53rd and 3rd
Sep. 24th, 2004 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hirezA long time ago in a county largely ignored by technology... Well, that's not quite true - there was an odd survey that indicated that Gloucestershire had the highest density of early adopters in the country. Though I'm sure that the numbers would have changed if they'd asked again on a Tuesday morning when all the weekenders had pissed off back to London.
Anyway.
To a teenage (armchair Honved fan) NME reading Peelite, things like Big Black sleevenotes and pretty much all of MRR seemed to be messages from, if not another planet, then at least some place where people had glamorous lives (for post-punk/hardcore/industrial values of same. A full exploration of that probably warrants a post of its own.) and could do impossible things like walk to a venue to see something like the Dig it/Bigot tour, rather than having to get the last Pulham's bus home at nine o'clock.
(The second-to-last being known as 'the bingo bus' since it detoured down the lower high street to drop a mob of cackling pensioners outside the Mecca bingo hall.)
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and a lot more self-confidence, it's painfully obvious that I should have escaped in an Uncle Nemesis like manner. However, in a 'can't get here from there' way, it's equally obvious that I wouldn't be here writing this if I had done that. Tricky chap, Johnny Causality.
That whole wedge of memory dropped into place like a hod of bricks exactly one week ago. I was standing outside 99th Floor (a boutique of the punk/alternative persuasion) chatting to Greg (who seems to have spent his life in a succession of Chicago bands) and the chap who was minding the shop whose name I didn't catch (full of rock&roll stories about Goteki and Convergence). Since the afternoon was uncommon warm, we ambled across Halstead to the 7-11 for liquid refreshment...
... And then there was a small 'clack' noise in my head when I remembered that teenage self.
Sometimes you get to do things you only dreamed about. The trick, I think, is remembering.
Anyway.
To a teenage (armchair Honved fan) NME reading Peelite, things like Big Black sleevenotes and pretty much all of MRR seemed to be messages from, if not another planet, then at least some place where people had glamorous lives (for post-punk/hardcore/industrial values of same. A full exploration of that probably warrants a post of its own.) and could do impossible things like walk to a venue to see something like the Dig it/Bigot tour, rather than having to get the last Pulham's bus home at nine o'clock.
(The second-to-last being known as 'the bingo bus' since it detoured down the lower high street to drop a mob of cackling pensioners outside the Mecca bingo hall.)
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and a lot more self-confidence, it's painfully obvious that I should have escaped in an Uncle Nemesis like manner. However, in a 'can't get here from there' way, it's equally obvious that I wouldn't be here writing this if I had done that. Tricky chap, Johnny Causality.
That whole wedge of memory dropped into place like a hod of bricks exactly one week ago. I was standing outside 99th Floor (a boutique of the punk/alternative persuasion) chatting to Greg (who seems to have spent his life in a succession of Chicago bands) and the chap who was minding the shop whose name I didn't catch (full of rock&roll stories about Goteki and Convergence). Since the afternoon was uncommon warm, we ambled across Halstead to the 7-11 for liquid refreshment...
... And then there was a small 'clack' noise in my head when I remembered that teenage self.
Sometimes you get to do things you only dreamed about. The trick, I think, is remembering.
