All Those Years Ago (4/7/13)

Proof positive that you can find absolutely anything on the Internet.

This (and lets hope you can actually see it, photos don't always show up on the blog for more than five minutes, I'm sure I'm doing something wrong but I'm damned if I know what it is) is a photo that was taken sometime in the 80s but a quick glance probably told you that. To be as precise as I can it's probably 1985. I'm judging this by two things;

1. The site I found it on pinkfishmedia.net says its 1985. The guy that runs pinkfishmedia is holding one end of the Union Jack at the back of the shot, Nige from Half Man Half Biscuit is holding the other.

2. I can see four of us. No Jenny. It's after Geoff left but before Jenny joined. Our last gig as a four piece had been the week of Live Aid therefore this is early 85.

So, 1985. Vanilla Beserk. Totally different life. Working for an insurance company which I hated, totally failing to pull at any point (cripplingly shy, unsure of myself, couldn't see anybody being interested but I'll tell you what, I look cool as f*** here. In an 80s way, obviously)

It's a year before I met J. She's never seen this photo. I can't remember the last time I saw it myself. I don't have a copy, don't think I ever did.

The background is totally 80s Liverpool. It's the remnants of the old Tate &Lyle factory on the dock road, a short walk from Vulcan Studios on Vulcan Street where everybody on the photo rehearsed at the time. They walked us down there one day to (if i recall correctly) get a studio photo to publicise the album they were putting out, 'Ways To Wear Coats'; an album that we singularly failed to appear on.

There was another band that rehearsed there, a band called 'Ryan' - we knew the lads, we liked the lads, we got on with the lads. Their manager? Not so much. We saw each other as competition. He definitely saw us as competition. He didn't like us. As a band, as people, just the fact that we existed. And he was organising the album. Two's a Crowd made the album, we didn't. Nobody was sure if they'd ever rehearsed at Vulcan but they were on the edge of being huge locally so they were a selling point, we weren't. We were off it.

(An aside. This is the way memory twists across thirty years, I feel that the photo was to do with the album but I also feel that the song that we were putting in had Jenny's keyboards on it. Somebody with better recall than me will put me straight on this. The facts are right, just possibly not in the right order. All the right notes etc.)

So, I should identify these people that I've been talking about shouldn't I?

Okay.

To the left, black leather jacket, white shirt, red tie, holding up a white bass - Mally. Our bassist and one of the finest people on the planet, we can drop into each other's lives after gaps of years and he's always the same guy.

To Mal's left. Barry. Drummer that quit in the middle of recording our ill fated demo, the one with the keyboard line that was Manic Monday a week too early? Don't blame him for quitting that day, the engineer didn't seem to realise that he was dealing with human beings. Finest Mullet of the entire decade.

To the right of centre, pale blue jeans, long coat, holding a guitar; Mark, our singer. It's my guitar he's holding. No idea why but it's okay because I appear to be wearing one of his coats. (Ha! Ways ToWear Coats, see what I inadvertently did there? Oh well, please yourselves) we seemed to swap coats for stage work quite a bit. For a few years there we were like brothers.

And me?

This is weird but I spotted the other three immediately. Finding myself was much more difficult. I'm fairly certain that I'm stood slightly behind Barry, pair of shades (I wore shades almost permanently in the early 80s), HUGE flicker of a fringe, skinny tie, cool (as I may have remarked earlier) as fuck. I'm happy with that.

Look at us. It's thirty years ago and we're going to be pop stars.