In my deepest heart & minds Memory its always & forever '92, The year of ecstasy & orange rinds, Of finding myself another anew At every crossroads & cul-de-sac; In the places beats pulsed, pounding Images & colours confuse, confounding Any sense that I’m keeping on track, Staggering here, there, place to place, Stumbling to avoid meeting face to face With my formless self, bloodshot dissipate Oblivious to how the decades evaporate.
I know that I have supplied a nostalgic gloss But how else can we cope with such loss?
I will have you
You will be speaking in tongues
Crying out harsh barbaric invocations
Shouting entreaties to forgotten deities
Babbling away in rapturous ecstasy
Before this night is over but you better
Believe that this is only the beginning
For I will have you
Over and over and yet once again
Every element of these arcane rituals
Have to be satisfied in every aspect
The right word said in the right place
At the right time this is the right action
That will cause the doors to open wide
I will have you
I will take you there to a place you
Can only vaguely remember in dreams
A world of mesmerising fascinations
Inevitably leading to intoxicating danger
Nothing is true nothing is real everything
Shapeshifts you only have your self to lose.
My post on Bob Carlos Clarke’s photographs of debutantes balls (see Very Heaven, Indeed) got me thinking about the ghosts of nightlife past, which naturally enough, led me to remember Mark Leckey’s 1999 video installation Fiorucci made me Hardcore.
This short 15 minute film of found footage choreographed to the snippets of songs, cheers and sounds that languidly drift in before disappearing, chronicles approximately 20 years of the English club scene, from the amphetamine driven Northern Soul dancers of the mid 70’s via the football casuals to the ecstasy fuelled warehouse raves of the late 80’s-early 90’s. Laced with an elegiac nostalgia, we witness the invariably young dancers caught up completely in the bliss of the moment: the holy now. Fiorucci made me Hardcore derives it oddly haunting quality to the fact that we are aware that no matter how much we are living in the instance that the lights will eventually come on, day will dispel the charm of the night and that any lingering intoxication will dissipate to be replaced only by a grinding comedown. The scene and youth itself will fade away. For the now is soon yesterday and this moment has, like all moments must, passed.
After finally emerging into the daylight from the scrum and press of the ticket barriers, Margot immediately declared that they couldn’t possibly go to Kubla Khan’s at this early hour. The shutters may have been lifted, but nobody who was anybody would be caught dead there at this time of day.
‘Besides Max, you are looking as peaky as I feel,’ she said. ‘I think that we are both in need of some refreshment. Yes, a little pick-me-up would act as a tonic, do us both a world of good. So what do you say to that?’ Margot asked, more to herself than to Max.
Max nodded absently. ‘Sure.’
He’d been so absorbed in the act of putting one foot in front of the other, suppressing the nausea brought on by the sight of the grey concrete towers dissolving in the sickening heat haze, that he really hadn’t been paying close attention. Now, though, he wondered where exactly they were walking to.
‘I know. Let’s go to that new place,’ Margot said, answering his unspoken question. ‘You know, that place they spent a fortune on? It was in the news. They called it the beginning of an urban renaissance or some such public relations nonsense.’
She stopped, lifted her sunglasses and rubbed her eyes in an effort to jog her memory. ‘Oh what’s it called?’ she asked aloud. ‘The Babylon. No. That’s not it. Something like it though. Babylon, Babylonia, Bethlehem, Bedlam…’ She shook her head. Then clicking her fingers, she said, ‘The Babel, that’s it. Let’s go there.’ With a look at their surroundings, she added, ‘Though I’m sure we’re headed in the completely wrong direction.’ When her gaze landed on a cluster of buildings that had briefly obscured the sun, she pointed. ‘There. Let’s go that a way instead.’
Again Max just nodded. He tried to speak but discovered that his swollen tongue was incapable of forming words. They had to get somewhere soon though, he thought. As Margot’s mind spiralled in ever decreasing, tightening circles, his limbs and extremities were being overtaken by a debilitating leadenness. Soon, very soon, he sincerely and desperately hoped, they would find this damned hotel and be seated in a dim nook with tall, long glasses of some refreshing, viscous, alcoholic drink. He could see it so clearly. He could almost taste it. Why were they not there already?
These thoughts were familiar. Memories, perhaps? Thoughts he’d had before? Glancing out of the corner of his eye at the mirrored, reinforced, window of the shop-front they were passing, he realised his mind was like that sheet of glass —reflecting everything and yet remembering nothing. The images that appeared before his eyes made a momentary impression, then moved off and vanished forever.
They scurried down empty avenues designed to disabuse anyone of the quaint notion that streets were for pedestrians to stroll upon. It simply wasn’t the case, especially not these days and not here, of all places. No, an avenue was a place for traffic to tear down, brakes untouched —woe betide anyone stupid enough to try to cross the road. Getting to the opposite side required being born there. And so they turned up sinister, dead-end alleys built primarily to facilitate robbery and rape, emerging finally, on the canal area. Margot immediately perked up, remarking that it couldn’t be far away now.
‘Thank God, I thought we were well and truly lost there for a while,’ Max said, finally finding his voice again.
‘Dearest Max, your lack of confidence in me is simply appalling,’ she said. ‘Though, I believe we are both on a bit of a come-down, which simply won’t do. But never fear. I believe I have the solution to having peaked too soon. I just never expected it to be such a long day. Anyway, all’s well that ends well, isn’t that so?’
‘I realize you have some master plan in the works, Margot. I just wish you would enlighten me a little.’
‘Oh Max,’ she said, smiling. ‘That would just spoil the surprise. Where’s your sense of adventure? When you woke up this morning, I bet you never thought you’d end up lost in Birmingham, did you?’ She gestured to a squat, low-rise, balconied building which had BABEL TOWERS emblazoned across the entrance. ‘Look, that must be it.’
‘It must be indeed, though it’s not really a tower, is it?’ Max remarked.
‘Not to worry, I am sure they will add bits onto it later. It does look shiny and new, though, doesn’t it?’
‘Sure does. Anyway, I couldn’t care less. I just want to get inside and take the weight off and have a drink. I’m completely parched’
‘Come on, then, stop dawdling and we’ll be there right quick.’
‘Coming, Margot,’ he said, pouting. ‘Are you just going to get bossier and bossier as this day goes on, or what?’
‘You’d better believe it, darling. You ain’t seen nothing yet. Besides, that’s the reason why you love me so,’ Margot suggested rather tartly.
‘Oh, you think so?’ Max replied, though he had to admit that she probably had a point on this score.
And as she marched up to the bar —with its space-station curves and mirrored surfaces— and commandingly ordered two gin and tonics with a squeeze of a lime, he felt just a little bit more in love, if such a thing was possible. The fleeting thought of his somnolent father finally waking to discover their absence entered his mind and was dismissed straight away. Hadn’t he already had that thought before?
They slid into the seats of a banquette in a shadowy nook, just like he had envisioned. Suddenly awestruck, he wondered if he was now psychic. Had the drugs Margot so thoughtfully provided unlocked a hitherto unused portion of his brain to reveal everything in the world in all its essence? He sipped the viscous gin that wonderfully refreshed his parched mouth and throat.
‘We really shouldn’t be mixing drink with what we took earlier —not really the ideal combo, but what the hell. I really needed this. Besides we are definitely on the comedown phrase, and that certainly won’t do if we are really to make a night of it,’ she said. ‘And I really want to make it a night we will never forget, don’t you, Max?’
Max sipped his drink. ‘Of course.’ Though, it was already a day that would live long in the memory.
‘Anyway, so,’ Margot said, pausing to rummage in her handbag. She withdrew her hand to present two sugar-cubes in her open palm. ‘This may be too much, but too much of everything is just enough, don’t you think?’ She laughed. ‘Though it may be in this case just too much. What do you say?’ She handed him one of the sugar-cubes.
‘I say yes. Thanks, Margot,’ Max said as he swallowed and reached for his drink.
‘Good boy, hopefully we can expect fireworks very shortly.’
‘No doubt. Do you want another drink?’ Max asked as he rose.
‘Absolutely, same again. Here, take some of your Dad’s money to pay for it.’
‘Cheers,’ Max said, smiling as he accepted the ten pound note.
Then cash in hand, Max wound through the crowd toward the glowing Shangri-La that was the bar. As the drug took effect, he felt the resurgent joy that had been slipping away, slowly return.
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