[ Let's Go To The East
Side Where People Are Many ]
The afternoon was oppressively
hot and sticky - one of those ordinairy early Summer days where waves of
heat from the inland bash into a tide of moisture on the coast. We weren't
ready for it - we never were. Matters weren't helped by the atmosphere
of dread and loathing that pervaded one of the crumbiest house I'd ever
been in (it was even worse that my own parental home and that was saying
a lot). Tension, a lingering argument or three and weird looks from Mum
to daughter. In other words, the usual stuff. This was the first time that
I'd been in the place and it wouldn't be my last but I wanted desperately
to get on and do what we were all there to do and then get out as quickly
as possible.
So we crowded around the small,
scratched laminated table with the various bits and pieces and, actually,
had a good laugh about something or other before we started - in those
days we laughed quite a lot together. There were about 4 different tasks
to get the job done and we rotated them so that we wouldn't get too bored
: fold and paste the covers; cut out the pictures; paste the pictures onto
the covers, fold the insert and put it and the object of our affection
into the covers. It was a truely DIY project and we were doing it ourselves
: the first (and only) double A-sided 7" single by the first band that
I was ever in : Voigt/465 - "State" b/w "A Secret West". There were about
550 of these to make and we didn't get them all done in this session. I
suppose the rest were made at other times, in other homes, at other kitchen
tables but none have stuck, even partially, in my memory as much this first
occasion.
As the afternoon wore on and
we became stickier and stickier from the humidity and the glue, we started
to become as one with the house around us : full of blather and vengeance,
projecting the worst onto others and so on. Until, finally, we all raised
our hands and said that we'd made enough for one day. I was particularly
glad to get out of that house (there were rumours of a fundamentalist Christian
dad - but I never saw him) and was also glad to be rid of my friends for
the evening. I went home and played the record for about the millionth
time because it really did mean a lot to me.
I loved it and, to a certain
extent, still do. But my-oh-my, we loved the whole process of being an
underground / psychedelic / punky / arty / proggy / hip / (Kraut) rock
band.
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