The Chemical Brothers 'Where Do I begin?'
The main thing I was looking forward to in Bristol when I arrived was going to the Andy Weatherall gig with the girlfriend I hadn't seen in two months that Friday night. I'd long admired his music and DJing, he had been the support for the Chemical Brothers on the night I decided everything I'd ever wanted to do was a joke, and I was going to be a DJ..........
The main thing I was looking forward to in Bristol when I arrived was going to the Andy Weatherall gig with the girlfriend I hadn't seen in two months that Friday night. I'd long admired his music and DJing, he had been the support for the Chemical Brothers on the night I decided everything I'd ever wanted to do was a joke, and I was going to be a DJ..........
It would be good to go out clubbing properly in Bristol and do all the things we'd talked about, before things had got so chaotic. I would have said meeting an engineer who'd been working on Massive Attack's" Mezzanine "in the studio around the corner from the off-licence where my girlfriend worked would be something to look forward to, but not long after they met he'd shagged her then started buying his booze from Somerfield. Of course, I felt like a tit for having been slightly excited that she'd already made mates on the music scene, and that naive eagerness had soured into something slightly like simmering resentment. On the morning I arrived, however, I was accepting of the simple truths of the situation. After all, I'd been dogging around something stupid the summer before and what's good for the goose is for the gander, as my Gran used to say. Mind you, I didn't expect her to be in bed with some waiter instead of at home to welcome me to the city and our new life.
For three years, I had been made to feel that I was all she had and somehow therefore owed her a lot because her love for me had kept her in Glasgow, without her family. Bearing that in mind, I didn't think it would be too much of a stretch for us to take the time to work out what we were doing together while I mentally prepared myself for a life inside. All she was interested in now was getting out of the relationship and into the safe confines of another, while keeping her eye on a future PR cold war, it would now appear. Ah, young love. The more you ache, the more you learn and the more you learn the more you don't want to know.
In the meantime, I would have somewhere, far away, to lay low for a while before going back to Glasgow to face the charges of concern in supply of LSD, possession of other drugs and the dealers who were yet to see remuneration for said contraband. I didn't see it at the time, but some of those who had been by my side since being in & leaving school, who I'd been smoking weed with, tripping with, clubbing and going out to see everyone from Lou Reed to Daft Punk, Tori Amos, Bob Dylan and Orbital with, getting drunk and doing the dumb shit like go to see the Exorcist with on a Friday Night at the Odeon with, had decided my arrest for doing the same as I'd always been, with them, for years, made me a common criminal and them....... whatever they had become. Maybe the harsh realities of my situation was too scary to contemplate, and maybe they cared too much to watch me fall. I do know that some felt "How could a criminal thug like me perceive what those beyond reproach and outside of my new sphere were now?" One guy who had been waiting to see me fall for the entirety of our 'friendship' was very blatant in his glee that I was facing years in prison, and came over all weird one night in the QM with a speech about how he "wouldn't let you be left with your dick in your hand when you come out of there"(paraphrasing James Caan in 'The Godfather') before bursting into fits of laughter & telling me he would look after my girlfriend while I was away, clearly forgetting she had knocked him back several times. As I'm sure you are gathering, it was a strange time in my life.
In the meantime, I would have somewhere, far away, to lay low for a while before going back to Glasgow to face the charges of concern in supply of LSD, possession of other drugs and the dealers who were yet to see remuneration for said contraband. I didn't see it at the time, but some of those who had been by my side since being in & leaving school, who I'd been smoking weed with, tripping with, clubbing and going out to see everyone from Lou Reed to Daft Punk, Tori Amos, Bob Dylan and Orbital with, getting drunk and doing the dumb shit like go to see the Exorcist with on a Friday Night at the Odeon with, had decided my arrest for doing the same as I'd always been, with them, for years, made me a common criminal and them....... whatever they had become. Maybe the harsh realities of my situation was too scary to contemplate, and maybe they cared too much to watch me fall. I do know that some felt "How could a criminal thug like me perceive what those beyond reproach and outside of my new sphere were now?" One guy who had been waiting to see me fall for the entirety of our 'friendship' was very blatant in his glee that I was facing years in prison, and came over all weird one night in the QM with a speech about how he "wouldn't let you be left with your dick in your hand when you come out of there"(paraphrasing James Caan in 'The Godfather') before bursting into fits of laughter & telling me he would look after my girlfriend while I was away, clearly forgetting she had knocked him back several times. As I'm sure you are gathering, it was a strange time in my life.
Despite the incipient madness, I was unaware that my life was about to change by a factor as far beyond a simple prison sentence as that simple prison sentence was beyond my days at school. Thank Fuck I had my records, although I did leave them at the (newly ex)girlfriends and since I'd thrown the rocking chair that her Grandfather had made through her 2nd floor window on my way down to the gutter of an unfamiliar city, I wasn't really expecting to see them for a while.
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