The Alternative Hero (8 page)

The three of us had piled into Dominic’s convertible Volkswagen Golf (a car that further downgraded his indie credentials, we considered), ploughed up the M11 and, tradition dictated, necked a few cans of Strongbow before our arrival at the Square, an externally unpromising club that had nonetheless already played host to some pivotal musical evenings for me. We were standing around watching the support band, trying to think of witty chat-up lines for some of the tie-dyed lovelies scattered around the room—when Lance Webster ambled past, followed, as was often the case, by the pile of blonde dreadlocks known to most as Gloria Feathers.

“Did you see that?” I whispered to Dominic (Alan had gone to the toilet).

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “So?”

That was the other thing about Dominic. A fan of pretty much all the other bands we liked, he thought the Magpies were “a bit too commercial.” Whether he really believed this or just said it to endow himself with a highbrow opinion, I never quite worked out.

“Fuck,” I muttered to no one in particular. “I’ve got to try and speak to him.” Cautiously I looked over to where he and Gloria stood. A third party had joined them now, perhaps The Heart Throbs’ guitarist. As usual Gloria was doing all the talking.

Alan returned from the loo and instantly noticed the new arrival.

“The fuck’s he doing here?”

“Dunno.”

“Maybe he goes to the out-of-town ones so he doesn’t get hassled,” Alan mused.

“Funny that, I was thinking of hassling him myself,” I commented.

“Forget it, man. You’ll never get past Gloria.”

The support band finished and the DJ, perhaps thinking it would
serve as a welcome to the venue, stuck on the Magpies’ “Me in a Room.” I glanced in Webster’s direction; he had rolled his eyes and buried himself deeper into the conversation. Dominic feigned disgust and went to get another Diet Coke; Alan and I, normally happy to dance anywhere, self-consciously swayed a bit and tried not to mouth the words. I couldn’t relax, knowing who was a few bodies away from me. I needed to somehow reach out to him, give him some small indication of the happy turmoil he was helping my life plunge into; but without appearing to be some kind of gibbering Super Fan. Whatever I said to him needed to have
a point
. A minute later the angrily sung, incomprehensible middle eight of the song kicked in and the man himself gave me my answer.

“I’m going to ask him what he’s singing here,” I declared to Alan suddenly.

“Okay,” Alan nodded, without debate.

“Can you come with me?”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. In case Gloria hits me or something.”

We paused for a moment. I felt like I was standing outside my headmaster’s office, preparing to knock.

“I’m not sure, man,” admitted Alan. “He might tell us to fuck off.”

“Part of me doesn’t care.”

“Shall we try and have a drink first or something?”

The DJ swapped the Magpies tune for “Sensitize” by That Petrol Emotion. A small whoop went up from Webster’s corner and Gloria skipped off to dance near the stage with some others.

“Now,” I commanded.

We nudged our way past a few people until we were directly in front of him. We stood there foolishly for what seemed like ten minutes until I remembered I was meant to be doing the talking; I drew breath to speak but then heard Alan’s voice next to me.

“Er, excuse me, man. Sorry to bother you … you can tell us to fuck off if you like …”

Webster grinned cheekily. “Fuck off, then.”

We all laughed. Phew!

“We were wondering,” I continued, taking the reins back from Alan, “what the lyrics were to that bit in ‘Me in a Room’?”

“‘Me in a Room,’” Webster repeated, narrowing his eyes at me strangely.
He’s short
, I thought.
He’s wearing a long, brown and decidedly non-alternative suede jacket. His hair looks scruffy and knotted
. But—
he’s Lance Webster
.

“The bridge bit,” Alan added.

“Sounds like you’re singing
‘the system eyes all grind around the fuck,’
” I pointed out, laughing nervously.

“That’s probably because I am singing that,” he smiled. “I think it began life as something else, perhaps
‘I sit, I stand, I sleep, I drink, I fuck,’
but we recorded it one night when I got pissed out of my head on Black Russians and had to keep doing it over and over … the more pissed I got the more I changed it, until it just became that. I can’t believe it, you bastards have picked my one nonsensical lyric!”

“Sorry,” I muttered.

“We never play it live anyway,” Webster sneered. “Shit song.”

“No, it’s great,” Alan and I chanted in unison.

“All right,” Webster laughed, “you really
can
fuck off now.”

Class dismissed.

“Nice one,” stammered Alan, turning to go.

“See you at Rivermead,” I said stupidly, and followed.

We returned to where a smirking Dominic stood, clearly delighted at how short the exchange had been.

“So, what did he have to say?”

“What a geezer,” Alan began.

“Top bloke,” I added.

“Yes, but what did he actually say? For God’s sake, Beresford, your bloody hands are shaking.”

He was right. My adrenaline rush had reached its peak, coupled with the sweet satisfaction at having actually pulled off a Nice Little Chat with my hero. Just like three mates, we’d been, shooting the breeze in a bar before watching a great band. I was one of
them
. Despite the fact he’d essentially told us to fuck off twice in the space of one conversation.

“Oh, we were just talking about his lyrics, you know …”

“Which lyrics?”

“The guy’s so fucking creative, man,” Alan explained. “He was telling us how he wrote the song as one thing, then—”

“… decided on the spur of the moment he wanted to do something different.”

“He’s indecisive, you mean.”

This from Dominic triggered two glares of unbridled outrage.

“Oh!” I coughed, unable to phrase my indignation.

“He’s an
artist,”
managed Alan. “It’s
improvisation.”

“Whatever. Did you ask if he’d do an interview for
Peanuts?”

“It’s called
Vorsprung Durch Peanut
, Browne,” I spat. “Or the
Peanut
, if you must shorten it. And no, I didn’t. That wasn’t the point.”

“Like he’d have said yes anyway.”

“He
does
do fanzine interviews actually. Give us a sip of your Coke, will you.”

“No. Why don’t you ask Lance Webster for a sip of his snakebite?”

“Like a Daydream” by Ride came jangling out of the speakers, to increased frugging from the room’s swelling crowd.

“Ahh,” sighed Dominic. “Now we’re talking about artists. This guy. Lance Webster’s a fucking ironmonger by comparison.”

“Bunch of wimps, man,” Alan summarised.

“Mark Gardener’s just a pinup boy,” I elaborated. “He does fuck all. The guitarist’s the main one. And anyway, they’re shit live.”

Neither of us really meant all this. We’d thoroughly enjoyed seeing Ride at ULU a few months back, but when it came to defending the Magpies we had ears and eyes for no one else.

Dominic sipped his drink and shook his head sadly.

“You two. You just won’t stop living in your little dreamworld of Magpies and Atomic Dustmen and bloody Wendy James. [Alan had a particular weakness for Transvision Vamp, something I didn’t completely share.] Aren’t you ever interested in something more mature?”

“Mature!” Alan barked. “What’s so bloody mature about The Darling Buds?”

“They’re exquisite. As are Soho, who you’re also unable to appreciate.”

“Pile of shit, man. And what was that wank you were listening to the other day, the dance stuff?”

“‘What Time Is Love?,’ KLF,” responded Dominic confidently. “It’s gonna be huge.”

“Well, I don’t like it, man. And The Shamen. It’s all a load of toss. And that fucking Gary Clail bullshit. If I wanted to listen to dance music I’d hang out with Jamie Eisner.”

Dominic put his drink down and squared up to Alan.

“You just hate stuff that doesn’t fit into your neat little boxes, don’t you?”

“No, I—”

“It’s okay, Alan, I understand. I realise it takes a while for your brain to allow all this horrible new stuff past your little elitist alternative checkpoint. It was exactly the same when I introduced you to Jesus Jones—”

“That’s utter bullshit,
I
discovered
them—”

“Don’t worry, Alan. I don’t mind. But for the moment, if you don’t like what I play in my car, don’t fucking get into it.”

Thankfully The Heart Throbs took the stage at this point, because I thought it was getting a bit out of hand. Dominic wandered off to another part of the room, as he sometimes did, and after Alan calmed down we pushed forward, as we always did. There’s nothing quite like a slice of blissful, slightly dreamy guitar pop to take the edge off, and soon we were back where we started: watching a top gig, having just passed the time of day with our favourite musician. Only once did a nag of doubt resurface in my mind.

“You don’t think he’s gonna fuck off without us, do you?”

“Nah, man,” Alan replied. “I’ve had worse arguments with him before. I stole that bird off him at the See See Rider gig and he still gave me a lift home.”

Adequately reassured, I allowed myself to drift back, as the band swept into their finest tune, “Dreamtime.” One of those orgasm-points in gigdom followed, when everyone and everything seem to be as one: the Carlotti sisters’ harmonies, the guitars, the lights, the colourful, dancing crowd—all melted together, as I looked over to see (I mean, could life possibly get any better?) Lance Webster, looking pretty enrapt himself as he gently bopped next to the rather more animated Gloria Feathers. I felt fairly certain there were few places closer to the centre of the alternative-rock universe than where I was standing at that moment. I didn’t even wince with envy a little later when I caught sight of Dominic, who’d somehow got talking to a pretty girl in a Bomb Disneyland T-shirt.

A girl who later received a lift from Dominic in his convertible Volkswagen Golf; unaccompanied, I hardly need add, by Alan and me.

“Cock!” yelled Alan for probably the fourth time, as we sprinted
down the dark street towards the station. “I’m gonna fucking crucify him on Monday.”

My luminous DM laces were flying everywhere as we pelted round the corner in time to see the 23:59 gently moving off in the direction of London.

“No!!”

We stood there hopelessly for a minute or so, trying to get our breath back. A recent regime of sitting in the park necking cider and vodka had done its work on our teenage bodies and we were now almost comically unfit.

“What an unbelievable arsehole,” Alan finally summarised. “When the hell did he leave?”

“No idea,” I responded, miserably doing my laces up.

“He was still there after they came offstage?”

“Yeah, he was there for ages, talking to that girl’s mates. I looked over at him while ‘Fatman’ was playing.”

“They played ‘Sheriff Fatman’?”

“No, ‘Fatman’ by Eat.”

Alan blew his nose loudly, turned and started walking slowly away. “Of all the fucking gigs to do this, man.”

“You sure that was the last train?”

Alan didn’t bother to answer this, but simply carried on up the street.

“Where do you think the motorway is?”

A bloody long way away, was the answer. We trudged along the dual carriageway, halfheartedly sticking our thumbs out, the sickly yellow streetlights the only reminder we were anywhere near civilisation, singing various songs to keep us going
(“How was it for you, how was it for you?”… “I didn’t like you very much when I met you, and now I like you even less” … “You’re not the sort that I like helping
out … look who’s laughing now,”
etc.). My DM laces were perpetually giving me gip.

“You should get longer ones, man. Tie ’em round the top of the boot, like I do.”

I grunted in response. The inspiration for my outfit (black jeans, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin T-shirt, unbuttoned purple shirt worn as a jacket) was so far exclusively Alan, but there were certain things I was determined to avoid copying in the hope of remaining just slightly individual.

“Nice bird,” he volunteered.

“Uh?” I replied, looking around pathetically for any specimens of feathered wildlife. Alan giggled.

“Knob-end. I was talking about the blonde before.”

“Oh, right. Yeah.”

Alan and I had been pushing our precarious luck before we left the Square by attempting to join the Webster circle again, which had expanded to include three of the four Heart Throbs, a pair from the support band, indie DJ Gary Crowley, the ubiquitous Gloria Feathers and the aforementioned blonde girl, who was near the edge of the group and seemed the most likely to give us the time of day. But the stupid thing back in those days was that we rarely had a drink in our hands, either due to diminished funds or over-scrupulous bar staff (I’ve a feeling it was both on this occasion) so we always looked more hanging-around than hanging-out.

“I’m sure she was someone, man.”

“Someone?”

“The blonde.”

We were distracted briefly by the sound of approaching dance music. A throbbing Transit van roared past us, ignored our outstretched thumbs and hurled a half-full can of cider in our direction.

“Tit!” Alan shouted after the Transit.

“There’s some left,” I exclaimed, bending to pick the can up.

“Don’t be a pleb, man.”

I shrugged. I’d have done worse if I’d been on my own.

“Anyway, I was saying. She’s a singer or something, I’m sure of it.”

Alan would later claim to identify her as Sarah Cracknell, soon to be of Saint Etienne—although God knows how he arrived at that conclusion. He didn’t have a chance to consider it for much longer back then, for soon the cider-flinging van was speeding back down the wrong side of the deserted dual carriageway towards us.

“Probably coming back for their cider,” chuckled Alan; although as the van neared we halted and stepped backwards nervously.