The Jazz Packers

Well, you asked, and asked again. You obviously know it’s not something that I bother talking about myself, ancient history and well, a pretty good yarn really which I’d probably tell often if the joke wasn’t, ultimately, on me. But, guess you’ve been talking to your Uncle Simon, and yeah, I know he’s a little embittered to this day. Probably given you a skewed angle on the whole screwy thing. Me, maybe I am a wee bit and all, and that’s why I don’t talk about it, good story notwithstanding (take a seat). I gots my own opinions and theories, but the memory’s pretty square, so you may as well hear how it really went down there. I’ll try and put it nice.

6:30, Friday. Better Days, Distant Past. The light of Autumn sheds its last golden tears across the gallery’s white frontage; the flat bronze sculpture above the portal, a Paul Duval piece, speaking lyrically of land and sea and sky, it glares in the evening sun. Cars go past, homeward mostly, the flow thinning as the evening grows. A few folk, couples, passing by on their way to eating out, others exiting the gallery where an opening soiree is still dishing wine and food to some sixty patrons, art lovers, starving artists and a Jack Russell.

Then, emerging round the door, as if issuing forth from a hidden closet, a group of men in their twenties maybe, too slick to tell – black and white suits and ties, shades on some, deep brows on others, altogether pretty pretty - One, two, three, four, five. Cinco, cinco! They appear one by one, beat, they’re all together, standing on the steps, like G-men, an arresting sight. Carrying cases of shapes and sizes, horn shaped, drum sized. One detaches himself from the cluster to unlock the white panel van immediately before them.

These guys seem to load their gear in with almost superhuman ease; hefting the bass drum case and the big fat bass with a resistance to gravity that belies their lean figures. I’m coming from across the street, eyeing them. I’m a musician myself, play an okay horn with my slack friends, we blow and sometimes make something sweet maybe; me, been loading gear for bands for years and all. So obviously I know what shit weighs, and I’m checking these guys, riffing on their look, their economy of motion. Also one of those starving artists, I might confess (sure, I’d love to get to famous musician-ness and all, but since the Revolution of Lowered Expectations my ambitions mainly run to paying the rent on time and grabbing a bite and a swallow when I can), and been meaning to get to this opening earlier: delayed by a faulty security system at the art supplies shop I sometimes pretend to work at.

So, while I’m in a bit of a hurry to get in and gobble up any remaining hors d’oeuvres, cheese, red wine and all, still feel compelled to slow, smile, stop, engage. The lank blonde nearest me is loading a black sax-shaped case into a space in the big white whale, his face turns two thirds behind wraparounds, as I zoom in with a smile: “How’s it goin’?” Blank.

One thing you will know about me, I am not to be deterred so easy. “You cats just play in there?”

He straightens up, adjusts his shades, looks my way. “Yup.”

“Aw, sorry to miss it. You guys just swing, or play jazz?” A query, a friendly dig, call it what you will.

He strokes his chin, looks at his nearest bud, a shorter, darker, cuter version, who smiles wide. “We go all the way man, dig?”

Mmhm. “Man, let me know next time you’re playin’.”

First dude. “Couldn’t say. Usually galleries man. Otherwise, Weddings, funerals, anything.”

“I dig.” I guess. “I’m Enzo.”, extend a hand.

Shorter darker takes it cheerily, “Beats.”

“Drummer, huh. Duh” Beam.

Tall Blonde takes it a little more hesitantly, “Sad.”

“Sad Sax?” Me and Beats share a laugh, an indulgent half-smile from Sad.

Beats: “You play?”

“Yeah I blow a horn man. Okay I guess. How long you cats been at it?”

Beat. Together: “Couple years.” Another beat.

“So what you guys call yourselves?”

Another hesitation, they look at each other, back at me. They seem to want to confirm everything they say between them, makes for long slow exchanges, yes. Sad says…

”The Jazz Packers.”

Can’t help but smile at that. “Cool. Well, I’ll look out for y’all. Have a good one eh.”

I ascend the steps to the gallery, stealing a look behind me: Sad’s looking back, glances away fast.

I wander into the gallery, scooping up canapes and a glass of wine, make the circuit. Looking at the big charcoal drawings on white paper, prefigured primitive madonnas, earth goddesses suspended in space. Exchanging eye contact with a few of the other punters of my acquaintance; red-dyed city councillors, black-clad imitators, I spy a co-conspirator, he’s starving and making the most of it too. Stone, in happier times, brushes a bang from his forrid as he clinks his glass against mine. “Goddess in search of worshippers? Or simply manifesting herself, through her blunt instrument, to her ardent public, waiting breathlessly for her appearance?”

“True enough, he’s kinda endlessly repeating the Big Womanses of late. And yes, the matrons do seem to be lapping it up.”

Stone takes in a Rubenesque recumbent charcoal meditatively, I’m still curious. “Did you see the band then?”

Still ruminating on the burnt ochre offering before him, his brow only furrows slightly. “Band?”

“Yeah, saw them on their way out, any good?”

Stone gives up on trying to enjoy the image on any other level than it’s presented. “Man, don’t recall, was there a band? Been here for an hour or so, bud, cramming it in.” He sways slightly. “They may’ve been one on just quiet like, sure they were just fine then – didn’t bug me any case.” Laffs, he’s gone soon after.

Couple more wines and a slice or two of cheese and I’m done too, with a morning shift meself tomorrow, we’re on our way home.

Openings happen every few weeks at some places, months at others. Between painting and playing and occasional public appearances, I see what’s on offer and am impressed by little of it, a little of it. Short-term memory being what it is, it’s a novelty again when I see now, heading along to the Imogen Art Gallery, five fellers stepping forth, smooth black suits and haircuts, shades and cases, heading for the same white van.

I’m with my friend, sometime bandmate, sometime girlfriend (well that bit’s in my mind, probably, really) Charmaine, who looks agreeably curious at “These cats.” I bowl on up, smile wide as a muppet’s, “Shit guys, I miss yas again?” They look around again, there’s a sense of the same resistance, the cooler-than-thou attitude but I’m drilling on past it. Beats still seems affable, go the drummers, I’m now assuming Sad just is what he is. I introduce Charmaine and then, woman on board, yoho, we get the rest of their monikers: Elwood lean in dark glasses on dooble bass, Henry James (with the two first names) on trumpet, I warm to him immediately for both his handle and choice of instrument; and guitarissimo Red Green, whose name might’ve been funnier if he didn’t sport close-cropped ginger hair and a surly look on his freckled face.

All together, a perfect picture of a slick modern jazz quintet (lemme hear you now), so I’m as interested as Charmaine when she hits them with a double-banger: “When are you playing next? Do you have any recordings?”

There it is again: that unquite-easy look between them, confirming without words what their next words will be, maybe. Are they one psychic unit?

And again, it’s Sad who speaks up, overriding the overeager Beats, “…Just some private functions.” And recordings? “…Not at this stage, thinking about it though. …We’ve had a lot of interest.”

Charm and I look at each other, we’re both amused, bemused, intrigued enough by these cute white hipsters and practically suggest it in harmonic unison. “We’ve got a recording setup if you want to have a session, could do the sound on y’all/all, say the word, man/ man.Yeah.””Yeah.”

And it’s true enough – we got a parcel of gear in a nice dead room, with access to a hall if we want they acoustics, an ancient reel-to-reel eight-track, tape and desk for that reel authentic sound, and Simon’s got a fine macbook with the old protools and stuff, we can make and play back all we like and all good.

Sad’s looking a little screwed up like no, but there’s another round of buzzing, silent communication between the whole five; are they a whole hive?

He turns back to me, leaning in close like he’s a little blind in the shade and behind the shades, he pulls out his black cellphone. “Can I get your number?”

Done. “Let me know when you’re jamming next, huh.”

Certainly, you charmer. “Sure dude.”

And it’s nothing much really, and nothing comes from nothing in the main, so we roll into the gallery, it’s a friend of a friend as it turns out, nice show of oil on metal, cut into petals, in memory of dead flowers. Good range of eats and deli meats and all, but the wine runs out so it’s upstairs to Imogen’s, after shooing out the last punters, to dust off a bottle or two from the pantry to the tune of a new moon. The special sauce, declares Imogen, she sold a few pieces. Nice night had by all, all in all.

Easily forget about the five fellers in black and white van, enigmatic to a man, in the midst of life’s duck and dive if damnest thing, they didn’t keep turning up. Just wandering in the arts centre back passage, here they are packing out – it’s worth noting at this point, that I seem to be somefashionably late to most things of late, suspect I’d be tardy to my funeral – so I figure I’ve missed the grand opening of the Better Days Normal School End of Year Exhibition (tragic), though I’m surprised to see that these guys were apparently playing there.

Just within eyebrow-lifting distance, I can see Sad and Beats a-talkin’ and a-lookin’ at me already. Hoisting his drums with the greatest of ease, Beats turns around and smiles at me.

“Heya man!” How’s about that, I’m man now.

I extend a hand and he grabs it warmly, and, relatively, so does Sad. Hellos all around from the cats and we small talk about the scene, which is mostly me talking and them nodding and half smiling. I’m guessing they haven’t made too many friends on the circuit, yet? If they’re as good as they look and act, well, arrogance is something earned sometimes I guess. Other hand, never seen em play yet, though they surely seem in demand. Me and mine, we don’t advertise, don’t play gigs as such, just do the monthly jazz club thing sporadically, which, come to think of it, they’re clearly too cool to attend and all. So why they doing a backwater like Better Days the honour of their presence anyways?

Many questions, no time to ask, cause Beats and Sad are taking me to task, how come I aint shown em my chops yet, when we jamming, can they see. This enthusiasm is taking me a little by surprise and flattered even, I let slip we loosely intending on getting it on this very, when those concerned can cash in on their family compromises, have a rare workless weekend, or like me, have nothing much else to do. And there it is, I promise to make it cool with the crew and they promise to come, and while I doubt it, I’m still wondering, is this a thing I’m diggin’ or is this a hole.

Sad’s dark glasses, feel em in the back of my head.

So Friday night, as usual, I’m at Simon’s and your Aunty Pam’s for dinner, the kids running round biting my ankles, yeah your cuzzies, and I broach the matter of the ghost quintet, the Marie Celeste of jazz, fully manned but seemingly shipless. Simon’s got a lot on his mind making ends meet and, all things being even, I don’t mind eating at their trough cause I make the appropriate offerings of bread and wine, and I don’t blame him when he doesn’t pay full attention to me as I do rabbit on. So it’s Pam, between shooing the little buggers away while we have a moment’s adult time, who takes an interest when I say, “So it’s okay if they come round for a listen Sunday then?”

“And these guys, they’re a band themselves, right? They play gigs? And they want to hear you guys?”

Pam, ever the diplomat. Simon perks a little here, and while he looks dubious, or not even sure what I’ve been on about, can’t see the harm in it. Hah.

Worth mentioning at this point, it’s the next day Pam informs Simon she’s come up pregnant again. (her term, and must say always preferred it to ‘falling’ pregnant meself)

And next day, I catch up with the rest by phone or on the fly, James, Alton, Phil, figure Charmaine’s cool already, so.

Sunday afternoon, we’re together, the five of us, dressed in our weekend worst, loosely tuning up for a relaxed jam, a joint or two. Then there’s an at the door, and there they are, slick as the day you were born, toting beer, and whisky, and what do you know, the day sorta spontaneously turns into a drunken hazy fantasia of house partyness, we launch and lurch through our favourite compositions with inebriated gusto. Mingus merges into Monk with a slam dunk and next thang we’re in Birdland, flying. We seem to be at our best, energized, we look wide-eyed at each other on the odd stop. Maybe it’s the audience – we’re not totally agin having people watching but at most it’s mostly family and flatmates. But it’s like that low hum of intensity these guys exude has wormed its way into our playing. That’s just a vague retrospective on a wasted jam, mind.

Later, with a beer in one hand and a whisky in the other, somehow contriving to light a cigarette and all, Thelonious playing in the nearground, I settle into a seat across a coffee table from the serious-eyed Henry James, balancing a scotch of his own (Straight no Chaser), on rolling foothills. He’s a question with tender purchase on his lips.

“That thing on the end of your, uh, horn…you make it sound pretty great.” He’s talking about my mute.

It just occurs to me that in the time they’ve been here, none of them have had a crack or even a look at any instruments themselves. That’s not the only thing though; and the eddies in my head clear for a moment. I sit up a bit, looking at him and Sad, who’s standing aloof in the nearby. I dive on in.

“You guys…don’t actually play music. Do you?”

It seems like there’s a joint intake of air. And, a moment later, a break in the atmosphere, a pressure drop.

I notice Simon looking over at us, he’s got a big mop of hair these days, always brushing it aside and squinting when he’s not wearing his glasses. “I mean, really, I’m curious.” My curse.”What are you guys, if you’re not a band?”

Henry James drops his lids, says softly, “We don’t wanna talk about ourselves.”

Someone’s turned off the light in the adjoining room so the black and white boys are backlit; “We wanna talk about you.”

Smoke rising from Sad’s mouth as he stubs his fag and leans on down.

“We like your music.”

That buzz is in the air again, I can almost hear them silently communicating. “Cheers, bud. Like your scotch.”

Sad settles down right next to me on the couch, and I’m a little unnerved by his propinquity, I must say. Then he takes his shades off, and now I must also say, he’s got the most dreamiest bluest of azure blue eyes. Just between us, now, I almost turned gay for him then and there. But I was wasted, and his low undertone came through even through that buzz.

“We want you to record an album for us.”

I endeavour to sit up, pretty sure I heard right but confussed of course.

“Sorry, you guys are a record label now?”

Henry James: “No, we’re a band.”

“But you, uh, don’t actually play – “ Something’s starting to sink into my thick skull at this stage but still not sure what, what.

Henry James and Sad speak as one, there’s a soft smile in one voice and a chill tone in the other, and I feel myself on the edge of the stratosphere between the warmth of the sun and the deep of space as I listen, “We’ll pay you.”

The void seems to open up and near engulf me as I try to swallow this myself. Presence of mind is coming to, though, and catching Si’s eye again, I wave him over as I struggle up from half-prone to sedentary.

“What’s up?” I struggle to tell him. Simon tries questioning looks without direct questions at the dudes, he’s not the pushy type, you’ve worked that out eh. They mostly wanna deal with me it seems. Sad corners me into the ass end of the couch, near the wall. His sharply defined red lips – my state of mind – seem to move out of synch as he speaks, Monk’s black keys ringing past – “We’ll pay you to record an album for us.”

“You’ll pay us…how much?”

“Fifteen thousand.”

Ooh, and now I’m almost sober. I look over at Simon, the other guys, fiddling and jamming to the feed or talking distracted shit, thinking I have to respond to this, one way or other, this is a force that has descended on me and mine and maybe the only way to evade its full destructive power is to run with it and come out the other end intact, hopefully. So I say, talk to me.

So, they sorta seem to know their onions, whether they can chop em or not. I believe they’ve got a poet’s soul in there somewhere, hope he rests easy someday. They give me the list, handwritten, in different pens:

AMBER, LIQUID AMBER

BEST KEPT SECRET

THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE

THINGS ARE LOOKING UP

SPECIAL TIME

A LITTLE ON THE BIG SIDE

I KNOW YOU KNOW I LIE

BORN AT LAST

TROPICAL WINDS

DON’T MIND IF I DO

EARTHQUAKE SEASON

GET WITHOUT IT

THERE’S A PLACE FOR YOU

SWITCH

WE HAD A DEAL

And they’ve clearly thought it out pretty surely, and they take me into their confidence, explaining how it has to be in this sequence, and how this number needs to be kinda this side of Mingus, that touch of Coltrane, this one needs to bop like Parker and groove like Morgan and then go all Miles on yer ass and I feel what they sayin even while I think they don’t know what they talkin about cause they don’t blow but I’m grooving on this idea of creating this whole new universe of music that I can give away and I can’t wait to convince the others to buy in to this sell out.

All together now, a whole different groove.(Come on, lemme hear ya)

And now, we’re talkin fifteen grand. A large a song. Five of us, lemme do the math – Simon just got certain news he sure as hell needs the money. I always need some, never mind my various creditors. James drives a truck (Jimmy when he works) and while he’s complaining, does okay, but hey, three grand; Phil and Charmaine are too overqualified to earn enough money to support them and theirs in the way they slaved and studied to do. Alton’s a kid of eighty eight, what does he know. Basically we could all do with a cash injection.

And, there’s the fact of these guys, they’re there, not quite ghosts, the Jazz Packers. They don’t play but they exert a strange charisma, an influence like a band of Nick Caves, who will step up and play their way, infect our heads and infest our blood till we become absorbed into the swampy wastes, all a brother has, and accept our fate as a meal for the taniwha of jazz, but not yet - and so we set to the feel, and making these guys their album, we start planning and scheming and looking at these scrawled words on a crumpled page and begin to understand what they mean, to them, to us, to everyone else out there, the squares.

We blow and we listen and we start again. We feel our way through an idea, the idea of “The Devil’s Backbone”, in short syncopated, Faubus-driven shuffles, almost reaching the corner but not quite making Miles until – We hit a B riff, dropping into the sixth, a G-sharp minor with an ambiguity about it and the B, are they enemies or lovers, the polar opposites of Good and Evil, intertwined like a DNA strand? All that? James and Alton play around each other sensitively, achingly so, we almost want them to get a room, we never heard such tender interplay of guitar and bass. Then the E minor and and a pedal pointing to the groove we know we got goin’ on, and we do believe this’ll be right on for “Best Kept Secret”, and we carry it, we push it up to a crescendo, and while I’m heading off the F-sharp into the wilderness, Charmaine’s sax picks it up off the end and just plain wails at the pain, the injustice of this thing, this tale which can never be told.

And that’s how it goes on. “Tropical Winds” is our “Night In Tunisia”, it whirls like a dervish and leaps into the darkest night of the jungle and the trumpet, dare I say, tells you beware, the mist in the night air will steer you astray if you stay, but oh, how will you tear yourself away, da-da-dee-dee-dah-daah…Oh and “Earthquake Season”-

Now there we nearly hurt ourselves playing that, starting easy, almost a sunny day as the birds, singing muted, suddenly grow mute over a single humming bass note and then we hit our cataclysmic crash of wild and free music, not just jazz but a primordial sound, that of the earth roaring, daring itself against gravity and nearly succeeding in breaking loose, a world at war with itself and everything around it. And once the rubble and debris settle down and the dust clears, there’s a sole survivor, so the lonely clarinet (Charmaine) seems to feel, wandering dazedly and slowly picking up the pieces of fellow refugees, my trumpet soft and honking in the shallow warmth of small mercies, company in shared misery. We actually feel physical, emotional pain as we rip the carpet out from under the feet of our shakily, but lovingly drawn characters with aftershock after aftershock.

I know I’m waxing grandiose, and maybe memory has glorified the music a tad in my dotage, but really. If real art is born out of raw emotion, we found ourselves in the presence of great artists that day: us.

But was it us?

We felt more and more driven by something that wasn’t our usual lazy Sunday stoner noodlings, and it wasn’t just the money carrot dangling. The smiles of pleasant, friendly discovery that usually accompanied our small-time jams were gone: there was a seriousness that pervaded, invaded the five of us, seemed to hang like a thundercloud in the middle of the room, darting out lightning snaps at each of us, jolting us into electrified passion. We felt the hair rising on the backs of our necks as we dared each other higher, belligerently even. There was something in the room that wasn’t just us, and it infected us with something we wouldn’t dare touch with a long stick normally.

The other tunes go in similar fashion, alternately restrained and unleashed, we chuckle through “Special Time”, but it’s more of a laughing at rather than with, a cynical river of plunking notes and stumbling rhythms and contrapuntal wit. “Born At Last” fills us with joy and foreboding, with its diminished chords underpinning the flat ninths to the point of breaking us out of our womb. Charm, probably (almost certainly) the most talented of us all, does Sad’s name justice as she bleeds melancholy all over the place.

We do record it all in sequence, by the way, once working it all out to the point of pure heartbreak, when we come to lay all this down, we’re giving our babies away. Mostly but, the time goes by like a whirlwind, and I’m dimly aware of Sad and maybe the others coming by in the course, but the details slip by in the mist I guess.

And we finish with “We Had A Deal” and boy, by that time it’s dark. Menacing undertones from James, and I can’t keep away from those long slow minor third notes meself. We leave this album with something dark and dire, something to scare the audience, something we never intended. That D-sharp, while it sings out over the C and the bass carries on that walking blues through the B-flat and the A-flat and down, still sends shivers down my spine, mmmch-ch, mmmch-ch, mmmch-ch, mm-ch,. my devil’s backbone. Probably one reason I don’t have a copy - it’s like a hellhound on my trail. Yeah, there’s a Robert Johnson feel all over the whole damned thing too. Won’t go into that, right now.

When the time comes, and we’re all done and I mean dusted, we’ve worn out our holes like the whores we are now, and it seems to me it’s the very next morning, about eight a.m, I get the call from Sad, he wants to come and get it.

And I don’t know how he knew, and maybe I hope I never do.

So it’s Sunday morning, and I forego my usual coffee for the last beer in the fridge. Bleary, I meet him at the door, alone and he’s on his own, eight fifteen. I blink at him, for once less than overawed by his presence on a slightly sunlit morning in my dressing gown. He’s obviously welded to his suit.

I’m thinking of saying something but without a word he whips out an envelope. From it he extracts two things: a wad of notes, to the value of fifteen large I’m assuming, and a piece of paper. “Your copy of the contract.”

Contract? And I look.

The music we make for the value of this becomes their property, we never fess up to our involvement, we destroy all proof, only evidence remains in their possession, we never play said material again ourselves, all rights remain theirs in perpetuity, this message will self-destruct and so forth, and all signed by the five of us. When the hell?

Guess it doesn’t matter, there are our names, some in different pens, I know the handwriting mostly and that’s definitely my signature.

And, at eight-something on that Sunday morning, I think, I actually want nothing more than to give this music away and disown it, rip it from my breast. I know, it’s given me, all of us, the ride of our lives in its way; it’s also ripped something out of us that I’m not sure we’ll ever get back. I feel dull, hollow. I fetch the master tapes. It’s all we have.

Sad takes them and makes to split.

“You don’t wanna hear them?”

He turns back, shades drawn, a hint of a shine; backlit again, in the sun this time. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

Leaves the door open, light streaming in. I finish my beer, still cold.

So you know the rest now, of course: damn thang went viral. Huge. Most bestest jazz album by anyone in decades, crossed over to the pop charts, these guys were darlings of any scene you care to name, kings of fucking everything, s’il vous plait. I know it’s always hard to believe that someone was bigger than whoever your favourite popster is these days, but believe me, feted and unfrustrated, photographed wherever these darling boys should go. We see them on TV, synching to the music to the point we almost believe they’re playing it. And the reviews – oh, they reviews…

We sitting round of an afternoon, a range of rags devoted to music and jazz, even, bestrewing the kitchen table. I’m reading from Nick Smothers in NME.

“Everything about this album tears me between ecstasy and sheer terror. On several listens, that feeling has not left me, but only intensified. Those who thought jazz was redundant, or that horror was only the province of B-movie inspired goths, well you both need to hear this album and quiver.” My god.

Phil with Mardy Sondquist in PhonoLaden, translated slowly and painfully as he understands just a little German: “This music…hurts, I think. Hang on…I think, our idea, concept, concepts of joy and despair is – are - expanded by this work?”

James reads from Van Loader in The Jazz Messenger: “Tropical Winds” is The Jazz Packers’ “Night In Tunisia” (hah!), it shakes the trees with primal abandon and makes you fear for your loved ones. “Don’t Mind If I Do” is only a brief respite of pleasant, bop noodles which segues into the utterly apocalyptic “Earthquake Season”, which practically made me want to hide under the table. As it goes on, the tension and respite becomes almost too much as the unearthly charm of “There’s a Place for You” gives way to the uneasy hard bop of “Switch”, ending abruptly with, it seems, a dark eternity (I can’t believe they’re saying this stuff) before the slow, menacing – no, downright evil groove of “We Had a Deal” crawls in and, I have to say, on the first few bars of this song my thirteen month old daughter started howling, and wouldn’t quit until I stopped the record. Listening to it later on my own, I still got chills myself.

To lovers of jazz and others, I sincerely profess as I never have before: this is a Life Changing Album. I am not, however, saying it will change your life for the better.”

We look at each other, more than a little disconcerted.

And the album sells: thirty, fifty thousand, three point five million copies, I stopped counting.

And so it goes. The album that terrified and entranced the world in its time. Sold a fortune. And yes, I still don’t have a copy. I don’t play the songs. Hell, don’t even have a trumpet anymore. We stopped jamming soon after that whole deal, just kinda fizzled, went our own ways. Couple of the guys died in ensuing years, nothing suspicious. Haven’t seen Charmaine in a long time but I think she’s still with us. I try not to think about those cats, never seen or heard from again, just special this once for you – but there it is, your old feller’s moment of greatness, which he’ll never claim.

I remember the guys, last time we were all together. We confirmed the contract between us and burned it. Alton wasn’t happy, even if he was still riding high on his cut, loud and drunk. Phil and James less vocal but no more settled or satisfied with the results of the deal. There’s talk of blowing the whole thang wide open. We’d go to the media, tell them we were the originators of this mindfuckingly good music. Even though – we weren’t, really.

“But we made it!” It’s almost the plaintive cry of a child and I turn away with a touch of disgust and catch sight of us all, captured like a low-rent family in the dangerously overhanging mirror atop the fireplace.

Simon, pudgy, sallow, track pants and colourless t-shirt, his hair continuously tousled over his glasses. Phil, pale and thin, James bearded and wall-eyed. Charmaine, plump and dreaded. Alton, googly and shouty, and all us dressed quite without flair, me - well you know what I look like back there. No better, and I think of those cats, one last time, that first time, all slickness and darkness and light, and feel obliged to say:

“Yeah. We did. But who in Hell would believe us?”