Sunday Night Scrag Ends

My i-pod is on random as I write.
Kate Bush's 'Pull Out the Pin'. Memories of buying this on cassette tape, summer 1990, just turned 18 a few months before. Tube journeys into London, hot days full of the smell of tarmac and disorientation at having left school and not knowing what I was going to do yet.

A sudden night out last night. Lying in bed at 9:00pm when a text from Al arrives. With Em, I join Claire and himself in some new pub in the North Laine. Al had somehow got himself talking to a man who claimed that he was once a bodyguard for Keith Chegwin. No-one thought to ask him why Keith Chegwin needed a body guard. Went next to the Evening Star - the same half familiar people wandering about - the same half familiar bar staff - and the man we call Doctor Occult looking as suave and mysterious and oddly comforting as ever.

A song I don't recognise... Sounds kind of dance-y though. Electronic beats... Hmm. Sounds like an 80s remix of something. Still can't quite tell who this is... Killing Joke? Ah... No... Is it Into A Circle? Oh yes, that trumpet - It is Into A Circle. Bought this on vinyl back in Southampton, maybe 1996, and never liked it much then. Sounded too much like gloomy Sundays in nowhere suburbs. Rediscovered it back in 2005 when I bought a cheap record player from Argos. A work of genius. Still sounds like gloomy Sundays in nowhere suburbs... but I like those kinds of days now. Bought it on CD last year in London. The song is called 'Forever (extended remix)'.

After the Star, we ended up at Al and Claire's flat in Seven Dials. A cosy place, a cave of books and instruments and oddly tuned guitars. Al tells me his memories of the summer of 1997, which would have been helpful for the series of blog posts I'm doing at the moment detailing that summer, but I was too drunk to remember much of what he told me. Something about a drawing I did of him chipping bits off a pint of frozen milk. I do remember the incident that inspired this though - the fridge was working too well and just froze everything. We kept the solid block of milk in a saucepan and would chop bits off for our tea. He also reminded me about the dwarves. There was a lot of dwarves around London Road for some reason. Al said that one time he opened the door to one such little person who offered to sweep the steps for him for a couple of pounds. He broke the broom (our broom I must add) in doing so but Al still gave him two pounds anyway. I do remember once though coming back from town and discovering another dwarf looking very grumpily into Al's window. We never found out why. We stood across the road and smoked roll-ups till he had gone.

'Veangance is Mine' by Morbid Angel.
No memories much connected to this song. I only bought the album ('Covenant') last autumn.