Sat night: to the Spitz for a memorial evening for Andy Roberts. A spot-on event, well-planned and organised, with live bands and talks, poetry, DJs, comics and art. It has his name throughout all of it, like so much seaside rock. He died last year in the process of putting together a similar mini-festival, so it’s entirely fitting.

I’m so glad I didn’t write the word ‘appropriate’ just then. There should be a ban on that much-abused word and its shameful sister, ‘inappropriate’ in the UK press and official press statements. At least for a while, in a kind of vocabulary detox. Other words are available, though sometimes you’d never think it.

I’m embarrassingly late, partly due to taking too long to decide which silk neckscarf to wear, and partly the fault of listening too intently to the new Scarlet’s Well album on my Muvo Slim, resulting in my forgetting when to change tube trains, and then wandering around Tower Hill for no reason on earth.

As the SW album features Mr R’s long-term friend and bandmate Jennifer Denitto, I hope I am forgiven. The Scarlet’s Well album is quite, quite splendid: fabulous melodies, witty and beautiful words, stop-start pop songs, elegant ballads, brooding shanties, and Bid recording new songs with a full band for the first time since the last Monochrome Set album in 1995. Because the band members are from varying younger generations, diverse backgrounds and musical sensibilities (whatever I mean by that), the sound is never ‘rockist’ or ‘muso’. I can hear Martin White and Bid’s shared love of Viv Stanshall bringing them together: Mr White writes half the music on the album. My own lyrics for ‘Narcissus In The Maze’ are in there, married to a White tune and a superb Bid vocal. I’m very, very, very happy about that. I received the album on Valentine’s Day. It was my only item of post (and whose fault is that?), but the CD was more than enough to make my heart flutter for a long time indeed.

I get to the Spitz and pass Ms Anna S on her way out to a gig by her boyfriend’s band The Boyfriends. Later on, I hear Mr S.P. Morrissey – himself a Monochrome Set fan circa 1980 – was in attendance. At the Spitz, I enjoy the various acts I do catch: Charlotte Cooper, Spy 51, Zombina, Ricky Spontane, The Raincoats.

Mr R’s cartoons, comics and sketchbooks are projected on the stage backdrop throughout the evening, and threaten to upstage the live acts. Favourite Andy Roberts cartoons: – a giant grinning hedgehog walks across a road, flattening a car. ‘Shave The Whale’- caption for said bearded mammal. ‘Magritte Thatcher’ – the former Prime Minister’s face obscured by a large apple.

What I didn’t know till tonight, thanks to Ms Cooper’s excellent anecdotal performance, is that he actually wrote a relationship advice column for a lesbian website, from his point of view as a token straight man. Called ‘Words From A Geezer’ or something like that.

I say hello to Ms Jenni S, Ms Tammy D, Ms Jennifer D, Mr Simon S, Ms Nine, Ms Charley S & Ms Kirsten, Ms Sarah G, Ms Caroline & Ms Lesley, Ms Amy P, Mr Roberts’s brother and parents, and the usual quota of people whose names I may not necessarily recall, but whom I’m on waving-across-the-room terms with. Like a kind of lo-fi Queen Mother. As my tube gets stuck at Euston, Ms Shanthi passes along the platform, and bangs on my carriage window to say hello.

The other day, two people told me – separately – that they’d only now realised how long they’ve known me, at least in terms of an association without ever quite losing contact. One was Lea from the band Spy 51, who I first met in my queercore music dabblings circa 1993, the other Tony O’Neill, formerly a Kenickie keyboard player in 1996, now a published author in NYC. His debut novel, ‘Digging The Vein’, is on my To Read pile. I suppose a grumpier response is to say ‘Thanks for reminding me how old I am!’ But no, I’m grateful. All I ever wanted to be was a fixed point in other people’s changing worlds. A harmless, if fragile, landmark.

I’d have liked to known the floppy-haired, skinny and schoolboyish Spitz barman better. He has the kind of young Julian Cope-like beauty (via the books of Mr Dennis Cooper) that it actually hurts to perceive. Ordering alcohol was quite a different experience for me. I could only afford one drink, but ended up buying three.

During the inter-band DJ music, I can’t help but sing along to the Jonathan Richman late 70s classic, ‘The Morning Of Our Lives’. Always thought how that song in anyone else’s hands could be construed as deeply twee, even patronising, as the eternal boy-man Mr Richman tries to cheer up his sad girlfriend in the lyrics. Particularly where he consults his band during the song:

JR: Dear, I asked Leroy and Asa and D. Sharpe, and they said,
Band (for it is they): Yeah, yeah, yeah…
JR: Don’t you love her too?
Band: Yes, we do!
JR: Then tell her she’s okay.
Band: You’re okay, you’re okay…
JR: Tell her she’s all right.
Band: You’re all right, you’re all right…
JR: You’re okay, dear. There’s nothing to feel inferior about. You can do it. (etc)

If the likes of James Blunt sang this sort of thing, it would be hard to regard as anything short of trite, even embarrassing. But Jonathan Richman is so utterly free from irony or cynicism, so sincere in his childlike-ness (the tune even resembles the theme from Sesame Street) that the song not only works but is really very moving indeed. And for me its spirit perfectly recalls that most uncommon and impressive of Mr Roberts’s character traits – his unconditional encouragement for the potential of others.

“We’re young NOW. Right now’s when we can enjoy it.
Now’s the time for us to have faith in what we can do….
And our time is now, we can do anything you really believe in.
Our time is now, here in the morning of our lives.”