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Part One

Had to go into town today. Now call me a puff if you like, I’m too old to give a shit, but last night I’d had a nice long soak in the bath and then this morning I washed my hair. “What hair?” I hear you ask, “You’re 50 years old, you shouldn’t have any”. Well surprise, surprise. Most of my life women have been jealous of my hair. Seriously! The jealousy has only died down of late simply because it’s now going well and truly grey. But it’s still quality hair and I’ve not had it cut now for about 4 months. I cannot stand short hair. Most of my life it’s been long, in fact, just prior to having it cut in those later photos I had been sporting a pony-tail halfway down my back! At the moment it is well-covering my ears and fast approaching shoulder length and when it has just been washed it flows like silk and has a satin sheen. It makes me feel like the Rock Legend Superstar Bass Player that I really am. Don’t laugh. I am. Honest.

So I’m feeling really cool as I take half-an-hour lacing up my high-style Sketcher boots and throw my Berghaus jacket on and off to town I go. Wooly hat? Get lost. I just told you I’ve washed my hair. Everyone is going to see it flow. I’m back in town and everyone is going to know it. As I stride out I’m feeling really confident. It’s that “I don’t care how much you fancy me I’m not even going to glance at you” type of confidence. Now I have no qualms whatsoever about looking at really gorgeous girls and I don’t care if they see me looking. They don’t make me blush it’s usually the other way round. As far as I’m concerned it’s like looking at a lovely painting or landscape. Looking at beautiful women brightens my day up. It’s nothing to do with sex it’s to do with aesthetics. Some women can’t understand that. They think if I’m looking at them I must be mentally stripping them off or shagging them or something. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact I think it’s somewhat conceited of them and I wouldn’t want to have sex with a woman I don’t know anyway. No, I’m just giving my visual senses a treat then moving on to the next. It’s a bit like window-shopping when you don’t want to buy anything.

But today I’m not giving them a second glance. I am the centre of attention today. I stride through town like I own the place and one day I will. So today they are looking at me and not getting the expected result. I walk in a straight line. Today I am in charge and I’m not moving out of the way for anyone. I’ve got my Sketchers on and they hurt if they connect with your shins, and in any case, when I’m striding out you meet one or other of my Sketchers at least 3 feet in advance of the rest of my body. It’s not crowded but I’m not looking at them so they move. My path is my path. Get off it!

So where am I going? Well oddly enough, considering the jaunty little mood I’m in, I’m off to a job-club. Now usually I can’t stand these things and I’ve refused to join any of the ones I’ve been sent to so far. I usually find them depressing places full of depressed people. Far from helping you get a job they are more likely to make you commit suicide but this one is different. People have smiles on their dials and they chat and the people that run it are friendly and helpful. The building itself is almost completely glass so inside it is nice and bright and airy and to top everything off I came away with 5 reference numbers. These are all jobs available with the local council. Good jobs. Not like the crap you get from those stupid job-dispensing machines you find in the job centre. “Meets national minimum wage”. Oh great. So that’s £5 an hour then. Well I’m sorry but I am a star. I don’t get out of bed for less than £15 an hour and that’s when I’m feeling generous. The job centre staff just don’t seem to be able to grasp that concept for some reason. They are thinking why should I, an unemployed person want to earn more than they could ever dream of? Well I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m worth more than you you dumb twats. Did I say I was a star? Anyway I need to go to the Civic Centre to pick up the application forms which is why I have reference numbers. I can swing past it on the way home without breaking my stride.

So as I jauntily stride back through the town I come upon our local branch of MVC (CDs, DVDs, Videos etc.) and I stop.

Interlude

Now I should explain to you good folk that regardless of how much time I spend on this PC it in no way what-so-ever compares to the amount of time I have dedicated to music in my life in one form or another. Learning it, playing it, writing it, creating it, listening to it, living it. Many is the time I’ve spent all day in music shops thumbing through album sleeve after album sleeve (it’s not quite the same with CDs) looking for that elusive item missing from my collection or simply something new to try. I’ve bought albums just because I like the bloody cover-art. There have been periods when I have been buying 4 or 5 albums a week. Yes that’s right. A week! I’ve come home one day with 3 or 4 albums and still been scanning the racks the next day. Now I do have a large collection of both CDs and vinyl but it’s nothing like as large as it would have been if I’d kept everything I’ve bought. It’s not something I’ve done with CDs. I think I still have all the CDs I’ve bought but there’s many an album that’s been part-exchanged for something new.

There used to be a beautiful record shop in Hurst Street, Birmingham, called The Diskery. There is still a Diskery but it’s moved across to the Stratford Road now. Anyway, back then it was in a really old building, you know the sort where the walls look like they are buckling. That’s actually why it moved. They had to pull that side of the street down. Ha ha. It’s true. Honest. I went there once after a bit of an absence and it had gone. Do you know I was almost as heart-broken as when Hendrix died. I never got over that. Jeez but that guy had magic in his fingers. Anyway I later found out that it had moved and I went and had a look round. Same guys there running the place. And they recognised me too despite not having seen me for a while. You get a nice feeling inside when that happens. Still the same great selection and service (even better when they know you) but the shop itself didn’t have the same atmosphere which you will see when I get back to the old days again. I don’t think I’ve been back there in 15 years but if it’s still there I’ll bet those same guys are still running it. Would they still recognise me? I really don’t know. Maybe it’s been too long now. Still. You never know.

Back on track me and my mates used to go over to Birmingham, and usually The Diskery, pretty much every weekend and there was a period of about 2 years where I was going to college in Birmingham and could be found in there nearly everyday as I couldn’t just pass it by on the way home. So as you approach The Diskery from the Queensway you used to go passed a night club on the corner called La Dolce Vita then your visual senses were suddenly assaulted by this massive mural of a black and yellow wasp painted on the side of a corner shop. The shop was indeed called Wasp and was a guitar shop. Aaah the wood inside that shop was just irresistible so a good hour was spent in there just drooling and trying to ignore the price tags. Out of there and continue down the road to the next regular drop-in point – a little hippydom-type shop by the name of Tea and Sympathy. Look, I didn’t think it up and in any case back then it was way cool. Now this shop was a full-frontal assault on your nasal passages. They sold incense, joss-sticks, smelly candles, that sort of thing. Plus we could pick up the latest copy of OZ. Yeah that’s right. Rupert the fucking Bear. We liked it even if the judges didn’t. We understood what it was about and they didn’t. Anal prats. All they were interested in was Rupert’s bloody massive cock. Like it was the only page in the magazine. The truth is it never had anything to do with Rupert’s cock. The establishment didn’t like the coverage they were getting was the big problem. Independent judiciary my frigging arse. Anyway you always came out of Tea and Sympathy smelling of incense which I forgot to mention was always burning away inside. Even on a breezy day you could still smell it. It sort of infiltrated your clothing. You could always smell if someone had been in there hours after they’d left.

And on to The Diskery. Through the “almost shoulder-width” front door one at a time. Greetings from the guys that ran it. Home at last. Now there were no CDs back then. This was wall to wall albums. And there was no floor space for racks. There were 3 walls of floor-to-ceiling shelving and the 4th wall was the counter and a second door with a big “No Entry – Private” notice on it which I shall go through in a bit. The shelves were absolutely jammed with albums. By that I mean they stood vertically. There was not the slightest bit of looseness that might allow them to lean ever-so-slightly over. Vertical, rigid, tight. Now I’m not exactly short at 5’ 10” and then you add my arm length on to that and I reckon I can touch 8 feet. I had to stand on tip-toe to reach the top shelf and then you had to get down on your hands and knees to see what was on the bottom shelves. This was always a full-day job. Lunch? Get out of here. I’m busy. Tea. No chance! Mom will do me something when I get home whenever that may be. No this was heaven. You don’t need food in heaven.

And the two guys knew their business. I think they had listened to everything in there. But they weren’t pushy or big-headed or anything like that. If you asked them a question about something they would impart their knowledge but if you didn’t they just let you get on with the browsing.

Depending on the state of my collection at the time I may well have turned up with some albums tucked under my arm which I decided I was no longer interested in. Apart from the music itself I was and still am an avid hi-fi buff. I could bore the back legs off a donkey if I went technical. Thing is my albums were always in pristine condition regardless of age including the covers. I used to buy those plastic sleeves to keep them in. They never came back to the shop of course. The empty ones would be sitting at home ready to receive my new purchases. Now I mentioned earlier that you got better service when they knew you and they definitely knew me. After you had brought a few albums in to exchange they would realise that you looked after them and mostly wouldn’t bother checking the record itself. It was just a matter of what titles you had brought, were they popular, did they have a few copies already etc which determined how much you got for them. In general you could say 3 returns would get you a new one. No cash involved unless that’s what you wanted though I think you got a better exchange rate if you were simply swapping. Anyway they would look them over, nod approvingly or pull the odd face now and again then it was a case of how many new ones they would offer you and having a good look round to find something you wanted. Once you had found something it might be an album you hadn’t heard so you’d slowly edge towards that second door. You didn’t say anything. You just caught the eye of one of the guys and surreptitiously indicated your intentions. You never said a word in the shop. That was a house rule. If you weren’t an approved customer you never knew what was through that second door. As I keep saying, once they knew you….. So there’s a slight nod of the head and maybe the odd, silently mouthed “You’ve picked a good one there” and it’s through that second door I go.

The first thing that hits you is how narrow the staircase in front of you is. Seriously narrow. If you met someone going in the opposite direction it was crabbing time. You had to pass each other sideways on. There was no option. And it was still a tight squeeze. Breathe in and all that. It’s a good job I’m thin and I was thinner then! And then they were steep as well. With stairs you sort of go upwards and forwards at the same time but I think someone had forgotten to put the forwards bits into these stairs. And more. There was no way they were true to the perpendicular. What I’m saying is that even back then they had sort of started to fall over, and I’m sure if you had jumped on them you’d have gone straight through. You got used to them after a while but the first couple of times you went up and down them they scared the shit out of you. And it was no better when you got to the top. When the guys downstairs decided to allow you to use this facility they openly warned you to tread lightly up here. I don’t think the warning was necessary. You could feel the floor going up and down as you took each step and you knew it wasn’t the floorboards, it was the frigging joists. Oh but they don’t build shops like that any more which is why the new shop wasn’t the same. Service, quality, selection were all just as good if not a little better as there was more space but it wasn’t the same building. You didn’t get that “will we still be in here when it collapses” feeling. Funny things aren’t they buildings?

In front of you are 4 booths, about the same size as a clothes-shop changing cubicle. In through the door of the first empty one you find. There’s a shelf with a record deck and a couple of speakers on it and a chair to sit on. Shut the door behind you, place the record on the platter and start it, sit down and listen. Not too loud. Don’t want to annoy the guys downstairs. You just didn’t do that. You waited till you got home and annoyed your parents instead having first ensured you got fed. Happy with it? Great. So it’s just a case of gingerly retracing your steps and letting the guys know you’re taking it. You made sure they popped it into a bag cuz it just plain made you feel good to walk through Birmingham centre back to New Street station with a Diskery bag under your arm. You had been to the Diskery. They knew you there. You were in. You were a star.

Part Two

So I’m standing in front of MVC. For a change I’m not only feeling confident but I’m feeling flush. I don’t know how I managed it (maybe it was starving and freezing to death last week ) but I’ve got money I don’t actually need. Yes that’s right. Spending money! Now it must be close on 3 years since I bought myself a CD and I can’t even remember what that was but today I have spending money and I’m a star. I own this fucking town. I stride into the shop. As I cross the threshold it just feels so right. I belong here. This is my domain.

The shop is full of people but it is empty. I don’t see them. They are invisible. I’m here now. I’m the only one that matters today. I couldn’t even tell you if there were any pretty girls in there. They were invisible. They are unimportant. Compared to music they are insignificant and today I’m just not wasting my time on them. All I see are the racks of CDs all around me. My fingertips are tingling. A shiver runs down my spine. Home again. Now I have to be careful here. The council, being the part-timers that they are, shuts at 4.00pm and it’s Friday so I definitely want to get those application forms today. OK then. Just this once I’ll try and ration my time in here. I start to flick through the cases. Because I’m time-poor I’m picking specific letters of the alphabet to scan through, Y for YES, no got all those including all of the tracks on compilations. A is for Aerosmith, no got all those too. T is for Tangerine Dream with the same result. I have a quick scan through H for Hendrix on the off-chance something new from his own tape source has turned up but no joy. R is for RUSH and shit if there aren’t 2 new ones I don’t have. Now I could be totally stupid and get both which means I don’t eat again before Wednesday but I don’t do it. I just select one of them and move over to the counter to settle up. I must remember that there is still one to get though. Looks like getting a bit thinner then doesn’t it? Soft as it sounds that has just wiled away 40 minutes and it’s now 3:40pm. The Civic Centre is only a couple of minutes away though so I stride off again ignoring everything that moves including the traffic. Hey. Today there’s nothing can put a scratch on me. When I want to cross the road I cross. I don’t wait for them to stop. They shouldn’t be driving private vehicles up here anyway and taxis can go shove it where the sun don’t shine. I don’t wait for the traffic to stop. I cross the road. The traffic stops when I want it to. I don’t look at them. I only move in one direction today. My direction. I see out of the corner of my eye that the driver is gesticulating. Fuck him. He’s only a car driver. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a mobile glued to his ear. Moron. I’m considering planting one of my Sketchers in his headlight but I wouldn’t want to scratch my boots now would I?

I stride into the Civic Centre. The woman behind the counter is a very attractive blonde in her 30s and as I walk towards the counter I see that she has rather a nice pair on her and they are mostly on view. I stride to the counter and ensure that her computer screen is between us so all I can see is her face. Now I know she was expecting me to stand to the side of the monitor so I could grab an eyeful of her cleavage. How do I know that? Because she had to shift her body position to look at where I was rather than where she thought I would be. I was politeness itself requesting the application forms for the reference numbers I had. Another girl went to get them then I did the second thing the blonde wasn’t expecting. I turned my back on her and went and looked through the windows. I could see she was looking at me through the reflection in the window. Now don’t get me wrong here. I know I’m a star today. Did I mention that? I’m not trying to suggest I’m in anyway totally attractive to women or anything. You’d have to ask them. I couldn’t give a hoot. But I do know that women who know they are attractive expect a certain behaviour in men and when it doesn’t happen they wonder what it is that’s wrong. I think it sometimes makes you more attractive to them but that’s not why I’m doing it. Today women are of no interest to me. Today I am the star. I own this fucking town and everyone in it. Today is look at me day. I’ve got this phenomenal bass riff going through my head and I can’t figure out if it’s something I’ve heard or I’ve just made up but it’s one bitch-slapping bass riff and as I stare through the window looking at absolutely nothing I’m almost dancing to it. I can hardly keep still. My fingertips are still tingling. In the window reflection I notice the other girl returning and I stride over to her, not the blonde, thank her very much indeed, say goodbye to both of them and stride out. That is true power. The type of power Bush doesn’t know about thank fuck. He’d be dangerous if he did.

I stride back through town much the same way as I came, in a straight line. I see no-one. They move out of my way. Even the pigeons look askance at me. I arrive home just as the Chinese take-away opens. I’m having one. I stride in. Ken knows me. He welcomes me. It’s that “good feeling inside” time again. I take the meal home. Once inside I drop the attitude but I’m still smiling to myself inside.

The meal is eaten. As I sit here typing this I’m listening to my new CD. Excellent choice. I have my Status fret-less bass on my lap. In between sentences I’m picking out the bass riffs on it. I’m matching Geddy note for note and putting my own in as well. And this stuff is new. Jeez but I’m good. I’m very good. Maybe it’s time Geddy came and learned a few things from me instead. My fingertips are tingling. There’s magic in them.

This is thebombsite.com where magic still happens.