the millionaire and the rentboy

here’s a song i wrote last week..

it’s about a millionaire who seeks sanctuary in a rent boy.

even though the millionaire’s married with kids ,he’s a bit bendy on the side,

and even though he’s mister moneybags,he’s unfulfilled…

and even though the rentboy’s there on the grounds of hanky panky,his real service pretty much comes down to him being warm insightful company…

i would never like to glamourise or romanticise the sex industry,though i can imagine that if navigated cleverly,it could be huge fun,even if it is surely imbued with a dark and tricky side also.

 

while living in new york i made friends with a very bright button who paid for a higher education by doing a few wealthy punters during his academic week.

he figured why be a barman working endless hours having no time left to study,when he could put his strikingly handsome body to work for a few hours,thereby freeing up valuable time for more important pursuits.

he had no moral issue with that,and nor do i.

 

i often wonder who the real prostitutes in this life are anyway.

is doing something you don’t want to do,purely for money,not an act of prostitution in itself?

and no matter what the job, is it not up to the individual, how well they dignify any task at hand…well dear reader…i ask you?

are we all not prostitutes at some point,on some level during our lives?

everyone is selling out in this life…the trick is to be in control of your own selling out process.

 

in london i know a transexual who has ‘clients’…the interesting thing about her story is at her centre, she’s a fine songwriter and performer…..

she plays in an excellent retro rockabilly trio…invests her honest money on fine guitars..

one of her amusing tales is she visits a man in the central london area of belgravia…he’s married…lives in several countries,

but there was one christmas she was visiting this client..this client would have her insert dildos up his krunker….and once done and dusted,they’d talk for hours about all sorts of worldly and art related things….

then before disappearing into the dawns early light , she’d help the client wrap the christmas presents for his wife and children, who would be arriving the next day from france.

i go to pieces when i think about that.

 

anyway dear reader…i spent the guts of my weekend writing this song in a terrible funk…

i’d just turned 54 years of age and had one of those existential crisis things.

so i’m now throwing this song out there to put it behind me,with the intention of moving on, and writing something more *up*(maybe)

all my loving…

mary of the wilderness.

king schitt of fuck mountain…memoirs continued.

it’s 1981,and after five years away from the place,i’m now back in northern ireland with the intent of forming a new band with myself centre stage as king schitt of my own fuck mountain.

the political conflict is in full fling with bobby sands on hunger strike,while the careless hand of maggie thatcher just keeps drizzling petrol on an already fizzing fire.

on paper,northern ireland in 1981 should be the last place on earth you’d want to be,but i and many others were having a ball.

there’s two things that can make the north of ireland pure heaven or at least bearable,and that would be the abundance of switched on hippies, and a good sunny summer.

 

within days of being back there, i was taken under the wing of the daughter and her husband of a family who ran the local jeweller shop in portrush.

they are the oldest family business in the town.it’s been handed down through the generations over a hundred years now,while her husband played groovy bass in a fantastic band called ‘the mighty shamrocks’.

he also plays bass for one of paul mc cartney’s guitar players,henry mccullough.

the long sunny summer had just begun,and they would have me sleep on their sofa,then wake me in the morning to mugs of strong tea,with a full fry up of a breakfast.

i was made to feel so welcome …..and we’re still good friends to this day.

for all of the troublesome elements of northern ireland,the only people i were meeting were talented musicians,teachers,university folk,and painters,

many of them out of their heads on marijuana and sometimes L.S.D or magic mushrooms.

i became more clued into music, breathing in that clean north coast air,than i ever could have in the throbbing heart of london.

there was one chap..a scientist who sailed boats from the harbour, who’d spark up a joint from his seaside living room,while turning me on to that wonderful brian eno/david byrne record.

there was an artist who was a keen surfer,blazing up his marijuana pipe, turning me on to john cooper clarke,while he quietly painted brilliantly with oils in his attic.

all these super smart hippies back in the little seaside town i grew up in, a long long way from london, were now exposing me to the newest records…

 

i even had a girlfriend…she was ten years older than me, with three kids,but it hardly mattered…

there would be a small cluster of girls in my life before i finally came to terms with being a shirtlifter,and i’m very glad i experienced that kind of intimacy.

this lady was a fierce vegetarian,read a lot…loved music….refused to live in the mainstream,and as result her friends were of that same milieu…

it was a good scene for a fledging songwriter.

my new friends ‘the mighty shamrocks’,who were permanently out of there heads, played in a cozy venue by the harbour ,

they’d drag me up to sing in my own right with them accompanying ,making it so darn easy for me…

i remember thinking,wow i can really do this…i’m broke…i’ve got nothing,but i’m not trapped…i was so high on possibility,thanks to these fine fine people.

they’d lend my new group their amplifiers and gear…share their gigs…big hearted dope drenched maestros.

i shat out lorry loads of naive but sparky songs ,which gave me the material to form my first earnest attempt at being a serious player…

but serious was my undoing, because over a short time i became the most serious precious little cunt you could possibly meet.

no one could tell me to loosen up..i was just on too much of a mission with too much to prove.

but for a while, there was a honeymoon…

my plan was to get keen young players..it didn’t matter how inexperienced they were…they just had to kick arse..which they did beautifully.

this worked for a while,only i suppose the drugs became a double edged sword.

on one hand they were unlocking creativity,but on the other, they were making me frightfully insecure ..

the marijuana wasn’t too much of an issue at this stage…

it was the cheap speed i was using to keep me up all night for the lengthy rides to and from dublin, for the lower price recording studio rates at midnight till 8.am.

 

speed is a terrible drug..it’s filthy..unhealthy…it makes you sweat…it made me even more paranoid than what i naturally am…and it lingers in the lens long after the comedown.

but drugs appealed to me for their creative possibilities..they weren’t a social thing..if anything, they turned me into even more of a loner.

but the end result was some recorded music that our well connected managers were able to shop around for a deal with.

a record deal arrived on the table in no time at all.

you would think after my first bash in rosetta stone,i’d be primed and savvy..but if anything i sort of went backwards.

my innocence was gone…the drugs had made me hyper,imbalanced and strange…twitchy..almost autistic in demeanour ,and i’d either over think or under think everything.

 

none of this was made any rosier when my father decided to commit suicide during the same month of us signing that record deal.

i never really got to know my dad…

he was quite elusive and distant,and the only time he really connected was when he’d be drinking in his pub after hours.

he was lovely with drink in him actually…he would relax and laugh…

he was very good-looking,had fantastic style…never made bad choices with his clothes..thick lustrous hair..and a face not unlike clark gable.

i have particular memories of him…one of him when i was around eleven years old, putting my first guitar up against the wall like firewood,then slamming his foot through it..

this happened on two occasions within the same year.

i remember feeling lost in the weird aftermath of not knowing what to do with these broken instruments..it seemed wrong to just bin them…

i can still hear the sudden sickening sound as they’d bust in two….twang…clunk…then silence.

he would always buy me a new one the next day though..

and another memory is when that thing came on the telly called M.A.S.H..

the theme tune would go ‘suicide is painless…it brings on many changes…and i can take or leave it if i please’….horrible record.

the strange thing was,my dad wasn’t madly into music,but he definitely liked that song a lot,cause he’d singalong word for word while smiling..

but i was too young to clock the weight of it.

i believe one of his brothers also jumped off this mortal coil in a similar way.

dear reader..don’t let these words paint a picture of a monster…he just wasn’t…he was pretty special actually..was never jivey..and he had a definite integrity about him,and ours was a fine home.

when i think back about him putting his foot through my earliest guitars,i sort of understand it now…

it’s not easy being a parent…mothers and fathers must feel like they’re cracking up a lot of the time..especially when it’s a big family.

a difficult thing was in the 1960′s he would be away in the far east for long periods of time,and during one such time i cultivated an excellent beatles moptop hairstyle.

he’d suddenly be back, and the next day marching me down to the barbers,where i had to be literally held down snarling and biting while all my loverly hair was chopped off.

how i hated those trips to the barbers…he was military through and through, actually marching me and a younger brother shouting ‘left right left right swing yer arms’

and he was always at me not to slouch…’stand up straight lad’….he meant well…he just wanted his boys to have good posture..but i was an extremely effeminate child.

it made me recoil and become even more effeminate.

 

here’s a picture of my dad…he’s third from the left.

i think about him a lot..as i get older i almost look similar him…it’s oddly comforting.i like him a lot,regardless of his ill judged exit from this world.

and so it goes, my gorgeous new band called ‘perfect crime’ get this record deal in london with MCA.

the biggest mistake that record company made was meeting one of my demands in buying me the gubbins of an eight track recording studio…

once i wired that sodding thing up,the dear band almost became redundant to me.

a combination of marijuana, musical ego,lonerism,dads exit,and a DRUM MACHINE,had me bolting the door behind everyone.

i don’t think i’ve fully come out from behind that door to this very day.

this was wrong of me because previous to that blasted studio, this fab little band was like ‘gang of four’ fronted by a male version of bette midler.

here’s a photo…i’m the one with the dyed burgundy hair(wouldn’t you know it)

the drugs in the studio were making me creative to the point where i would loose the plot entirely,and recast my band as actors..

the excellent and able drummer was often replaced by a drum machine,and i would record him acting as a strict christian headmaster, caning the evil out of a school pupil,

and i would have the bass player channelling that pupil screaming,while we faked the sound of a cane coming down…

i thought it was magic..and still do

here it is….it ended up on the b-side of an awful single called’i feel like an eskimo’

it got reviewed in the nme,and a most excellent critic called gavin martin said “if gregory gray feels like an eskimo,he should fuck off to the antarctic and find one”,

on reflection, that’s hilarious and most deserving..

but here’s that magic b-side..i’m quite proud of it…the david essex ‘rock on’  bass guitar sound…my amphetamine vocal,with my band recast as actors…

dear reader…if yer impatient,the laughable drama occurs around one minute thirty seconds in.

naturally within a year of this record contract i was dropped for being a total nightmare…

the posh public schoolboy that signed us, who’s dad was a high court judge, found me to be completely unworkable,

but up the corridor was another posh boy who’s father was the editor of the mail on sunday,and he found my madness thrilling…

he pulled me to one side and told me i was going to be dropped,but not to worry…

he was headed for new pastures,and that once he’d settled in,he’d be in contact…he kept his word too.

i remember on the final tour of this fine group feeling very low and lonely..

it had all been such a gas opening for the early U2…orchestral manoeuvres in the dark…eurythmics,but i had fucked it up royally.

on the last gig in the coastal town of hastings, i took a walk after the soundcheck on my own,and saw this bookshop selling postcards …

it must have been some sort of gay scene cause there was this postcard of an idealised gay domestic household..

two men…clean…solvent..with their arms around each other…dignified..happy…manly and sexy…

i stood in the freezing wind staring in the shop window at this dumb fucking postcard of gay domestic bliss…..hahahahaha….fuck±!@£$%^&*

right in that moment it was all i wanted..i was so lonely….but i’d have to wait 15 more years for that.

 

another thing that threw me out into deep space is at the beginning of this chapter, i’d changed my name.

if there’s anyone with pop star blood coursing through their veins reading this,i have to tell you to think very carefully before making this leap.

i had no idea what a heavy lick it is to change your name…i can’t say i regret it,cause i can now see i was hardwired to do this at some point anyway.

the artifice of the pop world was the only thing i’d ever known..it felt as natural as the day to reinvent and transform…but alas,very difficult for anyone who’d known me all their life.

it never crossed my onerous little mind the hurt that my family would feel….

but it was something i had to do…a combination of utter pretence,creative impulse,and more than anything, a total lack of self worth.

i went from being paul lerwill,to gregory gray…i wanted something sumptuous and smooth,simply because i was/am not.

 

the tricky thing about changing my name is i’d end up with two boxes of people in my life…

there was the paul folk,and then the gregory folk…

but inevitably the two worlds would overlap in situations..

this would freak me out ,and i’d exile from the room sharpish, cause i hadn’t developed the élan to handle it.

i suppose the only way to handle such a thing is to say flat out to everyone..this is the name..my new name..get used to it.

over the thirty plus years,i’ve grown into gregory,but to make life even more confusing there’s now this ‘mary cigarettes’ business…

but that’s really a moniker for my new music,even if folk do call me mary sometimes,which is fun…but then shirt lifters are always calling each other mary..especially in america…gay urban slang.

 

my life story must read as a manual in how not to become successful..

but all turned out pretty great in the end,although there was a load more musical rough and tumble before i’d gain any handle on life.

in the next post,i’ll dribble on about heading back to london to record my first solo album,and all the joy and disaster of that.

 

dear reader…i hope i’m readable..

i enjoy writing it down,and the clarity i untangle from doing so.

always

mary of the sand dunes.

 

hooray hooray …the 1st of may… outdoor sex begins today.

sorry about the title of this post, sweethearts …..i couldn’t help myself.

this is just a quick post to give you some new music.

i suppose this is some sort of hangover song

i was heading home on the tube train after a wild day on the town recently, and felt a little bit blue.

i figured this is the price i pay for instant self gratification,

and i was thinking the times i feel best or most happy are when i’m being of better service to myself,or at least being of service to other people instead…

 

tube trains are a great place to take self council…especially if they’re empty,and you catch that defused reflection of yourself in the window opposite.

i’m tired of feeling like crap when i don’t need to….it’s not just about exercise or diet or too much inebriation ….

it’s just…sometimes wanting this..wanting that……thrill seeking on the tired old scene…want want want..

there’s more happiness at home cleaning the toilet…working on a new song…singing….giving the dog a good brush (which he loves)…helping or being generous to someone else…

that’s were the good feeling resides.

 

hooray hooray the 1st of may…outdoor sex begins today…

mary… and her dog..after the war.

joining my first ever pop group… continued

in my pre-teen years,i learned to play simple guitar during a lengthy spell out in singapore.

i would skive off beyond the wire mesh cage of the air force camp,where chinese and malaysian kids would teach me british/american hits by the likes of the kinks and creedence clearwater revival,

and then on returning to ireland,i got a weekend gig as a fourteen year old, accompanying a local star called ‘the singing farmer’.

he was a kind hearted burly guy who sang songs about faith healers,and his good life in the countryside.

but then he gently,though quite rightly fired me,when my mum bought me a wah wah guitar pedal for my 15th birthday, which i relentlessly ploughed through his every waltz,foxtrot, and quickstep..

 

so that was my then musical qualifications as a guitar player…fairly colourful,but very very basic.

….roll the movie on five years later with me in england,and thanks to the svengali who’d been rogering me up the shitter , a vacancy comes up in one of his teen groups.

 

let me give you the background to this teen group who were called *rosetta stone*.

they were a rocking little irish affair who suddenly gained temporary international attention,

when the cutest of the five was plucked away from them by the svengali to join the scottish bay city rollers at the height of their fame,

only to return to his original irish bandmates a year later…but then having returned,decided once again to leave … hence the vacancy that i would fill.

 

so having been away from edinburgh for nearly two years,i return for the audition.

i would like to tell you i ‘passed the audition’,

but i suspect on account of me being young,irish,cute,and having taken the svengali’s bellend up the chocolate starfish, my position was 75% secure before i even headed back up through england on the train.

…however,purely for practical reasons, they did have to just check i could actually play guitar…

turns out i was ropey enough,but workable.

so with five days of intense rehearsing, i just about learned their live setlist.

 

the first night of playing live with these boys was baptism by fire…

even though it was in some rickety scottish village hall,their young exclusively female fans travelled miles,even whole continents to watch and scream at them.

i was soooo looking forward to it…not even nervous …

i was just hungry and curious for the sensation of fan worship .

but when i graced the stage all cocky and willing,i got a rude jolt of reality from the shit storm that awaited me.

“who the fuck is he?” they moaned ..

the trouble was..the chappy who i’d replaced was an ex bay city roller…it didn’t dawn on me that he was the main pull of this band,

punk bands getting spat at by their male audience is one thing…but girls in search of the bubblegum rush are far more hardcore!

bands always think there’s more cred in having a male audience,but they should never under rate the vicious devotion of young teenage girls…

and those girls evidently hated me.

so that was my wings well and truly clipped for a day or two…

i soon warmed to those girls who followed the band everywhere…and they eventually accepted me into the fold.

one of them who came over from kansas at every opportunity was raped by hells angels in the middle of england while following the band from gig to gig,and still she kept the course…

she still writes to me…she still digs music.

one of them went on to work professionally for the manic street preachers… still into music,and encourages me to this very day…

some of them grew up to become fine music journalists… clearly their rock n roll passion spilled over into their future lives.

these girls would arrive at gigs knowing all about your interests,and on those grounds would greet you with the most considered gifts..

gorgeous clothes…records..hand made cassette compilations for long journeys..and they were often very funny too.

you’d see the same faces in worthing as you would in some tiny town in germany or denmark…

they’d hide and sleep under trees at night if they couldn’t find lodgings.

 

in theory,joining this group was not a very bright move…

punk rock had already morphed into new wave,and here was me,in my prime, joining a sodding early 70′s style teenybopper group…

but it was a hoot ..

i had a blast attempting to upstage the singer at every opportunity ..

the guitar player who must have hated my guts,had no choice but to teach me what i needed to know…

they might have been teenyboppers to the world,but that guitar player was gifted, and i learned loads off him…

it must have been a drag for the poor guy,having to patiently teach guitar parts to this screamer who gatecrashed into their bubble, out of the blue.

heaven only knows how they coped with my presence…but i’m grateful that they did.

and so what if punk rock had changed things in england…

it didn’t much matter in germany,where there was little or no social context for angry music…

the big star in germany wasn’t johnny rotten..it was david hasselhoff,so us young boys were the bleeding edge of rock n roll by comparison.

i loved going to germany with these fellas….the toilets were clean..and dressing rooms gave you a feeling of self worth…

in 70′s broken britain the toilets were pigging…the accommodation was insulting…the dressing rooms were often the toilets,

and once you’ve had a taste of continental cleanliness,it’s a drag to come down off it..

we’d go to munich or somewhere to do television,

but on the return to heathrow,we’d watch shakin stevens who sat on the plane with us, getting picked up and whisked away in a limo,

while we’d be met by a roadie in a filthy white van.

young as we were, the fifteen minutes of fame was up,and as the bay city rollers slipped further and further into the rock n roll sewer,naturally so would we.

the brief spell of star living that i caught the tag end of was almost over, and by the time i’d settled in,we were travelling with the roadies…

and then the roadies went too…

at one stage we were so broke that eating involved buying a loaf of bread, a few packets of cheese slices,and assembling our own butterless sandwiches in the van behind the venue.

but it was cool…we loved cheese sandwiches.

occasionally we’d get treated to a slap up meal in a fancy restaurant around cavendish square in london or wherever …

i remember ordering fish in this posh scene,but i didn’t know how to de-bone it…

so mike mansfield..the silver haired supersonic guy reached over and did it for me…

and one of the band, in a stab at being all adult,ordered the cheeseboard instead of pudding,

but when it came,he asked if they had any kraft slices…

funny how rock and roll slyly cultivates its inmates.

 

the crazy thing was,with all the gigging we were getting rather good,

but the svengali would piss on our chips all the time…

he was such a fucked up control freak,that he feared his boys might develop and become successful,

it was so perverse…

he hated everything that was new..and he didn’t like it, if you liked anything that was new.

one time he was off in america on bay city roller business,and i heard iggy pop was coming to edinburgh odeon…

well!!!..i just had to go…and i did…alone…. a new group i never heard of called the psychedelic furs were supporting,and i lapped it up like cream…

in my mind,that one single evening wiped away the 1960′s and 1970′s in my head for quite a while

i could feel this new music in the air.

so svengali isn’t happy about me going out to a gig…worse still was i stayed out all night at a girls house…not just any house….a girls house…

when he got wind of this,he was livid .

he laid into me in his shitty big naff pine 70′s  kitchen in front of the rest of the band, while they didn’t dare say boo…

“who the fuck is iggy pop?

ye bin readin toooo many NME’S again, son…

that stuff just fills yer heed wae shite…

yer heed’s fill o shite,son

who the fuck is iggy pop?!…

he’ll nivir be big in japan”…did ye shag the fish too ..are ye intae fish?!

i just stared blankly at him,which made him worse….

the group themselves didn’t stand up for me…

and the svengali was becoming intimidating now…i worried he might hit me…

turns out his trip to america was him being officially fired by the bay city rollers,so i served as a bit of a chopping block…

fuck this…i decided to leave…and went incognito…

the band told their fans i was just sick,and i did return for a short spell…

when i came back,the rest of the group were finally gaining some clarity regarding this slob…

i mean..there was plenty to go on…

one night we all went out to eat in his rolls royce,and when he pulled into the filling station,he’d forgotten the keys for the petrol flap…

so he took a crow bar and prized open the petrol flap on this dear rolls royce at a filling station,while we sat in the comfy back seats in blind denial of this philistine…

the worst experience of him was at an actual gig…

thank heavens he rarely came along,but when he did, we’d go together in his big white range rover…

one night we play in this lovely wee place called bonnyrigg,and when we leave, there was always a bunch of  sweet girls who would block the car..

it was fun…

but svengali hated the wee dolls who made him rich,and he wrecklessly ran his range rover over a young girls toe hurrying back to his shitty large 70′s new build bungalow which he perceived as a mansion.

 

we had to leave him…but he scared us,

so we planned a moonlight…

we had a new manager waiting to meet us on our early morning arrival in london..

and driving down there through the night,escaping him, felt very exciting.

 

we tried to re-invent ourselves a bit…but if you’re gonna jump..you better jump far..and we simply didn’t leap far enough…

the only difference was i started wearing make-up…and looked completely ridiculous,

and i was still constantly trying to upstage the singer…who was such a cool guy.

i had to leave and get my own thing together….

so i went back to square one, and returned home to northern ireland to form a group where EYE could be king shit of fuck mountain as a singer.

 

so that was my first pop group and manager…

two years after bailing this scene, he ended up in prison,and further down the line while getting fatter and fatter, he finally pegged it in his bubbling hot tub.

he was so fat and heavy in his final hour,the fire brigade had to come with a crane to hoist his dead carcass out of the tub, and haul it off to the morgue.

i would occasionally call him down through the years,in moments of morbid curiosity.

his phone number was too easy to remember….

he’d brag and brag about his money ,and i got a huge kick out of softly telling him that no one gave a fuck about his money…that it’s boring.

i loved telling him how no one cares about anyone else’s money but their own…tell me something else…but he had nothing to tell..he was empty.

he couldn’t cope with his own peer group..or woman..he mostly needed very young men around him at all times..but not for their energy or smarts…more because they were easy to control.

when i think about that i feel sorry for him…

i figure something  must have happened  ..someone maybe crushed him when he was younger, and it vandalised his map..he left all his money to charity which must be the most passive aggressive gesture ever.

but i also know that ten minutes in his loathsome self serving company would wipe all thoughts of compassion away…

still.. for two years i loved loved loved being in that band…

we were bags of energy on stage..loud and keen..and the singer and drummer came off every night soaking in sweat.

it was a great way for youngsters to get a taste of the world outside of northern ireland or the uk.

 

dear reader…sorry if that was far too long.

my next post is all about going home and rediscovering northern ireland as a magical place for music at the height of the troubles…

the onslaught of drugs into my creative life,and a few other extremely sad things.

 

here’s a video of that fantastic teen group caught on german telly..

i’m the arse with the pink guitar,trying to hog the camera from the singer.

all my loving

mary of the wilderness.

nights in white satin … my final days as a disc jockey

having now left edinburgh, i had an 18 month stint as resident disc jockey in large velvet sticky red carpeted cabaret clubs around england..

just round the last two years of the 1970′s.

the lyceum up the strand in london…then birmingham,and finally leicester.

 

the interesting thing about that was catching fading stars on the slide, up close.

it was bazaar to see slade, of all groups play to a half empty mid week room full of couples at dinner tables eating scampi and chips.

punk rock had rendered these dear souls ‘cattle out to graze’ in one chop of an axe.

the heartbreaking, yet life affirming thing about that was how those sweet maestros still cared..

i’d arrive early before opening time to watch noddy and the boys sound checking for the week ahead with keen exactness,

like it was wembley or something,but it was just a fairly large cabaret club,where they’d play for the whole week.

the audience were married men and wimmin at round tables either getting drunk or on the pull..

lovely folk really…but much more about entertainment than actual music.

i loved watching the weekly soundchecks/rehearsals on the monday, before doors opened…

it could be quite funny watching someone like the three degrees…

one of them was a proper cow,and i enjoyed lounging around before opening time, taking it all in while she shamelessy humiliated her musical directer…chucking coffee around..

in her own head she was still a big star,but in reality she was on the slide, and no spring chicken either.

a big let down with pop groups on the slide is you imagine you’re gonna recognise each member instantly,

but the thing is, the wise ones jump ship before it sinks,only to be replaced with vague lookalikes.

i remember the drifters coming, and feeling very excited about that,yet the only one i recognised was the little tubby bald one.

it was just so odd for me, still a teenager, encountering these satin clad stars i’d watched on top of the pops,but now in the context of a threadbare midlands cabaret club.

 

it kills me to say it,but the comedians were far more gripping to behold…

it occurred to me that when people grow up and join the vulgar world of adulthood,they switch from rock n roll to comedy.

it would seem that for lots of folk, once life becomes hum drum,there’s more escapism in laughter than music.

comedians just seemed to have more edge than the musicians…

musicians only gain edge if they make that crucial leap from bog standard jobbing muso, toward fully blown fucked up artist….most don’t,or can’t….they choose to flatline.

only the bravest derail their success, for the sake of a creative future.

generally,there was a deeper neurosis about the comedians…they’d either hide in their dressing rooms like the utterly miserable tommy cooper did,

or they’d be mingling afterwards like needy fuckers.

jim davidson was classic stuff.. he was quite young at the time, and off his rocker on lines of speed.

it totally informed his fast talking performance..he was addicted to the sound of laughter,and he entertained the staff well after closing time…it took surgery to remove him from the after hours bar so  everyone could go home.

then there was bernard manning…sailing very close to the wind with his dodgy humour…

he would walk up to the microphone apologising for being late on account of having trouble with his heameroids.

same script everynight….and that’s the one thing the comedians and music acts had in common..

a script.

even those personable spontaneous little ad-libs that singers do during the intro of a ballad..

it was exactly the same every night…i was shocked..

it was a revelation to know every word and subtle move was planned.

….even more compelling was the up and coming comedians who hadn’t quite got it together yet…

a remember lenny henry screaming desperately at an audience to laugh at a string of jokes that didn’t quite have legs.

singer or comedian..they both have one thing in common..they stand or fall by their material,

which is probably one of the reasons i love songwriting…it’s a life blood.

 

regardless of now having seen the gritty workmanlike reality of music and entertainment,it didn’t put me off for a second.

i was now on a mission to be in the very grooves of a record,rather than be playing them.

 

dear readers…on my previous post i said i’d write about that, and how the dodgy svengali manager in my first pop group ended up dying in his hot tub,

but this part of my life story has taken up more words than i planned,so i’ll get into that on my next post.

 

y’know a strange thing about writing stuff down at this stage of life, is the feeling of how past present,and future all merge at the same time.

be here now for it all, folks…lots of love..

mary wilderbeast.

losing my virginity …(continuation from previous post)

a cool thing about being involved in music is how it can quickly shrink any big city you might move to.

the business of music lays a wire net over these electric hubs, making it easier for you to become hooked up to other souls.

also,if you’re of a certain oeuvre,it doesn’t take long before natural selection begins to kick in….

like a dream, i became surrounded and loved by the most flamboyant of edinburgh youth…

fellow disc jockeys… trainee precision hairdressers…and other sweet young music lovers.

 

so there i am …working away as a disc jockey..not quite seventeen yet,and then one early afternoon, another fay young music minded clubber takes me to the outskirts of edinburgh to meet the svengali who manages the bay city rollers.

by now i’d heard he was a poof,and talk of this, through equal measures of fear and desire, would send the blood rushing to the cheeks of my teenage face.

he lived outside the city by the airport, at a place called gogarburn, near a mental hospital.

i was just thrilled to be going out there.

 

the first hit of this experience is when our black cab rolls up the end of a hidden country road, only to be confronted with a high reclusive wall and gate.

there’s one of those intercom affairs,from which a rather raw young voice hollers “whoooo is it? what do ye want?”

we get let in to the sound of aggressive guard dogs,then wait in a kitchen for the mainman to appear.

while waiting, i goggle wide eyed at the gold discs on the walls, and feel uneasy in the presence of other youth there…

real rough ones hanging around a range style oven scoffing fast food, talking in strong scottish brogue,but ignoring me.

the svengali eventually appears,and is very aloof..hardly registering my presence,though in hindsight he most certainly was.

he’s pretending to be engaged in more pressing matters,but it’s just part of his game.

i know this because over time i gradually learn how this man had young tight arse seared on the brain,

and mine was fresh as daisies, and super tight to boot.

i could only stay for so long,cause i had to get back into edinburgh in time to play records,and dear readers, i was never late to play the records,

but once i started making moves to call a cab to leave,he suddenly starts engaging with me,which thrills me no end.

i tell him how i was only yards away from him at that bay city rollers show back at the flamingo ballroom in ballymena,and how much i enjoyed the chaos of it all.

he liked that, and implored me to return soon….very soon…. very very soon…and i did….on my own…after work that night…when it was dark.

 

call me a born whore if you like,but i’m not afraid to tell you i was gagging for it.

i knew what i wanted,even though i’d never properly had it…

… in an actual bed…with a big strapping man…my own specific type…which is…

not pretty…not skinny…nice n old…

overweight,but not too overweight…

bald is good…[he was on the way].

a little bit durty even…like a coalman.

and this meathead, on the surface of things, fitted my requirements to perfection.

 

it took a few visits before he parked his bellend up my krunker,…

i guess he had plenty fish to fry…

but then it happened …

in his dimly lit 1970′s bedroom..complete with shagpile carpet…cork wall tiles…

the sound of his bang and olufsen hifi drifting in from the living room…

and then the bed….one of those stupid glugular waterbeds…

i’m lying there bollock naked when he tells me to hold my hand out,

where he retrieves this big family size carton of pineapple flavour vaseline intensive care hand cream lotion from his bedside cupboard, and then sqwidges it into my palm..

he says “rub that round yer arse, son”…

which i wisely do…

he lurches over me with his big unfit gut,

then throwing my sturdy manboy legs up over his shoulders,and with no empathy or foreplay whatsoever,proceeds to jam his pork right up my tight little shitter….

well readers, the feeling was one of unspeakable discomfort,

like that thing if you’re in desperate need of a crap, but the situation means you have to wait…

it was confusing too,cause i sort of wanted it…or wanted something, but this just wasn’t it…

and now he’s banging away, which makes his fat face sweat…

his chosen position,from where i’m pinned, gives him more chins than a chinese phone book…

then in a raspy scottish brogue,which was probably the only sexy thing about this haul,he growls

“relax son”….“play wae yersel …play wae yersel”…

so i’m whacking off there, which almost distracts from the discomfort ..but not for long,

cause i was young y’see..and at that age,i’d blow my load in a new york second just by touching myself…

which i did, but he’s still banging away at my roasted hole,and now i’m post coital, so to speak…

but he’s still squelching away,which felt like it was just going to go on and on forever….

eventually he reaches his unremarkable climax, which has all the passion of a postage stamp ,

ye gods readers,it was a great relief when he pulled out though…what a relief?!..

and that was that, sweethearts… yours truly, a virgin no more.

 

i hobbled off to the bathroom where i splashfarted out a stingy cocktail of compressed air…pineapple scented vaseline intensive care hand lotion, semen ,and blood,

which is a disarming memory in the spectre of the decades of aids that would follow…

whenever i visited that house,i always knew when some arse had undergone a rogering,cause i could smell

the vaseline pineapple scented intensive care hand lotion wafting around the kitchen.

 

y’know when i look back, i like that kid that i once was…and maybe it’s the very reason why i share this with you…

for he had real pluck…he was fluid and fun loving,and thankfully more than anything, he had, and still has a real sense of wonder for music….somewhere over the last years i’ve taken measures to re-connect with aspects of that kid,cause over time,he really did start to take himself far too seriously… an occupational hazard of working in music.

 

so there it was.. this disappointing mediocre sex…

singers sing so romantically about the first time,but for me it was just an arduous haul .

however…this didn’t stop me from wanting to come back for more,and even more stupid was i developed this huge unhealthy crush for the man.

i think it was a combination of desperately wanting some sort of older male affection in my life,and being completely impressed by all the gold discs on his walls…

i mean…i was so young,and time has proven that music would be my life…not just some phase…and he appeared on the surface of things, a proven music person…i projected my needs on to him.

he also looked like a coal man … he was just ticking all these boxes in me.

my dear wee arse hole sort of got used to the occasional shagging[sort of],but it was always leaving me feeling a bit lost and empty.

i’d try and wedge my way into a heterosexual mindset,with some gorgeous smart girls..but that wasn’t right either…

it would be over a decade, before i’d encounter a sincere decent man who i’d have a more connected fulfilling experience with,and i’m happy to tell you,i am still with him to this very day….and managers too…

the managers i had after this beast were far more substantial.

 

many of my friends back in the city gave me a hard time for going out to this pop svengalis house…

they could see he cast a strong spell on me,

these young hairdressers and clubby friends of mine were much more fun and healthier company too,

yet i’d too often forego evenings with these sweet creatures,in the name of my misdirected drive and curiosity.

 

it wasn’t long before i was going to turn eighteen,and late night conversations often came round to the idea of london.

some of my hairdresser pals would go down there for the big hair shows,and when they’d return they’d never shut up about the place…london this..london that,and i loved hearing about it.

also i wanted to deepen my game, and become a recording artist….

so i left edinburgh for the big smoke with a beautiful girl,only to return less than two years later to join one of the svengalis other pop groups, which was a great experience for a while…though now the relationship became plutonic.

i will tell you all about that in the next episode,and how we had to do an undercover moonlight to escape him before he eventually came to a sticky end in his own jacuzzi.

 

this is very much a rock and roll tale of the 1970′s …

and so i’ll leave you with a video of me acting out one of my songs as a rock and roll ghost, in a haunted old school 1970′s vinyl record shop .

it’s also a tribute to record store day, which i believe happens this forthcoming weekend.

 

always

mary of the wilderness.

 

she’s leaving home…bye bye

one of my many regrets in life is not having acquired a camera as a teenager,

for i was blessed to be raised in the most colourful surroundings of a northern ireland seaside town called portrush.

the great thing about growing up in a small irish seaside town,is you could run riot at a very young age without getting lost or into too much trouble.

from around eight/nine years old, many of us had lightweight summer work of walking donkeys on the beach…

then in our early teens we’d graduate to work in amusement arcades …

my younger brother did the mats for the helter skelter,and i did the change booth.

i loved working there on the main street arcade…the booth itself was situated right beside a never ending jukebox,

which made the day a rock n roll education by sheer osmosis.

..and the job suited me…

i sat there like a right little pansy reading my ‘jackie’ and ‘disc’ and ‘sounds’,

glumly changing punters shillings for pennies all day long….

pretending to be a pissed off teenager,but happy as a pig in shit really.

 

then after three years spent living in singapore, my dad retired from the air force,to settle us back in ireland, and buy a pub in a town up the road from portrush called ballymoney…

they sent me on a catering course,cause they figured they’d maybe extend into a restaurant ,and i could perhaps come in on the family business as a chef (as if ).

 

now here’s a story….

the main street of this town had been bombed the year before..

and just up the top of the street was the technical college where i had two solid days of cookery class…

i was fifteen,and the bay city rollers had come over from scotland to play in the neighbouring town of ballymena at the flamingo ballroom…

naturally i went,and it was a gas..all these girls wetting their actual knickers,then pretending to faint before getting carried out on stretchers by the red cross …

i chummed a lift with the local irish band that was opening for them,so i had a great view from beside the stage,where i watched the hairy manager of the bay city rollers shout and harangue the minions.

a couple of years later i would get to know this shytebox of a man intimately,but for now i was just one hundred per cent impressed with this arsehole and the drama around him.

 

so anywayyyy…back to cookery class, where now emboldened by my new flimsy pop credentials,i defiantly began turning up to the kitchen in huge platform shoes, and cockney rebel trousers…

on my way through the pub in the morning out to class, i would steal two bottles of coca cola from behind the bar for the cookery,cause it was thirsty work learning how to make irish stew and apple pie.

i was the only boy on this course,and there was a beautiful girl in the class who would always steal my coke.

she was a tiny gorgeous specimen with shaggy layered blonde hair,but she was tough,and you wouldn’t dare fuck with her..

she wore bovver boots and skinners…*skinners* were wide baggy denims with big turn ups that ended half way up the leg to show off a stripy sock at the high of the boot.

so there’s her…and she’s always stealing my bottles of coke,but one day i had the bright idea of hiding my fizz in a oven that wasn’t going to be used.

someone tipped her off,and she being even more wayward than myself,lit the oven.

next thing is this whack of a bang…

the front door of the oven blasts open and buckles…

the cookery teacher ends up with glass shrapnel in her shin…

and because of the bomb just down the road the year before,anyone who heard the bang thought another had gone off..

i got merry hell for this…my mum and dad were summoned to the principles office and i got the back of my fathers hand like never before…

my own history at this point is already in the sewer,for i was already sent to a shrink at the ballymoney health centre on wednesdays for being a *problem child* .

nothing was wrong with me at all..on reflection i was simply living the teenage dream.

 

wind the tape forwards to the early 21st century,

where one night i turn on the telly here in england, and catch some northern irish news in bed.

there was a woman crying..her new born baby had been killed in a terrorist attack..they put a petrol bomb through her window…

i suddenly realised it was the girl in my cookery class…she was in pieces,and all that lovely high spirit we shared as teenagers had been killed in her…and i cried tears watching.

 

so….. i complete this level of a catering course,and head off to live in a caravan, back at the seaside town,cause the actual full on catering college was nearby…

*portrush catering college*.

i take on this caravan months early for the summertime,where i would work as a disc jockey in the brilliant local nightclub called kellys, which sat right across a green field from the catering college.

it was a fabulous summer…i made loads of dosh playing records in the bar at night and through the day, every day for the kids on the caravan site,

but best of all was having this caravan…my own place…

i was useless though…

some mornings i’d wake up to find my caravan surrounded by sheep,and that scared the crap out of me…

at the time i wouldn’t go near sheep or cows..they’d freak me out…so i’d sit there stranded and safe behind the other side of the caravan window like a twit, waiting until they moved.

then the autumn came, and it got cold ..

i’d wake up only to find some cunt had stole my bottle of gas…so i’d mooch around the caravan site looking to steal one back from some other caravan .

the whole thing was getting very dreary…

 

and then came the first day of serious training at the catering college…

their immediate down fall was to issue me with a kitchen uniform…

checked blue and white pyjama type trousers…

a white double breasted starchy top, and a daft starchy hat that did not suit me…

i looked at myself in the changing room mirror, and my rock n roll spirit screamed back at me to get the hell out of the place…which i did right there and then…

propelled by this epiphany in the mirror,i took a long walk on the cold, now deserted beach,and decided it was time to jump the irish sea…the summer was well and truly over

no way did i want to become one of the old hangers on at this seaside niteclub…

i loved the place,but the idea of becoming a part of the disco furniture scared me…

so i pumped all my loose change into a public telephone and phoned the one person i knew in edinburgh…

and within two days i was gone… without a sound…

even my family took it with a pinch of salt,thinking i’d be back in a week,but i was gone for years.

 

on the afternoon of arriving in edinburgh, my friend sent me for an interview with the manager of a club called tiffanys.

i told him he could try me out for free for a couple of weeks,and if i didn’t fit,he wouldn’t have to pay me a penny…

i’m always proud that i intuitively had it in me to offer up that kind of deal…

i’m glad i have it in me to work for free..the belief in a bigger pay off later on down the line…

after the first night ,he told me the job was mine..to never be late..to keep my eyes peeled..and that was that.

not bad for a sixteen year old.

these summer jobs and chapters as a niteclub disc jockey were the nearest i ever came to being employed…

but then after two years this did begin to feel like actual work..

my obsession with joining a pop group was now kicking in heavily …

and who should drift into my orbit,but non other than that manager of the bay city rollers that i observed backstage in northern ireland before the caravan days.

 

y’know i look at the photo at the top of this page,and what i see is a strange mongrel cross of bay city roller and clockwork orange…i’m not kidding you..it isn’t always easy walking in these boots.

 

dear reader i could so easily carry on here, but fear i might be boring you if i go on any longer.

so i’ll recount loosing my virginity to the now deceased shytebox pop manager at the next episode, in the near future.

but beware if you’re at all prudish…it’s a bit gritty, though maybe a scream for the more scurrilous of you.

i will leave you with a little video clip of me reflecting on those seaside days of funfairs and whatever else…

peace and platform soles to anyone who reads these things…

mary of the wilderness.