Looking back I knew in my heart of hearts that I was making a shoddy stab at an important task. Sometimes even if you know more attention should be paid to the task in hand it’s hard to invest ones self in it entirely if you’re riding the arc of ambivalence. I knew I should have sanded down and applied an undercoat before using gloss paint; a fact made quite clear by the Readers Digest guide I had chosen to consult, and decided to ignore. Why should some snooty author that I’ve never met know better than I when it comes to painting my own front door? Why should his years of experience dictate with such grave gravity that I should sacrifice a large chuck of my day to putting on a layer of undercoat paint that would be invisible to the eye when the job was complete? Did Rembrandt paint a ‘practice painting’ on his canvas before slapping on the oils of his masterpiece? Actually he may have done, I’m getting a little out of my depth here and wandering from the path, stumbling like a toddler full of party punch into the herbaceous border of obscurity and confusing metaphor.
It would be cruel after encouraging you to invest your interest in the tale of my front door not to give you some closure on it. No, that pun was not intended, although is not wholly unwelcome. Were I not the kind of man that approaches each DIY task with only two goals in mind – getting the job done in the quickest possible time, and using power tools that are slightly too powerful for me to handle – I would have taken the advice of the editors and staff of the ‘Readers Digest guide to destroying ones home (in a rustic and artistic fashion)’ and set the foundations of a long lasting coat of gloss by rallying my lacksidasical nature into a frenzy of undercoating activity. But I didn’t. To give you an idea of how poor in quality the completed article was I need only impart one further related fact; when someone took it upon themselves to write on my front door using a permanent marker it greatly improved its appearance.
Hopefully by now you will be as convinced as a certain Mr William Walker was in 1906 of the importance of good foundations to a well done task and an enduring legacy. Or in Mr William Walker’s case the importance of foundations to the structural stability of a Cathedral. I wouldn’t expect you to appreciate that obscure light comic reference so risking the loss of your attention once again I shall furnish you with the enlightening details. Mr Walker was a daring and experimental diver who spent his working hours between 1906 and 1911 submersed in the water logged bowels of Winchester Cathedral repairing the foundations. Should this mention of the fascinating work of William Walker pique your interest might I suggest you acquire a copy of ‘The Winchester Diver’ by Ian T. Henderson and John Crook. However, if you are still interested in the history of Junk Culture I suggest you stay right where you are and struggle on with my pondering, wandering prose.
At this point in the tale you are either convinced of the importance of foundations, or you have wandered off to find out if there’s anything more distracting or entertaining to be found on television. As I hear no echoes while I speak I’ll assume the room hasn’t emptied, and I shall continue.
To give you the complete picture regarding the history of Junk Culture I think it’s important to travel back farther than the formation of the band and take a peek at my musical past, the foundations of the story of Junk Culture if you will (now do you see where I was going with that introduction?)
My musical career started in much the same vein as everyone else’s; in my bedroom. Too young to be distracted by the underwear section in the Littlewoods catalogue and too old to be amused by forcing household objects down the toilet to ascertain their flushabiltiy I dwelled in the first of the many hundreds of awkward margins that define ‘growing up.’ I was born in 1976 which made me the perfect age to be captivated and inspired by Live Aid in 1985, and to be excited in a confused and bewildered way by Freddie Mercury’s costumes during the ‘Queen Live at Wembley’ a year later. Mr Mercury (real name Farrokh Bulsara) also taught me that is was okay to swear in front of your parents on two conditions; firstly that they were Queen fans, and secondly that you timed the swear (the word shitty if you must know) to coincide in perfect union with the moment Mr Bulsara was explaining why he felt his guitar was only capable of playing three chords. Once the initial heady excitement of finding a way to swear in front of the olds had past, and the communication contained within the profanity was revealed, I would be confused for years by Freddie’s claim that his shitty guitar could only play three chords. It instilled a general bewilderment in the ways of guitar playing that still dogs me today. Thanks Mr. Mercury, if it wasn’t for you I could have been the next Brian Adams or Chesney Hawkes!
Some guitarists are born to be great, but most are born to be passable. It was the ‘that’ll do’ end of the scale that I aspired to as I stood in front of the full length mirror (that formed the most solid part of my MFI flat pack wardrobe) and shredded my heart out to such hits as ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ by Bonnie Tyler.
This was before the days of tape to tape systems so copying this pompous ode to heart disease from my dad’s tape required sitting inside my wardrobe with the aforementioned master tape playing from a tape deck on one side of the wardrobe, and recording what spewed forth on the tiny microphone of a second tape deck the other side of my polyester/ corduroy mix trousers at the other side of the wardrobe. Any recordings undertaken in this fashion were augmented by the ‘vrip vrip’ of a dozen pairs of corduroy trousers coming into contact with each other as I danced to Mrs Tyler’s bouffanted lament.
As an aside, at the same time that I was nurturing the start of a life long passion for below par musical expression I was already an avid reader. Having consumed the entire Narnia series in the proceeding weeks I quivered with excitement when during a tape bootlegging session in my wardrobe I felt the rear panel give way to the weight of my tiny pre-teen body. I shouldn’t have been surprised as the back of the wardrobe consisted only of wafer thin hardboard, and was only attached to the rest of the wardrobe by a handful of tiny staples. When a young gentleman is disorientated in the dark confines of a closet by man made fibres and Bonnie Tyler we shouldn’t judge too harshly if he starts to believe he has discovered the portal to another world. Imagine my excitement as I gently pushed at the back wall of my wardrobe, anticipating a world of snow, Turkish delight and Centaurs. Kids under ten are not known for being in command of a great knowledge of engineering, so I had no way of knowing the importance of that hardboard and it’s somewhat optimistically employed use for the purpose of structural integrity. I didn’t discover a brave new world, but I did learn (a few moments after the collapse of my ‘studio’) that my parents might not always appreciate my more creative and explorative side, especially if while I indulged in it chucks of plaster were hewn from my bedroom wall and reasonably priced furniture was destroyed.
Like most kids my age I didn’t have a budget for musical instruments, and no amount of creative accounting could stretch my ten pence a week pocket money to afford a real guitar. In fact most weeks had I ‘put my parts on’ (been a dick) funds would be considerably lower. So a badminton racket was my mighty axe, and I tell thee, I could play that badminton racket with phenomenal musical dexterity and found it a most versatile instrument. It was certainly better as a pretend guitar than it was as a tennis racket. And sadly yes, I did mean to write ‘as a tennis racket’. After agreeing to a gentlemanly tennis match with some neighbourhood peers we each retired to our homes to collect equipment. Upon returning to our agreed arena (and after a set or two) I made the discovery that using a badminton racket for the repelling of heavy tennis balls has the tendency to mess about with the form and shape of the thing. Always being one to look for the best in every situation subsequent fantasy guitar sessions focussed on my lofty status in the world of stadium rock, a level and fame and wealth buoyed by the fact I was the only guitarist in the world with a bendy guitar. It was my signature, proof of my unique ability and led to me inventing a handful of new notes.
I continued in much the same vein for the next few years, although things did improve. I eventually upgraded my imaginary guitar - after the head fell off my trusty badminton racket I commandeered my sister’s discarded hockey stick. Thinking back I’m wondering if the superior weight and balance of the new instrument eventually led to me playing bass?
By the age of thirteen or fourteen - and with the musical dissuasion of the aural nightmare of compulsory recorder lessons at primary school a fading memory - my interest in music was growing at a similar speed to my interest in female breasts, both alarmingly fast and all consuming. For many years I had been friends with the sons of the village vicar begat, even at that tender age Matt and Tom were both classically trained musicians, and both fancied roughing it for a bit by forming a band. Admittedly this wasn’t the first band they had formed, that was a Pet Shop Boys inspired duo utilising the little 30cm wide monophonic keyboards they had each received for Christmas. This first incarnation was never destined for greatness and at what may have been their only concert (with me and their dog Charlie forming the audience) within seconds of the introduction the dog howled briefly before turning his attention to making sure his testicles were as clean as they should be. Before long the dog had wandered off in search of relief from the high pitched bleating of the mini-keyboards, and I was making excuses to leave, eager as I was to continue my scientific investigation of the Littlewoods Catalogue. The band split due to musical indifference leaving both brothers to explore solo projects.
A few months passed and Tom acquired the rudimentary basics of a drum kit, and Matt had started taking guitar lessons, it was time to form a band and take over the world. For want of anything better to do one Saturday I was drafted in on vocal duties and so ‘The Remedial Class’ was formed.
Oddly this was taken just before my art teacher at school told me to give up on art.
After just one and a half practices we decided to ask our friend Joe to make a music video for us as he had a state of the art camcorder, state of the art at the time meaning it was of a sufficient size and weight to carry on ones shoulder with only minimal contortion of the spine. The half band practice happened when play had to be abandoned early on in proceedings after a band member nearly choked following an attempt to fit one hundred fizzy cola bottle chews in my, err, I mean somebody’s mouth. The concept for the video was not a radical one, but had one element that many years later would be paid homage to by Irish ponce rock pioneers U2. Matt and Tom stood on the vicarage driveway playing our ‘hit’ while I sung into a microphone that was attached directly to the camcorder on Joe’s shoulder. Each time Joe moved around (possibly to try and free up the nerves in his neck that were trapped by the weight of his equipment) the microphone would be nearly jerked out of my hand. Keen as I was to cease the sin against nature that was my singing I was also reluctant to let the microphone fall to its demise on the tarmac, so each time Joe pulled the lead tight I would give it a stern tug back in my direction, this created the same affect that U2 used in one of their allegedly ground breaking videos about ten years later. After a few takes it became painfully clear that my talents lay somewhere other than in singing - somewhere far far away - and we called it a day and pooled our funds in order to buy another hundred cola bottles.
During the brief band meeting that followed, an ill advised second experiment in oral capacity, cola bottles and cherryade, Matt informed me that if I wished to stay in the band I needed to buy a bass; in order to fill a musical hole I had been utterly ignorant of in the band. Without stopping to think for a moment on the gravity of this decision - not pausing to consider how it might ruin the rest of my life - I readily agreed to become the bassist. In a surprisingly short amount of time I was the proud and slightly confused owner of a Sunn Mustang precision copy bass. It was phenomenally heavy, and the fact I had to use a camera strap to support it (I couldn’t afford a real strap) my face wore the same appearance of the victim of a mild stroke that Joe’s did when he was creating his visual masterpieces.
My Sunn Mustang, a balsa wood guitar with what I assume was a lump of lead inside.
The months passed and we practiced several times a week, and eventually I realised if I played with my fingers instead of my thumb I could avoid earning a painful blister each time I made a valiant attempt to play bass. I asked my school for bass lessons, but apparently being the first person in the history of the music department to actually start on bass (rather than try guitar, shrug at the intricacies and demote to bass) they couldn’t help me.
Eventually with the A-team being cancelled and MacGyver becoming all too predictable Saturday television no long held its dark spell over us and we asked our friend Dan Foden to be our singer so that we could conquer the world as a real, fully fledged, proper band. We even decided on a new name, we could be called ‘Nice’ on account of the fact that one of Matt and Tom’s sisters had a tee shirt with a drawing of a Nice biscuit on it. Of course only one of us could wear the band tee shirt at a time, but impressively for such a young band we proved we had an understanding of merchandise. With a singer maybe we could shift some ‘units’?
With much the same level of bewilderment (and for want of any solid excuses) Dan joined the band and we prepared for our first gig. A gig that would change our young lives forever, a gig with cider, a gig with sweat and violence and most importantly for the teenager in me, a gig with groupies.
I was a lot taller than other boys my age, I'm probably stood a good metre back from everyone else. Note obvious Stone Roses influences in the Reni hat and the Spike Island tee shirt. Two of these people are now doctors, while the other two still play in bands, can you guess who?
A TALK OF JUNK CULTURE PART 3 COMING SOON.....
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A Tale Of Junk Culture Part 2
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