Sometime last December. A knock at the door. It’s two members of the Jesus & Mary Chain, wanting help with some heavy lifting.
One, Phil King (JAMC bassist at their reunion gigs, including the Coachella one with Scarlett Johansson), has just moved in next door. The other, John Moore (JAMC drummer 1986-1988), hasn’t. Though Mr Moore was once meant to share a Cambridge hotel room with me, and instead decided to sleep on Rowan Pelling’s floor. I didn’t take it personally.
I give them a hand with unloading the car outside – Indie Band Removals, at your service. Am particularly impressed with one of Mr K’s possessions: a framed poster for the 70s film The Final Programme. That’s as cult as cult movies come: a Michael Moorcock adaption featuring the dandyish Jerry Cornelius. Â I saw it on TV years ago, and vividly recall the ending: our hero merges with a woman during sex, then walks off into the sunset as a kind of hermaphrodite ape. As must we all.
Messrs King and Moore play together in the John Moore Rock & Roll Trio, whom I enjoy that same December evening, at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury. The club night is called ‘You Fill Me With Inertia’, which is a Peter Cook quote from Bedazzled. More cult movies.
While I’m watching the band – and they really do perform your actual vintage rock and roll – a woman comes up to me. ‘I just wanted to tell you how cool you look. Though I know I’m drunk.’
Phil King’s been in so many bands, but one he actually fronted, The Apple Boutique, are having their ultra-rare Creation single ‘Love Resistance’ reissued this very month. Phil’s shown me his copy – a desirable little 3-inch CD. It’s highly jangly, blissful, 12-string guitar-smothered, Go Betweens-y summer pop. Video and more details here.
Recently, I bumped into Phil outside my door, as neighbours do. Though instead of attempts to borrow cups of sugar (did anyone ever do that?), our conversation tends to be like this:
Him: Hi, how are you?
Me: Okay. I’m writing a piece for a fanzine about Felt & Denim.
Him: So am I. Probably the same fanzine.
(It is)
Me: I’m talking about how my band Orlando once covered a rare Denim song at a gig, ‘I Will Cry At Christmas’. It was on the Denim demo, and sounds suspiciously like a left over Felt number.
Him: Oh yes, I remember Lawrence coming into rehearsal with that one.
Which I think is called being trumped.
For the piece I was writing, I watched the video of Felt’s classic Primitive Painters on YouTube. It’s only now that I realise that the one who isn’t the singer is my next door neighbour.
All of which is of no real interest, except when playing Six Degrees Of Dickon Edwards.
[Medical note: First day on a new SSRI prescription. Citalopram. 20mg daily.]
Tags: denim, felt, jesus and mary chain, john moore, mary chain debris, phil king, stella street for fanzine writers
