All the gnomes quickly glimpsed one of the tracts from “Relative Rewind” that was housed in their phenomenal memory banks. They all did this at the same time and the process only took seconds. They considered that their decision to have a quick read had some bearing on their forthcoming struggle. This is what they mentally read....
“Hassan I Sabbah, and the rebels in Alamut, had set their sights on an unbending and singular struggle against the existing sultanate.
Whatever the truth behind the incentives individuals had in order for them to risk certain death in an attempt to eliminate persons in positions of political power it is certainly true that, as far as evidence is documented, those in Hassan’s employ were given a taste of paradise before they went to work. Hassan chose a hidden valley for the site of his paradise, described by Marco Polo, who passed that way in 1271.
“He had formed a luxurious garden stored with every delicious fruit and every fragrant shrub that could be procured. Palaces of various sizes and forms were erected in different parts of the grounds, ornamented with works of gold, with paintings and with furniture of rich silks. By means of small conduits contained in these buildings, streams of wine, milk, honey and some of pure water were seen to flow in every direction. The inhabitants of these places were elegant and beautiful damsels, accomplished in the arts of singing, playing upon all sorts of musical instruments, dancing, and especially those of dalliance and amorous allurement.”
Polo heard reports that Hassan attracted young men from the surrounding countryside, between the ages of twelve and twenty: particularly those whom he marked out as possible material for the production of killers. Every day he held court, a reception at which he spoke of the delights of paradise Polo saw with his own eyes.
“At certain times he caused draughts of a soporific nature to be administered to ten or a dozen youths, and when half dead with sleep he had them conveyed to the several palaces and apartments of the garden. Upon awakening from a state of lethargy their senses were struck by all the delightful objects, and each perceiving himself surrounded by lovely damsels, singing, playing, and attracting his regards by the most fascinating caresses, serving him also with delicious viands and exquisite wines, until, intoxicated with excess and enjoyment, amidst actual rivers of milk and wine, he believed himself assuredly in paradise, and felt an unwillingness to relinquish its delights. When four or five days had thus been passed, they were thrown once more into a state of somnolency, and carried out of the valley. Upon being carried to Hassan, and questioned by him as to where they had been, their answer was ‘In paradise, through the favour of your highness’. Then, before the whole court who listened to them with eager astonishment and curiosity, they gave a circumstantial account of the scenes to which they had been witnesses.”
Hassan grew to even greater infamy with his use of hashish and houris experienced in the arts of seduction in order to heighten the pleasure afforded his rebels at Alamut. Hassan now considered preaching, cunning and bribery as easier ways in which to capture a castle and single killers as a more effective way to destroy an enemy. It seemed that he had formulated a basis for the concept of guerrilla warfare.
Hassan’s followers became known as “The Hashishin” owing to their use of hashish. The word Hashishin is regarded to be the root of the word “Assassin”. Some say that the name Hassan is the root of the word. He is certainly at the roots of the concept of assassination. Hassan’s rise coincided with the First Crusade. The Christians took Jerusalem while the Moslem world was split between the various Islamic sects. When they left the Crusaders took with them many facets of Moslem culture. So it was that hashish spread to the West and, of course, the concept of political assassination.
When Bobby joined the band “Lord Snooty Deceased” he replaced Edgar Allen Poe. Edgar’s partner Candy had become pregnant and Edgar thought he should take some time out from the singing game. Candy had the kind of dress sense and sexuality that made supermodels look like catholic nuns.
When a scan eventually showed them that they were going to have a daughter they decided to call her Eden.
Edgar had been in Dangerous Bend Mirrors with Bobby and Sidney Strange in 1992 and 1993. He’d played rhythm guitar and sung harmony vocals with Bobby. Sidney had played guitar. Gypsy Jack O’Mally had played bass and Maximillian had played drums. Now everything had come full circle. Edgar, some six years younger than Bobby, had been singing a lot of Bobby’s lyrics in the Bend Mirrors. Now Bobby was to sing a lot of Edgar’s lyrics in Lord Snooty Deceased. This appealed to Bobby because his and Edgar’s style of writing was very similar. The second line-up of Lord Snooty Deceased began at the end of 1995 and, for Bobby Rewind, this brought the full onslaught of his ‘Acid Punk’ days in the ‘Mirrors’ back into full fettle. Loud, blistering guitar courted low, booming bass and the thousand mile an hour drum patterns courted Bobby’s frantic wailing on clarinet, vocals, harmonica and tin whistle. Bobby also played a tenor recorder which gave some of the tunes that 16th century avant guard feel. He’d started playing pipes and horns in the Mirrors and was constantly shocked by the ease at which they went with Punk minimalism. Bobby often maintained that his extremely rudimentary styles of playing were the main reason for this. With a lot of loud, angst-ridden urban Punk Rock the ethic of “Less is More” seemed a relevant musical philosophy.
Some weeks after Donald’s expulsion from The Slimelite club Lord Snooty Deceased were playing in a so-called ‘Bohemian’ pub in North London called The Earl of Rochester. When Bobby arrived in the pub the rest of the band were already setting up. The Crow-Man turned round and grinned at them. The Crow-Man was the guitarist of “Lord Snooty”. He was in his early forties and was the grandfather of three and the father of five. He was completely deaf in on ear, about five feet seven inches tall and had grinning, pixie-like features.
The Crow-Man’s ethic in life was “I came I saw I laughed my pants off.” His laughter, however, was never at anybody’s expense and his tender heart rested easily in his roguish demeanour. He’d been with Sian (his partner) since they were both about fifteen when they ran away to London from Wigan. Sian was about the same height as The Crow-Man and had the neat and tidy sophistication of a woman experienced in the ways of the more extreme habits in working class culture. She was one of the Mods who popularised Northern Soul at the Wigan Casino at the start of the Seventies. The amount of kids she’d given birth to had not taken a toll on her physical appearance at all. Her and The Crow-Man’s long lasting relationship was a solid alcohol frenzy of amplified 4/4 rhythm. Their children and grandchildren were unrealistically stable and the only arguments in their open house revolved around musical tastes. It could get a bit much at times.
The speaker stacks in one room would be pumping out hard-core Dance Music. This would be the work of Stacey, their youngest teenage daughter. She was a tall, dance hall Lolita with the frantic energy of a flower in bloom. Her sharp elegance mixed with the severe pride of a femme fatale in a film noir.
The next room in Sian’s residence would be pumping out Hand-Bag House. This would be their second youngest teenage daughter Sharon.
In the Earl of Rochester The Crow-Man and Bobby were discussing his family.
“The thing that amazes me,” Bobby said to The Crow-Man, “is the speed at which Stacey’s matured. I can remember when she was just a baby but now she’s turned into a dark-haired, heart-breaking adolescent.”
“That’s how it goes, Bobby,” said The Crow-Man. “They grow up so fast.”
“She reminds me of the teen queens so popular as a theme in late Fifties and early Sixties Rock and Roll and Doo Wop songs.”
“She’s interested in becoming a professional model,” said The Crow-Man. “I don’t doubt her ability to achieve that,” said Bobby. “But I am, however, urgent in my appeal that she avoid that meat-market of brain-numbing, production-line slavery. I mean, who wants to be a prisoner in a gilded cage? Do you honestly want that for your daughter Crow-Man? Surely that’s what the modelling profession really offers the teenagers it so hungrily scoops up.”
“The money wouldn’t be bad, man.”
“Yeah but think of the cost. Expensive fashion is part of the patriarchal military industrial complex.”
“Military?”
“Yeah, even soldiers are going into battle in designer fatigues. Stacey shouldn’t be made into a slave of the system. Now, Sharon, she’s a true new age woman. Don’t get me wrong, by this I don’t mean she runs a quasi Hippie stall in Greenwich Market. By this I mean she is a self-contained, confident, witty, honest, self effacing, boiler suited painter and decorator who must be quite a shock to that profession of ‘men in a man’s world’.”
“Oh, she’s that all right.”
“She’s living proof that it’s about time the patriarchies moved over and a true fusion of female and male interests are developed. We’ve gotta’ sort out the women builders from the male house-husbands. You’ve got a progressive, not to say even subversive family there Crow-Man,” said Bobby. “You should be proud of them.”
“Oh, I am, Bobby. I’m very proud.”
The basement at Sian and The Crow-Man’s would often be pumping out Drum and Bass. This was Sian and The Crow-Man’s son Ben. He was the youngest and thus the member of this household who had the closest thing to a one-track mind. He lived, ate and breathed ‘Jungle Music’. His mates would come round and they’d run off with their latest tape, record or C.D. and crank it up until The Crow-Man was screaming. Bobby didn’t help matters. He’d remind The Crow-Man that that was what he was like in the late Sixties and then give Ben a tape of the latest and baddest “Boo Yakka” he could find. Bobby loved giving ‘Jungle’ Drum and Bass to Ben because he and his mates were soooo appreciative. It reminded Bobby of when he, himself, discovered Punk Rock. Sian and The Crow-Man’s eldest two kids and their own kids were largely an unknown quantity to Bobby since they’d rarely been visiting when Bobby was there. He’d got good reports of them though and had met one of the three-year-old grandchildren. He looked set to become a “chip off the old block” as soon as Bobby had seen him. He was grinning, in constant motion and apt to crawl towards the speaker stacks in the living room when there was a banging tune playing.
The room upstairs would be pumping out early seventies Rock and Funk. This would be Sian. The living room would be pumping out Lord Snooty Deceased, Sister Mary Elephant, The Unknown Colours, Bulbous Skunk Cabbages and a plethora of other bands The Crow-Man had been in since the mid-Seventies. The loft was the area in which Lord Snooty Deceased had set up their recording studio. It housed an eight track mixing desk, drum kit, bass and guitar amps, a keyboard linked to a computer and enough microphones and stands to cater for a small choir. All this equipment had been gradually built up over the years with money from odd jobs and drug deals.
Fortunately their neighbours were all noise junkies, tunesmiths and drug-dealers themselves and this made for one of the loudest block of terraced council houses Bobby had ever heard. Nobody was inconvenienced in the surrounding area because all the noise levels seemed contained between the houses that were causing them. This strangely balanced affair had taken years to develop and it would be a downright lie to say that there weren’t a few problems now and again. One of the minor ones was a regular responsibility that The Crow-Man’s neighbours all begrudgingly shared. Every week or so he would get so blind drunk that his ragged torso ended up sprawled in a state of unconsciousness at varying locations along their street. Whoever found him first would then have to knock up his “Missis” and ferry him inside their house before he got mugged. Amazingly he’d only been mugged two or three times that he could remember. This was probably due to the fact that he was lucky to get home with his shoes on let alone with any money or any other valuables. His kids thought this was disgusting and couldn’t understand why he didn’t take more sensible drugs like ecstasy or LSD. Ironically he did take loads of LSD in the past but had largely stopped when he and Sian started having kids. He had felt paranoid about getting that ‘out of it’ whilst having the responsibility of children to bring up.
Unless he was so pissed that he could barely stand, The Crow-Man was a fantastic guitarist. By day, Sian and he worked in The Jolly Turn-Key in Woolwich which played host to every kind of alcoholic night imaginable. As well as the more conventional bar area downstairs it had an upstairs function room that was used by everyone from the S.W.P. to the Gritty Fingers fringe comedy collective, part of the Woolwich Arts Group, whose main organisers were artist Vanilla Beer, promoter Sam Becket and poet Jasper Bark. They’d put on such notable talents as John Cooper Clarke and Attila The Stockbroker. Vanilla was a Hippie in the Sixties who was from the Home Counties. As a result of this socially contained start in life she had cut loose when she discovered there was more to it than cream teas and cucumber sandwiches. As another result of her move from the ridiculous to the sublime the first black man she ever met was Jimi Hendrix. Since that point onwards she became a brilliant painter. She was a tall, graceful enthusiast who would hungrily inform folk about the latest scandals in the art world. She was constantly advising on grant opportunities that the Government were trying to hide. She was at the cutting edge of radical art. Her hair was a collection of lavish red and blonde streaks and she was one of those women who could enthral the heaviest looking audience in any bar area. She was a champion of the exploited and Bobby was sure that had she lived in the Eighteenth Century she would have been a highway woman.
Once Bobby saw her lead a thirty year old blind man onto a dance-floor and, with the help of the equally eccentric Rebbecca Riot, encourage the man in the direction of some rudimentary dance steps. Neither had let go of him at any stage. He loved it. Bobby later found that he had never danced before in his life. They had blasted open a new doorway for him.
Bobby always thought Vanilla’s paintings looked like psychedelic vaginas. Bobby certainly hoped she’d be able to make it to the gig at the Rochester.
Other than The Crow-Man and Bobby Rewind there were now two other members of Lord Snooty Deceased. They were Hagar the drummer and Bags the bassist. Hagar was in his early thirties and was the father of four. His and Katrina’s fourth child was the result of a night on ecstasy and a burst condom. Although they respected the right of women to have abortions they couldn’t go through with it themselves so BINGO number four was added to the ranks. They now had a three-month-old called Sadie, a two-year-old called Charlie, a six-year-old called Lucy and a ten-year-old called Wayne. Hagar then had his tubes snipped. Hagar was about the same height as The Crow-Man and had the build of a robust worker. He had the eyes of a man hungry for justice and they’d look like they were on fire when he was enraged. His anger was always accompanied by a smile that gave the impression that modern day problems didn’t come as any surprise to him. Katrina was a lot taller than Hagar and had an anger that made him look like a boy scout. She had the crypto-cynical set of expressions that gave the impression that Hagar rarely went far enough for her.
She was like Lady Macbeth. If he threatened to blow up Parliament she’d say “GO ON THEN. DO IT. YOU’RE ALL FUCKING TALK YOU ARE.” She was the main motivating force in his life. If he did good she’d make him do better. Katrina was the daughter of a one-time London gangster and took no shit off of Hagar. Hagar was a one-time teenage Punk Rocker who took no shit off of anyone. They had the loudest and heaviest domestic arguments that Bobby knew of amongst his close friends. Albeit balanced and rarely violent their fury was such that Bobby believed Hagar’s drumming was one of the few things that kept him sane. Terrorising Hagar was one of the things that kept Katrina sane. Their kids? Well only time would tell. They were, however, at this stage, extremely peaceful children. The eldest son was already showing signs of becoming a brilliant cartoonist. He’d already drawn a frighteningly accurate picture of Lord Snooty Deceased that he had given Bobby. Bobby hoped the education system didn’t squash this obvious talent. The younger three children were still at the stage in their lives where they were observing the chaos around them in mute fascination. The council estate where they lived looked alarmingly like “Brookside” on the Scouse soap opera of that name and The Snooty’s did a song around that very theme. The song was a ballad that concentrated on the family in “Brookside” whose oppressed mother and lesbian daughter murdered the physically violent husband and father. The song was called “Digging Holes in the Garden”.
Hagar worked all the hours he could as a painter and decorator. He kept swapping jobs, though, on account of not taking shit off of his bosses. When they didn’t pay someone or unfairly dismissed a member of their underpaid staff Hagar would “Up Them”. This involved hitting them fucking hard in the teeth. Amazingly he was never nicked for it. He’d lost a lot of jobs though.
Hagar thought this behaviour was fair, seeing as his bosses invariably worked one day a month and earned ten times the amount that their employees did. By bosses we’re not talking foremen here. We’re talking site managers who drove around in ‘Rollers’ and brand new BMWs. Bobby reckoned drumming was what kept Hagar out of prison. It soaked up much of his anger and Bobby often thought that it was drumming that had prevented Hagar from actually killing someone.
Last but not least was Bags. He was father of three and married to Tracy. She was an ex-Disco-Queen and he was another Punk Rocker from the late seventies. Bags was about the same height as the rest of the band and had short black hair. He always looked extremely smart and had one of those solid “squared off” physiques. He also had an enthusiastic, grinning face and was hard to rile up. He was in his mid-thirties and a warehouse packer. He was probably one of the hardest working men that Bobby knew and where his day job was concerned it meant that he’d developed back problems, high levels of stress and a desire to become a black cab driver. This was on account of him being the only driver Bobby knew who didn’t suffer from road rage as a result of the traffic problems. He and Hagar used their cars a bit more wisely than most and abhorred the rush towards gridlock as much as Bobby. Without transport their band couldn’t function so it was a case of fighting fire with fire.
Tracy had blonde hair cut in a long bob and was one of those extremely gentle personalities. She was one of those people who definitely didn’t ask for any of the problems she may have experienced in life. Like Bags she always appeared immaculate. Bags and Tracy had a strange relationship. She didn’t like going out and he didn’t like staying in. Theirs was a strangely conventional set-up for the Nineties. As long as he earned the “bread” he could stay in the band. He justified this by booking most of the gigs and treating it as much of a job of work as he did his daytime pursuits. Their eldest son Sean was five, their eldest daughter Susan was three and Karen was two. They were possibly the most charming and enthusiastic children that Bobby knew at the time and both they and Hagar’s kids leapt about when they heard “Lord Snooty Deceased” on tape. When Bobby rang up Tracy and Bags their kids would invariably answer the phone and laughed and laughed over the slightest thing. Sometimes they were prone to hysterical screaming but it was always with a joviality that made it extremely hard for folk to get annoyed. It’s strange that it seems that it is only when kids are noisy because they are not getting what they want that the volume seems unbearable. Coincidentally Bags’s eldest daughter ended up with Shiva as her primary school teacher for a year when she turned eight years of age. This greatly amused Bobby at the time. Anyway that didn’t happen until the year 2001 and therefore takes us a bit too far from the things that immediately affect our characters here. So where were we? Oh yes…
Hagar and Bags were a revelation to Bobby. They were further living proof that it was easier to learn the older you got. They’d both been going to gigs since the late seventies but had only been playing drums and bass for two or three years. In that time they had become as proficient on their instruments as Bobby and The Crow-Man. There were obvious differences in the range of styles they could all play but in terms of tightness and creativity they excelled themselves. Bobby could only assume that years of going to gigs had enabled them to store a massive collection of tunes in their sub-consciousnesses. All that was needed was a key to unlock their musical creativity. When they had each found one it then took them a matter of months to reach a standard that it would take most teenagers years to get to. Bobby then took his theories further. Surely the speed they had learnt at was as a result of their musical wisdom and experience. If you expand this possibility to any and every subject with which a human concerns themselves through their life then it could apply to all manner of things.
Nobody understood this more than Joe Bazouki. He stood in the Earl of Rochester with The Crow-Man, Hagar and Bags. Now here was a man who taught people with learning disabilities the art of making music. He worked for The Lewisham Music Workshop Group as a volunteer. They took in people with severe mental and physical handicaps and used music as a therapy. Bobby’s Mum and Dad were often to be found taking photographs of the results. Bobby’s Dad’s way of counteracting his years struggling within the Post Office hierarchy was to develop his skills as a photographer along with Bobby’s Mum. Since Bobby had been involved with The Deptford Urban Free Festival and had worked voluntarily at The Elevator rehearsal studios in Deptford his folks had found an ample array of things to photograph. They had also set up a dark room at the studios and this had assisted Brenda Beats and her mate and bassist Rita Real in their search for facilities with which to advance their art.
Joe Bazouki was a multi-faceted genius of the post Hippie culture of libertarian philanthropists. He was a compare de lux and had introduced bands for The South East London Musician’s Collective and the outside theatre stage at Glastonbury Festival. He was a calm, peaceful and extremely articulate critic of the status quo. Joe Bazouki’s calm made his subversion all the more effective. He never ranted and had the ability to reveal the truth about market place stupidity that could rarely be challenged. His Hippie attire never quite succeeded in detracting from his cutting edge and he was a rebel in the tradition of Leary, Keasy and Wolfe. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and consequently an invaluable revolutionary. Joe was a member of the Ukulele Orchestra of Britain and a fine player of bazouki, banjo and balalaika. In fact, truth be told, he could play any stringed instrument with a proficiency that made Jimmy Page look like a spoilt kid on early Children’s T.V. The Ukulele Orchestra had released a c.d. of Punk covers called “Anarchy in the Ukulele” by this time and as far as Bobby was concerned it was a choice disc to sing along to. You could hear more of the lyrics in the Orchestra’s versions of each song than you could in the originals.
Joe was also noted for his solo performances and his two other bands “Friends of the Monster” and “The Missing Puddings”. “Friends of the Monster” were like a latter day “Country Joe and the Fish” and “The Missing Puddings” were like, well, “The Missing Puddings”.
Joe was a keen horticulturist and insisted on giving out “big big prizes easy to get and nice to have” at his shows. These usually involved things like Mexican hat plants, spinach seeds, hollyhock seeds, leaks, bluebells and sweets. The seeds he gave out he wrapped up like sachets of speed and delighted over stories of cops frisking folk that had been to his gigs. The cops would get well enthusiastic on finding what appeared to be a quantity of illegal drugs and then have to eat humble pie when they turned out to be spinach seeds. People were warned that this may happen but folk loved it.
Joe Bazouki’s aptitude for comedy was as acute as a red deer’s aptitude for antler clacking in the mating season.
Bobby had played with “The Puddings” a few times as well as performing the odd duet with Joe. At one particular gig Joe had set up for an annual general meeting for The Lewisham Music Workshop Group Bobby, Joe and a pick-up band including The Reverend, Sarah Strings and their good friend and fund-raiser Tom Caldwell, performed in front of a host of “mentally challenged” punters. Bobby found it hard to work out whether the screams from some of those with severe mental disabilities were cries of pleasure or pain. Some of the helpers assured him it was mostly pleasure. Only two of the punters had to be helped out of the gig and at this point it was admitted to Bobby that nobody could be sure whether these extreme personalities were being over-enthusiastic or thought it was a load of bollocks. The fact that the rest were continually clapping, swaying and jigging about seemed to suggest that they loved it. Bobby felt that, at times, they seemed to appreciate it with more enthusiasm than so-called “ordinary” people. Bobby hated terms like “mentally challenged”, “mentally disabled” and “ordinary” in this context. He’d heard some of the music Joe was doing with some of these people and, as far as Bobby was concerned, it was boundary breaking stuff. If their reactions and lack of inhibitions at the gig were anything to go by then Bobby felt that some of them could be regarded as “mentally advantaged”.
The Missing Puddings had Sarah Strings on bazouki and her partner Davy on melodica, percussion and vocals. Philip FeedBack, Joe’s step-nephew, was on guitar and Joe sang and played bazouki alongside Sarah. Sarah was one of the sound engineers in The South East London Musician’s Collective.
Anyway back to the Earl of Rochester in North London. Lord Snooty Deceased and The Missing Puddings were playing as the last two bands and the gig was the culmination of a day’s worth of acts that started at around one in the afternoon. Shiva and Bobby got to the gig at around four and a grunge band were going for it in front of an audience of around fifty people. Shiva and Bobby went to the side of the stage where Hagar was setting up his kit and Joe Bazouki was talking to Bags the bassist.
The Puddings were on last and The Snooty’s were second to last. Bobby thought this was an excellent idea. The Snooty’s would do a set of loud electric mayhem and then The Puddings would finish off the day with some folkfunk whimsy. Lord Snooty Deceased were scheduled to play at eleven thirty and The Missing Puddings at one the next morning. The gig was set to finish at two. Bobby asked if it was alright to go and come back seeing as he and Shiva had things to do. Everybody was fine with this and Bags agreed to pick them up from Bobby’s parents’ flat in Kingston Vale later on.
Hagar the drummer came running up to them.
“It seems” he said “that the teen band that are on before us think they’re going on last. They reckon they’ve got record company agents coming to the gig and they don’t want to look like a support act.”
Bobby was niggled at the suggestion that “Lord Snooty Deceased” and “The Missing Puddings” would have to change their times after they’d told everyone that they were on at the times agreed with the promoter.
“Why should Joe sacrifice his slot as last band because of their egos?” said Bobby. Joe winked at him and said it was alright and wandered off. It then occurred to Bobby that by the time the teen band hit the stage there wouldn’t be as many punters left owing to the scanty transport links to this venue. Bobby looked over and the band looked like “Oasis” but obviously a lot more middle class. They looked greedily at “Lord Snooty Deceased” in that kind of competitive aloofness that betrayed their lack of experience.
Shiva and Bobby left the venue.
They then rang Slithey Tove to see if he had any speed to sell.
Five hours later Bags picked Shiva and Bobby up from Bobby’s Mum and Dad’s.
They went back to the venue in North London. Bobby was amazed at the speed with which they got there.
Lord Snooty Deceased hit the stage. About eighty people were there at this time and band and audience went mental.
The Snooty’s were demented.
One of the faster songs included Edgar Allen Poe’s lyrics about his hatred of our post-literate society’s addiction to the television. Singing from the television’s point of view, it went something like this:
“Cosmetic smile on your T.V.,
Come and meet your destiny,
I’m the one who shares your taste,
To set it free would be a waste,
Come and turn me on again,
I’ll be with you until the end,
A laughing bleeding lullaby,
In a world of let’s pretend,
I’ll hypnotise you,
I’ll mesmerise you,
Find a way down deep inside you,
Carve my name into your soul,
Pull you down into my hole,
Again and again and again.
Come and turn me on again,
I’ll freeze your body and fry your brain,
Take your heart and squeeze it tight,
Your fascination through the night,
Bloodshot eyes stare at your screen,
Misunderstanding all they’ve seen,
Whispered words are heard inside,
You fall we take you for a ride,
I’ll hypnotise you, I’ll mesmerise you,
Find a way down deep inside you,
Carve my name into your soul,
Pull you down into my hole,
Again and again and again.
Late at night you’re in a dream,
See my face your T.V. screen,
Whispered words a deathly glow,
Take my hand you want to go,
Bloodshot eyes stare at your screen
Misunderstanding all they’ve seen,
Whispered words are heard inside,
You fall we take you for a ride,
I’ll hypnotise you, I’ll mesmerise you,
Find a way down deep inside you,
Carve my name into your soul,
Pull you down into my hole,
Again and again and again.”
It was no wonder that he got the name Edgar Allen Poe.
Lord Snooty Deceased seemed to be an extremely fertile band in view of the amount of kids they had between them. Edgar and Candy ended up with parenthood while Edgar was still singing for them. Shiva and Bobby were tempted to use three condoms and a roll of sellotape per session since Bobby had joined the band.
The band looked mental on-stage. Bobby was wearing a red paisley shirt his Dad used to wear to work in the late sixties. He also wore a blue waistcoat with a floral design on it. On top of this he wore a purple paisley box jacket that Skippy the Skin-Head Hippie had given him. He also wore a bootlace tie that Billy Fish-Head and Pod had got him in New Zealand. It had been carved from wood by Maoris and had a fertility symbol on it. This took the form of a baby Tiki. Tiki’s are considered to be an early form of human being in Maori legend and are not unlike some of the ancient statues of “space-men” in Mexico and Peru.
Bobby also wore black drain-pipe trousers and long winkle-picker shoes.
Bags wore a black sweatshirt with green Celtic knot-work all over it and black jeans. He also wore a black top hat that he borrowed off of Edgar Allen Poe.
Hagar wore a black T-shirt, jeans and a black baseball cap. The Crow-Man wore a T-shirt with the word “ACOUSTIC” written on it in red letters. Other than that it was black which matched his combat trousers.
As well as Shiva, Rebecca Riot, Sarah Strings and Vanilla twirling and whirling about in the audience by now there were two other regular Snooty Deceased fanciers at this gig. One of these was Brian Block and the other was Peter Litre. Both were accomplished bassists, guitarists and drummers. Brian was particularly proficient on the skins and had played in numerous bands. Peter was particularly proficient on the tin whistle and had a repertoire of folk tunes unmatched by anybody Bobby had heard before. Peter had some stories to tell. He cut away from the dance-floor in the Earl of Rochester and told Bobby one typical of those that punctuated his life.
“This is going back a few years now,” he said, “I was really down on my luck, as you know. Things were bad then. Now, I saw a brand new Mercedes parked next to a cash-point in Woolwich. I was desperately short of cash, Bobby, you’ve got to understand, and I had a few heavy debts to clear. Never before in my life had I ever rolled anyone for money but, in this instance, I did. When I espied the gentleman who owned the brand new Mercedes in his three piece, grey, businessman’s suit I thought ‘What the fuck. He’ll hardly miss it’.”
“But I’ve always thought of you as of a mainly non-violent nature, Peter,” Bobby said.
“I am, but think about it, I’m desperate, he’s a loaded, greedy, oppressor...”
“Say no more, I can see you point of view,” Bobby said,
“carry on.”
“Well, I approached the wealthy car and suit owner and grabbed the wad of notes from his hand. I apologised to the bloke, counted the money, realised there was all of seventy quid there and gave the bloke twenty back. While the man looked on in shock I apologised once more and explained that my needs were greater and ran off. The whole thing was, of course, on camera. When I went up in court I found that the guy was, indeed, a wealthy businessman. The judge gave me eighteen months inside for a first offence. He said that the mitigating circumstances of my poverty and the non-violent nature of the crime should not be taken into account because the businessman had worked extremely hard for his money.”
“Worked hard?” Bobby was aghast. “He’d probably never done a hard day’s work in his entire life. How many working class people die from industrial injury every year? How many managerial office workers die from industrial injury every year? I bet the figures don’t fucking match!”
Peter had gone inside and got himself a temporary smack habit. An instance involving that occurred when he was in a detox clinic in Southern Ireland shortly after his release from prison. He was exchanging some friendly banter with another clinic “in-mate” when she dared him to prove he was a man. Peter was on a balcony looking down at his heckler when he realised the Juliet and Romeo nature of their locations. In order to prove that he was a man he dropped his strides and gave her a "mooney" over the balcony. What he had failed to remember was that he’d had an attack of the itches a few hours earlier. His metabolism was being wrenched from heroin to methadone as part of his “detox” {methadone is as addictive as heroin. Detox clinics only use it because it’s cheaper}. His turbulent bloodstream reacted in the regular way…. especially after he got access to some more smack at the same time. He had started to itch. This time it mainly occurred around his arse and he sat, for hours, scratching wildly. By the time he was on the balcony he’d forgotten that he’d scratched his arse to shreds. When he dropped his trousers to give his female heckler a “mooney” he had gathered an audience of ten or eleven other “in-mates”.
When they saw the bloodied mess above them they all shouted in shock.
His heckler was an extraordinary wit though and when she saw it she shouted up to him “Do you want me to come up there and spank that for you?”
Peter and The Crow-Man were now addicted to “Kestrel Super” lager and Bobby tried everything to get them off of it and back onto psychedelic drugs. Kestrel Super, Tennents Super and similar strength beers were now providing that “exit” door that smack used to for a lot of people. It was like a Government sanctioned liquid cosh.
Instead of a society that should have been growing in wisdom in order to use opiates properly (rather than acting like shameless junkies) the authorities were now inventing even more seductive ways to commit suicide. It was all just another attempt to divert the anger of the dispossessed. As far as Bobby was concerned psychedelic drugs like psilocibin, THC and LSD and euphorics like MDMA and amphetamine sulphate focused the will of the revolutionary (if treated wisely of course). Even alcohol, if treated with respect, was a fantastic social lubricant. Alcoholism, though, turned the Government’s enemies into a mess who, at worst, fought amongst themselves or died prematurely. Bobby considered alcohol an extreme paradox in our society. On the one hand he was sure that he would still be a virgin without it. On the other hand it was killing the guitarist of the band he was in.
After the gig, Bobby wandered into the dressing room to the side of the stage. He walked past some green organic film that bordered the corridor between the stage and the back-stage area. Bobby nodded reassuringly at the teen band and stashed his bag with his clarinet, tenor recorder, tin whistle, tambourine, melodica and harmonica in it.
He took his shades off and wandered back along the corridor towards the stage to watch The Missing Puddings. Slithey Tove appeared with his camera. He and Shiva had been taking photos of the band.
“Look at this” said Bobby as he ushered Shiva towards a cubical behind the sheet of green organic film. Inside was a longer clarinet than Bobby’s. One of the teens had put it together earlier.
“Weird innit.” said Bobby. He picked it up and attempted to play it. He found it impossible to hold. Somehow it was weighted strangely. At whatever angle Bobby held it it drooped down and hugged his chest.
“I reckon the teen band are those aliens with collapsible ecto-skeletons. That’s the only way this could be played.” said Bobby. “I don’t know how I know that but the word mugwump seems to have popped into my head.” said Bobby.
“What are mugwumps when they’re at home?” asked Slithey Tove.
“That’s just it,” said Bobby. “They’re never at home. At least, not in our universe. According to William S. Boroughs, mugwumps are alien beings from what he used to call The Interzone. They inhabit the dreams and hallucinations of those who are usually intoxicated with heroin or pharmaceutical drugs of a similar nature. They take reports from human beings and issue directives concerning the movements of Government officials and those official’s representatives in The Interzone. They often seem to be the enemies of Governments and seek companionship with radical drug takers in their attempts to diffuse Government power.”
“I reckon you’re right.” said Shiva. Neither of them seemed surprised. Bobby went back to the changing room and the teen band jovially denied it.
“Where’s your clarinettist?” asked Bobby.
“I dunno.” said the alien singer disguised as a human.
The Missing Puddings finished their set to rapturous applause and the teen band left, chuckling, to play their set. Bobby rounded a corner in the changing room and found a deflated mugwump. Bobby realised that this was the clarinettist.
Bobby took the mugwump his clarinet. Bobby put the mugwump’s lips around the reed of the clarinet and the mugwump immediately inflated as though the instrument were an air pump and he a blow-up bed.
His full reptilian countenance stood in front of Bobby. He was about six and a half-foot tall. He was green with rough scaly skin and a bony frill down his back. He had large leathery, green ears that had webbed, fan-like sections to them. His face was humanoid but his eyes were bulbous and blinked like a giant frog. He had a tall frill on top of his head. This seemed to be made of phallic tendrils that stood erect and strangely animated as if independently sensitive to the air around them.
The mugwump then made his way to the stage.
Bobby followed him.
The corridor leading to the side of the stage telescoped off in front of Bobby and seemed to stretch into infinity. It gradually mutated into a desert highway and the mugwump disappeared over the horizon.
Bobby realised he was standing by an advertising hoarding.
One of the teen band was standing there without his human disguise. He was also reptilian and had a luminous ecto-skeleton. He had pointed ears, smooth scaly skin and a long reptilian jaw. He had eyes like a snake and seemed to be grinning as if in good humour. A long, leathery tail swished this way and that behind him.
An alien from a different galaxy was walking towards him with a psychotic, murderous look on his silver, humanoid face. This second alien wore a black polo-neck sweater, black drainpipe trousers and pointed Chelsea boots.
“He’ll rip your fucking head off,” shouted Bobby to the lizard-like biped teen band member.
It seemed clear that both life-forms were a good deal stronger than Bobby so all he could do was advise, although he was now completely confused as to whose side he should be on. “Get the fuck out of there,” shouted Bobby. It was evident at this point that the lizard-like biped teen band member found it all most amusing. He hopped and skipped waving a golden pistol above his head as the silver humanoid got closer. The silver creature held his arms directly out in front of him as if preparing to grab the lizard-man. The expressions of the two aliens started speeding up to a succession of hysterical grimaces that looked like film being played around five times faster than normal. The lizard then fired off several shots in the air but it was too late.
The silver humanoid was on him and picked him up by the throat. He then threw the lizard-man through the advert hoarding.
There was a flash of bright light across Bobby’s vision.
Bobby then found himself standing in the corridor between the dressing room and the stage in the Earl of Rochester again. The alien band then came off the stage and walked past him chuckling. It seemed that Bobby had experienced their set as some sort of telepathic narrative. He followed them back-stage and they had disposed of their human disguises and were in the toilets.
Four big lizard-like bipeds and a mugwump were pissing molten silver into the urinals.
“I’m going to get fucking plastered now I’ve done this gig,” said the mugwump.
“You’re not planning to take any of their alcohol are you?” asked one of the lizard men.
“Don’t be fucking daft,” the mugwump replied. “I wouldn’t touch that piss. No, I mean plastered. I’m going to try some of this very tasty plaster they’ve got on the walls of these piles of bricks.”
“Buildings, they call them.”
“Weird bunch of creatures these humans.”
“At least they understand music.”
The mugwump and lizard men finished relieving themselves, and turned to go. They saw Bobby watching them.
“D’you see the fight?” the mugwump asked him.
“What?” said Bobby.
“In the desert with the lizard-man, you see that?”
Bobby was shocked. For a moment he realised that the scene in the desert was not an illusion, but then it dawned on him that standing in front of a bunch like this might be a bit of an hallucination in itself.
“Yeah, that was a good one.”
“It’s just the start, human. You’ve got to work out whose side you’re on. See ya.”
The mugwump and lizard men left and Bobby looked into the urinals. They were clogged with metal and cracked with the heat of the silver. The few splashes on the floor had now started to cool into droplets. Bobby picked one up, juggling it from hand to hand as the heat was still intense. The floor tiles were burned and cracked where the droplets lay. Bobby blew on them until they were cool enough to put into his pocket. He wasn’t so worried about the value of them, but he wanted something to prove that what he had seen had actually happened. Of course, if it hadn’t and he’d just scooped a lot of piss into his pockets he was going to come to with a wet patch on his trousers that he hadn’t even made. That would be some sobering up. Fuck he wasn’t even sure if silver should cool down as quickly as this had.
Everyone left the gig satisfied. The owner of the pub, on the other hand, was moaning that not enough people had turned up. Bags, Hagar, The Crow-Man, Shiva and Bobby rushed off and listened to a tape of the gig on a car stereo.
Outside the pub, Bobby met up with Slithey Tove again.
“Did you see that mugwump?” he asked.
“I think I saw something,” said Slithey. “I’m still too far off my face to be sure what it was. Listen, let’s get back to reality. I can reliably inform you that I can get you two grams of amphetamine sulphate for fourteen quid. Now, how real do you think that is? Want to check that for mugwumps?”
“Certainly I would,” said Bobby. “But I’m in a kind of altered state already and I might need help to get down from it. I don’t know if I was dreaming it all.”
“Admittedly the gig did seem to be comprised of sporadic fragments of a dream,” said Slithey, “so its chronology is hazy to me as well right now.”
“Lizard man and silver humanoid?”
“Alright, yes, lizard man and silver humanoid.” admitted Slithey.
“What did you both see?” Shiva asked getting out of the car.
Bobby told them about what he had seen.
“There do seem to be contributory reasons for some of the images though,” Slithey said.
“Sure.” said Bobby. He continued.... “Lord Snooty Deceased have been gigging weekly recently and that can make reality a bit bendy, that’s for sure. The show-down at the advert hoarding resembled the neurosis of a trailer for a David Lynch movie that I saw last night at your place. The fighting aliens reminded me of the fighting between the typewriters in the film of “The Naked Lunch”, which we also saw lately. But if it was all just auto-suggestion then how come we shared the same hallucination?”
““True.” Slithey admitted.
“Perhaps,” said Shiva, “perhaps you’ve both been briefly contacted by The Interzone.”
Bobby rooted through his pockets and dug out one of the silver tears.
“How about that?”
Slithey examined the droplet.
“It’s a heavy metal of some kind or other,” he said.
“Is it silver?” Bobby asked.
“I’m sorry to say I’m not as familiar with such rich materials as that to be able to tell you, but it doesn’t look dissimilar to it, that’s for sure. Where did you get this?”
“They were pissing it into the urinals at the pub,” Bobby said. “I picked up a few splashes from the floor. It was almost too hot to handle.”
“You’ll forgive me for saying so Bobby,” said Slithey Tove gravely, “but now you really are taking the piss.”
“Well,” said Shiva, “it seems about right that the aliens should piss out stuff that we think is very valuable. It’s like they’re showing their contempt for human ideas about wealth. I read a story once where a man went to a country where there were so many diamonds that the people there just used them like gravel and they couldn’t understand why he would want to take any of these worthless stones away with him. Maybe this is like that. Perhaps they shit gold.”
“I wonder how the pub landlord is going to react to having his urinals clogged up with silver,” Bobby said. “Is he going to know what it is even? Is he simply going to see blocked toilets and have them stripped out and thrown away, or is he going to have it analysed and get rich.”
“Would you have the contents of your toilets valued in case it was a precious metal?” asked Slithey.
“No. I wouldn’t even think of it,” said Bobby.
“Either way, we’ll know if the pub turns itself into a bank,” said Slithey.
“Indigo pills!” said Shiva.
They all looked knowingly at each other.
For a second everything came back to them.
Then it was gone.
The next day Bobby woke up with a mad desire to increase his political activity within environmental campaigns.
No trace of silver remained in his pockets but by the morning his experiences with mugwumps, silver humanoid aliens and silver urine were logged firmly in his sub-consciousness as was his conversation with Shiva and Slithey.
After the gig Bobby and Shiva were dropped off in Plumstead where they suddenly felt very hungry. As it was that time in the morning when the rest of the world seemed to be piling into their pollution mobiles and rushing off to defecate on the pristine body of Mother Nature, they went to a nearby cafe.
Bobby recounted a situation that occurred at his Nan’s 80th birthday party some years before. Rosina Florence Freda Mary Cooper was an extremely handsome woman and she and her sister Ivy Wright were as sharp as diamonds. Ivy was in her late eighties and was as handsome and as humorous as Rose. Their husbands had been paragons of working class pride and both couples had set stylish trends for the late twentieth century. It was good to be among family sometimes.
Bobby had been very close to his astute grandfather, Lionel and remembered Ivy’s husband, Bill, as a man with a formidable intellect and presence.
There were all manner of folk at Rose’s party. Some were members of the old folk’s centre she went to. Some were members of Rose’s family that Bobby liked and others were members of her family he didn’t. Some were neighbours, friends and folk his Nan baby-sat for.
Bobby had tried to promise his mum and dad that he wouldn’t get too out of control because his tendency to use extremely foul language and get really loud would have been a little out of place at an event of this nature. It was hardly a Punk gig.
Bobby’s cousin Sally was sitting nearby. Sally was an ex-model who’d married a millionaire businessman and her conversion to the Zionist faith had led her to the conclusion that Bobby was an agent of Satan owing to the fact that he wore a pagan five cornered, interlocking star on a ring, which was, as Bobby had pointed out to her, at least on one of his fingers instead of through his nose. He treated the five-cornered star as a symbol that exited outside of religious hierarchy. Nothing more.
Sally and her dad, Ronnie, sat in front of Bobby on a long table. To Bobby’s left were three of his cousins whose idea of extreme behaviour was letting a party popper off in the garden at Xmas and her uncle, Tommy, who had his own small insurance firm and had been an old friend of the Rock Goblin Raver, Jack Migger, in the early Nineteen Sixties. Cool Billy Wright and his partner Sue were also there.
Nearby were Bobby’s aggressive Uncle Larry, Larry’s wife Trudy and their son Del. Del (Bobby’s cousin) thought Bobby was an academic swat who couldn’t hold his beer.
Now Bobby didn’t really give a shit what some of his relatives thought of him. He found some of them pretty repugnant at the best of times. The mates of his Nan he loved though. He was determined to prove that he was beyond reproach no matter what. Uncle Ronnie had other plans.
Uncle Ronnie was a bricklayer and builder of some repute in South-west London. Bobby had been his labourer when he was eighteen. They had got on great but only because Bobby had been prepared to argue with him when he tried to wind Bobby up. Most of the other workers on the various sites they had jobs at tippy toed around Ronnie because he was one of the most abusive men Bobby had ever known. Seeing as he was Bobby’s uncle, Bobby didn’t feel quite as intimidated. When he did his national service the “powers that be” wouldn’t let Ronnie become a sergeant major because they reckoned he was too nasty. He rarely got physically violent but that was because few people had had the nerve to take him up on his boasting about being more of a psychopath than anyone else. What really saved him from a premature death was his sense of humour. Although extremely derogatory towards every single person he ever met he had the sort of humour that made folk laugh no matter how offensive he was being. He got away with saying things that would get most other human beings a punch in the mouth. Maybe he was just extremely lucky. Anyway he considered Bobby’s drinking as a weakness and he was determined to prove it.
Ronnie was making most of those present chortle with his building site anecdotes and his down to earth philosophy. Then he honed in on Bobby.
“I reckon all your modern comedians are crap,” said Ronnie.
“Give over,” said Bobby.
“They’re a bunch of soft, liberal college types who’d have a heart attack if they played to a proper audience.”
“What do you know Ronnie?”
“Oh, come on look at the state of you. No wonder they make you laugh. The state you get in you’d clap a road accident.”
“That’s out of order Ronnie.”
“Watching one of your fringe comedians is like watching paint dry.”
Ronnie was grinning and Bobby was reeling.
“How do you know?” said Bobby sprawling over the table at Ronnie. His eyes were red pools of chaos and dementia.
“I know! Anyway they haven’t got a clue how to deal with hecklers.”
“Oh yes they have!” shouted Bobby. He continued shouting.... “I saw Jerry Sadowitz, the Scottish comedian, deal with a heckler live at Reading Festival once that made the audience roar it was such a put down!”
“How did he do it then?” said Ronnie going in for the kill.
“This guy was swearing and swearing at him. He turned and faced the guy. He then pointed him out as the heckler and said.... “I went to the sperm bank the other day but I couldn’t make a contribution because I couldn’t get the sperm out of your mother’s mouth!”.”
The whole table went quiet. Then Bobby started laughing like a maniac.
The last thing Bobby remembered before passing out was lying in the back of his Mum and Dad’s car whilst they were driving him home. Bobby asked if everything was alright. There was just silence from the front seats.”
The gnomes all finished their communal read and followed the others out of the great hall and into The Forest of Id.