"What would you do if you got to him?"

I had just returned from a night out at the BFI Mediathque. I meet Glynne there from time to time and we generally watch a lot of 1970s television together. Weird stuff mostly, some puzzling game shows, some awkward children's television. We had recently been preoccupied with a show called London Bridge. It was a Saturday morning TV show, designed for teenagers, made between 1974 and 1975. It's hilarious and stilted, quite often, featuring a cavalcade of stars and heartthrobs that would have made the average 70s teenager wheeze.

Calm thyself...

The distinction between adult and teenager becomes increasingly apparent when watching this show. Every segment is a kind of heavy-handed suggestion of something kids can "do" with their lives, whether that's journalism, nursing, veterinary science or acrobatics. They have a team of teenagers, sitting on the set, politely waiting their turn to ask their carefully-crafted question in a soft cockney whisper. Occasionally they are forced to step up and volunteer themselves for garish haircuts and/or makeovers by overbearing adults, often pushing weird or problematic agendas.

The sacred clapperboard

One specific episode struck me and I promptly made notes about it as soon as I came home. It was an episode where the Bay City Rollers were guests in the studio. The girls on set were especially jittery, their cheeks glowed a purplish red as they pawed nervously at their tartan scarves. They were, after all, sitting thigh by thigh with their favourite pop stars. You would have thought it would have been like any other interview, but then the bodyguards of the Bay City Rollers were introduced to the show.

The host cut to clips of the Bay City Rollers stepping out onto the tarmac, being greeted by legions of hysterical fans, just as if it were ten years before with John, Paul, George and Ringo (or maybe six months before with Freddie, Brian, Roger and John?). You couldn't help but cackle at the sheer scale of it. No offence to any Bay City Rollers fans but the hysteria seemed disproportionate to the actual handsomeness of the musicians concerned, but then, I am especially shallow and hard to please.

Rubbish

Instead of asking any questions to the fans or the group, the host looked to the band's bodyguards, questioning them about how you become a bodyguard and what it is like to travel from city to city, protecting pop musicians. The discussion turned to the rabid behaviour of the fans, throwing themselves onto cars and crying. One of the bodyguards turned to one of the girls and said, "What would you do if you got to him?" She stuttered, almost tearfully, "I don't know, I just love him..."

It was a diabolical scenario, what maniac thought this up? What would it have been like to be seated with your favourite musicians, only to be confronted by thuggish henchmen? How could you possibly account for the rabid behaviour of other teenage fans, when you're containing your lust so calmly? "What would you do if you got to him?". I wouldn't dignify that question with a response, after all, such a prompt is worthy of scrutiny only among the closest of friends, lying in the darkness on the floor of a sleepover.

Such discussions would no doubt involve detailed scenarios, dreams of what it'd be like to be face to face, hip to hip, cheek to cheek. Such admissions featured in Fred Vermorel's sociological study, Starlust: The Secret Lives of Fans. Published in 1985, the anonymity of the admissions revealed the depth, the meaning and the clarity of those daydreams. Usually, but not always, that fangirlism provided solace against the backdrop of terrible grief and loneliness.

If I could go back and advise those girls on London Bridge, I would tell them not to be rattled by those bodyguards, not to fazed by their bullish interrogation tactics. I would give them permission to obliterate their calmness and scream, scream their lungs out, just like the girls on the tarmac. They had just met their favourite band! They had just sat alongside them! Knees touching knees! Feet touching feet! This will be a day they'll remember forever. 

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Baroque Pop Podcast #72
Jethro Tull - Bourée
Amazing Blondel - Highwayman
Cat Stevens - Moonstone
Carpenters - Mr Guder
Paul McCartney - Dear Boy
Andrew Bird - Roma Fade
Vashti Bunyan - Come Wind Come Rain
Enya - Caribbean Blue
Lindisfarne - Lady Eleanor
Jacqueline Taieb - Ce Soir Je M'en Vais

Download (87.2 MB)

Explore C&CM Podcasts 1-71 here

The first thing we did when the concert was uploaded was look for ourselves in the crowd. It was a surprisingly stressful experience for many of us, the cameraless fans who were suddenly in the presence of Paul McCartney in Studio Two of Abbey Road Studios. Yet, the fans made sure to link up with one another, to add and follow and like each other after the show. That night, we gathered up whatever photographic evidence we had: the crumpled setlist, the sweaty green wrist band and the poster of Egypt Station and we made sure we posted all we could to the socials. I uploaded a screenshot from the Abbey Road webcam, captured by my brother, Andrew, diligently spying from his computer in Melbourne. I didn't tell him where the show was, but I gave him a very firm tip off.

I was on limited data on a primitive replacement phone when the Spotify gig was finally released, but I made sure to watch the show as soon as possible. "The Green Wristband Bunch" memorialised the show in degraded screenshots of us euphorically singing, smiling and grasping each other. During the show itself, I had no particular sense of anybody else around me. I was entirely focused upon what was going on the stage. At times, the girls around me would reach out to touch my arm and ask if I was OK. I assured them that everything was fine but then, there were times when I was visibly shaken. I had to embrace the sheer euphoria of it, to be in the room where the Beatles recorded, with a Beatle performing a few feet in front of me.

I had recorded a video of myself before I set off to Abbey Road, privately acknowledging what this show actually meant. Much of my musical life is preoccupied with Beatles research, whether it is reading books or watching documentaries or just seeking out photos of the Fab Four with teacups in the background. The fascination exists an escape valve and I relish how much we all seem to know about John, Paul, George and Ringo. I live so much more in every conversation where we can contribute an insight or a feeling about the Beatles. There is such purity in that love that we share, yet when I am forced to qualify my place as a "true" fan, I feel completely inadequate.

My guilt about winning that place to see Paul led to discussions with friends about the hierarchies which fans impose to determine the sincerity of other fans. That pressure to be a musical expert undermines my desire to publish anything, particularly on C&CM. Despite my neverending research, I feel that I will never know enough to tell you about it authoritatively. In a material sense, I have no shrine and I have no tattoos and yet I still think about them more than most things. I think about the competitive nature of their creative partnership and I think about how we can characterise and identify Paul's songs as opposed to John's. I think about them so much of the time, because I'm still learning about the Beatles.

Thank you to Shot97 for beautifully crafting this gif...

When I look back at that show, I feel that there is something so incredibly pure in those intermittent shots of my friends in the crowd, particularly with Jon and Mel freaking out together. At an early point in the show, Paul was describing the first time they entered Studio Two, being "little Beatles" who were only allowed to enter only the tradesmens' entrance. Paul described George as having a black eye as a result of a fight at the Cavern. At that moment, the camera cut to me, with smudged black eyeliner and tears streaming down my face. I suddenly felt so overwhelmed to hear one of those whimsical stories I had been collecting for decades. The casual nature of it broke my heart.

I didn't feature predominantly in the show, but I was grateful that they captured that particular moment. It was the moment that I felt the most love and awe, the most gratitude and sadness. I'm not embarrassed to admit that it was a kind of existential grief, one that owed to the fact that despite all our love, that moment had to pass. As fans, we can dwell and we can document. We can retreat and virtually live in a year that predates our birth by two decades... but it's all so ephemeral. Nothing can ever contain that awe or gratitude we carry. We just have to find a way to feel it. We just have to find a way to learn to be thankful for the way such moments materialise.

It was in the East Wing of Somerset House where I spotted Brian May down the white marbled corridor. I calmly weaved around the arty types, standing by the trestle tables with their stacks of hardcover photography books. All the while, I felt quietly stunned that even from across the room, his expression seemed to suggest that he knew that I had come there for him. In my dramatic retelling of the encounter, I wave my hands about to indicate that it must have been my slinky 1974-era Freddie Mercury aesthetic which had given my intent away. The crowds parted as I came up to him. I smiled shyly, held out my hand and laughed: "It's been twenty-five years leading to this moment."

The truth is that I had come to terms with the idea that I would never meet Brian. As a Queen fan, I had heard the stories of friends eagerly waiting at airports and stage doors, often armed with their own replica Red Special guitar to be scribbled on with black marker. There have been stories of a friend holding the real Red Special in a studio, recalling "the neck was too thick and he didn't drink the tea I made for him". Yet, for all the premieres and launch parties I had managed to wrangle my way into, I could never actually make it happen. It seemed like behind every velvet rope was another velvet rope... and behind that velvet rope was a VIP area that excluded my types from entering.

"What would you ask, if you had the opportunity?" I had years to meditate on this point, but I never managed to articulate a single question for him. I would always say that I just wanted a meaningful dialogue, an ordinary encounter except with my greatest creative influence. There'd be certain qualities that I'd hope for, a kind of warmth and a genuine interest, even if it was a momentary thing. I can only assume this is what we're looking for when fans share these types of stories with one another: a vicarious joy and curiosity when you hear of the circumstances that transpired in meeting the musician you love. You want to hear of every detail, if only to say, "You are so lucky, I'm so insanely happy for you!"

It was a disjointed encounter, with VIPs continuously tugging at his sleeve for attention. He'd return to me though, as I would madly flip through my mental filing cabinet to recall every Queen anecdote that might be of some vague interest to him. I told him of my brother's ability to identify the specific location of where Queen photographs where taken in Japan in 1975 and 1976. "How does he do that?" Brian asked. "By analysing the buildings and the topographical details of each photograph. He can come back to me within the hour with a link to where the photo was taken Google Street View." Before I'd get any response, we'd be interrupted...

"So, what about you? What do you do?" I laughed and I panicked, in much the same way that I do when anyone asks such a confronting question. "Well, I live this pseudo-bohemian lifestyle where I live and work in this youth hostel in Bloomsbury but then I travel and go to museums and I write essays about music and relationships..." We were interrupted again by an older, more important man. Brian would come back to me with that dialogue still intact. "It doesn't sound like you're pseudo-bohemian, it sounds like you're a proper bohemian." Of course, there's a retrospective agony in using that word, bohemian, as if I used it as a knowing reference...

It was like an awkward Tinder date where all the silences would be filled with speedy anecdotes of how I have attempted to analyse and honour his band for literally decades. I felt embarrassment, as every utterance seemed to straddle the fine line between the gushy and the academic. I'd be spouting these seemingly endless stories of my own creativity, hoping for an apt reply or connection, while knowing that Queen isn't his central priority anymore. His interests lie in astronomy, animal conservation, stereo photography and politics, quite simply in another universe well beyond the scope of this little band that was established nearly five decades ago.

Yet like any good fan, I guard memories of those tiny interpersonal details, like how he had hot pink nail polish painted on his left ring finger: "I have no idea how it got there." Randomly enough, I had gold nail polish painted on my right ring finger. There was a sweetness and warmth in asking how to spell my name and then signing his own, marking a little cross and then looking up to smile at me. When we went in to pose for a photo together and how we laughed after I said: "You would tell me if I had something on my face, yeah?" Among all the well wishes and hopes that we would meet again, I shook his hand and then he placed both his hands on my upper arms and kissed me on both my cheeks. I blushed wildly.

They're the details that get conveyed in frantic post-meeting phone calls and notebook ramblings, but they never really get conveyed when you upload a photo to Instagram. On Tumblr, a certain sweetness was recognised: "So wonderful. That gentle hand on her shoulder 💜" Perhaps it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's interesting to think about these sorts of encounters and what they mean to fans. How can you possibly manage the awkwardness and the luxury of such a moment when you've had a lifetime to imagine what you could say. There's a risk they could be disinterested or there's the chance that you could articulate the enormity of it. More than likely, you'll just get the chance to say what we've all said: thank you for your time, thank you for your music.

Cassettes & Chocolate Milk: Scandipop Podcast #64
Peter Bjorn & John - Second Chance
Kakkmaddafakka - Restless
Veronica Maggio - Vi Mot Världen
Fallulah - Out of It
Per Gessle - Galning
The Mary Onettes - Lost
Susanne Sundfør - Slowly
Simian Ghost - A Million Shining Colours

Download (44.8MB)

The Milk Diaries: Strangers

I had assumed my position, pressed up against the stage of the Corner Hotel. It was an earnest thing to do, after all there only a handful of other people standing around, waiting for Ratcat's support act to appear. I internally smiled at every frantic girl sporting a black and white striped t-shirt. I felt prepped and elated when suddenly a stranger emerged from the guarded doors next to the stage: "You won't believe this, I just interviewed Simon Day for over an hour!" Without qualm or hesitation, I demanded to know every detail of the exchange, requesting a bootleg of the encounter. Just like that, Damo Musclecar and Missy El became friends forever.

We marveled at our similarities to one another, how we both had blogs and a podcast series, we both made zines, we both had previous radio projects. There was still a little gap in our respective areas of music specialisation, he had an encyclopedic knowledge of 70s New York punk and 80s hair metal whereas I lived and breathed 80s British new wave and synthpop. I recognised immediately that Damo possessed this unique kind of passion and enthusiasm that made you want to learn more, regardless of the genre in question. He had a wholehearted willingness to share all that he knew and I could recognise this when he coincidentally managed to define one of my core musical values: "I just want to document genres of music that haven't been properly documented before."

Damo stood alongside me during the show, among the girls squealed and swooned in the front row. Rose petals fluttered across over the stage and over Simon's Beatle boots. Fuzzy moments from the Tingles EP suddenly became real, shared and distorted. I wished for songs they'd never play, like Good Buy, Holiday and World in a Wrapper. Any sophisticated appreciation for their music was superseded a sudden onset of fangirl hysteria on my part. It was largely inspired by a look from Simon during the introductory moments of That Ain't Bad. This undermined any musical credibility I had established with Damo and I apologised profusely for it, explaining that I just had a moment with the most perennial of teen crushes. Damo reassured me that it was OK, insisting that he would introduce me to Simon after the show.

It did happen: Damo managed to convince the bouncer to let me "backstage", a corridor and small holding room held together with MDF, stained carpet and gaffa tape. We waited round and I felt more awkward than most, assuming a place among the band's friends and crew. Damo and I leaned against the side of the stage and discussed Bret Michaels at length before we realised it was time to accost Simon in the adjoining alleyway. It's embarrassing to recall the details of it now, my flushed cheeks and my inadequate, unrehearsed praise. Damo set about documenting the moment on camera, one such photo had my head in my hands and my hair flipped over my face in what was an ineffectual attempt to obscure my embarrassment. It was a wild moment after a night which managed to reaffirm so much.

I recalled all this today, when someone asked me why I have such a predilection for the musical past. I immediately quoted what Damo said to me because he managed to articulate the motives of fans creating culture in such a thoughtful way. He made me realise that I want to lead a life where I create and honour musical histories, fleshing them out and make them real to those who missed it the first time round.