Mick Wall - Devil Music

Power cut.

Fuck…

I stand there in the dark like an unvisited statue, waiting for whatever's supposed to happen next. I'm frightened I'm gonna tread on the polythene bag with the henry in it. Frightened I'm gonna…

I get a-hold of myself. These fuckin miners, though. And what is that cunt, Heath, doing about it, eh? Telling us to buy candles, expecting us to freeze to death in our beds. I mean, really, what the fuck is all that about, man? Held to ransom by a bunch of shit-shovellers… you know where I'm coming from. What we need is a great big melting pot, big enough to take the world and all it's got, keep it churning for a hundred years or more and turn out…

Shit. I can't stand it. It's like a record that's got stuck. It just keeps playing, whether anyone's listening or not.

Slowly the darkness begins to pale, my eyes adjust and I can make out shapes here and there. Shapes of things to come, ha, yeah. I light a match and crouch down on the floor. I pick up a handful of bombers and tuck them into the turn-ups of my flares.

The match burns my fingers as it sputters out. I don't bother to light another. There are some scented candles somewhere but I can't be arsed to find them. I must be getting used to the dark. I plonk myself down cross-legged on the floor and pick out the little plastic bag of henry, massaging the polythene lovingly between my fingertips. If that bag breaks…

I untie it almost reflexively, no thinking necessary when it comes to smack. You're either into it or you're not - it's that simple, dimples. I pull a crumpled pound note out from somewhere and roll it as best I can, then aim it carefully into the fragile little bag and take a snort. Maybe a little bit more than I intended but what the fuck, it's too late to worry about stuff like that now.

It hits me in the face like a custard pie. Cartoon stars dancing round my ugly dog head. The crowd laughs and I act surprised, scraping the muck from my eyes and gulping comically like a fish. That'll teach me. The curtain falls and someone leads me by the hand into the safety of the unlit wings; the sound of the crowd blissfully subsiding. I stagger blindly into the backstage darkness, an old pro from way back, just thinking of the cash, great globs of white sticky stuff still dangling from my chin…

I took the ten bob note out of his jacket pocket while he was asleep on the settee. It was Saturday afternoon and the wrestling was on. He used to watch it when he came home from the pub, sitting there in the dark with the curtains drawn. “You see it better that way,” he'd say. Then he'd nod off…

His jacket was just hanging on the banister in the hall. I could smell the booze and fags off it as I silently went through the pockets. Each pocket seemed to be stuffed with notes and coins. I thought, he's got so much, I bet he doesn't even know how much he's got. I bet he doesn't even know…

I took the ten bob note and rolled it into a little brown ball inside my hand. Then I ran down to the bus stop and waited for the No. 65 to Ealing Broadway. It eventually came and all the way into town I could feel the scrunched-up note in my hand. What if he found out? He would kill me! He would bloody kill me! He wouldn't find out, though. I knew that. But it gave me the willies just thinking about it. Like I had done something really, really wrong. Worse even than the time I bunked off school and spent the day down by the canal with Frank, who mum hated. But I just had to have it. 7/6d. from Woollies. I would put the change back in his pocket as soon as I got home. He would never know…

When I got there it was actually playing over the speakers behind the counter. It was like a miracle! Like it was somehow meant to be. I asked for it and watched the girl go to the shelf to fetch it. She was wearing a nylon Woollies uniform but it was a bit too tight and you could really see her bosoms. She was older, about 17, and they were big…

When I paid for it and actually got it in my hand, I felt sick with excitement. I got out of there as fast as I could and ran back to the bus stop. I took it out of its little paper bag and examined it more closely. I could smell the shiny black plastic, the newness of it, bought with stolen money, and I started to feel my willy go hard. I had to stand with my face to the shop window so people wouldn't see my trousers sticking out…

I put the record back in its little bag, for safety, then immediately took it out again and looked at it. 'Love Me Do'. White letters on a black background. Underneath: The Beatles. In brackets: Lennon/McCartney. I thought about that. How on earth did you write a song? Just sort of… made it up as you went along? No, impossible. Then how? There must be some other way. Some special way…

When I got home, I half expected to find the old man waiting for me, belt in hand. But no, he was still snoring in front of the telly. It was unbelievable! I looked around. The football results were on, but other than that nothing much had changed at all.

I realised then: it was only me that was different. I didn't care. I ran upstairs to my room and put the record on. I left the arm back so the record would keep repeating over and over but even after it had played six or seven times I still couldn't quite get inside it. I still needed more.

Then my mother calling up the stairs…“JOSEPH! JOSEPH! CAN YOU HEAR ME? TURN THAT AWFUL RACKET DOWN! TURN IT DOWN NOW! DO YOU HEAR ME? YOU'LL WAKE YOUR FATHER!”

“ALL RIGHT, MUM!”

That's when I remembered the change. I put my hand in my pocket and jangled the coins. He'd never find out, I knew that. And even then, even if he did suspect, I'd never done anything like that before, why would I start now? I could almost hear him saying it…

I put it on again, but this time I turned the volume right down to 1 and 1/2. I knelt on the floor as close as I could get to the record player without knocking it and imagined myself on stage with the boys. I started to strum the guitar and lean into the microphone. I shook my head and all the girls screamed. I was Paul McCartney, the good-looking one all the girls liked. I was always Paul McCartney. The good-looking one everybody liked. That was me back then. Before I retired from touring to concentrate on albums…

I don't know how long the power has been back on when I come to but the shock - I hadn't realised I was out - is worse than usual. I stand up and sneak a look at my watch: gone nine. Jesus fuckin Christ! Bob, you cunt, you've done it to me again…

I take a glance in the mirror above the mantelpiece. My eyes are burning red - the pupils like distant points on a compass - and my face looks fuzzy round the edges, the image blurred. That's the trouble with grouching out on gear, it turns you into Doctor Strange. Your phantom consciousness is just out there, floating around the galaxy, but your physical body is slumped in a dark corner somewhere, face down on someone else's floor…

Major dragsville. Which is why these days I'm careful not to overdo it, usually. It's no good crying over spilt milk though, the best that can happen now is that I grab a piss and get back to the car pronto. If I get a move on, I might just catch the end. What a day for a fuckin daydream…

The old girl starts first time and I breathe out, but the drive up to Camden is tricky. The rain has stopped and the cold February night has turned the roads to ice, and something feels like it's sticking in my eye, making it hard to see straight.

Following the kerb, I glide carefully down the back roads through Westbourne Grove and up onto the A40. I switch on the radio. I've got it tuned to Luxembourg but the reception is terrible. I twiddle with the dial until I find Radio One, then wish I hadn't bothered. It's one of those godawful In Concert things they do. As usual, the sound is a disgrace. The BBC don't have a clue how to record a live rock band. Those union-grovelling old cunts they have the audacity to call sound engineers couldn't produce a fart. It's laughable, really. But when it's all you've got, what choice do you have?

I switch it off but I can still hear music. It just seems to follow me around like a dog you feed once then keeps coming back for more. On the one hand, I wish it would go away; on the other, I'm kind of getting used to it. Nice doggy...

I get to Camden and park up by Chalk Farm tube. I think about another quick belt of the bad boy but I'm already so late it wouldn't be sensible. The sensible thing right now would be to leave it all where it is in the car and lock the door behind me. Before I've gone more than a few strides down the road though, I decide fuck it, and go back for the smack. I'm chancing it carrying that shit round with me - there'll be plenty of plain-clothes here tonight, you can bet your arse on that - but I can't bring myself to leave it behind. If something happens while I'm gone and I lose that…

Judging by the noise coming down the street, the band must still be on. Thank fuck for that. I walk down the side of the building and give my name to the mandied-out dickheads on the backstage door. After a bit of poncing and preening over their precious little guest-list they grudgingly step aside and let me in. Fuckin jobsworths. Question: how many jobsworths does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none, they're all useless fuckin cunts.

I blend in as best I can with the freaky-deakys and acid casualties you always get at the Roundhouse on a Sunday. But Hawkwind are on tonight and it's not just the day-trippers they attract but a weird blend of flower-power leftovers and genuine fuckin nutters. I don't mind the bikers, the skinheads and the more general hippy headcases they bring with them: I can at least see where these cunts are coming from. It's the banner-wavers and so-called politico-freaks that do me in. The White Panthers and the Urban Guerrillas; the bra-burners and the shirt-lifters. The whole fuckin enchilada. Check it out, man, come the revolution, they'd be first against my wall, I shit you not...

Hawkwind are not one of my bands. Rule number one: art for art's sake, hit records for fuck's sake. But Doug, their manager, is a mate and I promised him I'd put in an appearance. Just to put the willies up UA, who the band are signed to. Get old Captain Paranoid on the case and see if we can't get a jump out of them, wondering what the fuck Joe Wilson of Midnight Records is doing here and what it means for the rest of them. Like a flock of nervous sheep watching the old farmer coming into the field with his wellies... continue reading