Sinister: Under more cars than there are Ls in British Leyland

[P F]

This list has fair exploded into a forest fire of action in the last week or 
so. Heck, I was close to excited. I'd like to respond to all that 
fascination, but first I want to tell you some old, and ageing, news. It's a 
tiny vignette about how Stephie T met one of his heroes, and I was lucky 
enough to be in the wings. Not in Wings, mind. That would have been *really* 
lucky. For those who don't remember Stephie, his last mail to sinister was 
something about sabre-toothed tigers and the toothlessness of Emile Heskey. 
It moved me at the time. I ended up in South Norwood.

When I said 'forest fire', by the way, it was just a simple metaphor.



London went off, swinging. Clubbing kids crashed by a street with no name, 
looking for Duran Duran's Pop Trash. I think that's what they said. 
Sainsbury's were flogging produce like there was no today; and there barely 
was. The hour passed nine, like a referee without a rag. It was as hot as 
July, 2000 - that much was hard to contradict. Stephie, he hit the scene by 
accident - he took a wrong turn in Covent Garden and found himself tumbling 
down the stairs. Angels. It was a matter of life and deaf. Me, I was 
loitering without rent, trying to phone a friend in Oxford Street, wearing 
woolly things, throwing bread. Don't doubt me, ask the bouncer; the one who 
told me, when I asked what kind of club night it was, just to be on the safe 
side, that it wasn't a club. Not much, though, will throw me; and I only 
threw the bread to evade its advancing staleness.

As 9:30 approached I felt my gameboyplan was all wrong. I'd better handle 
this one from the inside. Breadless, heedless, I passed our friend ('my 
friend', he'd called me) on the door and descended for a bottle of milk. No, 
it wasn't milk, as it turned out. Down in the depths the heat was almost 
quietening. The crowds were nugatory, a thing of the future. The walls were 
like lava, drifting red and orange shapes, colours of flame. The electric 
bills were, yes, staggering.
Seats floated like glutinous magma - yes, contradictorily. Pop fans and 
players let me join them. The generosity was all theirs. I pulled out a 
camera and watched it flail. I bought that bottle, had it poured into a 
glass, paid £13. That wasn't part of the plan. Believe me, kids, it wasn't a 
large bottle; and it was a smaller glass. But money was a dead sign here, a 
signal of that other world where the filed things are. Those popsters, 
anyway; they were joined by a piano player who was rumoured to be into Soft 
Rock. He'd brought no piano, just tales of the past: of the 70s, weirdly, of 
machines that played music on 8 'tracks'. They took a Cadillac battery to 
run, back on the highway, wind in your hair. He glanced at his hair. They 
assented, about the 8 'track' things, not the hair. Unlike Andy Bell in 
1992, I was fazed. They were surprisingly unsurprised at my usual 
bemusement, without which the night wouldn't be itself. It was fun, I was 
gratified by their welcoming incomprehensible talk. At this point Stephie 
tumbled in, looking for soul food and a place to speak. His feet were happy, 
his hands rubbing along OK. I found myself back at the bar, talking to a 
couple of Americans. They wanted me to get them a T-shirt by which to 
remember the bar. I tried and I failed. They must settle for a matchbook or 
two. We were whirled and whisked like eggs to a corner, where I found myself 
looking straight at the one who was the ringleader. His labrador eyes 
plunged back into mine. An intrepid journalist came by and told me who the 
friendly Yanks were. I started to attempt reconstructing the significance of 
it all, as words trickled.

The boss man was stevie the magnetic fields. He was in town to inspect the 
QEII, it seemed. He was playing live at a festival organized by Womack and 
Womack. Stephie T crashed in beside me like a Charlatans lyric. I sensed 
strange feelings, magical powers, emanate between the pair. Perhaps mututal 
respect began to flow. I tried to speak.
- What's it like to play live?
A cavernous dolour erupted from stevie the tobacco flans' mouth.
- its about as easy as playing dead.

The question, it was true, had been about as dumb as pop. I tried dumber.
- Do you find anything worth seeing in London?
Languidly he turned his wraithlike body and swept an arm around the room. 
Drinks clattered from tables, metres away.
- decor.
I wasn't into the lava thing myself, but best not to argue. These Chryslers 
could be packing heat.

Somewhere a piano player spun a disc by Foreigner.

I left Stephie T to pick up the threads which were laddering around us.
- Do you think Brian Eno's a genius?
stevie the testament filters the warp diaries raised his eyelashes. Planets 
crashed.
- why yes, he uttered, the two words bearing meaning enough for ten. i based 
my early career on his record taking tiger mountain.
Stephie saw an opening. He wanted to make connections.

- Do you think Morrissey's a genius?
A voice rumbled from within stevie the dimanche people.

- of course i think him a genius
i naturally find it obscene he is
currently unrewarded
with a contract for all he has recorded
save only in hindustan
or was it taiwan?

Stephie grabbed a matchbook and started taking notes.

The noise seemed to continue.

- i caught a ladybug in a jar and killed it just for you
thats why im drinking vodka in this awful bar in timbuktu.

Somewhere we heard other words, rhymes too, drifting over, in counterpoint.
- Well, you've gotta be crazy, baby
To want a guy like me

I asked stevie the glass melangeurs if I could take a photo of him. He waved 
a wrist in assent. The flash was summer lightning. He took the camera and 
gave me the same treatment. He raised a brow.
- i have just noticed the colour of your sweater. its very interesting. very 
eighties.
- Actually, I interjected, like a fool, we call them 'jumpers' over here.
He gazed back at me unblinking.
- jumper, sweater, its the same thing. cest la meme chose.

Pause.

- cest la meme chose
as they say in alberquerque
my best friend knows
that i love her like a chicken loves a turkey

He paused again. World passed through fields in space.
- i like the cut.
Cor - that was nice of him. To single out the cut of my jumper for special 
praise. I wasn't quite sure what he meant by it. I'd better check.
- You like the cut of my jumper?
He gazed at me disbelieving. Somewhere nand played 'sonic primrose'.

- no. i was saying that i like the cut. its a music magazine that was 
produced in scotland in the late eighties. it featured pat kane, discussing 
the head bumps of muriel gray. they reviewed the first stone roses record in 
april nineteeneightynine, and gave it eight out of ten.
His eyes drifted sideways, as though in a reverie. Again a low drone issued.

- impossible that i
should have known
or you
should have a clue
that things would never be the same
when we were dancing in july
to the mid-period music of the brothers kane

Stephie T could see that I was struggling. He tried to haul the keel back 
into shape.
- Mr Jacobite Screenprinters, he asked, after what you said about Eno and 
Morrissey, I was wondering if you were ever a fan of the House of Love?
stevie the low drama princes seemed to smile a dark lugubrious smile's 
corner.

- its so silly
it isnt really
even tragic
but darling you know how time flies
swimming in your lonely eyes
and everything is magic
its true
im blue
ill never quite be thru
with the dames names
and the flawed chords
purveyed by guy chadwick.

Somewhere a piano player spun Huey Lewis. The scream split a floorboard. I 
made a note on my boy chart. Stephie T and stevie the marie lloyds affairs 
entered a deep discussion. A rumour floated that former members of green 
tamborine were in the building, but the claim was hazy. The Claim were hazy, 
too - no-one could seem to agree on whether any of their records had been 
any good, except a sturdy character in a 1954 World Cup T-shirt who bellowed 
affirmation. But that was miles away, in a watering-hole of a different 
volvic altogether, under oak beams and a stuffed mock-up of Henry's Cat; a 
pub in some City or other, guarded against Tories by dragons, or so the 
rumour went. It was a red herring, in this context: merely synchronous with 
Terence Stamp.

Someone, somewhere, caught a bus.

I realized that Stephie T was asking stevie the high peruvians about what 
instruments he'd be taking on the boat with him. How about a bass guitar?

- au contraire
les bass parts je prefere
to be played upon a tuba
i wouldnt have it any other way
for all the collective farms in cuba

Stephie nodded at me, and I scribbled this on a cribbed manger. It seemed 
like a useful tip for the future of our combo, after the marvels were capped 
and the quitters had called it quits.

Marc Almond passed, eating cyanide.

A gradual sense of novelty and strangeness, of life lived through some kind 
of convex lens, floated over us. Stephie and I looked at each other 
quizzically. We raised eyebrows at each other - only one apiece. We'd 
practised that for years. Slowly it became apparent that the whole thing was 
being videoed for posterity by Frank O'Hara, using a tiny camera inside his 
golden pocketbook.

We turned black and white, then sepia. As 1900 rushed towards us - but from 
which direction? - Stephie pinpointed the source of our surprise.
- Frank! he cried. I thought you were dead!

The poet removed a fag from his mouth.
- nah, he dragged in a white queen's accent, i just took a long lunch hour, 
is all.

stevie the blue fire engines' manager appeared, carrying a piano. I shook 
her hand. She replied with vigour, more than I'd anticipated. Somewhere 
Bryan Adams' 'Into The Fire' played as I found myself flying across the 
room, knocking over burly Soft Rock fans on my way. Glass tinkled like ice. 
I stared up at a blue ceiling. I rose with only a few broken homes, rubbing 
my jumper. After tonight I had to look after this jumper. I'd better tell 
the kids about it asap.

It dawned on me that her handshake had catapulted me into the toilets. I 
pulled out my matchbook again, leaned on the transparent urinal, looking at 
the people who live on the other side. Someone played Suicide. Or was it 
still Bryan Adams? Anyway, I pulled out a match and started to scrawl. 
Inspiration had struck, in the form of our encounter with stevie the contact 
lenders. I knew I had it in me now, the great song of my career, the summa 
of all I'd been trying to say.
I nnoted the date in one corner - 24 July 2000 - and started to write.

NOT FOR ALL THE SCHOOL BUSES IN CHERBOURG

I remember
that September
When they were starting to doubt Clive Allen
Honey, you should have cashed in your centimes
At the chip shop
Or the bureau de change

It was going well. But I sensed eyes on me. I looked sideways, saw that 
another bouncer was seated in the lavatory area, looking askance and beady 
upon my pop-literary activities. I'd have to finish this later.

Back in the bar stevie the fantastic meals' manager was playing a harp and a 
tambourine simultaneously. The sound quality seemed to have improved, though 
you could still make out Journey's hit 'Only Solutions', from the TRON 
soundtrack, underneath.

Stephie T was articulating a theory of pop. It all came down to the 
conflict, he said, between Protestant individuality and Catholic guilt. 
stevie the five aegis didn't seem to buy it. He responded with bottomless 
whimsy. Yet he seemed serious.

- sometimes when were dancing
i recall those summer nights with lotte lenya
but i wouldnt have them back again
for all the lions in kenya

He bought us cocktails. We never forgave him. We were enraptured. I spoke to 
stevie the journal pusher's sidekick. He said he'd sell me some bones, any 
time, for dollars down. Bowie was interested. Or was it Bowie? A piano 
player stuck on Blondie's 'Rapture'. stevie the idle hollies' harpist 
started to dance, singing in perfect tune along with the tuneless section 
about the man from Mars.

Our revels were ending. We bought some Maltesers, but it didn't really do 
the trick. A member of the Go-Betweens passed. Pickily I felt that the 
quality of the company was declining. Stephie disagreed. We fell out over 
it. Picking ourselves off the floor and climbing back in through a bathroom 
window, we saw the waspish  billboards the long crossword aces the roman 
orchids getting up to leave, with other tributary bands in tow. They had to 
go and practise for tomorrow. I imagined that sea-sickness could be a 
problem. Someone boiled a kettle of fish. It was liquid engineering. stevie 
the plastic babushkas left us with words of reassurance. They rhymed with 
'abhorrence'.

In the milky night Stephie and I made plans for the heartaches.

We hardly ever saw each other again, for at least seventeen hours. I counted 
photographs of him.

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