Articles
September 2005
Stringing Me Along
April 2005
Pace's Folly
December 2004
Changes
November 2004
Pacing Myself
October 2004
Zappily Ever After
August 2004
Pace's Folly
December 2004
It's the eighth of December. Every radio station in the English-speaking world, I wager, is playing the songs of a revolutionary English artist.
God bless Johnny Lennon, but there's someone else on my mind.
Charlie would have been 28 today.
I miss him so much.
I spent most of the last six months of his life with him, as all ten people who bought Pente will probably have guessed. Yes, I am the JQ credited with giving him all the help he got. It was a little bit of an exercise in constant frustration, it was - everything that could have hung us up did, often by the balls. Money - studio time - busted equipment - personal problems for either or both of us - you name it, it probably happened.
Still, he was determined to try, and I give him all credit for that. He wrote his songs, he tweaked them until they said exactly what he wanted, which was paramount - there were a lot of things he wanted to say, mostly to people who weren't listening to him anymore, and I think he meant it as a call to them.
I don't honestly know if any of it got through, and that was the first problem. Here he'd half-bankrupted himself making this album, and he was wearing himself out touring with it, doing everything he could to get these songs out there in the public ear, and yet each of the shows was attended mostly by people who'd never heard of him and were just there, whatever pub we were playing that night.
We'd spent three months in the jury-rigged studio in his house, playing up to twelve or thirteen hours some days; I moved in with him for awhile, actually, because then no matter when the ideas struck, I was there. And so much of his soul went into it, every note, because, honestly, folks, I suppose there's not much harm in admitting that he was rubbed pretty raw by that point. Anyone who looked at him could have told that. So everything was on the surface, and he worked it out with his guitar, and some days it really hurt, and some days it was like flying. And he got it done, and I remember the night we finished the final mixdown, he and I, and we went out and we only had about twenty pounds between us but we meant to get drunk, and he said to me, "Ju, I think - you know, I really think this might be it. This might be my big break. Might get back where I belong, with this." And he really believed it. He did. And so I believed too, because... well... I had to, didn't I? I couldn't do anything else.
And we packed up the van, threw all his gear and a couple of foam mattresses in the back, and just did the bohemian thing. Some nights it was great, we'd get a good take at the door and the pub owner wouldn't ask for too much of a cut, and we'd go and find a decent hotel and have a few drinks and stumble to bed when we came down off the adrenalin high; other nights we'd just crash in the van, or sometimes we'd hit the road straight away, with me driving and him flaked out in the back. Once in awhile it was him driving - that one night in Sheffield where I got jumped by a bunch of yobs looking for anyone less butch than they to pound into the pavement. Don't ever let anyone tell you touring's all glamourous. It's no fun bumping along in the back of a van driven by a half-crazed rocker when you're bleeding all over and you feel as though your head may just fall to pieces. But once we got the hell out of there, he was brilliant about the whole thing. Apparently a Madchester childhood will teach you a few things about bandaging techniques. I mended just fine.
But he was falling apart. He'd had such high hopes - he'd really meant to get free of the spectre of Driveshaft's later months, strike out on his own, prove that he could do it. And in some way he did a good thing with the tour, because it was all down to him that we got that offer to go back on the road. I know it wasn't what he'd hoped for, really, but he was so happy for a few days, and that was good to see, really really good. I thought maybe this would be the turning point for him, and he certainly needed one by then. So he got on the phone and rang up Sinjin, and Sinjin talked to Pat, and Pat rang Charlie and eventually it was all resolved that, yeah, if Chaz could get Liam on board all systems were go.
I took him to the airport, for the flight out to Sydney. And I'll never forget what he said to me as he got out of the car.
"We're gonna do this, Ju, I promise you. I'm gonna do this. And we're gonna be great again."
zap[at]driveshaftband.com
