Rock Stars...pfft

I am meeting a chum for lunch on Wednesday. He is one of my oldest chums and a jolly good one at that. Like most of my chums, mates, acquaintances and the other souls that drift both in and out of my life he is a sometime rock star. My chums don’t live their lives the way most of us ordinary Joes do – working, eating, sleeping, watching the soaps and cop based TV shows until we fall asleep on the couch with the remote control in our hand and a half eaten packet of chocolate HobNobs on our generously proportioned tum tums.

Oh no not for my chums is the life of sweet domesticity and arguing about who is leaving the bin out and whose turn it is to make the tea before Wife Swap comes on. Theirs is a life of rehearsals, recordings, occasional gigs, retro t-shirt buying, hair sculpting/poking/gelling/fluffing, beard growing and the wearing of ironic clothing such as cardigans and sheepskin coats. When they aren’t arranging meetings in coffee shops (where most of them work) with guys who know a guy who has a sister who works for a record label in London and who has heard their last demo and “loved it” (arf) they are updating their MySpace pages with their latest deplorably moody photo set taken up an alley way or behind the four trees in the local park. It’s all so predictable and dull.

I hate all of them and not just because they are a bunch of self deluding wasters who’s only chance of making a career out the music industry is working on the classical section at their local Virgin Mega Store but because they all have the waistlines of petite 15 year old girls where as I have the girth of two men stuffed into a pair of comedy jeans. The cunts. Three bottles of McGuigan Black Label and a wrap of coke is not dinner you skinny douche bags.

I am so bitter about my fatty fat ass but it feels good to get that all out.

I did dabble in the world of musical entertainment though but being a talentless and tuneless oaf I opted for the exploitative road of band management rather than being the, “talent”. Little did I know that being talent deficient was not a barrier to success, fame, cash money and groupies. Just look at The Killers, yer man couldn’t hold a fucking note if his life depended on it. Oh yes I had read the exploits of Malcolm Mclaren and thought that was the job for me. They would do all the hard work with the singing and writing and unprotected sex with groupies which would inevitably lead to a drug and drink addiction and premature death whilst I would make shady deals with Japanese businessmen whilst smoking fat cigars and drinking Napoleon brandy. I was sure this was my way out of the hood, the hood being the plush city centre apartment with all manner of mod cons and boys toys that I called home at that time in my life.

It never came to fruition dear reader. I never did find my way out of the hood and I never got to make shady deals with Japanese businessmen whilst smoking fat cigars and drinking Napoleon brandy. No, what I got was one night in the back of a hot, sweaty, damp Ford Transit van with four blokes and a large coke from McDonalds. This was not living the fucking dream dot com. I had read Mr Mclaren’s, “How to exploit your way to success” three times from cover to cover but yet there I was wedged up against a skinny, bony lead singer with a questionable hygiene routine and no money. I was sure band management was all shouting and whipping and counting money. It’s not.

But then again we were doomed from the start and I mean doomed, in the biblical sense.

It was the early 1990’s and all that glistened was not gold but hairy. The shoe gazy music of Ride, Slowdive, The Drop Nineteens and everybody’s favourites, My Bloody Valentine filled the air and subdued our teenage rage/horn. The Indigo Violets were a local perky-ish three piece of the same ilk and more importantly they didn’t have a manager and were too busy penning songs about love lost and the girl they saw at the bus stop and other such wet pishy plop to do anything for themselves. This is were Conor, my big fat friend, and I came in. Dave, the lead singer and chief violet had managed to secure a gig at a venue in Dublin. This was aces. Dublin wasn’t great back then but it was still marginally better than Belfast. It had proper shops and no guns and bombs. It’s funny how things can change in a few years. Arf.

Anyhoo Conor and I were left to organise the transport and other such details so the boys could plan their set list and hair styles and which shoes they would spend forty minutes staring at. I was put in charge of procuring refreshments as I worked in a restaurant. Eh? So on the day we were due to go I arrived with a small bag of crips and chocolate and a Fr Jack sized supply of booze. This was greeted with huge whoop whoops and general rock n roll enthusiasm, well as much as enthusiasm as indie/goth kids like to expel. We jumped into the white Ford Transit van and headed south, over the border, down Mexico way to Dublin. Our enthusiasm never waned. We sang and we drank and we smoked and we planned tours – first around Ireland then Britain then, then the world baby yeah!

It was late in the day when we finally entered Dublin. It’s big city lights and swarms of lovely people shouting, “It’s gas!’ and “Ye fuckin bollix!” just added petrol to our already fiery enthusiasm. Our little Belfast heads couldn’t take it all in as we all rushed to point out things at the same time. We had never seen an actual McDonalds before so this was an amazing moment for all of us. “This is it lads, we’ve fucking arrived!” exclaimed my big fat friend, Conor. And for about five minutes we truly thought we had.

It would be fair to say our fiery excitement was extinguished with depressing predictability when we actually did arrive at the venue. It did not have the vibe of an establishment that was normally home to aspiring rock stars and what have you. It seemed to be the sort of place that was more suitable for karaoke versions of My Way and 40th birthday parties than cutting edge alternative rockage. We found the boss man and Conor and I introduced ourselves as the management of Belfast’s finest, The Indigo Violets.

“Di Indigo Violets is it? I never heard of ye”, says the big bollix.

Much confusion ensued for many minutes until it became clear that the big bollix had simply got the name of the band wrong. Very wrong. Emblazoned on every wall were posters and blackboards which read, “Playing live tonight, from Belfast ‘Political Violence’”. Political Violence? For fuck sake! We remonstrated with the big bollix for an age but he refused to change the posters etc.

“Awh jaysus lads…” began the lilty tongued idiot “….I taught that seeing as ye were from the nort that you were all about the troubles and all that balls and all. Sure no harm done!” And off he sauntered.

No harm done? No harm done eh? Nobody showed up save for two English tourists and they came for the angst ridden punk rock of Political Violence not the sweet indie shoe gazer pop of The Indigo Violets. The big bollix of a boss had decided we wouldn’t be getting paid as we hadn’t brought the crowd we had promised. We were too deflated to argue with him. The forty minute set was rushed through with embarrassing haste and before we knew it we were back in the Ford Transit with nothing more than hangovers and recrimination for company. The shouting went on for a while and only stopped when hunger took over. This obviously lead to more shouting as my offerings of crips and chocolate didn’t last more than a minute. The next few hours were acrimonious and lead to my resigning as co-manager of the Indigo Violets and I swore I would never get involved in the world of band management again.

And I never did.

Rock stars, particularly aspiring rock stars, are a fickle bunch that would sell their granny’s soul for a record deal. They should be treated with both suspicion and derision at all times.