December 18th 1980.
Owen Owen department store. I was seeing out my tenure in Clocks and Watches after brief forays into Toys – a tour of duty to avoid the week before Christmas, let me tell you – a nerve-racking stint in Hardware, a subject about which I am none the wiser now than I was then, Menswear and Boyswear, my spiritual home.
Owen Owen is now, I regret to reveal, a Primark. Although it is remembered by the handful of people who have read a draft of my counterfactual novel in which the dramatic denouement takes place with the sniper aiming his sights from the fifth floor amongst the emptied blanket boxes while the motorcade rumbles into sight below.
I left Coventry station on the 6.45 and got into Euston around 8. Here I met my friend Peter who had secured tickets for a special Christmas party taking place just off Leicester Square, hosted by up-and-coming new wave outfit The Cure. I was still in my store uniform with the Lloyd’s Bank statement I’d picked up before leaving home in the inside pocket.
As per Chekhov’s gun, this is going to be relevant.
It turned out the concert really was special. We had tickets 95 and 96 and only 100 people got in. On entering Notre Dame Hall, I immediately spied the Cure’s lead singer, a Robert Smith, at the bar and made a beeline for him. We talked of this and that, and I recall him mentioning the effect Ian Curtis’s death had had on him. Or maybe I asked the question and he said yes. What else? I can’t remember. But he did sign the back of my Lloyd’s Bank statement, as did Simon Gallup.
Later The Cure played a fun set which, I think, dissolved into Christmassy hi-jinks involving roadies singing and the like. But I do recall Robert having to switch from the keyboard bit quite rapidly to the guitar during A Forest, which I found impressive. During their set John Peel stood in front of me, which was fine because he wasn’t that tall. He did the strangest dance which involved him simply rotating his head.
But before that I was delighted to discover The Associates were one of the supports. I had discovered The Affectionate Punch in the Herbert Art Gallery record lending section and did not hesitate to take it out, based on a very favourable review by Paul Morley in the NME.
I was impressed. The TDK C90 tape I made of it went straight into regular play alongside Seventeen Seconds, Entertainment! and Metal Box. (You couldn’t buy all the albums you wanted; not on my Owen Owen wages.) Whomsoever was in charge of commissions in the library profoundly affected my musical tastes at that time and for ever after.
Of The Associates I remember little specific. Billy McKenzie was centre of attention and I think Paul Dempsey played bass for both them and The Cure that night, though I may be misremembering. Billy’s voice went through its multi-octave pyrotechnics, but there were only a couple of tracks from the only album I knew. Already the world was moving on.
When I got to university the following year I was having coffee with a fellow student of achingly alternative musical tastes. He nearly spat his coffee out when he saw I had The Wall and Tapestry on tape – this was a guy who’d sent off for Joy Division’s fabled Dead Souls/Atmosphere 7 inch and received a copy. The only time I impressed him was when I revealed I’d seen The Associates. I have to say though that two years later he was wearing espadrilles and had abandoned post-punk altogether so our friendship didn’t last.
Anyway, The Associates. They were the future before their time.
Tracklist:
Logan time, The Associates
Deus, The Sugarcubes
Amused as always, The Associates
My finest hour, The Sundays
Q Quarters, The Associates
Crown of love, Arcade Fire
The affectionate punch, The Associates
You’re dreaming, Wolf Parade
Paper house, The Associates
A lady of a certain age, The Divine Comedy
Party fears two, The Associates