The first big weekend.
(Please excuse this excercise in nostalgia - I feel my journal is a little neglected and am easing my way back into writing things of length!)
It is odd how all of subsequent life can be crystalised in certain moments.
Sixteen years ago I went out for my dear friend Dawson's 18th birthday. I got decked out in my red shirt and improvised flares (snip about 7 cm up the inside seam of your trouser leg, fact fans!) and my cousins vintage leather jacket, all of which had accompanied me to my Saturday evening shift at Tesco, and made the schlep over to Melton town centre.
I met with Daws, Stanners, Alan, Ruth and Laura in The Crown and was introduced to snakebite and black by the latter. With youthful exuberance I declared that I’d found my drink, perhaps expecting that any potential biographers ought to be taking notes! We went on to what would become our beloved Fox Inn - one of the towns less salubrious pubs, which our obsessive patronage (and the subsequent patronage of our extended friends group) would transform into the go-to place for indie sorts. Later, in the Golden Fleece, I would do Karaoke for the first time, gaining a round of applause for being one half of a potentially excruciating ‘Summer Lovin’’ duet. Finally, and inevitably, we staggered into Tubes nightclub, wherein Alan took it on himself to win every aspect of a Smirnoff Mule promotion in one night. As I recall, it was something like two bottle tops got you some dogtags, six a t-shirt, ten some sunglasses that made rainbow trails come off every light and twelve a place in a draw to win a trip to London. Fairly arbitary, so maybe I'm off, however he managed it and has never quite been the same since. He did enjoy his London trip, though.
Entirely too much time spent in here.
It was the second night on the town I had had with my first proper girlfriend. As I imagine is the case with all late starters I was blowing the romanticism of anything that happened out of all proportion, so the relationship was inevitably doomed to be brief. I had been a very overweight adolescent, and had endured many years of bullying and snubbing from both boys and girls, so the idea of finally being accepted came with unsustainable baggage - I was no longer ugly! I was no longer fat! Beautiful people liked me! Beautiful people may love me! This is how life will be forever! In retrospect I feel tremendously bad about that - what an awful responsibility to lay on Laura's shoulders. I pedestalled her when I should have just appreciated her, and I couldn't understand at the time why she eventually left. Ridiculous to look back on, but I suppose not so very different from anyone else. It takes time and experience to get over yourself enough to be a good companion, I reckon, and I was short on both.
At this time however, all was opportunity and dreams finally achieved. I remember sitting on the chairs by the middle floor bar and thinking that I was finally, actually happy, and that everything could end there and I wouldn't mind. It was naïve and teenage, but it was genuine. With this feeling came the confidence to do things which seem so trivial now - I sat with my legs crossed and brushed my (then chin length) hair over to one side in emulation of Neil Codling from Suede! Why these things required the validation of a girlfriend to attempt I have no idea, but they sat well and felt like they suited. I could take any catcall going because I now knew everyone was wrong. I felt like I had won a battle to have the right to do these things with my appearance, (and in the near future there would certainly be repercussions from that choice from some of the more aggressive elements of home), and they became my weird armour of "Rob Britton isn't what you always said he was, you CUNTS. Not doomed to failure anymore" (no wonder I leapt so enthusiastically at the New Royal Family wig!). All this from one moment with a bottle of Mule in my hand as the DJ played 'Who Do You Think You Are?' while Laura danced with her sister.
The clearest thing from that night, however, was sitting with Stanners and Dawson in the bus station later, and discussing our band - then named Polaresse, for some odd reason. Bolstered by what I saw as the end of my previous life as a joke, I began taking all we were saying very seriously indeed. The light from the streetlights and the noise of Tubes and the cars passing by all coalesced in my mind to create an aesthetic idea I have never shaken. In that moment lie the routes of great swathes of Laverne and Luxembourg, of the clothes I wear and the clubs I would frequent through to the people I would meet in Lincoln and London and presumably beyond. I sat, with two of my three best friends, and declared myself in my heart a pop star. To a degree I have lived in that hour ever since.
I suppose there are many who would call such a thing detrimental, that to have daydreams of music is a ridiculous waste of adult life. I might agree, were it not for the fact that all of my confidence and my belief in myself all stem from that very thing. There is no harm in sticking to something you love, as long as you remember to live life around it. That night was the first time I really believed my idle daydreams truly related to a person I could actually be. A big old leftie, super lovely, faded glamour band dude! It's debatable whether I achieved that in any way, but I kind of feel like I did a bit, and I guess that's enough.
So we drank to Dawson’s good health and talked of stardom and artistry and how we would leave this town and take the UK by storm. We spoke of hopes and of pasts and of how we were getting home anyway. We were a unit, where each individual played a part - somehow weaker when separated, and somehow indestructible when together. Me and my little gang.
L-R: Alan, Stanners, Dawson and me! Didn’t age too badly, either!
As we wove our way back to Stan’s to crash on his freezing attic room floor, Dawson took his leave to take our friend Cheryl home. Stanners and I half dragged, half carried Alan up the Asfordby Road, taking turns to appreciate the rainbow trails from the passing cars through the Smirnoff glasses as our dogtags grew icy in the December air. Stopping briefly to gather ourselves for the rest of the walk, I swayed slightly, Stanners stumbled and Alan fell clean over a wall into somebody’s hedge. We walked the fine line between sweetness and farce as ever. I couldn’t have wished for a better end to the night.
---
Can a night out be a muse? Dunno, but I seem to have spun a bunch of songs out of it! This first one specifically relates to the location - the bus stop outside tubes, but not so much the situation:
Kohl Eyes 3am
While this second one is more about the feeling of being a gang, but is directly related to that very night!
Starkiller
Lalala. I’ll stop now.
It is odd how all of subsequent life can be crystalised in certain moments.
Sixteen years ago I went out for my dear friend Dawson's 18th birthday. I got decked out in my red shirt and improvised flares (snip about 7 cm up the inside seam of your trouser leg, fact fans!) and my cousins vintage leather jacket, all of which had accompanied me to my Saturday evening shift at Tesco, and made the schlep over to Melton town centre.
I met with Daws, Stanners, Alan, Ruth and Laura in The Crown and was introduced to snakebite and black by the latter. With youthful exuberance I declared that I’d found my drink, perhaps expecting that any potential biographers ought to be taking notes! We went on to what would become our beloved Fox Inn - one of the towns less salubrious pubs, which our obsessive patronage (and the subsequent patronage of our extended friends group) would transform into the go-to place for indie sorts. Later, in the Golden Fleece, I would do Karaoke for the first time, gaining a round of applause for being one half of a potentially excruciating ‘Summer Lovin’’ duet. Finally, and inevitably, we staggered into Tubes nightclub, wherein Alan took it on himself to win every aspect of a Smirnoff Mule promotion in one night. As I recall, it was something like two bottle tops got you some dogtags, six a t-shirt, ten some sunglasses that made rainbow trails come off every light and twelve a place in a draw to win a trip to London. Fairly arbitary, so maybe I'm off, however he managed it and has never quite been the same since. He did enjoy his London trip, though.
Entirely too much time spent in here.
It was the second night on the town I had had with my first proper girlfriend. As I imagine is the case with all late starters I was blowing the romanticism of anything that happened out of all proportion, so the relationship was inevitably doomed to be brief. I had been a very overweight adolescent, and had endured many years of bullying and snubbing from both boys and girls, so the idea of finally being accepted came with unsustainable baggage - I was no longer ugly! I was no longer fat! Beautiful people liked me! Beautiful people may love me! This is how life will be forever! In retrospect I feel tremendously bad about that - what an awful responsibility to lay on Laura's shoulders. I pedestalled her when I should have just appreciated her, and I couldn't understand at the time why she eventually left. Ridiculous to look back on, but I suppose not so very different from anyone else. It takes time and experience to get over yourself enough to be a good companion, I reckon, and I was short on both.
At this time however, all was opportunity and dreams finally achieved. I remember sitting on the chairs by the middle floor bar and thinking that I was finally, actually happy, and that everything could end there and I wouldn't mind. It was naïve and teenage, but it was genuine. With this feeling came the confidence to do things which seem so trivial now - I sat with my legs crossed and brushed my (then chin length) hair over to one side in emulation of Neil Codling from Suede! Why these things required the validation of a girlfriend to attempt I have no idea, but they sat well and felt like they suited. I could take any catcall going because I now knew everyone was wrong. I felt like I had won a battle to have the right to do these things with my appearance, (and in the near future there would certainly be repercussions from that choice from some of the more aggressive elements of home), and they became my weird armour of "Rob Britton isn't what you always said he was, you CUNTS. Not doomed to failure anymore" (no wonder I leapt so enthusiastically at the New Royal Family wig!). All this from one moment with a bottle of Mule in my hand as the DJ played 'Who Do You Think You Are?' while Laura danced with her sister.
The clearest thing from that night, however, was sitting with Stanners and Dawson in the bus station later, and discussing our band - then named Polaresse, for some odd reason. Bolstered by what I saw as the end of my previous life as a joke, I began taking all we were saying very seriously indeed. The light from the streetlights and the noise of Tubes and the cars passing by all coalesced in my mind to create an aesthetic idea I have never shaken. In that moment lie the routes of great swathes of Laverne and Luxembourg, of the clothes I wear and the clubs I would frequent through to the people I would meet in Lincoln and London and presumably beyond. I sat, with two of my three best friends, and declared myself in my heart a pop star. To a degree I have lived in that hour ever since.
I suppose there are many who would call such a thing detrimental, that to have daydreams of music is a ridiculous waste of adult life. I might agree, were it not for the fact that all of my confidence and my belief in myself all stem from that very thing. There is no harm in sticking to something you love, as long as you remember to live life around it. That night was the first time I really believed my idle daydreams truly related to a person I could actually be. A big old leftie, super lovely, faded glamour band dude! It's debatable whether I achieved that in any way, but I kind of feel like I did a bit, and I guess that's enough.
So we drank to Dawson’s good health and talked of stardom and artistry and how we would leave this town and take the UK by storm. We spoke of hopes and of pasts and of how we were getting home anyway. We were a unit, where each individual played a part - somehow weaker when separated, and somehow indestructible when together. Me and my little gang.
L-R: Alan, Stanners, Dawson and me! Didn’t age too badly, either!
As we wove our way back to Stan’s to crash on his freezing attic room floor, Dawson took his leave to take our friend Cheryl home. Stanners and I half dragged, half carried Alan up the Asfordby Road, taking turns to appreciate the rainbow trails from the passing cars through the Smirnoff glasses as our dogtags grew icy in the December air. Stopping briefly to gather ourselves for the rest of the walk, I swayed slightly, Stanners stumbled and Alan fell clean over a wall into somebody’s hedge. We walked the fine line between sweetness and farce as ever. I couldn’t have wished for a better end to the night.
---
Can a night out be a muse? Dunno, but I seem to have spun a bunch of songs out of it! This first one specifically relates to the location - the bus stop outside tubes, but not so much the situation:
Kohl Eyes 3am
While this second one is more about the feeling of being a gang, but is directly related to that very night!
Starkiller
Lalala. I’ll stop now.