Saturday 22 August 2015

Random access memory #2


I heard a song the other day - I can't even remember what or where and it was barely in my consciousness - but there was a staccato guitar in it and it prompted a thought.  A fleeting one - one of those that drifts in vaguely and out again quickly, like a faint wisp of smoke.  "That sounds a bit like Marquee Moon" went the thought, and promptly disappeared.

But it came back and this time it brought along a random memory - of late Summer 1977, the weather a bit like now, when I had just turned fourteen.  I was venturing - half of me tentatively, and the other half of me very brazenly -  into a lot of new experiences,  most of which revolved around boys and punk.  I'd only bought one proper grown-up album so far - the eponymous Clash first - and was saving my pocket money for more 12" vinyl.  What were they, about £2.49, something like that?  I couldn't just go out and buy one, it had to be planned. So the cheapo singles bin in Martins was always worth a look in case I could pick up something for 10p, something I didn't have to scrimp for nor plan, but something I could actually take home the same day and play.

A lot of band names were becoming familiar;  I was latching on to what I thought 'fitted' the punk scene, but often without having first heard the music.  I mean, bands like The Cortinas had the honour of getting their name carefully written on my school science overall in permanent black pen alongside the more obvious ones like Buzzcocks, Sex Pistols et al, even though I hadn't yet heard one track by them (the Cortinas, that is) .  I got it wrong sometimes... like, I thought Dead Fingers Talk must be young, new and very raw just on the name alone... wrote that name on my school satchel too... they weren't, though, were they?  And it was the same with Television.  It was a name which was linked to all this new stuff I was exploring with limited means of doing so, and I imagined that they must be making songs at least as aggressive as White Riot or snarly as Pretty Vacant, whoever/whatever they were.  So when I flicked through the cheapo singles bin in Martins and saw the 7" of 'Marquee Moon', I was quick to hand over my 10p and dead excited at the prospect of hearing it.

I remember walkng home with it feeling really chuffed.  I had to go past the petrol station which was usually a bit nerve-wracking because there were always some young guys working there and I didn't know quite how to strike that balance between feeling horribly shy and yet also wanting their attention.  Just having to walk past was a big deal.  Funny how you remember these odd details but I recall very vividly that this time there was a new petrol attendant there, a tall bloke with acne.  He smiled at me.  Actually he stared.  I think I got more of a look than I really wanted.  I didn't fancy him at all... but I sort of wanted him to fancy me... I smiled back.  Then I immediately regretted it, in case I was giving him the come-on, which I didn't really want to even though my heart was beating fast and oh now I'd never be able to walk past that garage again.  It would make it really difficult going into town because that was the main route,  I'd have to take that funny detour down the other side of the hill.... oh what was I thinking.....   Ha, they were confusing times, those early teens.

Anyway, I got home, unwrapped my new purchase and put it on the turntable on the family stereogram.  I was so excited.. hopeful for some thrashing chords, some fierce drumming, hadn't a clue what a song called Marquee Moon might be about, but I'd heard of The Marquee...


Erm, it wasn't what I expected at all.  It was weird.  And the B-side was more of the same!

So, I had to work really hard to convince myself that I could, perhaps, sort of, like it.  Or I could at least grow to like it... one day... maybe.  I played it again.  My sister came downstairs and said she thought it sounded a bit like Yes.  I didn't know what Yes were like but that didn't seem to me to be a good thing.

Well, I kept the single anyway, in my little cardboard box which I'd covered in an offcut of orange patterned wallpaper, and it stayed there amid what I deemed to be far more worthy 7"s by Buzzcocks, the Adverts, etc.  I did grow to like it in the end, although I have to admit, it took time.  And even now I can't be sure, I wonder if I like it really only because I just can't separate it from that time, that feeling, that age and stage in life, the mood it evokes... the memories.  These things are so inextricably linked.

I also got brave and walked past the petrol station again, continuing my ambivalent flirtation with a boy I didn't fancy one bit.  I never grew to like him, although even then there was this naive teenage thought process which went along similar lines to my feelings about the record... like, maybe I would if I really tried... should I just keep playing him again in case....?!

8 comments:

  1. Brilliant writing C. I was right back there with you. Isn't it weird what the memory chooses to retain (albeit in a sometimes well-hidden and convoluted way) and what it chooses to dispatch, never to be available for recollection again? Music (or smells, I find!) is often the key, as in your case. A half heard snatch of a song opens a floodgate of otherwise forgotten reminiscences. It happens to me sometimes and, as you can tell, I find the whole process fascinating. Great post.

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    1. Thank you TS, I completely agree about the memory thing. It fascinates me too. It's all in there, I'm sure - it's just that a lot of it is buried under huge piles of irrelevant clutter.

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  2. As The Swede has noted, great writing and a fine read. Funny what you say about 'Marquee Moon' because I had a brief but similar experience with the whole album. In those primitive times we often would buy a record purely because some critic had raved about it in the press, wouldn't we? It sounded hip, so let's give it a go. This was especially true in '77 because there weren't that many punk records to buy at all. Even though I'd heard some Patti Smith by then, I had no idea that what was classified at 'Punk' in New York might sound wildly different from the music we'd expect over here. It took me a few weeks to get into but after that I fell in love with it and it's still in my top 10 albums to this day. Dead Fingers Talk? Now, there's a name from the past. Never heard them then and have never knowingly heard them since.

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    1. Glad you enjoyed the read SB, thanks. Yes, that's exactly it - you had to go on what you'd read or picked up on and had no way of previewing something. Actually I don't even think I'd heard that much Clash before I bought it, and was grateful to the headphones in the local record shop where it had me on the first few seconds of Janie Jones alone!
      The NY scene was a bit of an enigma to me then and I don't think I was mature enough to truly appreciate what Patti Smith was about. But I also really *wanted* to like what I thought I *should* like, regardless!
      Indeed, DFT, I couldn't name a single track.

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  3. Cracking post C. I love side 1 of Marquee Moon (thhe album) and rarely make it onto side 2.

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    1. Many thanks, SA. I never owned the album.... actually I've never heard it! Perhaps I should?! I did go on to buy Venus/Prove It single later but funnily enough I can't currently remember a single thing about why/when/where....! (Perhaps it was also in a bargain bin)

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  4. You're always at your best when writing like this, C.
    Listening to Marquee Moon is ten minutes and forty seconds of life well spent, I reckon. "I was listening to the rain, I was hearing something else," sings Tom Verlaine, and as well as being something that we may have all done it also describes the effect of this song. It transports us to somewhere else, it takes us away. In your case, back to the time when you bought it for 10p in Martins and the things that were going on in your life at that time. It's a song to get lost in, like venturing into a dreamy maze and finding that after having been carried along by dueling guitars and dub-type drop outs you've double-backed on yourself and ended up where you started. It's Art Punk at its best and a genuinely classic song...

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    1. Thank you john, much appreciated. Just a late-night stream of consciousness really!

      I love what you say about the song here... and I'm hearing it in a whole new light now.

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