Something I drafted up the beginnings of while I was vegetating this month. Obviously, the entire fucking thing is fictional with fictional character intermingled with some real folk doing shite they obviously never really did but do in the context of this 'article' in the name of Good Entertainment. I'll be writing more of the travesty if I ever decide to get of my lazy arse again.
Any and all historical bloopers and/or mishaps can be chalked up to Artistic License.
~~ “State of the Occupation: A Decade and a Deuce of Manchester, or: 50,000 Bands Can’t Be Wrong” a serial editorial column by Colin Effervesce, former vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the Surge Protectors for Churn Magazine.
This is not a gig, this is not the news, this is not a documentary, it is simply the best rant by the best rhythm guitarist of the worst band on the worst independent record label in the history of pop.
A wise man, possibly Grecian, once said ‘A man of impulse and his newfound inheritance are soon parted.’ A greater universal truism, I have yet to hear. Then again, the ancient Greeks did not exactly have the Social Support program, or checking accounts. Then again, I just made that bloody quote up. But true enough, true enough! No checking accounts back then, right? Of course not, the Knights Templar wouldn’t be out and about until around a thousand years or so, right? Well, you now must be asking yourself ‘What the fuck is this git pissing on about?’ unless you’ve already turned the page or thrown this mag into the nearest bin with disgust and maybe a particularly phlegm-ish gob. What, pray tell, do the Greeks and the Ordo Templaris have to do with Manchester? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, and that’s that life consists entirely of two things- wastes of time and required wastes of time. ~ Flashback, 1982. I was leaning hard against a steel pylon, zebra-striped vermillion and jet black as if to look like a thick vertical streak of police tape. The entire building reeked suspiciously of freshly-stripped asbestos. Welcome to Factory’s absolutely bourgeoisie display of art-fart, willy-nilly avant indulgence in the heart of Manchester.
Is it a discotheque? Is it a dive bar? Is it a dry bar? Moderately moist? I had my doubts if even Mr. Granada TV, dicking around the periphery of the monstrosity like a giant prairie dog in a topcoat, was sure at all. But I got an invitation, along with the rest of my band, being recent Factory acquisitions. Only two of us showed up, counting me. The rest of the lads were had fucked off after five minutes and gone ‘rehearse’ which translated from their dialect into ‘Piss off and score some grass off Philly Kirk(our manager) or Martin Hannett.’
I’d been in here for the past two and a half hours and frankly I’d have rather been down in Salford dropping a deuce into a dumpster.
I licked up the dregs of my lager as Fred- sorry, Francois as he liked to be called those days(Forgive me, I’d have that fancy-arse type ‘C’ in there but my typewriter couldn’t be arsed to be that state-of-the-art yet) sauntered over from the dry bar with some exotic-looking cup of something in hand. I could barely make him out in this piss-poor lighting, much less with his saucy black French beret and black velvet smoking blazer on. “Jesus mary’ogawd, let’s get the hell out of here, man.”
He seriously looked taken aback, “Why? This is fantastic stuff! Applied art! Post-modernist expressionism in the third dimension!”
“It smells like the fookin’ john in that youth club back in Liverpool we played at, it does. The lighting system feels like its being powered by a chinaman in the backroom on a tricycle and being filtered through my contracted arsehole, and there’s some skeleton up on th’ stage playing gee-tar like Andres-fucking-Sergovia an’ it’s really gratin’ on my nerves!”
“That’s Vini Reilly you cunty philistine!” Fred gesticulated wildly at the fleshy zombie with the Beatles haircut onstage, solemly plucking strings to a crowd of around five or six, counting the bartenders. Barely discernible behind him was another bloke swatting at a plastic drum machine that looked like two disposable dinner plates duct-taped to the gutted remnants of a couple Atari 2600s- it probably was.
“I don’t care who the hell it is, it’s no better than those five poofs that were on just an hour ago with the fuckin bongos and whistles!! We’re leagues better than this lot, I dunno WHY Tony didn’t give us a shot here yet- oh wait, yes now I know, because the place is shite. Here.” Fred flailed at me with his free hand as I made a grab into the pockets of his military surplus trousers.
“What the-?!”
“Gimme the keys. Gi-GIMME ‘EM, I’m goin’ home on me own if you’re not!”
~ Alright, admittedly, I had a slight aversion to the Hacienda in the early days(again, my typewriter is about as old as the Queen Mum). But really, to get to the full throbbing gristle of this story, the origin story as my comic-collecting son would say, you’d need to start at the origin of me and the others, my own band. Right at the embryonic moment at whence we all stopped being lazy scallies and evolved, through the practical magic of musical Darwinism, into lazy scallies with a career path. I guess, son, the miracle of life started on a chilly, cozy July night shared between me and your blessed mum and about forty or so people in the Lesser Free Trade Hall in ’76.
