Pete

Today is the funeral of my friend Pete. He died in February of prostate cancer which had spread to his bones. The last time I saw him, just before Christmas when I popped round with a card, he was clearly unwell and we all knew he wasn't going to survive but still, when death comes, it's very sad. 

I've known Pete since the early 90s. My friend Nick and I lived in a flat near Altrincham. One night the pair of us were in the pub and the quiz was about to start so we decided to take part. Near us was a table of two men in their early 40s (we were early 20s), Pete and Lynds the Bins (Lyndsay, wore glasses hence the Bins nickname, smoked like a chimney, a carpet fitter). We started to chatting to them as the results were read out and realised that if we'd joined forces we'd have won the quiz. We agreed to come back the following week and so began three decades of Monday night pub quizzing- at first me, Nick, Pete and Lynds, then me, Pete, Charles and Lynds and then for a long time Pete, me, Charles and Neil. From 1993 to about 2018 we did the quiz almost every week until travelling apathy and lethargy set in, people began to drift from it and appearances became less frequent. Then Covid hit and we never quizzed again. 

For a long time in the 90s I'd get a tram from Salford, later Sale, to Timperley, call at Pete's, we'd get us into his van (he was a builder, had been since leaving school in the 1960s) and we'd go to Wythenshawe to pick up Lynds and then head to the pub to meet Nick and/ or Charles and/ or Neil. The three of us sat across the front seat of the van, the dashboard and windscreen strewn with dirty coffee mugs, cigarette and cigar packets and lighters, bits of paper from Pete measuring up jobs with his recognisable handwriting on them, bits of building equipment, receipts and other detritus from Pete's working day. The music would be whatever cassettes Pete had in the van. Often it was The Walker Brothers and the song the three of us would sing along to was this...

No Regrets

Sometimes Pete would try to get away with slipping Stars by Simply Red into the tape deck but we'd usually put a stop to that. Lynds would bring his Led Zep tape and rave about them. Kashmir was another van favourite. Pete liked The Moody Blues and saw them every time they played in Manchester, taking his wife Sandra along. Pete and Lynds were twenty years older than us. Pete's daughters, who are our age, couldn't understand why their dad hung around with us and vice versa, but a friendship is a friendship. In my house we often referred to Pete as Uncle Pete and that's how he was to me in some ways. A friend and surrogate uncle. 

Pete was a massive Manchester United fan, a season ticket holder. Back in the glory days of the 90s and 2000s we'd watch European matches together in the pub and celebrate cup wins. In more recent years we'd all moan about how bad things had got. Pete was a big England fan too and went to several Euro tournaments with his England gang- Howard and Charles and a few others. I never went on these foreign football jaunts, the Euros are always in term time. When they went to the France '98 World Cup I asked him to get me a snide shirt of an lesser fancied country from a bootleg football shirt street seller. He brought me back an unbranded, 5 euro Chile shirt that I wore at Tuesday night 5 a side for years. Pete always, without fail, left Old Trafford before the final whistle. He was often home before some people had left the ground and missed umpteen late wins (back in the days when late wins were a United speciality). We'd rib about this and he'd exhale his cigar smoke and do his Pete chuckle.

The quiz would always have a half time break and we'd all slip outside for a smoke (back in the days when we all still smoked. I haven't smoked since 9pm on 3rd June 2013, Charles and Neil both gave up before me). Pete smoked slim cigars. We started to knock around the idea that our quiz team had gone on for so long it should be turned into a film- called Quiz- a gentle/ gritty northern comedy about a pub quiz team across three decades with four friends of different ages. We knocked around jokes and ideas about who would play each of us and Pete was always very definite on this point- he would be played by Al Pacino. And in a way that's how I think of him, No Regrets by The Walker Brothers blasting in the van, a pint or two, talk about United while standing outside pubs in all weathers, Pete smoking his cigar and chuckling about being played in a film about a pub quiz team by Al Pacino. 

Thanks for everything Pete. Rest in peace mate. 

Scott Walker

It seems like it's becoming a weekly occurrence, losing a major star of experimental and groundbreaking pop music. Scott Walker died yesterday aged 76, a man whose career took in more than most, from orchestral 60s tearjerkers to the songs of Jacques Brel, from 70s electronica to recording the sound of a piece of meat being hit repeatedly, and in there, central to the story, four numbered solo albums that redefined what a solo artist could do. RIP Scott Walker- one of those people who we shall not see the like of again.

Here are three Scott songs I've loved, all posted before but not for many years. Firstly, from The Walker Brothers 1975 re-union, a tremendous cabaret song, all self-pity and swelling string sections and that voice. There was a period twenty-odd years ago when I used to got to a pub quiz with a friend and two older blokes, both the age then that I am now. We joined forces to win the quiz one week and then stuck together. One of the older pair was a builder. He'd pick us up in his van and we'd drive to the quiz all singing along to No Regrets, a Best Of The Walker Brothers being the only tape in the van, No Regrets always getting the rewind.

No Regrets

This one, a B-side from 1966, is a small hours classic, a bassline, strings and a ton of reverb on the vocals. A man haunted in the verses and then tormented but alive when the chord change into the chorus hits home. 'Someone called for you, but I hung up the phone, what could I say?'

After The Lights Go Out

This one, from 1978's album of the same name, is a total curveball, funky and disco influenced with a bit of Bowie's Low in there too- a complete commercial failure.

Nite Flights

Nite Time

While we're in The Walker Brothers area here's Nite Flights from a few years after No Regrets. This is a different kettle of fish entirely, more in Bowie's Kraftwerkian experimental central European musical zone. Nite Flights was their last album and each member recorded their own songs separately. This is one of Scott's songs and it's very good indeed.

Nite Flights

For Far Too Long I've Had Nothing New To Show To You

Sometimes you need to wallow in some premium tearjerking schmaltz, and The Walker Brothers 1976 comeback No Regrets ticks all those boxes. Lacking the echo laden drama of their 60s work, the one-man vision of Scott's solo albums and the avant garde nature of his later albums featuring someone punching a side of beef for percussion, this is wide screen, orchestral, Vegas-style pop. But still featuring those killer lines that Scott Walker can deliver- 'I woke last night and spoke to you not thinking you were gone, and it felt so strange to lie awake alone' being just one. Guitarist John Walker died recently aged 67.

Nearly two decades ago me and my then flatmate started going to a pub quiz. We hooked up with a pair of middle aged blokes, a builder and a carpet fitter, when we realised between us we had the required level of general knowledge and useless nonsense (especially for the music round) to win the quiz each Monday. Pete used to pick us up in his van, and we'd drive down to the pub, often with this song belting out. We must have looked pretty ridiculous, two twenty somethings and two forty somethings arriving in a builder's van bellowing Scott's song of lost love. I'm now a forty something, and Pete is a sixty something, and we still get to a pub quiz, despite having lost the other two along the way. Funny how such random encounters can lead to lifelong friendships being made. For the record, we don't win very often anymore. Maybe we need some young blood.

No Regrets

Lights Out

I've returned from a short holiday to find two posts attacked- a DMCA notice and removal for Friendly Ghost by Harlem and the Manics track removed from my Mediafire folder (possibly by Ctel from Acid Ted), so I'm not posting artist's names and song titles as post headings any more, in a cunning bid to foil the DMCA search engine.

Whilst visiting mid-Wales we found out several things. It's very lovely. When it rains, it rains heavily. Aberdovey has a nice beach. Aberystwyth is a great little town, and has many things to do though possibly not 1001. Machynlleth is a funny but great little place, half Welsh speaking, half hippy, left-field community, and is unpronouncable with an English accent. But it does have a record fair, which caused E.T., 7 years old, to say 'here we go again' when I pointed out the signs proclaiming 'Record Fair Here Today' and whooped. Results- the first Scott Walker solo album, 1967 pressing, good nick, £3.99, and the soundtrack to the mucky 70s film Emmanuelle, £3.00. Thought it was worth a shot. Ahem.

I listened to Scott last night, havn't heard it for years since I borrowed it from a friend on cd, and it sent me back to this 1966 Walker Brothers B-side, After The Lights Go Out. A wonderful piece of dramatic 60s pop, with some great lyrical touches that plant it firmly in reality. Cracking song.

Walker Brothers - After The Lights G.mp3