i don't know why you say goodbye, I say hello...

My first guitar was a battered, sprucetop, steel strung acoustic with an action that Beth Ditto could limbo dance under. A formidable beast, it bore the scars of a generation of abuse and the name Epiphone on its headstock. Handed down by an aging uncle whose arthritic fingers refused to do the bidding of an acutely sharp mind, it had been marinating in rhythm ‘n’ blues since the 1940s.
Not the stupid R’n’B thing that we have today, which is synonymous with screeching divas or black girl groups singing what we sophisticated gents used to call soul.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the inspiration for the British boom of the 60s and bands like the Stones, The Yardbirds and John Mayall.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the touchstone for the 70s revival and bands like Dr Feelgood and Nine Below Zero.
Rhythm ‘n’ Blues, the transfusion without which we would still have Greensleeves coursing through our veins.
Real music on real instruments by people with real lives and real characters.
Music that spoke of the lives of the people who made it.
Music that cut its way into the grain of every battle scarred instrument it was ever played on.
Music that…

Uh?
Oh, must have dropped off for a minute there – having the most wonderful dream.

Of course, that’s the story I’d like to tell; a misty, soft focus, romanticised tale of a mysterious relative who came and went through my childhood, dropping names like Hooker, Waters, Diddley and Berry. Sadly, there was no such uncle and no such guitar. As much as I’d love this to be a MOJO Magazine tale of the childhood genius flourishing thanks to a gift from a legendary British bluesman, in truth, my early aspirations and attempts to be musical were utterly fruitless and the closest I ever got was farting in the bath.
The reality was that my very first guitar was a plastic thing of no real distinction other than the fact it bore the faces of the four Beatles.
My recollection has it that it was a faux electric, that is, that it was shaped like a stratocaster.
It was probably nothing more than an oversized ukulele.
I say that, not as a derisory comment towards the uke but merely to suggest the size of instrument your smaller than average five year old would be capable of holding. I know I must have been five because this was the time of my first musical awakening.
I still remember the first song that hooked me and probably the first sound that made me ask my poor mother for a guitar. It sounds a bit silly now but that single little snippet of electric guitar, that one note, bent up and back, just before Paul McCartney sings “Oh no, You say goodbye and I say hello” was the thing that reeled me in.
Suddenly I was a Beatles fan. I wanted to be George Harrison.

The annuls of history tell me that it was 1967 and more than likely at Christmas, the song in question not being recorded until October which places it a good five years and two weeks after my coming into being. It also strikes me that it wouldn’t have been a birthday because birthdays were, in the main, immemorable occasions. Maybe it’s a generation thing but we didn’t really ‘do’ birthdays in the sixties. Maybe it’s just that all the parents were too stoned to be able to cohesively construct something as complex as a birthday party. Maybe the kids, cake, games and tantrums were just a little too ‘Alice’ for the tripped out flower power brigade. Maybe they were too busy banning the bomb or burning their bras. Maybe they were lost on the way to San Francisco with flowers in their hair.
Who knows?
Certainly not me in my little world of eggmen and walruses.

From my earliest of memories, the radio was always on. My earliest true memories, not memories by association or by proxy, are actually of getting freaked by the wallpaper in my bedroom at my Grandparents prefab and having a little red plastic sit and ride London bus. These are inseparable memories although I know, apart from the fact that they are mine, that they are in no way remotely connected to each other. Why, I know not, but they are inseparable all the same, stuck together by an invisible bond like two strangers who’ve just been shit on by the same seagull.
Close to these in my memory bank is indeed the fact that the radio was always on.
My mum was a young mother; only twenty-one when I was accidentally born in Aberdeen. Not that my birth was an accident. Small though she may have been and, to me as a child, in possession of all the magical powers in the world, she would most definitely have been pregnant before I was born and would naturally have been up to some hanky panky with my other parent. No, my accidental appearance in Aberdeen was down to the fact that she was whisked by ambulance to the Granite City because the local hospital couldn’t cope.
Having narrowly escaped all the ridiculously fashionable names in 1962, I ended up being named after a ridiculous pop singer of ridiculous pop songs, simply because our surnames sounded similar. This left me with a ridiculously un-fashionable name. Worst still, I was anointed by the poisoned chalice of being an Aberdonian.
Situated some sixty miles south east from what would be my home for my first 13 years, to a small boy who rarely ventured beyond the end of his street, Aberdeen was the big city; a place of mystical stature and for all I knew, the edge of the world.

As a child, I was part of a single parent family. I had no real explanation for this and believe me, in one of Scotland’s smallest cities, an explanation was most definitely needed. Everyone knew everyone else and most of their business besides. Even if the kids didn’t really know each other, it was a fair bet that their mothers did and consequently, it was a fair bet that, while their mothers clacked over the fence about the cost of pies or whether Tom Jones really was better than Englebert Humperdink, certain kids would stockpile any poisonous pellets that fell their way, saving them up to be conveniently fired at a time of their choosing at the little gap toothed kid across the street. Others were typically kid-like in their solidarity and their unquestioning nature.
Some had fathers at sea. Some had fathers who were deceased. Some probably had fathers who they claimed were at sea but were actually in jail while others had normal two parent families. Me, I just had no father, no explanation and a source of great insecurity and inferiority that I couldn’t understand. With a mother in her twenties, you would however, be excused for thinking that in my childhood I was exposed to all the cultural delights that prevailed at the time.
Not so.

I wouldn’t say my childhood was unconventional.
Certainly not in the way that being of an insular religious persuasion that eschews modernity and fraternisation with the infidels would mean but my childhood was definitely different from most of my friends. My mother left to work in London and I grew up with my grandparents in the matriarchal and patriarchal roles. By this time, they were in their late sixties. They did old people stuff. They liked old people things like bowling, wrestling and the black and white minstrel show. They wore old people clothes like semmits, y-fronts and big blue raincoats. They ate old people food like tongue, liver and kidney.
Didn’t they know what these things were for?
To my growing disgust, I was expected to do the same and even now, with the exception of retirement homes, I can always tell by the pishy smell when I enter a place where kidney has been cooked. I know this to be true because it has recently been put to the test – not that I’ve been stalking old folks homes you understand.
I guess it must be a war thing.
People who have lived through the world wars feel it necessary to eat all sorts of weird stuff that would induce a gag reflex in most modern beings.
Don’t they know that’s what haggis and black pudding are for!
Just gather up all the slimy wobbly bits that nobody wants.
Add enough black pepper to choke a horse
Chuck it all in a plastic bag.
Boil for an hour.
Instant local delicacy

Their notion of entertainment was no different.
When I wanted to play, they would be off to the bowling club, the wrestling or visiting aging relatives who, instead of toys or radio, had a nice big platter of ox tongue sandwiches. I was never allowed friends in the house and I never had any new stuff. My football kit wasn’t even last seasons, my football boots were given by a mate who outgrew them, my school clothes were like something an insurance broker would wear and my haircut was decidedly short back and nae sides; a style favoured by those engaged in trench warfare. Hell, I was retro before retro was even on the fashion map.
The biggest influence in my life was my grandfather and what that meant was that my pre-teen years amounted to numerous trips to the Masonic lodge, the bowling green or the bookies. I was four going on sixty-four and destined to be a flat capped geek. Something had to be done.
The worst thing of all was the ritual Sunday afternoon trip to the cemetery. Even now, after forty plus years, the psychological scars remain and the very thought of dead flowers is enough to bring me out in a cold sweat.

Big, tombstone riddled field full of dead folk? I can handle that.
Smell of rotting vegetation? Totally f4cked.

The reason for this was it was always the job of my older cousin and I to take last week’s flowers to the bin, wash out the vases and refill them with fresh water. I can vividly recall the cut glass bowl and the chromed lid with all the holes in it that the decaying and slimy chrysanthemum leaves would stick to. I can vividly recall that it was me who had to poke his fingers through each hole to clean it because I was the youngest and had the smallest fingers. The smell would linger for the rest of the day on those little fingers. Then it would be back to another aging aunt for tea and biscuits. Not the kind with chocolate on them. No such luxury as a Jacobs Club. No, these were Garibaldis and Perkins.
Old people biscuits!
I remember one time, and when I think about it, it was probably the last time, when I had a nosebleed that seemed to go on for hours. I stood in my great aunt’s kitchen bleeding profusely into a huge Belfast sink that seemed to turn completely red like the opening credits of a Hammer Horror movie.
This was probably the result of being on receiving end of a sleekit slap in the puss from my older girl cousin; something that my lack of any defined memory of it, tells me it must have been such a frequent occurrence that it seemed the norm.
My memory does treat me to the recollection of the one time I slapped her back when she had sunburn.

As time went on, a demolition order was placed upon our row of asbestos prefabs. In their place were to be built concrete terraces and flats. Ironically, my grandparents declared these a potential death-trap. It was time to move house. I would miss the sun shining on the large white expanses of wall on the servicemens’ houses opposite.
It’s funny how a song can invoke such a strong emotion without ever having any real connection to a particular place or time but whenever I hear Paul Weller’s Pink on White Walls, I’m transported back there, on my little red bus, four years old, looking through the slats in the gate, hoping my mum would come walking up the path.

So it happened that we moved into a brand new council estate with rows and rows of brand new terraced houses (complete with asbestos panels below the windows and warm air central heating blowing through asbestos ductwork – lovely stuff). The streets weren’t complete by the time we moved in and I remember that first summer, in 1967, following the tar spreader and the steam-roller around. I still love the smell of freshly spread tarmac.

That summer, my mother returned from London and I went to school. Things became a little more normal but there were still repression issues about the single parent stuff. There was so much that was beyond the comprehension of a five year old.
The mysterious trips away when I knew she was working at the local bookies; the mysterious uncles I never knew I had; the nights when I would wake and hear her and my grandfather shouting at each other; the night he threatened to throw her out of the house with only me to stop her from hurtling down the stairs.

I was to become more and more reliant on music. I just wasn’t aware of it at the time.
With the radio continually on, and I still remember its Alba logo and its cream plastic body, shaped like one of those retro Dualit toasters, with a 3” diameter dial and the names Athlone, Hilversum, and Luxembourg sounding tantalisingly exotic, I was fed a daily diet of Jimmy Young, Pete Murray and someone called Caroline.
Funny thing was I was sure Caroline was a girls name.

Though everyone knows about Radio One, 1967 and Flowers In The Rain, for me, the birth of a new radio station was even less significant than England’s World Cup triumph a year previous.
I had records.

We had one of those Dansette record players that took 78s, 45s and 33s.
A red box of magic that, when you lifted the arm out of the way, could play the same song over and over.
As I sat in my mum’s bedroom listening to the stack of singles she loaded onto it while getting ready to hit the town, I was transported to a different life.
There was always something by Elvis or Cliff. But more often the tunes were by the Monkees or The Bee Gees. The Kinks or The Beatles.
Some of the Beatles records were actually mine. I had this double EP recording of The Magical Mystery Tour with the little cartoon booklet and in the middle, an off blue double page containing all the words to the songs.
This was my favourite thing at the time.
Listening to I Am The Walrus while my mum put on her slap.
I’m proud to say I still have it.
My record collection, even then, was nothing if not eclectic.
There was the Beatles stuff; a couple of singles by the Monkees; an album by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Titch; another by the Alexander Brothers (old peoples’ music); a little one sided disc that my mum recorded in a booth in London that was supposed to be a reminder of her when she was away at work but just made me sad; and a pink five inch Pinky and Perky single.
To this day, I have no idea where that came from or why the f4ck I listened to its helium induced madness, but I did.
The strange thing was that I loved every one of those records in its own peculiar way.

Growing up, as I did, on the fringes of the highlands, life was simple.
The highlight of my week would be a trip up the street where, if I was a good boy, I might get a Wimpy or even better, if it was summertime and to break up the walk home, a trip to the Park Café. This was a long cafeteria type affair opposite the towering horse chestnut trees of the Cooper Park. It served chips with everything type grub, proper milkshakes and, the best thing of all, Knickerbocker Glories that came in something resembling a trasparent upturned road cone. The place was amazingly of its time, like something out of a Bond movie and to me, was the last line in glamour and sophistication with the most incredible modern art canvasses hung all over the walls. One piece looked like it had been shot at with a machine gun and had three dimensional, two-inch diameter bullet holes sprayed randomly across one corner. Another had an image of a skull that I now recognise as being influenced by HR Giger. Some just had swirls or streaks of dark blues and blacks with the very occasional splat of red.They seemed to represent another world. Something that was dramatic and exciting.

Next door to the Park Café was the Two Red Shoes, Morayshire’s premier nightclub.
I was always being told that the Beatles had played there.
If I’d been an adult, I’m sure my response would have been along the lines of “bollocks” or “away an’ shite” but as it was, I was a child with only my mother’s word to go on. She assured me that she was a personal acquaintance of the clubs owner, a certain Albert Bonici who was a music promoter and a big enough name in the music biz to be able to lure the Animals, the Pink Floyd (allegedly with only a dozen people in attendance) and of course, the Beatles.
Don’t believe me, check it out













Very occasionally, probably on birthdays, these trips up the street would be combined with a trip to the pictures. The cinema in my little corner of the highlands was called the Playhouse. Built in the early 1930s to the design of Alister G MacDonald, it would be fair to expect some sort of majestic Art Deco façade befitting the times but no, presumably the architect, being the son of the great politician and first Labour PM, Ramsay MacDonald, was so well steeped in greyness that the end result was a drab affair wedged below the City Hotel, giving the whole thing the appearance of an entrance to a premises with delusions of grandeur. In later years it would find its true place in society, flanked by the Wimpy and an Italian chippy.

Circumstance usually dictated that it was a birthday but, under any circumstances, a trip to the pictures was a much sought after treat. You got to see the latest release on a massive screen with massive sound. You got a packet of Paynes Poppets (the regal version of Revels) and, if you were lucky, you got one of those Kia Ora drinks that tasted of plastic.
The Love Bug; Where Eagles Dare; The Battle of Britain and Kidnapped are the ones I remember with most clarity. I also remember the thrill of going in on the High Street and coming out through a side door onto North Street. Why this was a thrill is way beyond my comprehension. I just remember it was a thrill. Going with mum was also a thrill and way better than the Saturday kids’ matinee where you got in for nothing if you took a bag of sugar and an empty jam jar. This was partly because there were always bigger kids from the other end of town trying to pick fights and partly because, quite frankly, the films were shite.
They were poor, less exciting, imitations of the Man from UNCLE, Mission Impossible and the Avengers or less exotic and charming versions of the Flashing Blade, Belle & Sebastian, and the White Horses.

As the decade drew to a close, if it wasn’t on the TV, it wasn’t happening.
I remember the Apollo missions, the televised coverage and my collection of coins from the Esso garage.
I remember the black power salutes during the Mexico Olympics and my grandfather’s outrage at the politicising of a sporting event.
I remember general elections and sombre people called Harold Wilson & Ted Heath who were supposedly something called politicians.
I knew this was a serious business because they never smiled.
I remember George Best and Cassius Clay, Tommy Cooper and Morcambe & Wise all of whom never seemed to stop smiling.
Viewed through the eight by ten inch fuzzy grey screen in our front room, it seemed a world away from home but also a world away from the Cavern and Carnaby Street or Cape Canaveral and Westminster.
I guess I didn’t get the significance of any of it and, while my mum and grandparents sat transfixed by these unfolding events, I was happier listening to the radio.

One thing that I clearly did get the significance of was Top of the Pops. Even though it would be 1971 before colour transmissions kicked in, and a further two years before we had anything remotely equipped with the right stuff to receive the colour pictures, my first tastes of Top of the Pops in the late sixties were like some forbidden fruit.
Music porn for the under tens.
I thought all my birthdays had come at once.


The Beatles – Most Wanted
http://www.sendspace.com/file/stfqr3

Divine Comedy – Barcelona 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0j4c1o

Ocean Colour Scene - The Village, Dublin, 2003
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hljdr2

Drever, McCusker & Woomble – Live at Pocklington
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wvpk1h

John Mellencamp – Check This Out – Live in Hamburg
http://www.sendspace.com/file/oq36li

Oysterband – Live in Bologna
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ociol7

Damien Rice – World Café 2006
http://www.sendspace.com/file/xd5b9z

Eddie & The Hot Rods - Live in Preoria
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ofrz6x

Jose Gonsalez - Factory Theatre
http://www.sendspace.com/file/mj6a58

Fire Engines – Retford + London
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wfu6bb

Go Betweens – Brussels Botanique
http://www.sendspace.com/file/zfmcqn

Orange Juice - Glasgow Tech
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f7zgl5

The Stranglers - Live At The Ritz
http://www.sendspace.com/file/wh05wu

The Alarm – Astra Theatre, Llandudno
http://www.sendspace.com/file/4hkywd

Green On Red – I-Beam
http://www.sendspace.com/file/bh3e8t

King Creosote – Slaughtered Lamb
http://www.sendspace.com/file/9dkqk3

Lou Reed – Acoustic Demos 1970
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7yu8hy


Enjoy
Next episode in a week or ten.

Cheers

Hooli