Our Johnny is the Only One Dancing in Time: Chapter 2
An occasional series of possibly true scenes from a perfectly normal life. Let's call it faction.
Chapter 2: A Warm Can of Coke and a Cold Kebab (Read Chapter 1 HERE - the following will probably make more sense if you do that first but you don’t have to)
The Music Store Owner has a way with words.
"Listen lads" he says one afternoon "I really think you've got something, but obviously there's not a lot of people interested in you. What I'm prepared to do is put my money where my mouth is. Let's put a gig on starring you and those minstrel fellas, call it 'The Best in Kent' and see who turns up? Might work, might not". We agree this is an excellent idea.
The Victoria Hall, Southborough, was the first municipal theatre built in England under the Local Government Act 1894. It was erected to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria and was opened in 1900. Its primary purpose was the staging of Bring and Buy sales, Cake Judging competitions for the Women's Institute and the sort of local theatrics which have made the words Am Dram a byword for quality. By the early eighties it had opened up a sideline in making itself available for hire for rock gigs, usually playing host to bands that were just slightly too big to play The Six Bells, Chiddingly, but not quite ready to leave the happy confines of the TN postcode. Needless to say the hall, like most of the iconic locations in which the rich tapestry of rock was woven, has long since been knocked down and it’s dusty memories of the local rock scene thrown into a skip. At the time, however, we decide we have fully paid our dues performing two sets on Monday nights at The George in Tonbridge, plus we are particularly keen to break into the home baking and part-time thespian market, so we leap at the opportunity to headline Southborough’s home of rock. This quick decision making reflects our standard method of examining any potential contract or engagement; accept it and then work out how much money it's going to lose us at a later date.
As this illustrious hall doesn't have any sort of working PA system, or any sort of audience, The Music Store Owner agrees that he will shoulder all the costs of production and promotion. Over the following weeks he repeatedly reminds us that his manhood is at stake, which he expresses through repetitive use of oblique phrases such as "my nuts are on the line" and "no Mr Bond, I expect me to die".
The Music Store Owner is, you see, an amateur film buff, by which I mean that he would have been a trainspotter if he hadn't discovered James Bond and The Long Good Friday. The latter of these he can recite word for word, and frequently does, at full volume, normally in front of an unsuspecting customer who has just popped in for some strings. An average conversation in The Store runs as follows:
"I'd like some Ernie Balls please"
"I've got the 8s or the 10s but we haven't got any 9-gauge packs in at the moment"
"No worries, the 10s are fine"
"BENT LAW CAN BE TOLERATED AS LONG AS IT'S WELL LUBRICATED BUT YOU MY SON HAVE BECOME POSTIVELY PARCHED"
"£3.99 please"
"Sorry..... what did he say?"
"Oh nothing, £3.99 please"
"ANYBODY SEEN ANY OF MY COLIN FLYING PAST THE WINDOW? CUT HIM RAZORS".
"Is he alright?"
Worried as we are about the financial security of The Music Store Owner, not to say the possible imminent removal of his testicular fortitude, both The Drummer and I have accepted various underpaid work he has going. For The Drummer, this consists of working almost full time in his underpopulated store. To relieve the boredom, the Drummer has acquired a baseball bat which he uses to forcefully open the till with a hefty swing in the unlikely event of any customers. I, meanwhile, am working upstairs in the Music Store Owner's studio. As we don't have many bookings, this role mainly consists of cleaning various parts of the studio that the Music Store Owner has made dirty over the weekend, principally the recording desk which, despite my protestations, he will insist on using as a sex toy.
At night, we are equipped with a bucket full of paste and 1000 badly photocopied A4 posters advertising the forthcoming pop spectacular, which will feature not only the winners of the ‘Best New Band in Kent’, our vastly over rated good selves, but also the lute wielding, jester costume wearing, fiddley diddey doh, small tree brandishing minstrels who were runners up. In pursuit of a willing audience for this aural feast, The Music Store Owner drives us around town to hop in and out of his car walloping paste and posters in all directions, whilst he shouts words of encouragement from the safety of his driver's seat such as "Red wine with fish...Well that should have told me something!" and " Names is for tombstones, baby. Take this honky outside and waste him!". One night, by genuine mistake, we accidentally cover an entire store front from top to bottom before realising that the shop in question is actually still trading. We do two more so it looks like we haven't singled them out.
Ticket sales are apparently very sluggish. We know this because although large numbers of people keep coming into the shop and buying them, the Music Store Owner keeps telling us how bad the sales are. We are very worried for him and offer to work harder to promote the show. An impromptu spot of busking enables us to pass out some leaflets, as well as netting as the princely sum of 58p - not to be sniffed at when your average weekly wage consists of hanging around the music store in a hopeful manner in case the Music Store Owner gets hungry and needs accompanying to the pub for a bag of peanuts.
The day of the show arrives. There being no bar at The Victoria Hall, the Music Store Owner has bought an extraordinary number of cans of lager and placed them behind a counter. There is, literally, a mountain of lager that has to held in place with strategic ropes. To serve somebody a can of lager you must first pass a basic mountaineering safety test, equip yourself with oxygen and the appropriate grappling equipment, then scale the north face of the Beer Everest to pluck a precarious can from the top of the pile. We are consequently puzzled when he pulls us to one side to explain the paucity of ticket sales. "Look, even if there's nobody here" he says "do your best; I've got some press coming in. I've stuck a few people, important people, the creme de la cream, on the guest list, Bob's your Mother's Brother, should look alright, even if I have to go to a cashpoint at the end of the night to pay for the PA". The Guitarist asks about the lager mountain. "Party later at my gaff, invite some birds round, Bish Bosh, gonna need some brews, might be able to sell a few, try and cover the costs" The Music Store Owner explains.
Our line up has expanded to include The Keyboard Policeman; a piano player of no fixed ability who lives a life of mystery. One night during rehearsals he mistakenly leaves his wallet in open view whilst stepping outside for one of his frequent smoking breaks. The Guitarist immediately searches the wallet for information, and we are stunned to discover MI5 passes for all of central London's most sensitive locations, including one for Buckingham Palace. Alongside the obvious benefits of having a keyboard player that can get you an invitation to a Tea Party, the Keyboard Policeman is also, completely by coincidence, an expert on explosives. Tapping into this wealth of knowledge about how to blow things up which he has somehow mysteriously acquired, we agree he should let off a few bangs at the big gig.
Doors open. We are huddled backstage feeling sorry for the lonely punters out front, who are probably wondering what dragged them to this deserted wasteland on a Friday night. The minstrels perform some sort of weird lute-based ritual and head towards the stage. As they walk out, a noise approximating the take off of a 737 emanates from the hall. We peer round the corner of the stage drapes in search of its source. The hall is full. It is "full" in a way that would puzzle the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Full adj.
1. having in it all there is space for; holding or containing as much as possible; filled: a full jar
2. having eaten all that one wants (of)
3. using or occupying all of a given space: a full load
4. having an excessive number of people wildly inappropriate to the space available to the extent that some people are being stretchered to waiting ambulances over the heads of others whose faces are expressing an urgent desire to be imprisoned in the blackhole of Calcutta because of the obvious amphitheatre like conditions of the aforesaid hole of death in comparison to their current surroundings.
We stare from the wings at the gathered hordes. They stare at the minstrels, who for a moment are struck dumb by the sheer weight of people in front of them. They hesitantly commence a warm-up jig. One audience member, possibly a relation, decides to nod his head in appreciation. Due to basic laws of physic that cover friction and the relative momentum of objects, en masse headbanging ensues. The minstrels perform a set of 17th Century influenced sea shanties to a crowd that closely resembles the front three rows of a Motorhead gig.
The Music Store Owner appears. "Bit quiet out there now, but there's a few queuing to get in, might just break even" he announces. We peer from the backstage door up the side alley, our stares returned by a massed clan that appears to number several thousand. Some of them are trying to break in through the Fire Exit, but upon forcing the door open they become buried under the pile of bodies that burst out from within like an over-squeezed toothpaste tube. The building is, in short, packed five high and surrounded.
We take the stage. Pandemonium fills the hall, which appears to consist of 1200 people on a trampoline. Midway through the third song, a half-thought through attempt to evoke lyrical comparisons between Michael Heseltine and Goebbels, the powerful punctuation mark of the keyboard stab that really underlines the point man is more literally enforced by the detonation of fourteen 30-foot-high pyros right the way across the front of the stage. We ignore the fact that the Guitarist is now on fire and proceed. Three songs later a particularly rapid bout of machine-gun style drum rolls climaxes with a peculiarly damp "pffft". The Keyboard Policeman has planted landmines underneath the drum stool, but they have been suppressed by the world's largest Drummer's ample posterior. Occasionally, purely for the sake of his own entertainment, the Keyboard Policeman lobs a firecracker or two in our direction. We play like a band besieged and go down slightly better than the reformed Beatles.
"It's been a tough night, but we got there in the end". These are not the words of the exhausted Keyboard Policeman, whose attempts to achieve rock immortality through the death of one or more members have been thwarted, nor of the world's largest Drummer, who has steam rising from his back and firework burns on his backside. These are the words of the Music Store Owner, who has had a very tough evening searching the town for trousers with pockets large enough to put all the money in. We offer to help him count it, but he highlights his extensive costs, plus the fact that he's kept the door price low, and the huge number of guests, and in any case, it would be better to settle up after he's got all the ticket money in. We query the absence of any beers for the promised ‘let’s make this a night to remember’ dressing room party aftershow. "Ah" he says, "well, run out of beer didn't we? Tell you what though, you get on with packing up the gear and I'll run down to the kebab house, sort us out some bevvies and food."
Some hours later........
"You wouldn't believe it mate, got pulled over by the Harry Law when I was on my way back. Had to go home, get me licence, go the station.... anyway, what can I carry?". We point out that the vans were fully loaded more than an hour ago and that the only reason we are still here is that he has the keys. "Chow down lads!" he announces by way of recompense "I wouldn't leave you hungry!" We unwrap five cold kebabs and pop open four warm cans of coke.
"Good show tonight lads, good show. You know what? The World is Your Lobster".