October – December
On 1st October, Dodgy released what would be, in a couple of weeks time – their first top 40 single!
‘Staying Out For The Summer‘ reached number 38; the band and their manager, my boss, Andy Winters, were in celebratory mood! Their second album, ‘Homegrown‘ followed a few weeks later, also going top 40 – reaching number 28.
‘Homegrown‘ got a rather fabulous 9/10 review in the ‘N.M.E.‘.
Things were really buzzing in the office, Senser‘s ‘Stacked Up‘, had entered the national album charts at number 4 a month or so before and they were very busy, gigging all over in the U.K. and Europe.
They had a short Japanese tour coming up; Andy and Maurice decided that there was budget for me to take one of the monthly music magazines to Japan to cover the story. Adrian Thrills had left the company a few weeks before, and I was promoted to Head of PR. We employed Sarah Lowe as my assistant. About four years younger than me, Sarah had previously worked at Heavenly and Wiiija Records and was assistant to Annie Nightingale for her early hours ‘Chill Out Zone‘ show on Radio 1. (Theses days Sarah has her own PR company called Fifth Avenue, where she looks after The National, Thurston Moore, Graham Nash and Jackson Browne among others).
I spoke to ‘Select’ and ‘Vox‘ to see if either magazine were interested in coming to Japan.
‘Vox‘ passed and ‘Select’ said ‘yes’.
I stayed in touch with the features editor and after a day or so, I got the numbers for the journalist and photographer who were to accompany me to Japan. I then had to organise the press trip. Maurice had a bespoke music business travel agent he used, so I called and gave her all the details and she got us our flights and hotels. I took care of the rest.
The nearest place I could buy Yen was the Bank of Japan in Mooregate, EC2. I went with a pre signed cheque and bought a thousand pounds worth. A bit of a thrill travelling back to the office in Camden on the bus, with it in my pocket.
Adam Higginbotham was the journalist, I met him and the photographer at Heathrow on 15 October and we flew to Tokyo. (Adam‘s 2019 book Midnight In Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster, is an international bestseller and was named one of the New York Times’ Ten Best Books of the Year).
After the long, disorientating flight and culture shock of Tokyo Airport we got a taxi to the same hotel Senser were staying at and met up with them to go for a meal. We ordered our food by going outside and pointing at things on display in the window, none of us speaking their language and none of them speaking ours!
I have recently been in touch with Heitham, the front-man of Senser, and he was keen to share his memories of Japan. He had troubles with his voice over the five date tour, so I was intrigued to see what he would say.
Japan by Heitham Al-Sayed:
‘Flying to Japan is a pretty excruciating ordeal, or at least it was in 1994. If it was direct it would be about 14 hours but we stopped in Thailand to refuel. In those days it seemed like everybody smoked all the time so 11 hours without a cigarette meant that half the plane disappeared. It did make me wonder about the possible mix of airline fuel and lit cigarettes but nothing exploded and after about an hour we got going again. By the time we arrived at the lavish Shinjuku Prince hotel we had probably been travelling for about 24 hours.
It was early evening so I went to sleep early. I woke up at about 2.30 in the morning starving hungry. The view from the window was a majestic Blade Runner future noir of neons and giant screens. Hardly real. I found a room service menu by the bed, however there was not a word of English inside. No Latin characters whatsoever, just a few Japanese characters and pictures of closed black boxes which I imagined must contain the food. I picked box 2 at random hoping it wouldn’t be a desert. What arrived was the most beautiful clear seafood broth with fish, a little seaweed, fat noodles and a perfect poached egg in the middle. I instantly decided that I loved Japan.
The first thing that struck me about Japan was how familiar and yet very alien it was. To this day, the biggest culture shock I have ever experienced, like walking onto a parallel earth. Although the Japanese loved rock n roll music, comic books, baseball and golf, it was mixed into a sea of uniquely Japanese ways and customs. European cultural touchstones are above the surface like islands or rocks in a zen garden. Under the surface is another beautiful universe. I’m pretty good with languages. I grew up bilingual the middle east, but even there every third person could speak enough English to get by. Every product has some latin script on it. Most roadsigns are in two languages. In Japan this was not the case. Using the subway was a risk, its map a treacherous mess of noodles with no concession to foreigners. In the streets there was no asking for directions In restaurants it was mainly guesswork. I found the randomness and pot luck of everything thrilling. The atmosphere of ultra modernity, shinto traditions and mysterious cultural details generated a magical atmosphere. Sometimes pristine, sometimes sleazy it was newer than new.
There were machines vending cold coffee and hot soup, girls underwear and toys. There were fully developed young women in school uniforms walking with young men in business suits. Taxi doors opened automatically. Toilets had complex settings. Electronic sounds and voices streamed from arcades and pachinko halls. And everything tasted amazing. The band was there to play shows. My voice, however had been over used. Senser, this improbable mix of people and sounds, beats and rhymes , riffs and electronics, politics and psychedelics had already paid a lot of dues. We had seen number one singles in the indie charts before we were even signed to a label. We had done years of groundwork touring in a white van , belting out high intensity shows.
Then when we signed a deal, recorded an album and played hundreds more shows a year to promote that. It was all drawn from raw youth power and without any vocal technique to speak of. So by the time we got to Tokyo my vocal chords were vulnerable. I had obviously caught some kind of infection on the plane and, after just one gig my voice was severely compromised. One gig was not enough. We were signed to Ultimate, an independent label that was licensed to Sony in Japan. So there we all were, thousands of miles away and all on Sony records’ ¥en. They had booked us a five date tour and seeing that they had flown out our roadies, lighting technicians and merchandise people they were very keen to see me honour them.
I was sent to a hospital accompanied by my friend Mac the T-shirt man. There I was put on a drip which I presume was antibiotics and or some type of steroid. In truth I have no idea. Laying on a gurney laughing hoarsely at the whole “rock n roll doctor” atmosphere it was hard to see how it had come to this. It was “comfortably numb”, “the show must go on”, Michael Jackson in the oxygen tent, but it wasn’t quite enough to turn the ship around in time. The record company had taken us all out for a traditional meal in a private room with sliding paper doors. It was a feast of a higher nature. We ate spiny sea crabs and some kind of sea urchin caviar which cost about as much as gold. We had no idea so we’d been eating it as if it was popcorn and each time,the record company people simply politely ordered more. You could see the sweat on their brows as this laundry basket of south London youths continued to consume everything with no sign of producing anything satisfactory.
There was no way of cancelling shows so we muscled on. After a trip to hot springs and to see mount fuji we took the bullet train to the next city. We did approximate shows in Kyoto, Osaka and Nagoya and they were nothing like they should have been. I’m in in no way flattering myself to say that a Senser gig without my vocals is a disappointing thing. They’re just a big part of the story. Kerstin had never needed to carry a whole show on her own so she couldn’t just fill in the gaps. the result was a very sad misrepresentation of what the band really was. The bemused Japanese fans were treated to a mainly instrumental jam version of the set and it felt unsatisfying for everyone involved. I felt terrible. I played percussion, I tried some hoarse vocals but in the end my voice barely came back by the last show.
It’s very hard to explain the sense of guilt and responsibility you feel when you can’t do your job as a musician. It may sound obvious but here it is: People, fans of the band have bought your record. They’ve paid money to see and hear it for the first time and you have to go on stage knowing it won’t be right. If we hadn’t played so many hundreds of gigs before that and continued playing them to this day I would have been heartbroken. I knew we would though. So it has to be said that despite my voice it was a fucking incredible and unforgettable trip. We escaped to Japanese forests, saw the lakes through the bamboo at sunset. We ate fermented beans for breakfast and discovered mochi in the supermarkets at midnight. If this is starting to sound like Rutger Hauer’s monologue at the end of Blade Runner it’s because it felt like that. No one we knew had seen what we’d seen, with their eyes. At the bottom of menu in McDonalds, after the Teriyaki McBurger it said “Smile = 0 ¥en” , and so we did.’
Thanks Haitham.
Leaving Japan, for me was a bit of a nightmare. Myself and the two guys from ‘Select’ were at Tokyo airport together on the way home. I get jumpy when I’m at an airport and they were playing it cool, sauntering through the shops before we’d even got through passport control. We had just changed all our Yen back in to Sterling. The gate number was up and I was now quite edgy, asking them if they could hurry up please. I think they were kind of enjoying themselves, seeing me get panicky. Anyway, our names were called over the tannoy and I legged it, leaving them there in the queue to pay for their gifts for girlfriends. I couldn’t get through though as there was a tax machine that only took cash you needed to get a ticket from to get to the gates. I had no Yen and got slightly hysterical, jibbering at people who didn’t understand me, who quickened their pace and gave me worried sideways glances. No one spoke English. I got through after a while (can’t remember how, a blur of uniforms and faces), put my hand luggage through the x ray machine, heard our names get called again, and ran. I was the last person on the plane and was quickly shown to my seat. I thought ‘Oh, f**k I’m going to leave ‘Select’ behind – this is going to be the worst press trip ever, Ultimate will go bust and / or, I’ll get the sack…’ when they appeared, speedily walking down the aisle, breathlessly thanking the crew. I gave them a weak smile and they sat down heavily next to me.
I decided to take a sleeping pill. I knocked it back with a whisky, keen to block out some of the journey home, too embarrassed to attempt conversation. I had just swallowed it when Richard Branson came walking down the plane, saying ‘hello’ to people, chatting and asking their reason for traveling. Now, funnily enough, my parents used to know Richard Branson‘s grandparents. They lived in the same village in Surrey. They always said that Richard often came over and played in our garden (before I was born), especially when my cousin Marks was over from Belfast. As he approached, I wondered if I would say anything….but the thought of him having no idea what I was talking about, the plane full of people we’d already delayed, and having been very publicly seen taking the walk of shame to our seats, I bottled. (When I told Mum and Dad a week later, they were disappointed and knew he would have remembered them. Drat.)
After an indeterminable amount of time, I took another sleeping pill. The ‘Select‘ photographer looked mildly horrified and pointed out we had just flown over Amsterdam and were due to land in forty five minutes. Oh!
We got through customs and said our goodbyes. I then caught the Piccadilly Line from Heathrow to Arsenal (twenty six stops). A few times I found myself leaning on the shoulders of strangers as I attempted and failed, to fend off sleep. I made it home, a short walk up from the station, put my arms round Danny and fell asleep for eight hours.
A few days after I got home, I went in the studio again with jump-rope. Back to Bark in East London, working with the great Brian O’ Shaughnessy. We recorded ‘Burn‘ and an acoustic song, ‘Swallow Tail‘.
Everyone was still wondering what had happened to The Stone Roses.
For no reason I can remember apart from to have fun, Danny and I went to Paris with our friends, Amanda and Rudy. We left London on an early grey November morning and drove to the ferry, arriving in Pigalle by mid-afternoon. We checked in, relaxed, then met downstairs to go out and explore. We were already laughing as we stepped out onto the darkening pavement and into the late afternoon chill of Paris.
We walked around, stopping every now and again to go into a bar or nipping downstairs into the Metro, emerging ten minutes later onto neon streets. We ate in a wonderful, noisy cafe (where horsemeat steaks were on the menu) and drank red wine.
In a small basement bar we invented ‘Riverdance Against The Machine‘ (doing the Riverdance while singing ‘F you, I won’t do as you tell me’ in an Irish accent) which kept us amused for a surprising amount of time. We got back to the hotel quite late and quite tipsy and had to ring for the night porter. We pulled our coats around us and dug our hands into our pockets while we waited for him, keen to get into the warmth.
The next day we bowled around more, laughed more, drank a bit more and ate a bit more.
(Annoyingly I have lost my Paris ’94 photos, so I grabbed all of the above stills, all of areas we walked through including Pigalle, from YouTube ‘Paris 1994‘ by R Michael S. – with thanks)
And then it happened. On 21st November The Stone Roses released their first new material in five and a half years, the single, ‘Love Spreads‘.
I wasn’t sure what I thought. Too much pressure. Is it too long or is it cool where it goes into that second part? The other tracks on the cd single were ok.
Had to wait until ‘The Chart Show‘ to see the video. They all look good.
On 5 December, ‘The Second Coming’ album was released. I ran out from the office, to Rhythm Records on Camden High Street to buy it on cd. I didn’t play it until I got home. Danny and I lay on the floor and turned the lights off for our first listen. I felt a slightly sad sense of disappointment. ‘Ten Storey Love Song‘ was ok, ‘Begging You‘ was cool. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to love it, I wanted to squeal with delight and play it over and over…but I didn’t. We’d waited nearly six years for this; seen them while they were releasing the singles, put them on at the Buzz Club. Got the first album, on vinyl, the day it came out from Our Price in Neal Street in Covent Garden. Been to Dingwalls, the I.C.A., Ally Pally and Spike Island. I wanted them to be better than Oasis, but they weren’t. The title was so perfect. I guess it could never live up to expectations. I still loved them though and couldn’t wait to see them live again.
December came with the usual run of parties and festivities, including my birthday. I contacted a rehearsal room at London Bridge, met with them and agreed terms for me to hire it for a party. Pusherman and jump-rope were to play in different rooms (at different times) with the djs (including myself, after we played) in the other rooms. We charged £5 on the door and sold raffle tickets as drinks vouchers. There were big bins full of tinned lager (and nothing else). We were allowed to go until 4am.
I had a young guy doing the door who no one knew, so we wouldn’t constantly feel guilty about charging mates and letting them in for free. I put him in position and opened the doors, disappearing as quickly as I could. As I turned, I realised the first people coming in were Noel Gallagher and the Oasis manager, Marcus Russell. The lad on the door had been told no guest list and so charged them both! I kept going in the other direction but heard Noel say ‘that’s the first time I’ve had to pay to come into one of my own gigs’! (Marcus also managed Pusherman).
The party was wild. Drinks got spilled on guitar pedals, stopping things mid set…then carried on. Music in all of the rooms, sitting along the corridor if you fancied a break. Then the ghastly packing everything up at 4:30am and getting home. A group of us carrying on the party vibe for a couple more hours back at our flat.
This was released…
Edwyn Collins – A Girl Like You
The Senser album had done well in the end of year charts – coming no. 25 in ‘Select‘s (Oasis were no. 1)
We danced at Full Circle…
…to this
For New Year’s Eve I wore my Airwalks with silver trousers, a fake fur jacket and a Triumph motorbike tee shirt.
And looked sensational. Happy New Year!
Indie Through The Looking Glass 