that my journalistic fame would raise his own profile even higher. It brought music-biz world domination a few stages closer. It propelled his whole Star Materials publicity bandwagon.

  So when we were in the pub: ‘Right definitely everybody, have you been properly introduced to my new Editor-in-Chief at Star Materials’ publishing? Straight up lads, you didn’t know how our mate Bottle’s been writing fucking feature articles... for, no bullshit, fucking Music Mail down there in blinkin London.’ For him it was true because it had to be. We lived this collective half-fantasy. Arguably it was no more real or fake than any other scene.

  What’s more scary is that I soon got used to this role. Every local band wanted me to review or interview them. They were convinced I could get something into Music Mail. My nose only had to show around the Dragon, before lads in bands came and approached me for publicity. They’d try to bribe me with free drinks or, sometimes, even press bags of dope and tabs of acid on me. Gorran boasted how Paul Bottle was now, not only one of his closest sidekicks, but also a staff writer for Music Mail. Thanks to him this was a well-known fact, and added to the frenzy.

  ‘Right, definitely Bottle mate, so what’s your blinkin opinion about this new group?’ Marty would say. He’d say this in front of our punk crowd in the pub or club; clearing a space for my wise words. ‘Straight up, fucking listen up everybody, and get the opinion of our own blinkin Music Mail reporter,’ he warned. After a while I got used to these plaudits and stopped giving a jump of alarm when all eyes turned in my direction. The background boy was put in the spotlight.

  Well, I was famous for almost fourteen minutes.

  25. Nutcase Spends More Time With His Family

  In contrast to my growing reputation as music mag sage, Snot didn’t have any reasons to be cheerful.

  The reduced band didn’t improve or develop from playing several more gigs. Unlike the (sometimes) shambolic groups that Snot and Gorran championed, such as the NY Dolls, Flamin’ Groovies, The Stooges and even Velvet Underground, they didn’t have glamour or develop a buzz. Mortal Wound had certainly lost their dynamism and edge since that riot at Nulton Arts. You could say they were riding their luck, or taking a ghost train to obscurity.

  In the evenings Stan would lock himself up in the bedroom to practice; brooding, hiding his doubts. He continued to rehearse every weekend at Crock Sound with the survivors, without any sign of excitement.

  Another hammer blow fell when Nutcase decided to retire on health grounds. Like some cabinet minister bonking his secretary or the nanny, Nut announced that he was going to spend more time with his family in future. Anyhow, Nutcase put in an emotional early-hours phone call to Billy. Stan and I went to the Nut’s place, intending to persuade him to change his mind - along with his future singing style.

  We sat around a very bare looking front room, listening to another version of his resignation speech. He worked as a plasterer, with some painting and decorating. The family had recently moved into this house, to be fair to them. Removal crates were taking the roles of armchairs.

  ‘The missus is ‘avin ‘er baby in a coupla months,’ he explained. ‘There’s a lot of work to do. I still ain’t painted the kids’ room.’

  ‘You had time for the band before,’ Snot complained.

  ‘So when you’ve finished decorating, you can come back,’ I hinted. I could hear my voice echoing like a Scott Walker record - Scott 3.

  Despite being crestfallen, Nut’s green Mohican still touched the ceiling. He hadn’t shaved it off in protest or anything, which we took as a hopeful sign.

  ‘Sandra dunt want me playin’ no more gigs. She dunt like me bein’ late nights,’ he said. There was a wobble to his damaged voice.

  ‘You fucking love the music,’ Snot objected.

  ‘Fanks Stan, mate. I gotta fink of the wife and kids.’

 
‘Mortal fucking needs you. How are we gonna replace you?’

  ‘Cheers, Stan, it scared me when I lost me voice,’ he admitted, shrugging his huge shoulders like subsiding cliffs.

  ‘We were screwed before, but now we’re double screwed.’ The charismatic axe man leant forward, so that his thick leather jacket - like it was made from Rhino hide - creaked in protest.

  ‘Your voice’ll come back,’ I argued.

  ‘It’s been playin’ on me mind.’

  ‘Give it a few more weeks.’

  ‘The doctor told me I ‘ad to rest up. Sandra told me to listen. The doc said I need to fuckin’ shut up. Or I’ll lose it permanent.’

  ‘What do the doctors know about fucking vocals?’ Snot remarked.

  ‘He said I got fuckin colics.’

  ‘Don’t you mean fucking polyps?’ Snot corrected.

  Nut scratched that huge boxy chin, staring out miserably to space.

  ‘I don’t suppose you got many vocal cords left.’

  ‘I dunt know, mate.’

  ‘You’re part of the Mortal sound.’

  ‘What would the Pistols be like without Rotten? Or the Buzzcocks without Pete Shelley,’ I burst out.

  ‘Cheers, Bottle.’

  ‘What are the Pistols like without Matlock?’ Snot said.

  ‘I dunt want to stretch it. Me voice.’

  ‘No, no... course not, Nut... but give it a try.’

  ‘You’ve got to train your voice,’ I suggested. ‘That’s what Gina warned you about, wasn’t it. You’d damage your cords if you abused them. She said you’d got to warm them up.’

  ‘Fucking Gina.’ Snot gave me a look.

  ‘I’m too busy on the estate.’ Nutcase shrugged and parked his enormous boot on a box opposite.

  ‘Get your polyps snipped off and see how you feel,’ Stan argued.

  Nutcase was pessimistic. ‘We’ll see ow me and Sandra get on wiv the noo baby.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, the new baby...’ Snot had a gloomy look as if he was going to change nappies himself.

  ‘Mortal’s a great little band. I’m gonna miss it.’

  ‘You’re a fucking original blues belter,’ Stan praised.

  ‘It ain’t been easy.’

  We sat with mugs of tea. There was a pink tricycle in the hallway, belonging to Nutcase’s first kid. The kid’s tricycle seemed to be the only domestic object on view. The former tenants had taken everything with them, down to light fixtures and kitchen pipes - de-decorated.

  ‘Gina can sing for yer,’ Nutcase suggested.

  ‘Don’t mention that girl to me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘We haven’t seen much of her... apart from a big bump on the back of her head,’ Stan recalled.

  ‘She really went with a bang,’ I remembered. Mortal as a whole was going with a bang.

  ‘She ‘ad a great voice, Stan.’

  ‘Not our type.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. She hasn’t even called me up or nothing,’ Snot informed him.

  ‘Nah?’

  ‘Not a peep.’

  ‘What the ‘ell’s ‘appened to ‘er?’

  ‘It’s her stuck-up fucking parents, isn’t it,’ Stan said, ‘keeping her bloody prisoner.’

  ‘They won’t let ‘er out the ‘ouse?’

  ‘Chained her to the fucking piano.’

  ‘Until she’s note perfect,’ I said.

  ‘She sings like a fuckin angel,’ Nut recalled, generously.

  ‘That’s the fucking trouble, isn’t it,’ Stan retorted. ‘Who wants an angel in this band? It’s like putting fucking Judy Collins in fucking Motorhead.’

  ‘It’s got to mellow one day,’ I said - selfishly.

  ‘She’s a caged canary.’

  ‘You wanna let ‘er out,’ Nutcase advised, eating another Garibaldi biscuit and rubbing crumbs off his great mitts.

  ‘How are we going to do that? Who do you think she is, Patty Hearst?’

  ‘I dunno, Snot mate.’ He began to pull on his rubbery ears. As if the multiple piercings were itching.

  ‘She’s got other priorities,’ I objected.

  ‘The band doesn’t compare to the Royal Philharmonic, or whatever that bunch of arseholes call ‘emselves these days.’

  ‘Give her a chance to sort out her problems at home,’ I argued.

  ‘You mean like you did?’ Stan told me.

  ‘That’s different,’ I replied.

  ‘Anyway, maybe you’d like her to move in with you?’ Snot jibed.

  I shrugged and blushed, like a kettle turned on with no water. Oddly the image of Paulie came into my head.

  ‘If only she ‘adn’t got pissed or wore them ‘igh eels.’

  ‘She’s far from being punk.’

  ‘You’re too rough on ‘er. An’ she plays keyboards great,’ Nut said.

  ‘Fucking bollocks.’

  Each of us attended to our own thoughts. With just a bit of percussion from the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘I can’t do any vocals. I can’t fucking sing,’ Snot declared finally.

  ‘No?’

  ‘I can’t even scare anybody, Nut, the way you can.’

  ‘I’m fucking sorry about it, Stan mate. Honest.’

  26. Marty has his Loot Stolen

  Days after Mortal lost their vocalist, musical heaven collapsed on Star Materials as well.

  Somebody or bodies had broken into our new ‘office’ at the Hatter. Marty and I turned up for another night shift as usual. We discovered a scene of carnage as I switched on the single naked light bulb. My typewriter was twisted up into positions it was never designed for. Marty’s art work in progress had been torn and scattered. All the desk drawers and filing cabinets had been emptied and vandalised. This depressing scene provoked Marty into riffs of agony and despair.

  But, as we stared at the ruins, there was even worse. Marty realised that his new safe deposit box had been prised open. Rushing over and giving it a futile shake, he realised that the entire Star Materials’ deposit (for band entry fees and fanzine printing) had been stolen. That theft had been the main intention of the break-in. All the destruction was gratuitous and meant to be a type of decoy.

  ‘They’ve torn up my writing... all my articles,’ I told him.

  ‘Straight up Bottle, forget about your bloomin articles. How are we gonna enter all our blinkin bands, when we got bloomin tom diddly squit to enter em all with?’ he bewailed.

  ‘Maybe I’ve got some rough drafts at home,’ I replied, sorting through scraps of paper.

  Marty’s nocturnally porous features - voluntarily deprived of light, sleep or boredom - were contorted into despair and strangely flushed. Of course his hair stood on end naturally - but now it had good reason. He began to sift and assess the damage. He got caught in a physical battle with his best draughtsboard, while attempting to reassemble it, which he eventually had to throw away in a heap.

  ‘Gord ‘elp us, who’s responsible?’

  I pressed unhelpfully, ‘Why keep your money down here?’

  ‘Right, definitely, where did you think I’d keep it?’ he grimaced, keeping tolerant.

  ‘How much did you have?’ I wondered. ‘Altogether?’ Like Jean Genet’s lost first draft on prison toilet paper, I was still clutching at shreds.

  ‘Straight up, there was more than five hundred bloomin quid, when you added it all together,’ Gorran admitted.

  Such a massive sum forced an involuntary whistle. ‘So was that a good idea?’

  ‘Right Bottle, you think we’d put it with the blinkin high street bank or something? In the fucking building society?’ Gorran said. He winced with incredulity at my financial naiv
ety.

  ‘Why not the building society? That’s where I put five pounds of my Co-op wages, every week,’ I explained

  Marty gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘Right, definitely Bottle, go and line their blinkin pockets. No bullshit, while they lend it back to you from their fucking sun beds,’ he argued, forcing a sardonic laugh.

  ‘Oh, right, I see.’ I didn’t really.

  ‘Straight up, I had the blinkin sense to go out and buy us a strong box to keep all that bloomin money in.’

  And how effective had that been?

  ‘Straight up Bottle, I’m not Madame fucking Curie looking into the blinkin future, am I,’ he objected.

  ‘Who got in here, to smash the place up and steal our money?’ I objected.

  ‘Fair play, there was only me, you, Steve Fenton and that Smithy who knew about our bloomin loot,’ Gorran elaborated.

  ‘Roy’s as honest as his political convictions,’ I pointed out.

  ‘Right, definitely, and those commies aren’t interested in fucking money anyway, are they?’ he agreed.

  ‘Not Roy. Apart from throwing his salary at us.’

  ‘Fair play, it couldn’t have been Steve Fenton, because he hasn’t taken a postage stamp off me, all the time I’ve known him, even though he used to do some bloomin breaking and entering in his time,’ Gorran said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Straight up, in the past, fucking years ago, in his blinkin spare time, he did.’

  ‘Dave Crock could use your five hundred quid.’

  ‘No bullshit, I’ve seen Dave Crock put five hundred fucking quid into a blinkin fruit machine, before now,’ Marty informed me. ‘Straight up, just to check they’re blinkin working.’

  ‘Well, maybe he owned those fruit machines.’

  ‘Right, definitely, of course he fucking owned them, Bottle. But, fair play, you need to be bloomin careful what you say about Dave Crock and his family. Otherwise you could end up like that blinkin Graham Gross.’