8.2.22 All dressed up the same

There was one minor negative from the run of Girls Don't Play Guitars at the Royal Court. 

I'd leant a few things to the production; my Vox amp, my bass, a couple of guitar straps. That kind of thing. Other people had loaned us stuff as well - Dan Rodgers leant us a really nice, road worn Vox amp (much older and more authentic than mine), Liam Gardner gave us the use of his short scale, very Lennon-esque Rickenbacker which Lisa played through the run. Both wonderfully kind things to do.

On the Monday after the final show, I headed into town to pick up my stuff. I ended ups down a nice Fender guitar strap but up an equally nice, and far more expensive, hard case that would suit a Gibson Les Paul. I don't own a Gibson Les Paul. I need to return that, it belongs to someone. Covid kind of put paid to the returning. Yet another very minor convenience.

None of which this is about.

This is about a badge.

I'm not really one for badges, never wear them, but in the eighties I had a handful that I liked. This particular one is my favourite badge of all time. Which isn't necessarily a thing that most people have in their lives.

It was the badge for The Teardrop Explodes' magnificent 'Reward' single. A badge that looked like the cover of the 7" (there wasn't a 12" to my recollection). And that cover looked like this:

There are stories I could tell you about this single, about what it meant; how the conversation was, "which is better, this or Treason?" How this song has been, for the last thirty years - at least - the song I'll have played at my funeral (yes, obviously, I thought about this in my twenties), how it was the song I played first thing every morning before heading to sixth form. I could tell you about the Paris trip round this time. I might do that tomorrow.

Aside: did you notice I didn't do this yesterday? Busy day, one of those.

But what I really want to talk about is the B-side. Strange House In The Snow.

It might be the oddest thing that's ever appeared on the flip of a top 5 single. It could be described as 'challenging'

And back when pubs had jukeboxes.

We're talking February 81. I was 17. Technically The Chaser probably shouldn't have been regarded as 'my local' but there you go. 

There was the day that the landlord pulled a few of us up and pointed out that he'd seen us walking out of the gates of Fazakerley Comp. We were more than happy to inform him that we were all in sixth form. Which we were. Just not the part that you're in once you're eighteen.

One suspects he may have suspected this fact.

Anyway. Jukeboxes.

The joy of the jukebox was that it held both A and B side of the single. And if you were mischievous and happy to ply the machine with coins then you could do anything you wanted. 

Which is why many Chaser nights had a spot in the middle which sounded very much like a piano accompaniment to a cello being punished for its sins while a singer who some thought to be a pop star shouted over the top about suffering as a speeded version of his own vocal replied. It's awkward, anxious, slightly threatening and not what your typical Saturday night drinker wants playing immediately after Dead Ringer For Love.

Which is obviously exactly why you'd want to make sure it was what they got.

But, the badge. We weer talking about the badge. 

For years I had that badge pinned onto my Fender guitar strap. The strap that someone else ended up with. Which wasn't a problem. But it meant I'd lost a badge that was so much a part of a little slice of 1981. And I like hanging pin to small slices of 1981, that's how you get to feel you may still be young.

I told J a few months back that I'd lost my Reward badge. And that Was gutted. Which might be the single most minor complaint anyone has ever had but this is my blog and I can make small complaints if I feel like it.

Then a couple of weeks ago I was looking for something in a draw that I've looked in a million times over the last two years. 

And there it was.

Everything that's lost someday comes back.