Towards the end of the Seventies my younger sister fell under the spell of a rather unusual but frankly pretty fantastic children' magazine named Misty. Its whole existence only lasted a couple of years when she was 9 or 10 but it's still fondly remembered by many including both of us. It's name was Misty and really I'm not sure there's been another magazine for the very young quite like it before it or since.
Its themes were essentially Horror and the Supernatural and it could get pretty dark, I think my sister had a pretty strong stomach because it dealt mainly in ghosties, ghoulies, the dead feeding on the living and such forth and might easily have been the stuff of nightmares. My parents didn't seem to mind. We had a very progressive and enlightened upbringing looking back. I watched I Claudius, that quite remarkable historical BBC drama, when I was still at primary school. It had incest, beastiality, violent and vicious murder of the most disturbing sort as key plot components and was my own personal initiation into the adult, possibly slightly before I was ready for it.
My own reading taste tended to Tiger and Roy of the Rovers but frankly looking back Alison trumped me effortlessly in terms choosing Misty. It was an of artistic apprenticeship of incredible resonance and emotional depth. Wonderful stuff to feed the young imaginative mind and well worth tracking down. I think a lot of it would still stand up.
I thought about Misty last night when I got home from my latest night on the town. Once I went to pubs and watched football matches, now I go to music venues. This seems to be hiw my year is shaping up. As some defiant vanguard action against my relentless march through my late fifties towards the inevitable. Yup, sixty.
A slightly unexpected day yesterday, I rose slowly and late-ish not thinking I would be needed in the office. But then after leisurely ablutions I got a hurried message from work saying I'd be required to teach cover. This is what I've been doing for thirty years plus now so I don't mind. It's what I'm obliged to do and I still enjoy it remarkably. At least the teaching part.
It was a rewarding couple of lessons anyhow with engaged and able students; from Saudi, Iraq, China, Japan and remarkably Peru. I wondered, though wasn't sure whether he was my first Peruvian student. We had some fun, established some rapport, learned something. I felt fulfilled as I generally do when I step into a classroom. I'm good at it I'd say. It brings me pleasure and satisfaction.
Still, it put me out of synch. I'd been expecting a slower day and time to prepare myself in a more leisurely and relaxed way for the gig. A quick cider in The Telegraph with young Tom and a sweet young Indian barmaid whose name I don't know yet. Some jukebox songs that put me in mid of Pram, the band I was going to see; Stereolab, Broadcast. Spooky, Nineties Independent music that still seems ahead of its time.
Then what seemed like a slightly dashed walk across the Quayside promenade towards the Ouesburn Valley. It was cold, nastily so considering it was now June and I hadn't had my daily circuit of the Swimming Fitness centre in the early afternoon so I was feeling out of sorts. Ill prepared. One more drink at The Free Trade. I'd been hoping to bump into Billy or Chris, regulars there but was disappointed. I felt a bit lonely and friendless. It didn't auger well. Perhaps my wonderful unbroken run of gig nights in Toon was under threat and I was heading towards disappointed. I'm a superstitious soul in essence and I doubt if I'm alone by any means.
Still, I shouldn't have fretted. Newcastle, as always I find, had my back. I sought directions from The Free Trade's rather lovely and very friendly barmaid. She gave me directions to The Cobalt Studios where I was heading and I crossed the Ouseburne Valley, through The Cluny complex where I've been such a regular in recent weeks, and guided by my Google Maps app on my phone into fresh territory for me, past Ernests Cafe Bar at the high end of Ouseburn and to the door of the Cobalt
.I feel like I've been exploring areas of town I thought I knew but haven't really this year as Spring becomes Summer. Experiencing my home town anew and charting new territory and this was turning into another fresh and rewarding evening. For most of my fifteen years in Newcastle I've stuck mostly to home ground, the comforts of NE1, but recent weeks have led me to realise that the artistic and cultural heartland of Newcastle is not really here.
It's in the Ouseburn Valley and the square mile that surrounds it. Starting from the Free Trade, and the road outside it like the lampost that signals the gateway to Narnia, The short walk from there to The Cluny venues and its bars, restaurants and workshops. Its magical and artistic territory now since its regeneration in the Nineties following the destruction of the working class Byker Housing Terraces and their rough and ready Industrial height and decline .
I added a couple of streets to my mental A-Z last night. Instead of heading up the hill to The Tanners Arms where I start and now end many of my Cluny or Cumberland Arms nights out I took a right under the railway bridge. I haven't been to The Cobalt Studios since the very start of Lockdown. The bleak, early Spring days before we headed into a mental tunnel from which we weren't sure when and how we might emerge.We may not be wholly out even yet.
That night in 2020 I saw Jeremy Tuplin and his band at The Cobalt, and chatted to them all at length. They were incredibly generous with their time and we talked at length about their music, their inspirations and aspirations, music in general. They also played a blinding set. Curiously Jeremy has got back in touch with me recently as he has a new album and a new tour to promote it. He's only playing Carlisle this time round. A bit too far for me to go. But I'll go and see him next time he plays here and I hope pick up the conversation.
Now behind the flapping, plastic strips that serve as the doorways to Cobalt Studios there's a young lad. He seems to me to be in his early teens but it gets more difficult to judge the older you yourself get. His teens are probably actually late ones. He's very friendly anyhow.. He tells me when the sets will be and that dinner is thrown in with the ticket price. I'm not sure how an offer like this is financially viable but I've never been one to mess with gift horses so say nothing.
Inside it's immediately apparent that I'm in the company of the cool. It's a youngish crowd considering Pram are a band with a thirty year history. They're unaffected and happy to be here. Sat in benched rows or around tables. I ask if I can sit next to an immediately friendly young couple and we chat away about this and that. They're here for the first time and all three of us intrigued by the prospect of a free dinner.
A couple of women of about my age ask if they can sit on our row too and I shift my bum so they can squeeze in too. We start to chat away as well. Newcastle is like this as I've said before. We talk about the Smashing Pumpkins initially who I overhear them name dropping. I tell them about the time I saw the band play in Cologne, just after Siamese Dream was released with one of the best friends of my life. How astonishing they were that night. How it still lives on as one of the best gigs I've ever seen.
We talk about The Fall, The Nightingales and Stewart Lee. About Birmingham where one of them is from. Then our dinners our served and they're excellent. Rice, salad and curry served in recyclable, practical boxes. It's an excellent and rather remarkable moment in the night. Something they do every Thursday apparently. It's enough in itself to make me vow to return in itself.
There's a screech of feedback from the stage. The support, Brad Field is kicking off. There's a flickering lurid technicolor film projected on the backscreen of a Seventies workout video with American women in floppy tops and trainer bottoms, sweaters and sneakers stretching and bending. Brad is a baldish, bearded man sat an eagle's perch of seating area above the stage, sitting on a drum kit he's pounding away at in almost Hip Hop fashion and spraying repetitive and shrill electronic noise all over us. I find it almost immediately unbearable and long for it to end.
The first track finally does. The woman to my right from Birmingham voices her approval to her friend and mentions Steve Reich. I'm vaguely aware of what that means musically but am not a fan of that any more than I am of Brad Field and think 'Steve Reich in the afternoon?' . Steve Wright is an appalling Radio One DJ who attracted Morrissey' ire in the mid-eighties, (inspiring him to write the lyrics to Panic and encourage the thinking UK youth to actually hang him in a fully justified response, or so he thought, to Wright's playlists and tiresome banter).
I'm wishing similar murderous intent on Brad Field. The next twenty minutes of so are an unprovoked attack on my ears, nervous system andartistic sensibilities. It's like a morning bombing raid on Baghdad during The Gulf War by Allied Planes, (OK I exaggerate, but only just.). I won't bother you with the details. Just be glad and grateful that I experienced it so you don't have to. It was Art for Art's Sake. I'd rather listen to 10CC than have to endure that again. Everyone else apparently loves it.
Twenty minutes wait. I get a drink and the six members of Pram, (if memory serve,) gather on stage) and begin to limber up for their performance. I've been looking forward to htis for a couple of weeks. Pram have a name that I remember from the Melody Makers I used to read in the Nineties. They were invariably bracketed with Stereolab and Broadcast and invariably last on the list, least likely to but worthy of respect.
Once they get started they prove their abiding credentials within thirty seconds. They're dimly lit silhouettes on a dark stage. Shadow players doing their part of the midnight shift. Forgive the cliches. They're required in this case.
Pram are strictly art school. they've done their research. Over a lifetime They open their set with one of the most extraordinary scenes in all of Hollywood noir history flickering on their backscreen. The astonishing extended glide downstream of the poor orphans in the boat during Night of the Hunter. Meanwhile the players bring the atmosphere to the boil. It's at once Weimar, Dada, witching hour. Seance on a Wet Afternoon. Night in the hive puckered up by night. It's masterfully done. One of the best opening numbers I've seen to a set. Ever frankly.
Once they've established the mood all they need to do is keep the cauldron bubbling. They do so effortlessly for the next fifty minutes. The black and white film track continues with snippets from arty black and white classics. A perfect running backdrop. The band don't speak between numbers. This is a performance, an artistic vision realised, rather than a gig. This is The Banshees and The Cure if they'd stayed faithful to their aesthetic instincts rather than setting their controls to the heart of Top of the Pops and the covers of NME and Smash Hits. It's a triumph frankly. I don't stay right to the end, I'm satisfied with what I've seen, so bid adieu to the people I've met, who've been a memorable part of the evening and its success and head for the bus.
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