18.1.22 When I rub my eyes I just see stars

 

It's not often that the record deck gets turned to 45rpm - singles involve work, involve swivelling round in the chair and turning the vinyl over. I'm far too lazy for that and the music doesn't last long enough to get this written in the space of listening to it - which isn't a rule for this thing but it's nice when it happens.

This though? I've got about 15 boxes of vinyl in the loft dating back about 47 years in total (plus stuff I've bought later that's from much earlier - if that's not too grammatically awkward) and a crate on the floor next to my guitars at the side of this desk. Obviously the crate is overflowing and there's a small stack of vinyl sat next to it, another handful sitting on top. This was in the crate. It wasn't what I was looking for, it wasn't what I thought I was writing about (a Ben Webster album I'll definitely come to at some point) but my hand rested on it and I thought, "That's today."

Five Thirty. I'd always thought of them as 'The' Five Thirty but they're not, they're just plain 'Five Thirty' - personally, think that definite article improves them as a concept.

It's 1991. So we're post Stone Roses making guitars wonderfully cool again, post Madchester, kind of in the 'baggy' era where the whole world leant heavily on the funky drummer sample - this doesn't. Not one side one. On side two it definitely does. 

I think (and as ever this is all recall and instinct) we're after the Roses putting out 'One Love/Something's Burning', the stand alone single that went top 5 and didn't really warn us that they were going to go away for a long time before returning in a faintly underwhelming manner. You can't be revolutionary when you already exist.

Blur are two years away from putting out Modern Life Is Rubbish, Noel probably hasn't joined his little brother's band yet, Suede are next year, Stuart Maconie s yet to use the term Britpop in an issue of the now long gone 'Select' magazine. It's a hinterland. Watch Top Of The Pops 1991 on BBC4 (before the Tories close it down so that the meff in charge can get away without criticism - yes there's a culture war, those bastards started it because art means noting to people who never developed a soul), it's definitely a hinterland. 

We're in Leeds. Second full year in Leeds, me and J and two cats, J working in a new role in the bank that she's basically developing as it goes, me managing a shop that will end up closing a few years later, promoted too far too early, it's not even a question any longer, I wasn't as good as I'd have wanted to be. Doesn't matter now, it's lifetimes away and wasn't what I wanted to be doing: my first comic story had been published the previous August (while we were on honeymoon) and that was the world I wanted my eyes trained on. I knew I should be writing, it just took a while to get here. 

And two of the songs on this three track EP were very much part of the soundtrack to that year. Supernova a jangling rush, a burst (appropriately) of energy and melody, beaty psych-pop with a gorgeous guitar line that appears just after the first chorus and then weaves it's way around the remainder of the tune as the vocalist dream sings 'You're such a supernova, you can change but can you carry on?' It could be a love song, could be a tribute. It's a little gem. It didn't trouble the charts.

The second song's just kind of there, doesn't of a great deal. But side two - Something's Gotta Give - is just glorious. It's in the lineage of The Roses' 'What The World Is Waiting For', lazy, sleepy with an undercurrent of knowing that there's something missing out there, or that there's something too much, and it can't last, there has to be change.

"If only I could see things clearly, when I rub my eyes I just see stars, I don't know why I feel so elated, I just know that something's got to give."

Perhaps it's Thatcherism. Perhaps it's seeing the end of what we'd endured for 12 bloody awful years. Ending in her being driven away from Downing Street, evicted by her own party, in tears of utter self pity. Sorrow for herself, no feeling for what she'd done to the rest of us.

God, aren't there times you love the idea of history repeating? What would you give to see the current liar driven away in tears? Preferably to a cell of some kind? I'm not saying he's a criminal like, that's the kind of claim that could see one causing oneself issues of a legal variety. But you? In the comfort of your own thoughts? You can read anything you like into it.

And The Five Thirty? (Sorry, just 'Five-Thirty)? What happened to them?

No idea. I'm going to go to Wikipedia for that one. In a minute, like.

There was one album, I know that, I've got it. It's called Bed, it contains Supernova but not Something's Got To Give. I don't recall the last time I listened to it, I don't recall it having the same impact on me as the EP. One of them, isn't it? Not everything works. 

And Wikipedia tells me that they split in '92. Tara Milton formed The Nubiles and has released his debut solo album as recently as 2018. It's not on Apple Music so I don't know what it's like.

I hope they're all well, all happy, all doing what they want because, for a while in 1991, they gave me something that made me very happy.

That's a lot to give - and the joy of recorded music is, it's there forever. There's a world where they - and all of us - are the same age we were then.