Rock and Roll Stories #63 - There is no such thing as no such thing

"Jesus, remember me, when you come into your kingdom" Probably not how you expect a Rock and Roll story to start. Don't worry, this isn't a religious takeover of our punk rock stories. So why did I start a story with it? Let me explain, as my first experiences of being involved in music were at our local church. It was the 1960's and there wasn't much on telly then. We didn't have smartphones to entertain us. 

When I was a small child, the Hymns we sung were all Victorian tub thumpers, such as "O Praise Ye the Lord". Proper decent tunes, with good choruses, written by proper musicians, who understood that music should be enjoyed and belted out and accompanied by an organ. Then they decided to have folk masses. Hairy Hippy's would strum guitars and shriek out songs like "Shine Jesus Shine". I hated these. It seemed to me that whilst the Victorians wrote hymns like Amazing Grace, which had proper lyrics and helped fools like me understand spirituality, the new generation wrote crass, hagiographical dirges that to me would only appeal to God if God has a personality like Donald Trump, which I  cannot believe would be the case for an omnipotent entity that embodies all of the wisdom of the Multiverse. I think music should always have a degree of spirituality and should help us make the journey through life. It should either be uplifting, give solace, make us smile or call out injustice.

The Victorian hymn writers understood this. The hairy hippies singing badly whilst strumming out of tune guitars didn't. My first efforts to sing were in Church. I was told I was tone deaf and couldn't sing and so I couldn't join the Childrens Choir. They only wanted little darlings with angelic voices. I felt that my carreer as a musician was over aged 7, so I became an alter server. I had been told I had no musical aptitude at all. I believed the Choirmistress. And then in 1976/7 The Sex Pistols erupted upon the scene. 1977, the year when two sevens clash, blew my mind wide open. Mark Perry stuck three chords on the cover of his "Sniffin Glue" fanzine and said "now go and form a band". So we did. We were were excitedly discussing this in the alter servers room. We had no instruments, no cash and couldn't play. But we could dream. It took nearly two years for us even to get a full band rehearsal together. But the idea was hatched in the Alter Servers room at The Sacred Heart Church. 

There was a hairy hippy with a guitar who used to run a youth club at the church. His name was Phil. He had a guitar and had put a little folk band together. As he could play guitar, it seemed like he may be an ally. So we approached him. We made a simple request "We are going to get a band together, could you show us how to play the guitar". His response was even more dismissive than the choir mistress. "When you learn to play, come back and maybe if you are any good, you can play at mass with us". It was the best thing he could have said. We were enraged. I was falling out of love with the Catholic Church and we agreed that the bloke was part of the problem, not the solution. We realised we had no allies. If we were going to do anything, we'd have to do it ourselves. 

When I discovered the Ramones, in June 1977, the best thing was their mininalist lyrics. This is where the line at the top comes in. This is a style of religious music called a Taize chant. The idea is that you just chant one line  repeatedly and go into state of serenity and calm. It is probably my least favourite style of music. Some of my more religiously minded musician friends get very excited about it, but it has all the elements of music that I don't like, slow, boring and repetetive. 

I'd not heard of Taize chants at the time, but the Ramones took simple slogans and chants and made them dynamic and exciting. As the Fun Boy Three's song says "It ain't what you do, its the way that you do it". As I learned more about music, I learned that hit songs have a hook, some sort of earworm that gets in your head and makes you remember the song. When I first started discussing starting a band, it was 1977, I was 14 and still an alter server at The Sacred Heart. It took two years to even get going, by which time I was a different person.

When we first got the band together, we were sitting in my front room, playing a cassette of our music, celebrating how good we were (we weren't) and my Dad walked in. He wryly commented "Have you considered writing songs with a tune". During that period, the songs were very much just long political diatribes sung over thrashing distorted guitars. Although we dismissed my Dad's comment, we actually took it on board. If the diatribe had a tune, it would be even better. We worked really hard and started to refine what we were doing. 

 It took another year for us to actually have a band that did anything other than rehease and dream.By 1980, we had recorded a demo at a professional studio and played it to all of our mates. It sounded like a record (albiet not the best record you ever heard). People knew we had a band.We were up at the Three Hammers having a beer, it was probably August 1980. We were having a beer and a band meeting to plan what we were doing with the band. The Hairy Hippy who had dismissed us came over. He said "I hear you boys have got a band together, what songs are you playing?". I always try and be polite, so I said "We've written our own". He then said "You do realise that punk rock is not proper music, you should listen to the Beatles". I responded "Have you ever listened to Crass?" (a bunch of anarchists who were very anti religion). He replied "No, I've never heard of them". I replied "Phil, you are a teacher, aren't you. Yet hear you are telling me that something is better than something you've never even listened to". He said "I don't need to listen to punk bands to know they are rubbish". I replied "Let me give you some advice. Get a new job, if you are peddling opinions that are ignorant and ill informed, then you are failing the young people you are teaching, now f*** o**". 

The said individual was a mate of one of my cousins. The next time I saw my cousin, he said "I heard you threatened Phil up at the Hammers last week". I asked what he said happened He said "He saw you with a bunch of dodgy looking punks, he was worried about you, so decided to see if you were alright, but you told him to f*** o**. He is very upset". I told my cousin what actually happened. He said "That sounds like Phil, he can be a pompous pr*ck". 

I was reminded of this when I was sorting out my lyrics and music files. About 15 years ago, a religious friend introduced me to the concept of Taize chants. Although I was most unimpressed with the particular ones that we had to listen to, they did nothing to me, I started to wonder whether you could mix the concept with an ambient track. I came up with the line "There's no such thing as no such thing". It was intriguingly ambigous, and we were working with Connie Abbe, who was a brilliant vocalist. I started charting it out, but didn't develop it. It was a bit of a response to all of the people who have ever disparaged me at anything I've done. In my life, everything I've achieved has been met with doubt. When I started the band, people like Phil disparaged us. When we started the studios, the bank wouldn't lend us money to fit it out. When I enrolled on a TOPS course to get a job in IT, as I had debts, some of my peers told me I was too thick to get such a job. When I was at FCHS, the headmaster told me I was a loser and I'd never get a 'decent wife or a decent job'. When I wanted to join the choir, I was told I was "tone deaf and didn't have a musical bone in my body". When I started this blog, I was told that "no one was interested in the blatherings of an illiterate idiot". People ask me if I've done all of the things to prove them wrong. The answer is no. I couldn't give a stuff what the people who disparage me think. The reason I've done all of the things and done them successfully, is because I wanted to do them and I wanted to do them well. I wanted to do them for me. If I do something, I believe I have to work ten times harder than everyone else, just to be keep level. It is a philospohy which has served me well. If I drop dead today, I've had a better life than I could have dreamed of when the choir refused me. 

But it isn't over. I am looking forward. The best days are still to come. My band, The False Dots are central to everything. They've given me the confidence. Our next public gig is at Nabucca in Islington on Friday 15th May. We played at the London International Ska Festival at the start of the month and got a brilliant review in the Camden New Journal. Never let anyone tell you that something is impossible. 

There is no such thing as no such thing.