Friday 10th March 2023.
The Lock Tavern, Camden.
I’m going to a gig, meeting up with someone I’ve known for over 35 years who is the only other person I know who ‘gets’ the band we’re both enthralled with. They are important to me for a myriad of reasons, which I’ll elaborate on in a bit. Suffice to say for now, they are scratched onto my battered soul, having given me memories as cherished as any others I hold dear. Ah memories, the older you get the more you have, the older you get the more you forget. I am currently experiencing some memories about my brief stint in the 90’s, working behind the bar of the pub I am currently sat in. Because I’m old, I try to not write things of any importance on my phone, I prefer paper and a pen, but because I’m old, I’ve forgotten to bring either of those things with me today. I ask the young man (probably in his 30’s but I’m old so that’s young these days) if he has any paper behind the bar. Why would he have a sheet of A4 behind the bar? Exactly, he doesn’t but he gives me a roll of till-roll and a biro and I retreat upstairs (too noisy downstairs, they’re playing some noughties indie-drivel way too loud for my liking.
60 minutes later I have a ‘list’ of people, places and things all related to my brief stint serving the Britpop masses when I was the barman at The Lock Tavern. I got sacked after a couple of months but you knew that already right? I didn’t sleep much back then but even as a slightly less well-known boozer than The Good Mixer, the ‘tavern was populated with just as many indie boys and girls, market traders, low-end drug dealers and wanna-be popstars as anywhere else. There now follows a list of bands and people that for whatever reason, 30 years later now appear on my till-roll, rollcall.
EMF, The WonderStuff, Lush, Suede, Tiny Monroe, Evan Dando, Gorgeous Space Virus, Sleeper, Primal Scream, Blur, Oasis (of course) Elastica, Menswear, Pop Will Eat Itself, Scarfo, Placebo, Skunk Anansie, Powder, Limousine, Gene, Rub-Ultra, Dodgy, and loads of others who all looked and sounded much the same as each other and therefore have been lost in the mists of time. There was also one of the fellas from the Jesus and Marychain who was always really fucking miserable and being Scottish always tried to haggle over the price of an eight of ‘coke. As well as various staff members at Food Records, Savage and Best PR and literally anyone and everyone who had even the slightest, fleeting interest in the musical melting pot of pale-faced skinny British musicians of that period. Then there were the three Geordie men who would travel down to London to look for fights with ‘Cockney ‘poofs in Camden. Their idea of a good night out was for one of them to dress up in drag, go out into Camden, then start punching fuck out of anyone who looked at their cross-dressing mate for more than a millisecond. Whenever they turned up in any of the pubs in the area, the police were usually called within minutes. It wasn’t all effeminate, sharp-dressed hopefuls from Southend, coked off their tits on Camden High Street you know!
So my list of people I either served booze or powders too now fills the till-roll I have on the table and it’s time to go and meet ‘Gully from work so we can both pretend to be teenagers again while we stare adoringly at the greatest rock and roll band most people have never heard of and as far as I’m concerned are a better than all of the others put-together that I’ve just listed.
Only my opinion of course, doesn’t mean it’s a fact.
But it is.
The Hold Steady.
May 2007. Hackney.
I’m at home, having returned to my little 1-bed flat in Stoke Newington, where there were definitely some ghosts that needed exorcising, and some happier memories to be made. I’m doing all the things suggested by others, also on the same path as me, I’ve almost a year clean, so far so good. I’m still pretty much ‘living’ in NA meetings, two, sometimes three a day, I’m good with that, it’s working, unlike me at the time but I knew that situation would also improve if I kept myself together, I need to get this right, next time, there won’t be a next time, I knew I’d been lucky to survive and for now, being skint and clean was more than good enough for me.
Someone had kindly given me an old telly they no longer needed, there was enough money to keep the electricity and heating on, I brought a few bits of furniture, usually had credit on my phone so I could stay in touch with other people in recovery. I had a radio and a CD Walkman, each week I brought a travel-pass for the ‘tube/buses, got some basics for the fridge and tried to help others if/when the situation presented itself in meetings. When I say ‘helping’ others, what I mean is really just offering encouragement to people who perhaps were attending NA meetings for the first time and might be thinking it was all a bit weird, or a cult, or religious, none of which had ever been my experience anyway.
*Point of interest 1. *
People who falsely state that 12-step recovery is essentially a religious cult have usually.
A. Never been to a meeting.
B. Been to a meeting that has forgotten it’s not a religious cult.
C. Are just slagging it off because they know it works but they don’t really want to stop using.
D. Think they ‘might’ want to stop using but have absolutely no intention of looking at their part in the mess they’ve created and just want to keep blaming everything or everyone else.
E. A combination of the above.
*Point of interest 2. *
12-step recovery is not the only way that can help people in their quest to have happier, more fulfilling lives. It is however, where a lot of people end up, once they’ve tried everything else and don’t care whether it’s a cult or not just as long as they stop stealing legs of lamb from the local supermarket and/or blowing off their dealer for a £10 rock of crack.
I get home from a meeting one night, make a cuppa, switch on the ‘telly, Later with Jools Holland is on, so I recline into my sofa with my tea and a roll-up, more in hope than expectation that I’ll see/hear anything I like.
It will hopefully be more stimulating, than the posh girl I just had listen to, in that meeting earlier, bleating on and on about how awful everything is, now daddy’s taken her credit card off her and she’s being sent to a rehab in Luton, that isn’t some private place in Thailand that’s actually a massive fucking rip-off, but people go there ‘cos it’s got a nice view and you can go elephant trekking and if you decide to fuck off and relapse the heroin is much better than in Luton and you might meet some z-list celebrity who’s spunked all the money they made from appearing in some car crash ‘telly program a few years ago, or something. I’d missed most of what she was saying cos I was on my ‘phone, stalking her on Facebook while she spoke.
*Point of interest* That last sentence obviously isn’t true. I’m not the ‘stalky’ type and also, I wasn’t on Facebook in 2007. Myspace ruled baby.
Anyways..
Brian Ferry certainly isn’t going to change my cynical attitude about anything, I’ve just spent over a decade numbing myself with heroin and I’m still far too, raw, angry, and maybe narrow-minded to be seduced by anything he had to offer. There are however, two guitar bands that could, although why one and not the other grabbed me in such a way, I’m still not sure. Both bands have without doubt, two of the finest songwriters of this millennium at the heart of everything they do, lyrically, they are both deserving of the plaudits offered by anyone with an interest in narrative, character-based storytelling, oh and great, really, really great guitar riffs to accompany their observations.
The Arctic Monkeys completely pass me by, by which I mean I don’t sit up on my sofa, tug excitedly on my roll-up and have a bit of a ‘moment’. Like I’ve just said, even at a year clean, I’m still quite myopic in many of my opinions, I like what I like, even though, in many areas, I’m still unsure what I like. Perhaps Alex Turners razor sharp wit and youthfulness was too much of an ask for me? Maybe I went out to the kitchen to make something to eat and missed them? I don’t recall, but I’m not about to starting eulogizing about them, which is weird because if you supplant New York for Sheffield, drop your GPS pin and the characters from the Northeast of England to the cities of North America, add another decade of life-experience and perhaps the musical telepathy that constant touring for almost the same amount of time gives, voilà! You have The Hold Steady.
Or I did anyway.
Maybe it was Tad Kubler’s guitar intro, or the fact they looked roughly the same age as me?
Maybe it was the line.
“She was a real cool kisser, but she wasn’t all that strict of a Christian.”
That’s got me.
Or.
“He likes the warm feeling, but he’s tired of all the dehydration.”
Yeah, that was IT.
That line.
One line.
Sometimes that’s all you need. (No pun intended)
They’d just spoken to me, in the same way The Jam had done, or The Smiths when I’d seen them on Top of the Pops over 20 years previously.
There is an expression that says, 95% of life is just about turning up, I have no idea who coined that phrase, possibly someone with a decent pair of walking shoes who liked being outside a lot, who knows? But I’d been turning up for nearly a year when my latest obsession turned up in my life.
There is one well known psychological theory that suggests people with addiction issues don’t really develop emotionally while they are caught up with their drug use, avoiding the feelings that help ‘normal’ people actually grow up.
I was 36, I’d been using drugs addictively for over 20 years, which then, at a year clean, in some respects meant I’m 17.
Which is pretty much how I’m feeling most days at this point in recovery, which therefore means, I’m primed to have a teenage band crush should a suitable candidate come along.
I’m therefore having a massive ‘teenage’ fanboy crush on The Hold Steady, to the point that as soon as I get my dole money the following day, I scurry along to the nearest record shop on Church Street in ‘Stokey and buy all three of the albums they’ve already made.
I’d not done anything like that in a very long time and imagine by joy when I hear a line from their second album, Separation Sunday, on the song Stevie Nix.
“Lord, to be 17 forever.”
“Lord to be 33 forever.”
There is also a track on Separation Sunday called, ‘How a Resurrection Really Feels’, the lyrics include,
“These parties they start lovely, but they get druggy and they get ugly and they get bloody.”
Any wonder I was so utterly smitten?
Bingo!
It’s Friday, I’m in love.
All three Hold Steady CD’s are now in my bag as I travel around London over the next few days, I’m listening, learning the words, smiling, happy and telling anyone who cares to listen, they’re the best band on the planet right now. Not that anyone in NA seemed remotely interested, the vast majority of them much prefer drinking Red bull and raving at NA conventions to DJ’s who weren’t very good when they were off their tits, let alone now that they’re sober.
I’m at a local meeting one night when I spy a fella sitting at the back, looking like he’s, a bit concerned that he may well be surrounded by a bunch of loons (he is, it’s fine we all are, that’s how it works)
So, after the meeting I do that trying to help other ‘bit’ go over and say hello, promise him it’s not a religious cult and ask him if he wants to go for a coffee. He does, we have a bit of a chat, he seems a bit cautious at first, but we discover we have a mutual love of music that most people I’ve met in recovery don’t enjoy, The Wedding Present, Sonic Youth and Shack! So, I ask him what he does for a living.
“I’m an accountant in the music business.”
“Oh, nice work if you can get it, I wish I’d met you when I was selling drugs at music festivals, I might not be as skint as I am these days.”
*This is obviously nonsense, If I’d managed to hold on to any money from my dealing days, I’d would have spunked it on something else*
Then one of those little miracles I don’t believe in happened.
“Do you like The Hold Steady? They’re clients of mine and I’ve got a guest list for their show next week in Shepherds Bush.”
If NA is a cult, it’s definitely the best one I’ve ever joined.
A week later I’m outside the Shepherds Bush Empire hanging around hoping to catch the band at soundcheck, but it seems I’ve arrived too late, so it looks like I’ll just have to sit in a nearby pub drinking pints of lime and soda and annoying strangers with my limited conversational repertoire. (more about that in a minute) I’ve got a plus 1 on my guest list, Bigbear is on his way, but just as I’m about to head to the boozer, I see the band coming out of the stage door and walk towards their tour bus. Ok, I know I’m in my mid-30’s and have met enough of my heroes to probably not feel the need to jog over and make a bit of a tit of myself, but remember, I’m also still very much feeling the
“Lord, to be 17 forever.”
thing too, and I’m also, very much sill at the stage of my recovery where my opening line to almost everyone is usually along the lines of.
“Hiya, my names Simon, I used to be a smackhead, but I’m alright now.”
(That’s my limited conversational repertoire in case you didn’t guess.)
Which had I not been now standing by the tour bus, would probably have been my first words to the barmaid, obviously with, “Can I have a pint of lime and soda please?” added on the end.
But I AM standing next to the tour bus and the band are also there signing albums and CD’s and having photos taken with some fans and I therefore do sidle-up to singer/songwriter Craig Finn and tell him that I used to be a smackhead but I’m alright now and
“I fucking love you guys, I’ve not been to a gig in years, I saw you on the ’telly. Blew my mind mate, that lyric.”
“He likes the warm feeling, but he’s tired of all the dehydration, “
It’s about heroin isn’t it?
It’s probably not, but who cares?
Oh mate I think your band are the best band in the world right now, I just got all your albums and I know I’m making a total dick of myself and you probably don’t want to hear my life story and If I could think of something else to say other than repeating the fact that I used to be a junkie but I’m alright now and I think you guys are the best band in the world and I’ve been clean for a year now and and and and ..
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Craig has probably met more than his fair share of overly exuberant fans over the years, it goes with the territory, even for older musicians, but he does sound genuinely sincere when he acknowledges my clean time and tells me he is more than familiar with that particular narrative of addiction as he glances at ‘someone’ lurking inside the bus.
“What’s your name dude, you’re coming to the show later, right?”
“Yes mate too fucking right I am, my name’s Simon I’m an addict.”
He chuckles and reminds me, that I’m not actually in an NA meeting right now, then jumps into the bus and they drive off back to their hotel.
A few hours later.
Stone cold sober, absolutely buzzing on nothing more than a Red-Bull and lots of pre-gig roll-ups, now standing with my mate, Mick ‘Bigbear’ Hall, front and center as The Hold Steady come back onstage to do an encore. The show has been a glorious display of ragged, barroom rock and roll splendor, huge guitar riffs, lyrical genius and what Craig Fin is now talking about a few feet in front of me, onstage.
“There just so much joy in what we do up here, you know? We’re just so grateful and happy to be over here in London playing for you tonight.? “
We are all most definitely feeling that joy, it’s everything that they stand for.
“Lord to be 17 forever.” **
** Minus the acne, the not having any money, the living at home with parents that don’t understand you, the not being able to get into a club/pub, the lack of understanding about almost everything and the inability to know which part of a girl they want you to spend time rubbing furiously, obviously.
He continues talking as the bass starts to rumble into their final song of the evening.
“Anyways, we met this guy earlier, he told us a little bit about his life, right, so yeah,
Simon, this one’s for you, this song’s called Killer Parties Almost Killed Me, we’ve been The Hold Steady, thanks for coming out tonight.”
I am now crying, pure joy, goosebumps on top of goosebumps, my mate is looking at me in disbelief,
“How the fuck did you make that happen?”
“I liked the warm feeling, but I got tired of all the dehydration mate.”
He has no idea what I’m talking about, but I do and that’s enough.
So,
Can you go to a gig, totally clean for the first time, and have one of the best nights of your life?
Did I used to be a smackhead but I’m alright now
?
Loved reading this.
I came across Hightown Pirates and your story through an earlier article featuring The Hold Steady influence; love your stuff and your writing is always entertaining.
They were on fire this weekend, love Craig’s lyrics (his solo stuff to) and he’s such a charismatic front man, 20 years on and the band are still driving home those tunes from almost killed me with the same fury…. And I’m lucky enough to be one of those kids at the shows with kids of his own who’s shared the last few weekenders with me….when I say kid, at 55 I’m not sure I’m a kid but age is no barrier to good music …. Roll on March next year and another massive night/killer Party…