twenty-five

Tony left Manor Park shortly after I did. He went to college in the mornings and worked in Andy's Music Store in the afternoons and at the weekends, and earned about twice as much as me (the jammy bastard). Needless to say, I was bitterly jealous of Tony's job. But, to be fair, I have to admit he was perfect for it.

He was polite and helpful to all the posh mothers who came in for recorder books and grade four violin music. His skin had lost none of that translucent angelic quality and they all loved him, as did the old rockers and the musos, the kids and the local bands (Christ, even Damien liked him and he never liked anyone).

Tony'd always been heavily into technology and technique, but once he'd started working in the guitar shop, he became the ultimate techno-anorak. He knew what every knob on every effects box and synthesiser did (unlike me who twiddled and hoped). He learned hundreds of guitar solos by Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Chet Atkins, Eddie Cochran and the rest, and spent hours using different amps and reverbs and echo units to try and exactly mimic their sounds.

Local bands started asking Tony to be the sound engineer for their gigs. And he started to perform minor (and at times major) miracles with their music. Even when the bands were a load of old shit, it was worth going to listen to them, just to marvel at how slick Tony had managed to make them sound.

Over the months Tony's reputation grew. Suddenly, bands that had for years ploughed the same sorry soft-rock furrow, oblivious to anyone else's opinion, were begging him to cast his spell upon their music. Now, I'm not trying to pretend that at the age of seventeen Tony had miraculously learned everything there was to know about sound production. However, he knew enough. Also he had the rare gift of being able to make his criticisms sound like compliments, and therefore managed to convince even the most big-headed and blinkered of bands to believe in and act upon the suggestions he made.

There was this one band Blue Murder, for example, who had been playing the same set in the same way at the same venues for the last ten years. The guitarist was excellent, the band were very tight and they all sang in tune, but by God were they bland (believe me we're talking boiled potato sandwiches without the butter!) However, no one had ever dared inform the band that their set and their sound was in desperate need of some added spice. Possibly this was partly because people didn't want to appear impolite, but I guess it may also have had something to do with the fact that the bass player and drummer were both members of an infamous Chapter of Hells Angels.

One member of Blue Murder (the bass player I think it was, lived in the Chapter's club house) an end of terrace with metal doors and steel shutters on all the downstairs windows. Outside were a lot of bikes with ridiculously extended front forks and cow horn handlebars. A little alleyway ran down the side of the club house garden, which was bordered by a wooden fence with a doubled strand of barbed wire hung along the top. Through gaps in the fence you could see a mountain of bike bits, a graveyard of Triumph petrol tanks and BSA brakes cables. I guess, technically, the house infringed some form of planning regulation. But hey? Who was going to tell them that?

Shortly after I'd started working at Target, me, Tony and Debbie went to one of Blue Murder's gigs at a pub called the Hind's Head, which was a few miles out of Westing just off the Exeter Road. When we arrived at the pub I did notice there were rather a lot of bikes outside. However I though nothing of it until we went inside and I realised we were the only people in the place who didn't weigh over fifteen stone and weren't wearing leather jackets. It felt like I'd walked onto the set of some cautionary seventies road movie, and I was concerned that if we hung around too long there was a fairly high probability that I'd be leaving via a window with a pool cue wrapped round my neck whilst Debbie was carried off on the back of a throbbing Harley Davidson.

"Maybe we should go," I said, holding Debbie's hand very tightly. She nodded nervously, but Tony had already gone up to the bar and was ordering drinks. He turned to me.

"They've only got Budweiser," he shouted. "Is that OK?"

"Come here a minute," I mouthed (partly because I didn't want to draw attention to myself and partly because the loudness of the music made it impossible to hear anything clearly anyway).

"What?" shouted Tony. I beckoned him with my hand.

Tony leaned back from the bar, sandwiched between two heavily bosomed angelettes (like a fragile ornament in a cushioned box). He shook his head slowly. At the same time mouthing, "I can't hear what you're saying."

Still tightly gripping Debbie's hand, I edged further from the door and closer to the bar, and stood in the middle of the room like I was waiting for a bus.

"I said I've got you a pint of Budweiser," shouted Tony. "What does Debbie want?"

He always asked me what Debbie wanted rather than asking her. It wasn't that Tony was a chauvinist or anything. He just wasn't very comfortable around girls. At the time, I never really understood why. He had cute hair. He had nice skin. He had Bambi eyes. He was kind and gentle and nice to talk to. He had everything that girls supposedly went for. Yet I'd hardly ever seen him talk to a girl let alone anything else. Then there was me with my come-and-go acne, Mr potato head looks, my skinny awkwardness and adolescent insensitivity and I'd had my fingers in more knickers than a quality checker at a Janet Reger factory. At the time I couldn't figure out what Tony's problem was (although in hindsight it was pretty obvious).

I have to say though, aside from his phobia of girls, nothing else phased Tony. It wasn't that he was particularly brave, it's just that the only thing that occupied his mind was music. Everything else just blurred together irrelevantly in the background. Hence, whereas I was all ready to get the hell out of the Hind's Head, Tony insisted that we should at least finish our drinks. In the end I agreed to stay for a little while, and nervously shared a table close to the door with two helmets and a pair of thick leather gloves. As I gulped down my pint of Bud, Tony washed down a pack of dry roasted with a diet coke and Debbie sipped at her vodka and orange. She normally drank shandy, but vodka did not seem inappropriate in the circumstances (in fact, I wished I'd asked for a double Southern Comfort myself, no soda, no ice).

As it happened, I was glad we'd stayed. After we'd been in the pub a few minutes, some other non-Hells Angels came in. I recognised a couple of them. They were students I had seen a few times walking between Westingshire College and the town as I drove past in the van. They were with a girl who used to go to the same primary school as me. She was in John's class and I don't think she recognised me, but it was nice to be surrounded by familiar faces amongst all those beards and tattoos.

After a couple more Budweisers I started to relax a bit and by mid-evening was really enjoying myself. Despite their blandness, Blue Murder were pretty good entertainment, working through a set of blues classics, Cross-roads, Dust My Broom by Ellmore James, My Babe by Little Walter, Built for Comfort (dedicated to the bass player's Harley Davidson) and Howlin Wolf's the Killing Floor (dedicated to a fellow Hell's Angel who was currently serving time for a murder he apparently (and given the vagaries of British justice quite probably) didn't commit. It was a great set.

However, it did occur even to me that the band might benefit from a bit of sound engineering (the drummer in particular). The drummer had what Tony used to call a Tupperware drum kit. He sounded like he was playing with teaspoons on an empty sandwich box, upturned on a very thick wooden table (only louder). The bass player wasn't that bad, although he did seem to be playing with a bit too much distortion at times, rattling the row of tankards on hooks above the bar every time he hit a really low note.

The guitarist's sound was actually pretty good and I think even Tony was impressed by a couple of his slow solos, but his vocals were disastrous. The bloke actually had a great voice. The trouble was it sounded as if he were singing with a paper bag over his head. He was using one of those microphones that stand-up comics often favour, a really bassy one with lots of hiss and crackle and constantly on the verge of some really serious feedback. Perfect for humorous sound effects when you run out of jokes. But totally shit for singing.

Of course, to most people who go to listen to a band in a pub, such things don't make a jot of difference (especially if you have just downed a gallon of real ale). In fact, the rawness of pub rock, the screeching microphones, the inappropriately long guitar solos, the Tupperware drums and elephant fart basslines are all part of its appeal.

Sure, if you were a bit of a muso you might think to yourself that if the band invested in some new amps and turned the volume down a bit they might sound better. But after you'd had a couple of beers, you'd forget all that stuff and start tapping your feet and bobbing from side to side like everyone else. On the other hand, if you were Tony, you would make a glass of coke last all evening, stand their wincing as you mentally ripped the band to shreds and then, as soon as the gig had finished, go and tell the lead singer just how crap you thought his sound was.

Blue Murder's guitarist-cum-vocalist was quite an old guy in his late thirties or possibly even his early forties. He was slightly balding on top but still had plenty of hair at the back as well as a gingery moustache and sideburns of Edwardian proportions. His torso and legs seemed even skinnier than my own, but he more than compensated for this with hugely muscular forearms, which made him look like 'Popeye.' His arms were covered in tattoos that disappeared up his short sleeved T-shirt, and the blue head of a finely feathered eagle peeked out of his unbuttoned collar.

As Tony sauntered over, the guitarist was squatting down to pack his guitar into a silver-coloured flight-case lined with orange fur. He was red in the face from singing, his brow beaded with sweat.

"Hi," said Tony.

"Hello," said the guitarist looking up. "Enjoy the gig?"

Tony nodded.

"Shame about the sound."

"What do you mean?" said the guitarist with a kind of exaggerated indignancy, assuming Tony's comment was some kind of sarcastic joke (although, underneath the humour I detected more than a hint of irritation).

At this point I would have mumbled some excuse about the acoustics of the pub being crap and told the guitarist what a great band Blue Murder were and how they really deserved a far better venue. But Tony (being Tony) launched into a ten minute attack on the crappiness of the bass players amp, the lack of treble on the vocal PA, and the dodgy timbre of the drummer's tom toms.

Now, such constructive criticisms may be not unwelcome if you are alone in a thirty-two track studio with some callow band of teenagers who wish to evolve into the new Pink Floyd. However it is perhaps not such a good idea to slag off a trio of Hells Angels in the middle of a crowded pub (especially not if you are five feet four tall, weigh about nine stone and they have one hundred of their mates with them). But, incredibly, Tony (being Tony) somehow got away with it.

"You must be the kid I've heard about," said the guitarist reaching up to shake Tony's hand. "The one that works with Damien down at Andy's Music right?" Tony nodded.

"What you doing Monday night?" asked the guitarist.

"Going round to Pete's" said Tony, tilting his head in my direction. I attempted a brave smile.

"Well, if you've got time come round to Seaton Road and tell all this to him." He nodded towards the drummer who was wrapping a cymbal in a blanket as two huge angels packed tom-toms into a series of round black boxes. "And him," the guitarist added, jerking his thumb at the base player who stood at the end of the bar casually swilling a glass of bitter. "It's about time he got that fucking amp sorted."

I couldn't believe it. If I'd slagged that band off, I would undoubtedly have had the shit kicked out of me. But there was something about Tony that made it impossible to be offended by his openness. Because Tony was so small and frail, he was never a threat to anyone's manliness, which obviously helped. However, I think the main reason people listened to him, was because he always believed in everything he said. He was rather like one of those celebrated photographers that film stars love to have their photo taken by; image makers who, in a single subtle snapshot, can portray people as they truly are yet also as they would like to be seen.

And just as even the most insecure of actresses seem to adore the advice that such photographers offer, no matter how bitchy it is (darling that low fringe is just frightful it makes your forehead looked deformed - you simply must wear your hair back and pluck those dreadful eyebrows), in the same way, musicians seemed to consider it an honour if Tony slagged off the way that their amps and guitars sounded.

If anyone else tried to talk like Tony did about speakers and graphic equalisers, it would sound like pretentious bullshit. However, it was different with Tony. He really knew what he was on about. And I guess that's why Blue Murder's guitarist, Brian, was anything but offended by Tony's criticisms.

Despite Tony's subsequent friendship with Brian (or Noddy as his close friends called him) we never did get to visit Seaton Road (the Hell's Angels house where Blue Murder practised). Partly this was because the band kept on cancelling their rehearsals and partly because the bass player and the drummer weren't as keen on Tony as the guitarist was. Tony was a bit miffed by this. But personally I thought it was probably for the best.

Soon after we'd been to see Blue Murder play at the Hind's Head, me and Tony got our first proper band together again. Because Tony worked in Andy's Music he knew all the local musicians and everyone wanted to play with him. I used to take it for granted that totally brilliant drummers or bass players would just happen to walk into the shop and offer to join him for a quick jam. I never realised at the time just how rapidly his reputation had grown (but, when a person is very close to you and always has been, I guess your appreciation of their ability can tend to be a bit blinkered).

About the time we started our band, mum and Mrs Barley had collectively coerced me to sign up for an evening course in business studies, which they paid for between them. Unfortunately, it was on the same night that the band practised in a converted storeroom at the back of Andy's Music. And, inevitably, after a few weeks of boring lectures and rehearsals ruined by my late arrival, I decided to chuck college in.

Of course, if I'd had any sense I would simply have explained to Mrs Barley and my mum that I just wasn't getting on with the course and given them their money back. But instead, rather stupidly, I told my college lecturer that I had to go into hospital to have an operation on my spleen and pretended to everyone else that I was still regularly attending classes.

"So how are you enjoying the course," mum would say, when I got home from rehearsals on Wednesday nights.

"It's OK," I'd mutter vaguely.

What did you learn about tonight?" she'd asked.

"Business things," I'd say.

"What kind of things?" she'd asked.

"You know, things to do with offices and work and that."

Mum would laugh and make me a cup of coffee. Now that I'd been successfully bustled back into academic life (or so she thought) she appeared to find my evasive bolshieness quite amusing. And the whole house radiated with parental satisfaction.

"Give the boy a chance," dad would say smiling (happy that mum was happy and that I had a job). "He's a working man now. He hardly wants to be given the third degree every time he comes home."

I'd just smile and guiltily smuggle my guitar up to my room. Having started earning I'd just treated myself to a beautiful second-hand Fender Telecaster. I couldn't really afford it, but Damien had reluctantly given me a discount seeing as I was Tony's best mate and everything. That Telecaster was probably the most playable guitar I ever owned. The neck was quite narrow and the action had been set really low, but there wasn't a trace of fret buzz and the tone was fucking fabulous. Honestly, I used to sit and dream about that guitar all day long.

During a quiet moment in the warehouse, I'd cut the side of a box into the shape of a guitar neck and drawn frets on it. And when I got bored of despatching brochures, I would close my eyes, clutch cardboard and pretend it was the Telecaster, imitating its sound by way of a shrill falsetto wail. I used to spend hours sitting there playing my substitute Fender until one day Mrs Barley discovered me, eyes closed, leaning back on my chair, getting into a really emotional blues solo.

"When you've finished molesting that piece of cardboard maybe you could bring my post in," she said. "I've been waiting for it since twenty to nine."

Embarrassing is not the word. And after that I left guitar playing to the evenings.

In addition to our Wednesday rehearsals, me and Tony would generally meet up a couple of nights a week for a jam. Stewy (who we used to hang out with on the war memorial in town) had just started playing bass for us. And often he would turn up too. He had dyed his hair from ginger to blonde, and Debbie said that he looked a bit like Billy Idol. But I couldn't see it myself.

Most nights we jammed at Tony's place, but sometimes we went round to Stewy's flat above PJ Porters (the pipe shop next to Reckless records). One night the guitarist out of Blue Murder came up to the flat listen to us and offered us a support gig at the college. I was quite flattered, until Tony pointed out that Blue Murder were on a percentage of the door money and knew that if we were playing more of the students would turn up. Despite Tony's cynicism, I was well excited about the gig. To the outsider, Westing College of Further Education may not seem like the most glamorous auditorium in the world. However, back then, it was the biggest rock venue for miles around. And, for me, being invited to play our first gig there was akin to being asked to support the Rolling Stones at Wembley!