A forty year old [now forty-seven] blonde (Day 40, 09/02/13)
a 1973 Fender Telecaster, blonde with a white scratch plate and a maple neck.
We'd started a band in, what, summer '82? Lifetimes ago. It was me, Geoff who later drummed in Vanilla Beserk, Chris and Andy Flan. Ridiculously I sang at first. It didn't take long to realise that I couldn't sing so we suddenly had two guitarists and no singer. Chris left and we were down to one guitarist and no singer. And nowhere to 'rehearse' as Chris' dad's garage was suddenly out.
We found a singer. Wheaty. Geoff's cousin Peter. Nobody ever called him Peter, he was only ever Wheaty.(it may have been spelt Weety or Wetey in fairness, came from when he was a kid and his mum called him Petey Wheaty. Never saw it written down, it was purely a verbal thing). Pete had a heart condition, had it since birth but didn't talk about it and didn't live like it. It took him too soon. He was a good lad.
We called ourselves Boyish Daze. We stole the name from a single by 'Care' (Ian Broudie later of the Lightning Seeds and the very great Paul Simpson of the utterly legendary Wild Swans). The single was 'My Boyish Days'. We thought our pun was brilliant.
I was playing a 'Hondo X' guitar that my mum and dad had bought me for my 18th birthday through a small practice amp; fine for playing in your bedroom but once we started using our local church hall to practice in and Geoff could cut loose on the drums, I needed something louder. So, instead of buying a bigger amp as anybody sensible would, I went guitar shopping. I like guitar shopping.
And I found this. Slightly battered, careworn, battle scarred, badly in need of restringing. Genuinely the single most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. The Telecaster. The original electric guitar. The guitar of Prince, Springsteen, Joe Strummer. Elegant.
This. This set me on the way. £160 for a second hand guitar (worth a couple of grand now, it's a collectors piece). Geoff's response? "Why didn't you buy a bloody amp?"
I bought an amp. We played a pub in West Derby. We played a pub in Bootle. We played 'Rescue' by Echo & The Bunnymen. We played 'Going Up' by Echo & The Bunnymen, we once played Zimbo by...you can work that one out. We wrote some songs.
I'd failed my history A level. I'd applied to Uni to do History. I voluntarily went back to 6th form to study History again for a resit. I decided music was calling. Being a pop star was an inevitability. I abandoned the course. I applied to Sheffield for a journalism course. I worried that I might need to leave the band. I didn't get in to Sheffield, I failed the interview. We played more gigs.
We played Geoff's 6th form. We played Geoff's old school hall. They had curtains across the stage. We were already playing as the curtains opened. We were pop stars, I remember exactly what I was wearing, I was complimented on my stage 'act'. I was stealing it wholesale from REM's Peter Buck but REM weren't famous yet. It was the week that 'This Charming Man' came out. Johnny Marr was a week younger than me. He still is.
We split up. As bands do. Creative differences as ever. But it was okay I knew what I was doing next. Me and Mally would start a band. We could get a drummer, all we needed now was a singer.
From late 82 until mid 86 that guitar was the single most important thing in my life. I kept gigging with it until early 87 but I had a new love by then and the band wasn't quite as important as it had been. When I started gigging again I made sure there were a couple of songs that it would be used on. Still plays like a dream.
I never went to University. I stayed in Liverpool. Music kept me here and because I was here I met this girl. I got a job in a record shop 'just until the band takes off' and I think we know how that one goes.
And all because one day in 1982 I got a bus to Anfield, to a small guitar shop that hasn't been there for a long time now and I bought a 1973 Fender Telecaster.
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