In honour of my birth place
I am reading the John Robb (daft haircut music journo and TV talking head) history of Manchester music "The North Will Rise Again". At the moment I'm on the kind of post punk A Certain Ratio and The Fall era - fascinating tales of the music taking place in and actually enhanced by the industrial decay and council estates of Hulme and Moss Side. Lots of folk like Johnny Marr, Morrissey, Ian Brown, Paul Ryder and more minor luminaries and important scenesters and behind the scenes people have contributed - Robb's major contribution seems to have been the footnotes.
Now although I am a son of Salford (born Hope Hospital, like Peter Hook and Tony Wilson) I only lived there briefly, in Salford and Prestwich before my parents broke up in 1974. But every time I visited my father, when he went into the city to work, me and my rather older stepbrothers would be dumped in Stretford where the stepmum's Cypriot relatives lived, and apparently a lot of the Stone Roses folk were knocking around here at the same time as me, probably stealing Slush Puppies from the machine in NSS across the way from my Stepmum's hairdressing place.
And when I'd be dragged into the city for attempts by my stepbrother's to buy suits, those underground clothes markets where actually legendary emporiums of da hip, although my predominant memory from 1982 or so is endless flecked suits in various shades of vomit. Again, all the famous faces were frequenting these places and loving it. Me I just wanted the fuck out to get the visit to the video game arcade where my favourite game, Gorf! ***THAT TALKED*** awaited me. I'd been promised you see.
As for the music, well I will confess something. I never got the Stone Roses first record until years after it came out, although I was spot on immediately after the event that the second one was overblown crap. The Happy Mondays I never really got and indeed found looking at Sean Ryder an unpleasant experience, and all the other baggy bands I just thought were bandwagon jumpers and gurning drug hoovering idiots - although I guiltily admit to liking Northside's Shall We Take a Trip! The Hacidenda would have done my nut. Goes to show what a boring shoegazer I was eh?
Still, I love, as ever, reading about the experience of finding your fashion self, your cultural self, your musical self, your creative drive, and how exciting it must have been to be in that position, and reflecting on my own sense of having only been an interested outsider when the local hip kids were doing that!
Now although I am a son of Salford (born Hope Hospital, like Peter Hook and Tony Wilson) I only lived there briefly, in Salford and Prestwich before my parents broke up in 1974. But every time I visited my father, when he went into the city to work, me and my rather older stepbrothers would be dumped in Stretford where the stepmum's Cypriot relatives lived, and apparently a lot of the Stone Roses folk were knocking around here at the same time as me, probably stealing Slush Puppies from the machine in NSS across the way from my Stepmum's hairdressing place.
And when I'd be dragged into the city for attempts by my stepbrother's to buy suits, those underground clothes markets where actually legendary emporiums of da hip, although my predominant memory from 1982 or so is endless flecked suits in various shades of vomit. Again, all the famous faces were frequenting these places and loving it. Me I just wanted the fuck out to get the visit to the video game arcade where my favourite game, Gorf! ***THAT TALKED*** awaited me. I'd been promised you see.
As for the music, well I will confess something. I never got the Stone Roses first record until years after it came out, although I was spot on immediately after the event that the second one was overblown crap. The Happy Mondays I never really got and indeed found looking at Sean Ryder an unpleasant experience, and all the other baggy bands I just thought were bandwagon jumpers and gurning drug hoovering idiots - although I guiltily admit to liking Northside's Shall We Take a Trip! The Hacidenda would have done my nut. Goes to show what a boring shoegazer I was eh?
Still, I love, as ever, reading about the experience of finding your fashion self, your cultural self, your musical self, your creative drive, and how exciting it must have been to be in that position, and reflecting on my own sense of having only been an interested outsider when the local hip kids were doing that!