Skip forward again to 1987. These were hard, formative years. Simon had been sent in exile to King Edward's school 6th form (for a 'better' standard of education) which was a miserable 70 minute, two bus rides away (and it's hard to study with jet-lag). I had 4 weeks at Shirecliffe college and after observing my college-mates spitting from the 2nd floor onto passers-by below, I decided the course I was doing was a waste of time. Anyway, I returned to Stocksbridge School to do A' levels. Overall, a good experience, but according to some the 6th form was 'alright until I came back'. As Darren so aptly put it, it was my whiskey phase.
 |
Why I wasn't welcome in a soft-rock band and why the 6th form was alright until I came back. |
Bitty musical attempts accompanied those mid-teenage years. Sabbath covers in Robin's garage, 'The Overture' with Mike (which, of course, was the 2nd incarnation of Son of a Cat). A bizarre audition for a soft-rock band (which ended with me, in not so many words, being told to 'f' off) and making too much noise in Scholey's grandad's empty car showroom. Generally it was a case of being too hard-working and 'into it' for my friends but not confident enough (or with sufficient means of transport and equipment) to join the big hitters.
Having said this, I was obsessed with my bass. With the ascendancy of slap I spent hours on my thumb dexterity, whacking out rhythms on my desk during Geography lessons (whilst Mr Dakin dealt with jibes from Ian, in-between informing us what amount of Brazillian rainforest was cut down every year - now if Mr Dakin had informed us on how many Brazillians had been cut that year, perhaps Ian would have been more interested in the lesson and wouldn't have been so petulant).
It wasn't long before I gravitated back into the arms of Warby. He had recruited a guitarist and a drummer from his pretend posh school and somehow a younger lass who I don't remember turning up very often for practice sessions. We rehearsed, in abject futility, in the Scout hut (where 8 years ago we had earned our Cub Scout entertainment badge, as previously mentioned, and had felt perfectly comfortable with saluting the Union Jack every Thursday evening before violently enjoyable games of British Bulldog). Week after week I would load my heavy 4x10 cab into the back of my mum's mini metro as she fretted over scratches on the car paintwork. And week after week I would edge it out again a few hours later, haul it back into my bedroom and wonder why I had bothered with all the effort. There was always one problem or another: someone hadn't turned up, someone hadn't learnt their part right, someone had spent an hour making silly noises in the microphone or someone thought it was more constructive to hide in a cupboard under the sink than play the drums properly.
The Scout hut sessions (of around 1987 to 1988) continued to deteriorate every week. I tried my throat and hands on the vocals and bass for 'Livewire' (shame on you if you are thinking Motley Crue and not AC/DC). This was almost passable, but I struggled to do the 2 things at once with the more rhythmically complex 'Bark at the Moon' and 'Billy's Got a Gun'. And could Simon really play a Jake E Lee solo? These sessions would eventually lead to the unexpected emergence of a former classmate, Graham, as a great drummer and, a few more years down the line, to the recording of the peak of Simon's musical career so far - 'Standing Alone'. 'What could have been' wrote Simon in despairing pen upon a tape of those rehearsals. Dreams quashed, once more, but more of that later.
At the time I was just singing to make the rehearsals less like a Jazz Blues festival (or should that be Blues Jazz?). I was happy to hide behind the bass most of the time. We still struggled to find a 'proper' singer. They didn't have to be Steve Perry, just willing to sing, practice and not fanny about when I was explaining to Simon that it was C to G not C to D.
My song-writing skills were chugging along nicely though, either making Simon concerned with my mental well-being in their heart-broken explicitness ('don't break the nuclear family') or making him double-up in hysterics in their heart-broken explicitness ('leave me, leave me, leave me alone!'). He also irritated me greatly by saying my songs reminded him of the film 'Breaking Glass' starring Hazel O'Conner, a habit he continues to irritate me with to this day. Unfortunately things soon fizzled out. Simon, being Simon, needed to concentrate on his exams as we drew closer to the spring of 1989 and I was getting bored of the lack of progress.
In the long summer of 1989 I met a very nice-looking girl. She tasted of musk (probably because she wore musk), wore a cool biker jacket and refused to divulge her surname. I later noticed she walked a bit like an ageing Charles Bronson which made me feel much better about being dumped a few weeks later. She made a life-affecting move when she lent me her copy of 'Doolittle' by the Pixies. At the time it felt the more important change she made was to introduce me to a thrash band based in High Green. We made a great noise. A drummer who could carry off Dave Lombardo fills, a tight as Anthrax rhythm guitarist and a lead guitarist who new exactly how and when to join in when I began a cheesy rendition of Saxon's 747-Strangers in the Night. They introduced me to the bass raw sound of New Model Army, they weren't kids from Stocksbridge and we were one double-booking away from playing a gig. But would you believe it? We couldn't find a singer (one guy turned up for one session before the anticipated gig with his words on a tiny scrap of paper, fortunately we were too loud to hear him properly).
I finally made the decision that I ought to go to university and so I had to leave the band. Simon was off to Nottingham, I to Leicester. It could have been a new beginning. I spent a week with the Leicester Rock Society, getting drunk every night, failing to enrol on my course properly, suffering an administrative mix-up with my grant, being fed by Robin's girlfriend (the one with the nice eyes), giving an unwelcome snog to someone who asked for a birthday peck on the cheek and sleeping rough in Nottingham after a night out at the Rock City and missing the coach back to Leicester (if only I hadn't forgotten where Simon lived). It sounds like a rock 'n' roll dream in retrospect but I'd gone in anger after a break-up with the musky girl and I had never really wanted to go. My mum was upset, but everyone was glad to see me back at the Silver Fox rock night a couple of Fridays later.
The story of Son of a Cat (3rd incarnation), subsequently renamed Clockwork Lemon, who were a big part of my reason for existing over the years of 1989 to 1992, is a story within a story that perhaps one day will be told elsewhere. But it all began at the Silver Fox after my return from Leicester.
Here, playing at the long departed Take Two venue in Attercliffe, are the 3 ever-present members of Son of A Cat (3rd incarnation): Jason Melia (Voice), Robert Willis (known at the time as Wibble) - Bass and Rob Richardson - Keyboards. |  |
Simon flourished in Nottingham. He joined a band and proudly played me the tapes (which I made no attempt to like). I don't know how or why we stayed in touch sometimes, but we did. I remember sleeping on the floor in his room (with the polythene windows) after watching the Chili Peppers play the Rock City in 1989 (possibly the best gig I ever went to).
Concurrent to Son of a Cat (3rd incarnation) I managed to spend a year out of work (which I blamed the world for) and a year in work (which I congratulated myself for). In fact I spent most of 1990 in a rage about the contradiction between my individual freedom and the need to find work. However, once I found myself in work (in 1991) and in an office in Manor Top, surrounded by those great characters, forced together by a common cause of linking post, I loved it. I now had money to buy band equipment and albums and I wasn't stuck in the house all day. They were great days: second from bottom on the table-tennis ladder, sneaking onto the roof at break times for philosophical chats with Tricky, being called 'Bob'. But after months of sticking chequered tape to pink cards and finding files that were supposed to be in Overpayments, but were actually with Fraud, I came round to the idea of university.
Another reason why University didn't seem so bad after all came from the experience of working with people who had already been there. They didn't seem like the high fore-headed pompous fools that I thought you needed to be to fit in at Campus. More importantly, going to University also had the short-term advantage of more quality time for my beloved band. Looking back, I don't know how I managed to do everything at the same time as having a full-time job. I was sometimes catching six buses a day from one end of Sheffield to the other and just with the band I was practising, organising rehearsals, organising gigs, promoting gigs, playing gigs, recording demos, writing songs, programming midi drum parts and sleeping about 6 hours a night. It didn't help that the way I looked after my health and fed myself was terrible - see the forthcoming Red Threat song - 'Better Living Through Cookery' for more details).
I remember one time on the 52 to Attercliffe (where we had a practise room), just beginning to nod off as we passed the Wicker, and watching, helpless through half closed eyes as my bass in its case toppled over in the luggage rack and landed on an old woman at the front of the bus. The redness of my face was in direct proportion to the number of times I said sorry.
In 1991 I began 'studying' at Sheffield University. This time I stayed at home for the love of a girl and the love of Son of a Cat. Simon was still around in a musical sense, he came to lots of our gigs to offer opinions and support. He tells me (though I have blanked out the memory) that he was in a glam-rock band and had professional photos done, but didn't play any gigs. He obviously had his priorities right.
We recorded probably our best demo at Simon's house, using Steve's four track (Steve is a potential future collaborator with Red Threat, though he doesn't have the right hair colouring) and I asked Simon to be our manager. But this wasn't a good idea. Simon wasn't ready to give up any musical involvement nor was he 'street' enough to be the manager of a band. Additionally, there was definitely some residual rivalry left over between us which had begun when I was the beginner and he was the music expert and had continued as I moved in the direction of indie-punk and he in the direction of commercial rock. We'd argue for hours about what music should and shouldn't be.
That same year I helped Simon record his demo. The resulting 'Standing Alone' two track tape was a favour for a friend - some practice sessions, work out a bass-line and put it down in the studio, all fitted in in-between my Son of a Cat stuff (I make it sound like just another day, but it was my first time in a proper studio). The line-up was Simon on Guitar, Graham on drums, me on bass and Mel on vocals - Mel being a singer from Simon's now defunct band in Nottingham.
We worked with a proper producer called Eliot Kennedy (Warby insists I mention him by name). He later went on to work with the Spice Girls, working on 'Say You'll Be There', one of their better songs I believe, and co-wrote the Bryan Adams & Mel C song. [He may also be responsible for the rise of Robbie Williams, as Robbie sang lead on Everything Changes by Take That, another Eliot Kennedy co-write & production - sorry Rob I know there's only room for one fat dancer in this story!] Warby also remembers seeing him appear on 'Song for Europe' and chatting with Terry Wogan. I was impressed enough to use his services again for a Son of a Cat demo. Impressing me wasn't difficult though when the competition was the enthusiastic 'producers' at Red Tape (and I use the term 'producers' as unwillingly as the manner in which they 'worked' with us):
- 'Can you do it?'
- 'No, you do it.'
- 'I can't though.'
- 'Oh, alright then. I suppose I'll do it'
For me the 'Standing Alone' demo was a taste of what it would be like to be a session player. Sitting on a stool in a studio beside the producer at the mixing desk, I felt this was the life for me and hoped it would continue for years to come. I'm not sure how Simon felt then and although he tells me he later did some more stuff with Graham in a glam rock 'super-group' called Touchy Stuff and later was involved in practise sessions with some ex club act chancers in Swinton, I don't remember seeing him touch a guitar for another 10 years. Continue»
