SONGS THEY NEVER PLAY ON THE RADIO
7. RIDING ON THROUGH. the unsung glamorous life
PART 1
RUNNING CONCURRENTLY with the Hacienda's inflatable-fixated, hedonism craze was a more dressy poppy, and, knowing, London Wag acid-house craze. I wasn't part of either. I did, however, get a glass smashed over my head acid-dancing to S-Express's smash hit Theme from by a Beano- punk in Oldham. Mark Moore name-checked Wire and looked odd, which was enough to start an obsession that hasn't ended. I always salvage his colourful music from charity shops, so have mountains of it. Identity is important. However, defining oneself through style in an ocean of like-minded folk is tough and the style-mags that defined the era have a lot to answer for.
ABC's dramatic and brilliant Lexicon of Love LP was my soulmate in a dreary Welsh caravan park in 1982 and still gets an occasional spin. Unfortunately, just like Paul Weller and Kevin Rowland, Martin Fry didn't just undergo musical changes thereafter. Ironically, his worst of many suspect wardrobe transformations was when he tried to impersonate the archetypal Shoom regular. The music was still boss though once recovered from charity shops years later.
In contrast, Boy George even looked great on smack. Loud projection when done right is dazzling. Marc Almond made larger-than-life videos and always looked way cooler than his straight contemporaries when accompanying his technicolour music. His Stars We Are album was both a haven and a pop-up book of endless life possibility. I'd swapped the caravan park for the bedroom and only when leaving it and entering the Ritz, looking at a big room of uniform goth, did his allure start to fade. Unfortunately, our town also had an Almond look-alike who shagged my mate's missus. More disappointingly, he managed a Morrision's supermarket by day.
Another early concert was Prince's Lovesexy tour. Possibly note perfect and definitely wonderful to watch. I was about 5 rows away but sort of knew that Cat was out of way out of my league, though thousands didn't think she was out of theirs. These select few pop stars who flirt with fashion always get it right whereas most of us don't. These same select few pop stars got momentarily swept aside as dance music's provincial sweep took hold, and hugging your mate's scruffy younger brother (a welder by day) became the club norm. The rave-scene democratized the music so that your mate's scruffy younger brother (a welder by day) could also write a hit single.
Thankfully, it wasn't too long a hiatus as gangs soon took control of the city and Dee-Lite the airwaves. I hid in the Number One club, The State, and even The Venue, whilst folk were shaking in fear at the Hacienda doorway. We were locked into the Like A Prayer acapella and Ce Ce Penniston pop heaven.
Ross Mackenzie was a genius who picked up on the duality of style and music being equally important. Greg Fenton casually always attracted glamour, whereas Justin Robertson's crowd needed weaning off their Ariel tee's and sort of looked uncomfortable in their Jonathan Richmond clobber thereafter. There was something about a progressive house that lent itself to glamour; Outrage's Tall N' Handsome always created a stampede of mainly straight guys. To say I was confused was an understatement, as I stampeded.
Trips to in Nottingham ensued, hearing D-Ream's Ur the Best Thing amazing Sasha dub for the first time. Shoom became Pure Sexy and dungarees were traded in for leather trousers. It was a crying shame that by the early hours of Sunday morning, most of us stank of piss and looked like shit. The high-water mark of such shenanigans was blinking from sleep and waking up next to Wonder, the Secret Knowledge diva with the everlasting woo's, then, blinking again and realizing I was fully clothed in a room full of fellow reprobates on a Salford flat floorboard.
PART 2
WITH THE benefit of hindsight everyone who was anyone had a huge E rush in 1988 and had been chasing it ever since while the rest of us had this notion of what could be indelibly imprinted on our minds because of them, as we drank cheap brandy.
I was just leaving park-culture behind and oblivious to the fact that Soft Cell's classic debut Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was created on the very same E rush years earlier, and, was also getting confused as I realized I didn't fit into my surroundings both at work or in the boozer. I much preferred records and being out of my head, although my sisters insisted on taking money off me to buy a few trendy items that quickly got unsightly holes burned into them.
I was happy being a voyeur and soaking everything in and initially only Mark Luvdup made any effort to chat. When Most Excellent migrated to the Wiggly Worm, more folk engaged in conversation, but all I talked about was music and pop-fashions. I realize now that in those circles where folk work in record stores and hang around clothes shops that talking about music and fashion is boring. I made more headway when I demonstrated that dropping a bottle of rolling rock from a high-rise window will not smash it.
When Dee-lite played Manchester, it was a massive event. It was jampacked with all the faces out in force. Folk have written about the curse of having a massive hit and how it consigns the rest of the oeuvre to the shadows. Had they shelved Groove, they would've been truly massive.
Consequently, whereas Soft Cell and Culture Club had multiple hit singles, S-Express and Dee-Lite didn't, despite making wonderful debut albums. By the time I met my hero Mark Moore in the Paradise Factory, I was a bit sick of garage and trance and especially his combination of both at the same time and was happy when his set finished.
Similarly, in 1997, Boy George on a train journey to play some boutique dress-code club was perfectly cordial with my work-mate, chatting about this and that and posing for pictures with an uninteresting bag of records. He still looked great, and was no doubt building up some vexation, as he listened to my half cut mate talking about his divorce and West Ham United. I wanted him to shout 'Fuck-Off!' I shouted 'Fuck off! at the pair of them' only inaudibly, inside my head, which is where my angst ridden self also lived. I was a little less confused when the train arrived and I felt sheer relief watching him saunter off.
I then remembered I still had to share a taxi and that anecdote with my work-mate, indefinitely.
