by Alex James
People were arriving back in London. I went to the Atlantic Bar. I handed my coat in and the girl gave me ticket number 007 and winked at me. God, she was pretty. It was relentless. When I woke up on the floor in Endell Street there was someone trying to suck my cock. It was one of the staff from the Groucho. I clipped him round the ear and he scarpered.
I was woken again mid-morning. Someone was throwing stones at the window. It was Damon. He never rang the door-bell. He said he was having a bad time. I said, ‘You want to hear what’s just happened to me, mate.’ That cheered him up a bit, but I hadn’t seen him like this before. He was really suffering. Everywhere he went he was tormented by Oasis’s music. The balance of power had shifted. Their album was outselling ours. We drank some tea and he told me he was going to Iceland.
Ten days later he called and he sounded like a new man. He said, ‘Get yourself over. It’s heaven up here.’
7
regroup
Divas
In interviews we were often asked who we wanted to meet the most. Pretty soon those people started turning up everywhere. I never expected to meet them, let alone not be able to avoid them.
Graham was quite absorbed by a French diva called Françoise Hardy. He talked about her in interviews sometimes, especially in France. Françoise liked our records, too, and wanted to record a version of the ballad ‘To the End’, in French. We jumbled, hungover, on to the Eurostar to have lunch with her. The French don’t have a royal family. Instead of having one monarch for everybody, everybody seems to have a slightly noble quality in France. If they could have voted for a king, they probably would have had Serge Gainsbourg. He was a cross between a poet, a singer and a tramp. He made some good records and seduced all the most beautiful women in France. That’s what French kings should be getting up to. He was dead, from Gitanes and pastis, and she was married to a film director, but she was a fair queen to his king.
Paris was yet another parallel universe of nice surprises and new smells. I really liked the people at the French record company. It was quite a small office in Paris. They were a bit like a band, the staff. Even the drivers seemed cool enough to have record deals themselves. They added flair and finesse to all bad traffic situations. The people who looked after us genuinely enjoyed being with us and wanted to show us the finest restaurants, the best nightclubs and all the wonderful things in life.
Madame Hardy lived in a secluded, sumptuous apartment block in Montparnasse. It was all painted black inside and full of sunshine and exquisite treasures. Serge Gainsbourg’s pinball machine was in the corner of the salon. There was a cheeseboard with some very rare cheeses and exotic accompaniments - figs and dates, gooseberries, even. The first thing she said was, ‘’Oo like cheese?’ It was practically a dream sequence. I answered, in French. None of the scenarios we had improvised at Goldsmiths’ French conversation classes had been about being invited to Françoise Hardy’s apartment and shown an enormous cheeseboard. I suppose it’s quite unlikely. It was why I’d wanted to learn French all along, though. It all made sense now.
She explained the cheese, to break the ice. Having the cheese explained is one of life’s great pleasures. It is a moment to step outside of the traffic and into the senses. Here was one from the Alsace region that was so smelly that it was illegal to take it on public transport. There was a ewe’s milk variety from Corsica, rolled in spices; a sharp, hard cheese from the Pyrenees and so on. I’d never seen any of them before.
She was a truly beautiful woman, around fifty, skinny as an elf and confident, yet delicate. She looked good in that black apartment. It really set off her light poise and bearing. In her grace, she was a balancing act. Graham was chewing his fingers off and trying to smoke a cigarette on one of the huge sofas. Damon cut the nose off the Brie, which is extremely bad manners, sniffed, and said, ‘Are we fackin doin’ this, or what?’ She really liked him straight away, you could tell. She started to talk about her husband, and how Damon reminded her of him. He was in the jungle, or something suitably swashbuckling. It was an enchanted afternoon. If there’s such a thing as making it, she’d made it. She had everything money could buy and beauty could bring. She was fabulous with a fabulous life and fabulous friends. Life was all about buying cheese, large yachts, art and the freedom and great quiet of huge wealth. The security and abracadabra of immortal celebrity status throughout France was assured. It was nice being Françoise Hardy, and nice being with her.
In the early days of the band, Damon had expressed a soft spot for Martha from Martha and the Muffins, but we never heard from Martha. My favourite record was Strange Weather, by Marianne Faithfull. It’s a collection of classy laments that she delivers in her knackered baritone. I loved that voice. I don’t think I could have coped with working in a supermarket if it hadn’t been for Strange Weather.
The very first time I’d been completely spellbound by music was watching a mechanical organ at a steam rally in Dorset when I was a toddler. My mother tells me I stood in front of it for hours in a trance. Christmas carols, Ray Conniff, Prokofiev, the songs from Bugsy Malone, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Mike Oldfield, New Order and countless others all held me in their spell at one time or another, but Strange Weather was the record that Justine and I had fallen in love to.
I went to a party in Chelsea with Keith and Helen Terry. She’d sung backing vocals in Culture Club’s ‘Church of the Poison Mind’. She was a television producer now. People who’d done odd things like that kept turning up in other guises, especially at the Groucho. I have no idea whose house it was. It was a big mansion and Princess Leia was alone in the dining room, unconscious. Rifat Ozbek was in the kitchen. In the next room there was Marianne, sitting on a sofa, holding court and smoking theatrically. I could tell something was going to happen.
When I used to go to Peter Robinson’s house on Tuesdays, we’d play a game we called Barnes and Kidd. They were famous football players. Barnes used to run up the wing and knock the ball to Kidd who’d nod it into the goal. Every Tuesday we played that game in the alley behind the stamp shop, practising it, polishing it and fantasising. We played half in the alley and half in our imaginations. I loved football, but we were always getting thumped because ours was only a small school. We actually had a handful of good players and when the junior six-a-side tournament took place one sunny Saturday in May we got through to the quarter-finals, much to everyone’s amazement. At that stage we faced a school that had thrashed us earlier in the year. We held them to a draw until the last minute, when Martyn Whittingham danced up the right flank and floated a perfect cross into the six-yard box. I was on the end of it. I’ll never forget the feeling as I headed that ball home. It was my finest moment.
Ten years later I sat on the X1 bus on the way back from Salisbury to Bournemouth in the first spring sunlight of late February with Justine. It was the first time we’d gone on an outing together. I was falling in love with her, but she had a boyfriend in a band and I worked in a supermarket. I’d said, ‘My breath stinks’, and she’d said, ‘Let me smell it.’ I put my mouth up to her nose and opened it and, completely unexpectedly, she’d kissed me, for the first time. That was better than football.
Music had been so important to me for so long and Marianne had made my favourite record ever and there she was. ‘Hello, Marianne,’ I said, ‘I’m Alex. From Blur.’ She said, ‘Ah, dear Alex, I’m going to roll a banger, and you’re going to write me a song. Deal?’ That was right up there, too.
I went to stay with her for the weekend, to record a vocal. I could really talk to Marianne. She’d been through everything, from top of the pops, to the bottom of the slops, from being the most famous daughter of the sixties to a smackhead on the streets of Soho. She’d had it all and chucked it all away. Now she lived in a cottage made of shells in the demesne of a big castle in County Kildare. She had a grand piano and a chef, but that was all. I wonder if you really need anything else.
I’d tried snogging her at her friend’s house a cou
ple of weeks before when I’d gone to play the demo to her. I’d passed out after a half-bottle of eau-de-vie and woken up on the sofa in the morning with her bending over me. I just thought I’d give it a go, you know. She said, ‘You dog! Do you want some coffee?’ I said, ‘Oh, fuck! I’ve got to go to Iceland. What’s the time?’ She said, ‘It’s time to have some coffee and go to Iceland.’ It certainly was.
Iceland
It’s hard to stay really alive, to keep really stimulated. Hedonism is a full-time job. To keep finding new ecstasies and not get stuck in old routines takes all of a man’s might and all the world’s serendipity.
Iceland is somewhere else altogether. It has different geography from the rest of the world. It doesn’t look that big on maps, but when I got there it was gigantic. It’s got big weather, distant horizons and hundreds of miles of nothing at all. It’s not really built on the human scale. Maybe that’s what it is. Trees are usually there to help to put things in proportion, but there aren’t any trees in Iceland. It goes straight from little bushes to huge mountains and volcanoes. It’s quite a new place, geologically. Actually it’s the newest land mass on earth. It burped out of a submarine volcano not long ago at all, and is still a planetary building site. It’s totally topsy-turvy. The water is either frozen solid or steaming and the landscape, with its petrified lava flows, gives an impression of fluidity. Reykjavik is only about the size of Bournemouth. It’s very cosy and clean. The water in the river that runs through the centre is absolutely pure and tastes delicious. There are docks with fishermen and parks with no tramps in. You can’t really be homeless that far north. Damon hadn’t stopped talking about it since he’d first been in January. He had stayed a few weeks, written some songs and accumulated an entourage. It was about midnight when we went out. It was still sunny though. There is one high street of shops and bars and it was thronging with people. We stood on a roof terrace and watched the good times roll. There was a semi-official welcoming committee with sausage rolls and brennivin. Brennivin is the local tipple. It’s definitely got cumin in it, and alcohol. It’s drunk in little snifters alongside a tall, thin, cool glass of lager.
From the terrace, everywhere I looked there was something else that caught my eye: a distant wilderness, a volcano, a silent sea, a couple snogging, a startlingly beautiful girl. It was all new and interesting. I sipped on a beer and drank the views. A few people had asked if I’d seen any pixies yet. Pixies are a thing in Iceland. People became more friendly when I said that I thought I might have seen one, actually. Thor said it was more likely an elf, when I described it to him. Thor asked me what I wanted. I was beginning to get used to that happening, recently: strangers asking me if I needed anything. I said I wanted to go horse riding, please. He said that was easy and before I had time to finish my beer we were driving up a dirt track in a large, old car. First they had to catch the ponies. A couple of Vikings ran around shouting and chasing, falling over and laughing. Pretty soon they’d caught a couple. Saddles appeared, but there was only one hat. Thor said, ‘This horse is good boy, no trouble, don’t need hat so much. If you want hat take this horse. Maybe this other a bit, you know, need hat.’ It was two a.m. and the sun had come back after an hour’s twilight. It just makes a big circle in the sky in summer. The ground was all mossy and soft. I hadn’t ridden a horse before. I’d been trying to for ages. Thor said, ‘Just hold on.’ The guys who had caught the horses were riding around bare-back and falling off occasionally, laughing and swearing. I had a slug of brennivin and climbed on the one that didn’t need a hat while everybody held it still. It was fine. It just stood there. Soon everyone who wanted a horse had one and we were cantering up a green mountain alongside a stream. Reykjavik and the sea were way down behind us. I hadn’t known any of these people for more than three hours. Most of them believed in elves. It was only twelve hours since I’d woken up on a sofa in Barnes, south-west London, with Marianne bending over me. Things were happening fast. I don’t think you need to be famous to find yourself riding a white horse at two o’clock in the morning, it can happen to anyone, but it was the rate at which unusual things were happening which was overwhelming.
There were quite a lot of girls outside the studio, and following us around everywhere. It’s considered very bad form to have sex with girls who hang around outside. I tried it in Barcelona and it was great. I didn’t always sleep with every girl that I met - it wasn’t all I wanted to do - but sometimes it was all they wanted to do. I didn’t seem to want sex as much when it was constantly available. Riding horses up mountains was fine.
I went with Damon to a little bar just off the high street. It was called Kaffibarrin. There and then, the owner, name of Inqvar, offered Damon a stake in the business if he drank there while we were in town. Drinks would be free. There didn’t seem to be a downside. We needed an HQ. We were introduced to all the high-ranking booze heads as they arrived. Here was a poet; here was the minister for something or other; here was the singer from Fonkstrasse, Reykjavik’s hottest new band. Then Einar from the Sugarcubes arrived. I’d been wondering when he’d turn up again. I greeted him like a long-lost brother. Inqvar told everyone that it was Damon’s bar now. I don’t know if Damon ever saw any money out of the partnership, but there was always somewhere to go. The place was rammed by the time the sun came up again and I stumbled outside to throw up. It seemed to be quite acceptable, like burping in Japan; a lot of people were doing it. It was a madhouse. It was nice outside. A long-legged elfin girl with olive skin was tittering at me. I said, ‘I’m going home, do you want to come?’ She said, ‘Oh, OK.’ That’s how I met Magnea, who I suppose I nearly married.
She lived above the pet shop on the high street, had a philosophy degree from Paris and very long legs. She’s the only girl I’ve met who could drink more than me. She liked whisky, but we tried everything. Halfway up a mountain on a horse is nothing. It’s quite easy to describe geography, but Iceland really started with her, and I couldn’t go back now, for all its wonders, without being overcome with thoughts of her. She was pure mischief: a pixie.
Manhattan
Damien had a show in New York. It was at the Gagosian Gallery in SoHo. Larry Gagosian, the proprietor, is the number one art dealer in the world. He’s said to know the whereabouts in the world of every piece of modern art worth more than a million dollars. He’s mustard.
A whole lorryload of Dolce & Gabbana catwalk couture turned up at the flat. I picked the best suit. I could see my face in it. There was a matching bodice and pointy shoes. I got dressed up, hailed a taxi and went to New York for the weekend for Damien’s show. I just took my passport and my wallet. There weren’t many pockets. I figured I could stay awake for three days, no problem, so I wouldn’t need to worry about a hotel. Something always turns up in New York, anyway.
SoHo was the latest bit of New York to be beautiful. Initially it was great not having a bag or a hotel to worry about. I got a taxi straight to the gallery. The show was opening the next day. Art shows are never ready until the last minute and there were lots of skinny women on mobiles and beardy kids building things. Damien had stopped swearing and had a steely kind of a vibe. All the most rich, most ghastly people who buy art live in America, and they were all coming. America has proper rich people, like it has proper famous people, and fatties. They’re just richer and famouser and fatter in America.
I went to a bar called Toad Hall with a guy called Michael. As soon as you arrive in New York, you’re off to some new place with some new face. Toad Hall was a proper American bar. In many ways it was similar to the Good Mixer, Graham’s pub. The pockets on the pool table were bigger. The jukebox had one good song on it, ‘Cool for Cats’ by Squeeze. If you’re at home in one bar, you’re at home in them all. I bought the barman a drink, played pool with Michael and wondered what was about to happen. You can never tell in New York. It’s a boom-bust economy. One minute you can be on the twenty-eighth floor of a portered apartment block in mid-town asking for fresh lemons, t
he next thing you know you’ve lost all your friends and are walking along a dark street with no shoes on. That is what happened next. I’d thrown my shoes out of the taxi window. They were really hurting. My feet aren’t catwalk size. I was ejected from the apartment for saying that Blind Melon were crap. I didn’t realise it was the singer’s apartment. I’ve since come to like them, but he died shortly after my visit. I wanted to tell him I’d made a mistake, but it was too late. That’s how it is in Manhattan. It all happens so fast. You just get the one shot in all your encounters. I made it back to Toad Hall but there was no one I recognised. When you’ve lost all your friends in New York, it’s time to have a dry martini.
The New York dry martini is a bit of Western voodoo. It’s the ultimate cocktail. Administered correctly, it parts the clouds of fear and the brilliant sunshine of resolve floods the darkest corners of the mind. ‘Bombay Sapphire, up, with an olive!’ I said to the barman. That’s gin, shaken with ice and the tiniest dash of vermouth, served in a conical martini glass, with an olive. Some people like a lemon twist, or even a raspberry. Olive is best. You can tell how good a martini is by looking at it. It should be tiny, not more than a gulp, if you want to knock it straight down. There should be a mist of condensation on the glass, indicating that the contents are ice-cold. A good martini is a pure concentrated triumph of minimalism. Some bars keep their gin in the freezer so that the ice doesn’t melt during the shaking; that keeps the final product as undiluted as possible. When made with very cold gin, it’s called a Gibson. Not many barmen know this, though, and it’s pointless trying to explain. I’ve tried. You just have to find a man who knows and stick with him.