Sinister: When Ye Go, Lassie, Fly Go

[P F]

I was in Glasgow long after I should have been. And I
was sorry to have left Glasgow long before I had.

The angry crowd at the late-night Stansted terminal,
informed that the flight had been cancelled. The cute
green go patches on the lassies' turquoise shirts.
(Who could have a go at a go lassie like that? Folk
with more consistency than me.) The comedy taxi driver
leading us away from Scotland, into Essex. Darkest
Essex - except that it's probably even darker in
winter.

The Palms Hotel in Romford, doubtless staging the vast
dregs of a wedding bash: overspilling with shiny girls
at 1:30 in the morning. The 'music' thumped louder
than any I could think of. Fans of Relentlessly
Thumping Contemporary Pop that The Kids are Into
(Ewing, Le Troussé, Raggett, et al) should have been
there. Especially if I could have been where they
were. Like a swap. Yes.

The hotel bath that seemed to fill so quickly. The
June rain outside in the middle of the night. The
panic of seeing the time of waking: 8:30. The foreign
receptionist, Lotte, and her vague, game bids to get
me off her hands and into the playpen of the airline
people. The mild compensation of the breakfast with
Sinatra, Cole, Bacharach/David et al - a tremendous
touch. Feeling that this was an unusual way to spend
Bloomsday. 11:00? That's somwehere between 'Nestor'
and 'Proteus', isn't it?

The Irish passenger in the cab who sagely made out to
know all about Joyce. Well, it's easily done. The LRB
in the queue back at the beloved Stansted. The project
that still needed (needs) finishing, to be worked on
while waiting for boarding time: 'United States Postal
Service' over a cappucino, then through for a major
Boss pastiche in view of the runways, engines and
fins. Hey, this is progress.

England falling away to be photographed. The brochure,
like Tintin used to read, saying that Glasgow's main
feature was the Clyde. The lyric to run over and over
and fiddle with. The Bucks Fizz. The kids laughed when
I told them I'd had a Bucks Fizz. I got out The Charm
of the Highway Strip so that they'd announce that we
were coming in to land, please switch off all walkmen.
They did. They always do.

Scotland.

The bus to the city - The City, if you like. The roar
of the bus over 'Crowd Of Drifters'. The city in its
metropolitan magnitude. I must tell my editor to take
out that stuff I wrote about Grand Central Station and
replace it with something about Central Station.
Awesome. And all of this in the pale summer. The
Underground. Perhaps I had waited years to use the
Glasgow Underground, and never even known it. It felt
that way. You could 'fall in love' with that tube
system. I 'did'.

At Kelvinhall I stumbled down an alley then realized
the street was the other way. In a box I rang 96. 96,
I said - I'm in a box, you're in some frocks. I tried
to follow his directions. I wound up back in the
alley. I tried again. Here he was coming down the
road. His T-shirt bore a legend. I asked him if that
was the university that threw him out. No, it was
another university that threw him out.

Kelvingrove Park. A 'twee' name, if you like, for the
distant and the outsider. I suggested to my editor
that B&S had recolonized the nomenclature of Glasgow
and made it (for want of a better word) twee. - Yes,
he said - for it used to be Kelmanesque.

The park, the crowds. Only one of them was bothered
that it was Bloomsday. He let in no goals. Well,
that's my story. Don't believe it. I was asked what it
was like to be hanging around with a load of young
girls. In fact, when I was young, I often used to hang
around with a load of young girls. I mean, assembly
was once a week.

Here were characters with welcoming attitudes. Here
was a man who looked like David Moore, revisiting the
circuits. Here was a boss that looked just like Honey,
calling me Lloyd Cole. Easy mistake to make, if you
try hard. Here was The Velocity Girl, theorizing
cogently about meta-pop and the conceptual work to be
done upon the country genre. Here were the Jinxed
Minxes. Here was the Foxy Field, picking up injuries
on a foreign one. Here was the care bear, in elegant
mourning for her unhappiness.

My editor theorized once more about the metropolitan
character of Glasgow. I must remember not to show him
that paragraph above.

It was very pastoral. A century of elves.

In a bar, my first Glaswegian bar, my editor and I
defended the idea of artifice, or the artifice of
ideas (j'exagere). What I mean is - I have always
agreed with him about posing. I took a photograph of
him looking at a photograph of himself looking at a
photograph of himself. I met Sprout. She from
Chesterfield, like. That a Liberal Democrat weakhold.

The care bear warned me not to write 'Tractor Boy'. -
If you write 'Tractor Boy', she warned, I shall never
listen to you again. It's a good thing she didn't tell
Merritt not to write 'Railroad Boy' or 'Falling For
The Wolfboy'. Or is it? No, not necessarily. (I expect
someone to write and tell me that the former, or
indeed the latter, is a cover. No, I don't.) Why did
she not like 'Tractor Boy'? It would be a mere
pointless exercise in genre exploration. I tried to
enlist my editor to argue that pointless generic
exercises could be a good thing. Most probably
disagree with us. We probably disagree with us,
sometimes.

Mooro was the new pinefox, in a notebook sense.
Carsmile was - where? Robinson was charming. - It's a
Pool Marathon, he growled.

The streets were still bright. In a car my editor and
I crossed the town so that he could analyze some new
graffiti. Quickly.

We passed a pub and thought of Peter Miller. There is
a street named after him in the city centre.

We wound up at a concert hall, arrested by the frayed
sound of failing neon. We found the Uptown Shufflers'
'Jungle Book' charming and bizarre. The lyrics so out
of context, here, sung by this old man. And how about

DOON THE TRACK THE TRAAIIN CAME PUFFING
SCOTLAND TEN
ENGLAND NOTHIN'!!!
?

Belle and Sebastian played far more tightly than I've
heard them before - than most people have heard them
before. They played *impressively*. Mooro said it well
- how can I add to what he's said? Hm -

>>> Line from new song I Love My Car / And good :) In
my head all day today.

This was debated on Sunday. I am not convinced. That
is ungenerous of me. Maybe I'll regret it.

>>> Stevie Reverb played 3 or 4 notes of the intros to
The Beatles' Blackbird before Wrong Girl & The Stones'
Last Time before Legal Man.

Yes. I wish he'd played all of 'The Last Time'. Maybe
then he would have hit a lengthy, loud guitar solo.
That was what I lacked at this gig - loud squalls of
guitar playing. 

Jackson sounded very much like Paul Heaton. Why have
we never noticed this before?

Their capacity to improvise requests is impressive
too. A lot of bands couldn't, or wouldn't, do that. I
thought about copying them, till I remembered that I
do it anyway, less entertainingly.

I don't understand the fuss (if fuss it is) about them
playing an encore. I would have thought that NOT
playing an encore might show 'less respect for the
audience', etc. They played what they played
impressively.

Outside, Shearer's magical mystery tour. The blue
light shimmering up Buchanan Street. The joke about
Sauciehall Street and the copper. The queue, in which
Shearer did a word-perfect mimicry of my phone message
to my editor. The noise inside seemed like the Palms
Hotel revisited, till we reached the 60s room. Perhaps
I shall not trouble to engage in a load of pointless
carping about the unthinking recycling of versions of
'the 60s' to the exclusion of all else.

Cookie, Mooro, Honey all together in one corner - I
looked at that and could practically feel the quality
vibes flowing.

The crowd. The violence. The alco-pop. The B&S members
walking in in hot clothing. The farewells. The Narrow
Wizard and Chu outside the kebab shops. The mansion.

Sunday. The folks. The folk. My folk's smaller than
your folk. I mean, that's an ALBUM ye've got there,
sir. Very impressive. And very hospitable.

The roads. Hillhead tube in its grubby romance. The
Wizard talking about post-industrial society while
waiting for his stout to be poured. The gig analysis
from Alder and all de rest. The split over 'I Love My
Car'. The organic Honey. Jumpers contest. 'ld' beghtol
could have judged it. No-one quite took the garish
picture the occasion demanded. The Hogshead. The
unexpected return of the editor. Polemics against the
Velvets and the Pistols. Sausages and mash. Free
drinks. Someone has to be on a golf course, lady. The
list bosses' verdicts on the new 45. My best idea was
'Elvis Costello'. It was a fine idea at the time. Now
it's a couple of days old. You can have it if you
want. The rootsy bar again for trad folk. They
wouldn't let me play. I wanted my ball back. Sweetie
said something. The gang was whittling itself. Foxy
Field relaying beers at the bar and wearing a 'Boring'
sticker. A geezer singing unaccompanied; a geezer
singing dull songs about Dublin. A secret Byrds cover.
Shearer, the pinefox and Chu heading their ways down
summer-night streets and hills. The grass, the trees,
the skies, the clouds. We ought to remember this. We
won't if my camera is playing up. Chu's vocal take on
the mandolin of 'All My Little Words'. Back at base,
like Chu said, a high-quality jam. The sort of thing
you might expect. The outro of 'Wandering Days', I'll
have you know, was thrilling. It was like listening to
Bowie. It was like *being* Bowie. Lester Bowie.
Playing a piano.

Still no sign of the West End festival, save that
'Wandering Days'. But the greenery of the streets. The
light through the windows. My hosts are pop music
fans, they listen to the radio. My editor's favourites
were on there. They were dismal. Don't tell him. The
cries of schoolkids. The cars on the Great Western
Road. University Avenue; the big postcards from the
uni shop; the T-Rex. The park, which makes Kids say,
'Don't walk through the park, if you're on your own'.

The Transport Museum. The 'peace caravan'. The vintage
cars. The romance of the immobile trams. There are
fire engines, standing by. I was encouraged to
photograph more. They thought it was my 'interest'.
Maybe it should be. Outside I wondered whether the
ice-cream van ought to be in the museum.

The way Sauciehall Street changes its names over and
over in reality, but not on the map. The music shop
for strings for Shearer; where my grandmother used to
work. St Enoch and the vast glass roof. Chips - how
many chips can ye eat? Times Square.  George Square.
The Care Bear.

The river. The sadness of the river on a summer
afternoon. The care bear pointed out that I shouldn't
really like B&S, if I'm going to suggest that they
should have louder guitar parts. B&S, she explained,
are romantic. The bridges. This is sounding like
Robinson.

Missing. Inaction. Not a single Lloyd Cole vinyl
record, but a Bowie one, and not Lester. The care bear
was unconvinced that It's A Shame About Ray could be
any good. The streets, closing down. The estates like
scenery in a Glasgow film. I can see how they make
those films, now. They just start the camera.

The B&S record again. It's true, the strings on track
2 are nice. It's true, they have dulled down track 3.
Once again, that guitar part should have been mixed
way up higher. They should try using the care bear's
gear. You should see it. I mean, hear it. One minute
it's Robert Quine, the next it's Robert Forster. John
Martyn, come to think of it. Wish Mooro could have
been there to hear *that*.

Here came Cookie and the Shearer again. Working men,
like in a Boss song. Working hard all day / to earn ma
chips. We were shown a video. It was engaging. Some
don't love the arrangement of the record, some do. I
can't see much wrong with it, actually. The final
shots of the video are tremendous. The cookie knocks
things over, earlier. People play instruments. People
played instruments. 96 played acoustic guitar. The
care bear played the bass guitar. The Shearer played
percussion. The ensemble was - again - terrifically
engaging. I hope not to forget it. Cookie doesn't
forget much. Write something and he'll still remember
it six years later. He should be a spy, or a 'Mr
Memory' or something.

We left the care bears to make their plans, and toured
the dark city for the last time. The Shearer
demonstrated his wizardry on the computer, and the
crossword. He makes wee CDs. Honest. In the morning a
relative of his told me that 'Goin' the messages'
means, going out for essential provisions. I went out
and did not return. Hillhead to Buchanan Street. The
air in the streets was rainy and clear, if that makes
sense. A fiddler played. Inside a shopping centre,
Oasis were being covered by the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra. And soon it was all gone. Gone again into
colours and names on a map, which I looked at with a
pang in my heart, thinking, I wish I was still in
Glasgow. Then I realized that I was. We were still
waiting for the aeroplane to take off. When it did,
all those people and buildings swooping away into the
rear-view mirror of eternity. Those wee folk at their
jobs or their dole offices. The colours and shapes of
the city cut loose and covered by the clouds.



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Spot the hottest trends in music, movies, and more.
http://buzz.yahoo.com/
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
        +---+  Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list  +---+
     To send to the list mail sinister at missprint.org. To unsubscribe
     send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to
     majordomo at missprint.org.  WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister
 +-+       "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper           +-+
 +-+  "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+
 +-+    "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000     +-+
 +-+  "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000  +-+
 +-+  "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001   +-+
 +-+               Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa                 +-+
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+