Issue 124. March 31st - April 13th 2006
Disco at The Asylum
Eric the charge-nurse came up to us. Dark-haired and tatooed with
short-sleeved white tunic. Ex-Navy. “Hello, boys and girls…” he drawled in pure
Alex Harvey Glaswegian.
By Simon
James
Where am I?
I don't understand. I don't understand all the wars, the killings, all the
cruelty or the pain and suffering. I don't understand how I could read about
things that I didn't even know about, or invent places that don't even exist.
By Rachel Queen
The Bird, The Bee and the Face
I have offered the bird no food nor has it
ever entered the room to acquire any. In fact, it has never entered the room at
all; even in the hellish weather which often follows it's sweet, ethereal song.
By Daniel Rudd
Festival Preview: The End
of the Road Festival
We know what we want, and that is the opportunity to
laze in amongst the wonders and wilds of nature – serenaded by our new favourite
bands, musicians, artists, DJs, jugglers, poets, comedians, stilt walker,
performance horse whisperer etc etc etc on a platform of pleasure and/or harmony
By Rob
Herian
Record review #1: The One
Who Flew (Kingston Bridge)
Record review #2: Ant
(Footprints Through the Snow) +++Back to top+++ Back to current issue+++ Disco at The Asylum Do ya wanna touch? +++Back to top+++ Back to current issue+++ Where am I? I am asleep in a pool of warm white light. I can feel shadows flicker across my eyelids, my body feels relaxed and weightless, but something is not right. I should wake up. It is important that I wake up.
The room is white and unfamiliar. Sunlight dances on the walls. Bright white patterns dissolve and dance in front of my eyes. I don't understand.
I try to remember where I am. I can't.
A man enters the room. He looks familiar, but I can't don't know where I recognise him from.
He smiles and walks over.
"I'll answer your questions in reverse order. You are Elizabeth Wilson. You were born in 1974, in Perth, Scotland. Your mother's name was Mary, your father's name was Andrew… "
"How do you…" I stop. He smiles and continues.
"Your favourite book at school was "Charlottes Web" and your best friend's name Rebecca"
Vague pictures float in front of my eyes. Friends, family, loves, jobs and schools.
"Yes I remember".
I picture my house, a coffee cup by the side of the phone, a dog's toy just waiting for someone to trip over it. I picture the man I love, smiling kindly at me. Where is he now?
"Let's deal with the first set of questions before we move onto anything else shall we?" the stranger is firm but kind.
"Yesterday you were going to meet your friend, Caroline for coffee."
"Yes, that's right she needed cheering up…" I felt uneasy, images flooding back to me slowly.
"You were late as always, you couldn't find your keys, you couldn't find your shoes. You ran upstairs, and were about to run down. Your ankle gave way and you fell."
I started to feel dizzy, the memory, like a black and white film, repeating itself over and over in my brain.
"Am I in hospital?"
The stranger looked at me, to acknowledge that he had heard my question but didn't respond.
"Your boyfriend found you 3 hours later. He called an ambulance, and you were rushed straight into hospital. Your head injuries were severe and there was nothing they could do…"
"Then I'm…?" I can't quite finish the sentence.
The stranger nods his head.
We don't speak for sometime. Was it 5 minutes, 5 hours a whole lifetime? It doesn't seem to matter anymore.
"So where am I? What happens now?"
"Strictly speaking you are in the same place that you were when you fell, the same place that you were when you first fell in love, the same place you were when you first fell out of love. You've always been here."
I don't say anything, I feel as though I know what he is telling me, I feel as though I know what he is about to tell me.
"You imagined the lot. Every word you ever read, every place you ever visited every song you ever heard. You invented it."
I don't understand. I don't understand all the wars, the killings, all the cruelty or the pain and suffering. I don't understand how I could read about things that I didn't even know about, or invent places that don't even exist.
He sees my bewilderment, and starts to explain.
"Your sense of yourself is only the surface. You mind goes far deeper than you can possibly understand. Imagine a block of flats. Well you are on the bottom level and all you can see is the street, the cars, the people passing by. If you climb up high enough, to where I stand for example…"
"Wait, are you saying you are part of me too?"
"Of course. You just invented to explain me to explain what is happening to you. But let me continue. If you are standing where I stand, onto the 4th or 5th floor for example, you can also see the sky and the mountains. And if you keep going far enough, you will see the sun and the moon and the stars, and then everything that is beyond them, and everything that is beyond them."
"There are things beyond the things that are beyond the stars?"
"I would think so, wouldn't you?"
"Just a second, you said before that I invented everything I see. I mean everything that I ever saw."
"Ahh yes, that's a tricky one, but think of it this way. At night time when you lay in bed looking out at the stars, heart thumping because everything seemed so huge and far away, you were actually staring inwards, into the most distant corners of your mind. It was your inner mind's way of trying to explain things to you. Just as I am trying to do now."
I should be exhilheated by this revelation. I should be weightless and free, but I'm not.
I am thinking about him. The one person on the whole planet who stopped me feeling alone. The only person who I understood, the only person who had me flying whenever I saw him. Is he gone forever now?
"Are you really saying none of that was ever real?"
The stranger smiles.
"Your world disappears, everything you ever believed in crumbles away you.
You tell me whether it was ever real." he whispers.
+++Back to top+++ Back to current issue+++ The Bird, The Bee and the Face Nothing decays this little bird, sat upon my ledge, constantly drawing my attention, all nonchalant movements, so miniature, stiff, rapid they appear mechanic. This bird's song, such a sweet melody! I have never heard such a beautiful song nor expect to ever again. For when the bird sings, its song is the calling of a million and one births, of life itself, breathing, and the early wonder of dawn. It is the sound of the world's colour, pasture, woodland sighing its first. The first heartbeat of earth, it sounds, like all early life, expectorant, nave, primal, fearless. But as in all life, death follows. The ending of the birds call renders me fearful, shadows cast across the room hitting the same points on the walls and darting up and across the white ceiling with alarming precision each time. A melancholy pause and deafening silence fall and the world stops for a second. Rain often follows and the bird's manner is troubled as it washes aggressively without emotion in the oncoming shower. This routine lasts no longer than a few minutes, yet something truly odd, unsettling; truly otherworldly occurs in this short period of time, of that I am sure. And it happens every day, sometimes twice.
The bird appeared a fortnight ago and, as far as I can tell, without much reason or purpose, causing little more than fantastic curiosity at first. Quite why this creature has appeared on my humble ledge causes me constant bemusement and I can offer no credible or even quasi-logical reason (that is not to state one does not exist, I am aware of my fallibility in the realms of science). I have offered the bird no water nor has the bird discernibly requested any. I have offered the bird no food nor has it ever entered the room to acquire any. In fact, it has never entered the room at all; even in the hellish weather which often follows it's sweet, ethereal song. The bird is of such a discipline, such a temperament, never straying; only hopping its tiny body round, foot to foot occasionally that awe of the creature soon leads to unease. It is frankly unnatural, which serves only to draw me closer to it. I am, alas, fascinated by this bird yet it requires little from me. A rejection! I have not dared to make contact with the bird for when I approach, the room is suddenly and viciously lurched into an indescribable, terrifying darkness and when light, an awful, intense brightness of blood red hue that I fear would cause irreparable damage if sustained beyond mere seconds. The fact such strange, unexplainable events occur and bother me little will prove, in hindsight, to be my downfall I fear.
I have not heard the bird's song in nearly two days now, yet it remains, as ever, upon my ledge cast perfectly against the large flat white wall of the Georgian building across the alley from my room window. Sunlight beams into the room and I crouch, leaning toward the window (carefully avoiding the bird) and peer upward to look at the sky. This requires some uncomforted on my part, as the aforementioned building opposite blocks out views to the sky from my window. Vapour trails and a crisp autumn blue with little cloud bar a huge formation somewhere in the distance that, at a glance, appears to be shaped like a giant bee. It's a beautiful day if a little cold. Whilst craning my neck to trace the scars left in the sky by jetsetters, I can't resist but push my eyes deep into the bottom right of sockets, in the direction of the bird. It's looking straight at me and, at that precise moment, begins its wonderful song. Up and down, flowing melody, striking innate, raw, sensitive chords that I cannot fully comprehend let alone describe. Blood rushes to my head, my ears ache, straining for the remedy of song. Euphoria exists in these brief seconds. The songs stops, the sky turns and the bird washes. I feel nauseous and lie down on my bed, exhausted and cold. Catching a glimpse of the bird before falling into a deep sleep, I notice somethingstrange....I must address this.I strain to open my eyes, yet cannot. My body and mind have got the better of me.
"What is it you want!!?!?!" The panicked call rings round the tiny chamber. I am alone. Alone and driven to the brink of insanity by a constant drone, a deathly sound which signals nothing but bad intentions. I am not welcome here, wherever here is.
"YOU ARE WITNESSING EVENTS WHICH.HAVE NOT YET OCCURRED. THIS IS YOUR WARNING."
As I write this, the bird is shaking uncontrollably; its feathers have fluffed and expanded a quite gruesome sight. The creature is writhing in pain and is silent. I have just woken from a tormented sleep and ponder for a second if I am actually awake now. The room is cold and unusually my bed is cold, feeling like a slab of stone. As I scramble to sit up, I realise that I am weak to the point of death and even with a wall behind me to aid my sitting up, I struggle immensely. Night lurches to day, rain to sun and the familiar shadows cast around the room, hitting those precise points yet more erratically than before. And thennothing. Calm, dreaded silence broken only by a thunderous creaking as the walls curve then snap back into place. I anxiously glance at the bird, its feathers still grossly misshaped, eyes blood red. It is blinking, every other second and looks troubled. I leave the bed to venture over to it, the sky turning dark grey as I approach. I notice peculiar shapes, constantly shifting on the white wall opposite. I reach to open the window, catching a glimpse of my reflection, the first sight of myself for weeks. Gaunt and grey, I do not recognise this pathetic figure, nor want to if truth be told. I have not left this room for a considerable time, transfixed by the bird which is now shaking again. The shapes on the wall still concern me, so I look closely. A swarm of bees, thousands, have descended onto the wall, feverishly crawling over each other. Why they appeared here, I do not know, but their intent is not pleasant, as, upon opening the window, a familiar sound hits, and I am paralysed with fear. The drone, the awful drone from the dream! Tormented, I stagger back as the bees take flight toward the window, which I cannot close due to my physical deteriaotion. The drone is deafening, I cover my ears, futile, the sound is looped into my brain, a two second feedback of white noise. A pattern is becoming apparent within the drone, or least I think, as I am now sure I am mad.
Sing, bird, sing
The bird! Only the bird's chorus will end this hell. Strangled of oxygen and logic, my head is expanding, veins prominent, and I fear for my life should the drone continue.
Sing, bird, sing
I grasp the bird, ignoring the events which occur with such actions. I need the bird to sing.
"SING BIRD, SING!!" I shake the little creature violently. "PLEASE GOD.. SING!!!"
The bird merely blinks and the drone continues, unbearable, as it now echoes around the spaces in my mind, turning, forming new sounds as the beginning catches up with the end and vice versa. I have seconds to live.
"SING!!!"
The room spins violently, a blood red hue descends, and the bird's beak begins to part, teasing me slowly. Here it comes, oh sweet melody, to save me! Oh little bird! As the beak opens, out comes, not the melody I so yearn, no, need but something else and I am doomed. Thin black lines begin to protrude. They move! The body of a large bee appears. I stare in desperation, I shall not be saved. The drone is now so severe, I feel bleeding through the body as veins are no longer contained in the skin. I taste metal and my ear drums split, omitting black blood. Prone, I fall to the ground, looking over to the window. OH GOD! A face, bloodied, lacerated, beyond recognition is at the window. A manic grin exposes a mouth of decay and infestation, the drone reaches a crescendo, the room blackens, then. Silence. The misery is almost at an end, I am choking on matter, liquefied organs, blood and tissue. The bird rests upon body, hopping quickly to my face. I am blinded by a sharp object, first in my right eye, then swiftly my left.
I loved the bird and it was the death of me.
Death by melody.
+++Back to top+++ Back to current issue+++ Festival Preview: The End
of the Road Festival
I am of course
thinking of the more niche gatherings, increasingly prominent over the spring
and summer months – The Green Man, Secret Garden, Beautiful Days, ATP and Shambala to name but a few - rather than some of the old stalwarts of the
circuit. These niche festivals are the product of people suffering muddled and
often chaotic events year in, year out suddenly realising, ‘Hey, I’m sure I
could do this much better’. Ha! Epiphany! Now they can spend a beautiful weekend
in the country listening to the music they want to hear, seeing the things they
want to see with lots of people they are almost guaranteed to get along with.
It’s not unlike a Sunday afternoon BBQ in the garden, but on a massive scale.
Hmmm. Of course I would never belittle the massive amount of oganisation, blood,
sweat and tears that go into these things. If anything, festivals of all shapes
and sizes can only be good for music and the arts in general. For one, they are
offering performance time to lesser-known artists, filmmakers etc. that would
otherwise never experience first-hand what a festival crowd is like.
It’s not often a record comes along that really speaks to me on the level,
a record that is a peer, a friend and a confidant, a record that knows me inside
out, and a record that I know equally, but this is one such record.
By Johnny Mac
By Rachel Queen
The hospital was down a long country lane. It was one of those dark ,wet, windy
autumn drives that made you feel you were in a tunnel. Every now and again the
lights would pick out a dazzled rabbit in the fluttering leaves.
We’d met at the parish hall at 7.00 – about a dozen of us. The Focus Junior
Christian Youth Club off to the weekly disco with the patients at Barrow Green.
Huddled into the doorway waiting for Chris to arrive with the mini-bus.
Chris the club leader was in his early twenties – an insurance salesman by day.
He lived up the road from me. In the mornings I could tell how late I was for
school by the three-goes-at-starting and pungent smell of backfire from his
light blue Hillman Imp. He always wore pointy suede shoes. Flapping trouser legs
and bum-freezer jacket.
We all thought he was a prat. Especially me. My dad was the vicar and Chris was
a lay preacher at the church – always around at the house discussing his
vocation. Usually arrived at about tea-time. “Hi Si..” he’d say with an
embarrassed and tentative peace-sign.
He pulled into the carpark. The peace-sign. We sniggered and got in.
It was a Commer minibus – repainted in Royal Blue gloss paint by the club
members the previous summer. Close inspection still revealed the wasp painted
into the back door. The one that opened.
The club was on the not-great side of OK. Most of us were just hanging in there
until we were fourteen and could join the proper youth club. And the Christian
stuff was a bit embarrassing. Bad enough that your dad’s the vicar…
We juddered to a halt outside the entrance to the hospital.. Through the plate
glass door we could see people milling around – some of them peering out. Faces
distorted by distance and the rain.
Giggling, we splashed across the carpark. The boys showing off and the girls
letting us. We’d all got off with each other at some point over the summer. Just
good friends now.
Then down a long green shiny corridor that smelt of dettol and polish and
through black rubber slam-doors into the garish fluorescent lights of the
canteen. Formica – topped tables had been pushed to one side of the room and on
the other was a serving-hatch where staff and patients were queuing to buy
sweets and crisps and soft drinks.
At the top of the room was a disco unit with two large speakers. Dave’s Disco.
Dave, a large man with long red hair and a moustache who always smelt of Number
Six and Brut was setting the disco up, laying out his box of discs, running his
fingers along them like a filing clerk and toast-racking his first selection.
Two young women were trying to get his attention.
Eric the charge-nurse came up to us. Dark-haired and tatooed with short-sleeved
white tunic. Ex-Navy. “Hello, boys and girls…” he drawled in pure Alex Harvey
Glaswegian. Ignored Chris when he tried to shake his hand.
He was accompanied by a small tubby Down’s Syndrome man.
”Watch out for Timmy, girls.” said Eric.“He’s a little tinker.”
Timmy giggled , “I’m a tinker!” And then started to masturbate.
We took our coats off and put them on the chairs. A few of us tentatively lit up
cigarettes.
The music began and yellow, red and green lights began to flash from the disco.
After a couple of minutes someone remembered to turn the main lights off. Gary
Glitter. Barry Blue. Suzi Quatro. Can the Can.
First of all we danced among ourselves in two groups at either end of the room.
Then Timmy broke the ice. Stood in the No Man’s Land between the two groups and
masturbated. A nurse took him by his free hand and led him off.
The music took over. Tiger Feet. All practising our moves with words memorised
and facial expressions mimicked.
A sudden scuffle over to the left. A fight had broken out. Or at least that’s
what it looked like. The lights went up and the disco off. Hollow cheers.
Two large men were careering around the dance floor, fists flailing, tables
flying. But there was no contact between them – if anything they seemed to be
trying to avoid each other. One of them rushed out of the door sending Chris
flying and leaving a stain of coke down the front of his trousers.
A nurse cornered the other one up against the disco consol, sat on him and
thrust a towel into his mouth. Grinning and breathless he said. “Blimey! First
time I’ve seen two epileptic fits happen at the same time. Must have been the
disco lights set ‘em off”
The music resumed with the slow records.
Some people were dancing in couples - others on their own. Two large women were
dancing close together – one of them had to keep stopping to pull up her pants.
A tall man like that boss-eyed silent movie star rocked backwards and forwards
to “ Puppy Love”.
Peter Skellern’s “You’re a Lady” came on. Dave’s Bristol burr encouraged us all
to “Get close with a Special Someone…”
I felt a hand on my arm. One of the women who had been talking to DJ Dave. Dark
dank hair and scared eyes with too much too blue eye-shadow. A slash of bright
red lipstick. Short floral dress. Scars on her wrist.
“Hi – I’m Carole” she said. “ Will you dance with me?”
We began smooching. Arms around each other, cheek to cheek. Her perfume strong
and sweet.
“You’re supposed to understand..”
I felt her groin hard against mine – her leg pressing the inside of my thigh.
Her breath in my ear.
“..How these things are often planned
To be…”
Then she kissed me – hard-lipped and cider-breathed. Not the tentative
exploration of tongues – the instinctive soft-lipped teenage kisses that I’d had
with other girls but a screen-kiss, externally passionate, internally dry. I
moved my head back. Apparently unperturbed she placed one hand on my shoulder
and smiled.
And with the other stuck a safety pin into my chest. And again.
I felt the surprise before the pain. As she looked at my face with the studied
concentration of a child, I pulled myself away – no-one seemed to have noticed.
Escaping to the toilets, I pulled up my shirt and had a look at the tiny red
stigmata in the middle of my chest.
When I returned to the canteen, Carole was standing in front of the disco unit,
tracing the one of the ‘Ds’ of ‘Dave’s Disco’ with her finger. I told some of
the others what had happened - they mostly laughed. Said she was a
prick-teaser….
Later, my dad said that I must have imagined it – or it was an accident – maybe
it was her fingernail? Nobody stabs anyone with a safety pin. But there was
blood on my best cheesecloth shirt.
The next week when we went, I looked nervously around for Carole. She wasn’t
there – I felt relieved. I hadn’t wanted to go – but I’d been told that it was
an important event for the patients and they’d feel let down. My duty, said dad.
The music started. I sat out the first dance. Chatted with Wendy. Watched as the
floor filled.
“I’m your boy, your twentieth-century toy”
I was watching Chris on the dance floor. Dancing a spasmodic twist with Carole’s
friend. His face a blank smile as they moved closer. She put one hand on his
shoulder – the other moved quickly to his chest. I saw him mouth the word
“Fuck!” before he punched her.
And almost simultaneously, Andy and Phil yelped as the girls they were dancing
with, also stuck pins into them.
The lights went up. Eric the charge-nurse appeared from somewhere and scraped
the needle off the record on the turntable. I noticed that his flies were
undone.
“ I think that’s enough for tonight” he said. “Everybody’s getting a bit too
excited.”
Timmy started to cry. He had a black eye.
The three girls were taken off by nurses. One of them held a hanky to her
bloodied nose.
After a quick word with Eric, which ended with a handshake, Chris ushered us all
out to the bus. As we left, I saw Carole come out of the charge-nurse’s office,
buttoning her dress. She looked vacant and confused. Her lipstick was even more
smeared than the previous week.
The next Thursday we started a table-tennis league with Apex, the Methodist
Youth Club.
Simon James
Previously published in Sand Magazine
I try to remember what happened before I fell asleep. I fail.
I try to remember who I am. Surely that one should be easy?
Apart from one thing - Love.
Sing, bird, sing
Sing, bird, sing
Sing, bird, sing
Sing, bird, sing
Sing, bird, sing
Sing, bird, sing
Michael Eavis’s decision to rest his festival this year
has had a remarkable effect - something tantamount to the lifting of a blanket
cloud cover, behind which is revealed sun, blue sky and a myriad of
possibilities for a summer’s day. No, I’m not simply pining for the long hot
days of summer, but rather referring to the emergence of a number of excellent
UK festivals out of the long shadow of the monolith Glastonbury. Interest in
festivals has seen a steady increase during the past few years, with people
discovering that attendance isn’t simply a byword for rolling around in mud or
endlessly picking dried grass and flies out of your cheap chicken chow mein (oh,
and perhaps some of the music is quite good too). Indeed, at the Big Chill a
couple of years ago, the camping field was more reminiscent of a champagne and
canapés pagoda party, than a battlefield from the Dark Ages, which so many of us
have come to expect (Reading? Then you’ll know what I mean…). But hey, we are an
enlightened people. We know what we want, and that is the opportunity to laze in
amongst the wonders and wilds of nature – serenaded by our new favourite bands,
musicians, artists, DJs, jugglers, poets, comedians, stilt walker, performance
horse whisperer etc etc etc on a platform of pleasure and/or harmony, away from
all those inimical voices of the day-to-day. More than ever this is what we seem
to expect festivals to offer, and in the clay world we are all intent on
fashioning in our own image we are starting to get it – and more!
It is into this very arena that the End of the Road festival is this year
(15th-17th September 2006), for the first time, introducing itself. The
organisers, Simon and Sofia, are coming from the very place I have discussed
above. They have tried and tested the other festivals, in many cases they have
enjoyed them, but now it is their turn. Like all good enterprises (or dare I say
it, dreams), Simon and Sofia have an enviable ‘wish list’ as a foundation stone
for the event. Bands and artists that, if collated in a single space and time,
would make ATP look like a group of holiday camp Redcoats attempting to
entertain the crowd with the Thizzle Wiggle. Acts of a stunning diversity have
made the list - Shellac, Beth Orton, Animal Collective, Adem, Magic Numbers, to
name but a few, - and for the love of music, the organisers would ideally give
each of them an hour long set. Furthermore they maintain that, ‘End of the Road
festival will take a lot of interest in all the ‘little things’ that make a
great festival, such as good food (organic / local), good beer, caring &
well-mannered staff, hygiene etc’. Yes, at first it may seem ambitious, but to
make your mark in the growing festival circuit it is necessary to scramble for
every inch, and that is exactly what End of the Road is doing. Having spoken to
Sofia, I can personally testify to the energy and passion going into the event,
with some of the listed bands - My Latest Novel, Boy Least Likely To, Chris T-T,
Absentee, Ralfe band and Crosbi – already confirmed. Labour of love seems a
suitable term here, born out of the realisation of what a healthy and thriving
live music scene we are all able to share in at present. What is more, in the
tradition of the smaller festivals, they have chosen a stunning backdrop for the
music, the Larmer Tree Gardens, an ‘extraordinary example of Victorian
extravagance and vision’ nestled amongst the ancient boundaries of Dorset and
Wiltshire - meaning it really could be all milk and honey.
After reading about the festival and the heady plans that Simon and Sofia have,
I do find myself asking why they have chosen to call it the ‘End of the Road’
(also because I didn’t have the forethought to ask Sofia at the time I spoke to
her………). I would hope that it was based upon the idea of achieving the
successful culmination of all those long-fought hopes and dreams (well, at least
they will have on the morning of the 18th September), rather than some kind of
generalised premonition that live music and all that enjoy it are heading for
the breaker’s yard. For the sake of my own sanity and to prove that I’m not the
raving detractor so many would have me believe, I will stick with the first
choice explanation.
By all accounts End of the Road is up against some tough competition, but
keeping attendance to only 5,000 should ensure the intimacy required to secure
its future. With Glastonbury back next year and the increasing lure of European
festivals such as Roskilde devouring all the live music capital, we will need
festivals such as End of the Road more than ever to keep things in perspective,
to keep our feet on the ground if you will. Therefore, I only hope that when
September rolls around there will blue skies above the Larmer Tree Gardens and
Shellac on the stage. That is what I would want - for me that is taking care of
the ‘little things’.