The Garage, Glasgow
December 12th, 2024
There is a deep, deep tradition & love of music that runs thro’ the fibre of Manchester. In 1927, HV Morton was a travel writer who found himself in Manchester – the Saturday night frolics he’s describing sound exactly like what would happen’d with Madchester & the Hacienda.
*****
The public houses are crowded in Manchester on saturday night. Manchester will be the last city in England to go dry. In all the main streets of Manchester there is the sound of song. A large woman in a jet dress goes to the piano & sings ‘Annie Laurie’ with great expression, there is applause. All the time the door is opening & shutting. The barman’s tray is awash with beer…
Belle Vue ! this is an amazing sight. It is ten o clock. Three thousand boys & girls have paid sixpence each to dance in this enormous ballroom. There is hardly one person present over the age of 24. The girls come from factory & mill…
Some have carried fashions to the extremes… the annexe to the ballroom is an enormous bar. It is crowded with boys & girls… the three thousand dancers, all the same age, all from the small homes of Manchester, provide a spectacle which I have found in no other city…
In the popular dance halls of London there is always a few middle aged people, but Belle Vue is a carnival of youth: modern youth, eager, energetic, dance crazy, pleasure seeking; & of course, uncontroll’d
*****
So to the Garage the other night & a trip to see the Chameleons, an educational sortie & splendid night’s entertainment to boot. The Chameleons bristle with longevity – form’d in 1981, breaking up in ‘87, & reforming sporadically over the years, they still look & sound great. Fronted by bass-playing gigolo rocker Mark Burgess, they power’d thro a set of dramatic song journeys of operatic soundscapery full of dubby bass runs & swirling guitars – it was really a lot of fun & the crowd were buzzing.
Strange Times must have influenced my early years as a songwriter because I can hear me in it everywhere
Noel Gallagher
As he took us dreaming thro the dense & sinewy halls of Valhalla, Burgess look’d & vibed like some reincarnation of Lou Reed – & I really enjoy’d hearing for the first time his ‘Caution’ song. The lyrics were just clear as the icy veins he was singing about, being;
*****
We have no future, we have no past
We’re just drifting ghosts of glass
Brown sugar, ice in our veins
No pressure, no pain
Everybody looks the same to me
Rows and rows of faces on a balcony
I can hear them calling down to me
“Come up here, set us free”
Got sugar in our brains
Or a dagger in our hearts
[Nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh nigh]
This is not my home, no
Everyone’s bought and sold
This is not my home
Everybody’s walking round the dead and cold
Ho-ho
And one by one by one we disappear
But day after day, year after year
You all run about, are we still there?
Nobody hears cause nobody cares
Put a dagger in my heart now
Cold here and I shudder and I shiver
I wanna look twenty but I can’t deliver
Pains in the heart
Ba-ba-bow-wow-wow-wow
It’s cold in here
Can you hear my teeth a-chatter?
The time has come for all of us to scatter
Caution to the wind
Caution to the wind
Dagger in the heart
No, this is not my home
No, everyone’s bought and sold
This is not my home
Everybody’s checking out the dead and cold
Ba-ba-bow
We have no future we have no past
We’re just drifting ghosts of glass
Brown sugar, ice in our veins
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no pain
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, no shame
No pressure, no shame
And no pressure, oh, throw it away
No shame
Six days of it
Six, six, six, six, six, six
Ha!
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no
Nothing on earth could help me, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no
Nothing on earth I said, nothing on earth I said
Hoo-ah, hoo-ah, hoo-ah, hoo-ah
No!
*****
I was a big fan of the drummer too, driving the songs along with effortless assurity, while the spider-jangly guitar riffs claw’d at our psyches. It was all a bit like experiencing a long drawn out labour pain while gregorian chanting, & was also being rather numbing in a weird way, like being on poppas constantly! But musically wonderful!
Damo
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