eops-music: February 2012

So I wrote a blog for My Band T-Shirt all about my beloved Bauhaus T and the sad demise of my T-shirt collection not long ago. I got a lot of great feedback about whats essentially quite a personal story so I thought I'd re-post it here for posterity.

Strange as it seems before the Raving I was a black-dyed-in-the-wool Goth. Winkle-picker boots, leather jacket, flowery shirt and jet black eye liner. It was great. The greatness was not necessarily in being a Goth but rather in being able to look in the mirror and know that whatever I was, I wasn't one of 'them' ... 'normal people'.

It wasn't easy either... I had curly ginger hair that didn't respond well to hair gel. I had to slick it all back with soap, blow-dry it, then furiously back comb and crimp it to get the right effect (Mac from Echo & The Bunnymen was my 'dream look'). This system worked well until it rained, then I would begin to froth at the scalp and expunge a strange smell of soapy apples, oh yes, I was a keeper. It kept me fit too, mostly because of all the running I did. I pretty much ran everywhere to avoid being beaten to death by a small town Gorilla in loafers and a 'casual' shirt.

But you know what? Despite the constant threat of being found in a frothy pool of blood and apple scented soap I loved being a Goth, I met some great people and went to some amazing gigs, I also got to wear make up, get off with girls in suspenders and look miserable without reproach. Anyway this is how is all started...

My Band T-Shirt: Bauhaus, "eyes"

When I was a kid I felt surrounded by uniforms.

They were everywhere it seemed, my Father was in the American Air Force and we lived on a Military Base where literally everyone had a uniform of some description.

We were a staunch Roman Catholic family so there was no escape even at the weekend. We would dutifully go to Church and Sunday School where flamboyant priests wore their vestments as a badge of holy authority, Nuns would herd us around like spiritual penguins and if you were good you might get selected as an altar boy and get to put on a frock yourself.

As a very young kid it never bothered me, I could see they were a different breed to me. Even when I dressed up in my Sunday best there was a certain flamboyant 70’s style that made my get up individual, if garish.

Like any parent my Mom had phases of dressing us up in matching clothes. We did everything; matching silk Bomber Jackets (that made us look like refugees from a bowling team), identical Sky-Lab themed cardigans (that any Shoreditch Hipster would give their right arm for now), and the high water mark of 70’s kids wear, a vomitus rainbow patterned Nylon jump suit thing that both me and my brother were ‘actually photographed in’ one Easter.

It was exciting at first but eventually the sheer amount of well meaning comments we got began to make us kids suspicious. There was just an inkling brewing that we may have looked like idiots.

Oh the 70s.

As we neared the end of the 70’s we moved to England and after a further year of American education I was shipped wholesale into an English Catholic School (run by Irish Nuns naturally). It was never going to be easy, I was a snotty kid, I had an American accent and … I was ginger.

You might think a school uniform would act as a leveler to these outsider feelings but kids are way to sharp for that. Kids know when you don’t belong. Even my uniform was odd; my buttons were bigger than the English kids’ buttons. My shirts were short sleeved, my tie latched around my neck like an angry blue & white python and my feet were shod in the most ridiculous cowboy boots that added an audio clumsiness to my already wonky demeanor.

I was not happy about the switch to England. I was a Giraffe at a Zebra party. My Mother thought the best policy was to encourage me to join in with various after school activities. I’d seen my brother in the American boy scouts so it seemed sensible to join the Cubs. However my uniform was again cobbled together, imagine my shame when I was the only boy without a regulation woggle. Having 30 English kids taking the piss out of your woggle was beyond the pale.

So there I was, … still surrounded by uniforms. Priests would visit the house and act like I should know them but then the Nuns would then destroy my self-confidence daily at school. At the weekends, I would sit outside the officers club on the Air Base with a warm bottle of coke listening to my Dads Air Force buddies get the best of the attention I craved from my Master Sergeant Father.

The only thing ‘uniform’ about my relationship with uniforms was alienation.

The only places far enough removed from my reality to allow me to relax in were in ‘my prayers’ and in ‘my music’. After all David Bowie was even more alien than Jesus and he had a much better back catalogue to explore.

There it was the road to salvation, no, not the religion, the music.

My interest in religion peaked around 16 or 17. Every time I could feel the church soothing my soul I seemed to find another uniformed hypocrite discrediting all I had learned. Passive aggression, twisting guilt and blatant sinning was the order of the day. Finally a hushed up sex scandal involving the local priest (but not me thank goodness) made me decide the uniforms had to go.

So what does a young boy do? I still didn’t want to be alone; I just wanted to fit in.

The logic ran thus: If I don’t fit in there MUST be others who don’t fit in…

WHERE DO THEY FIT IN? … Or not, if you follow me.

David Bowie did eventually bring the answer, but only indirectly. It was the Bauhaus cover version of Ziggy Stardust that really made the change, it was an unlikely Top40 hit and they looked MENTAL on Top of the Pops.

I began to spot a trend amongst my older sisters’ friends, there was a look developing, it was black, it was scruffy and it featured Peter Murphy’s eyes.

Long before I could bump into a gig or indeed clothes shop for myself I began to lust after that Bauhaus shirt with the eyes. The only people who wore that shirt were misfits, dropouts, and freaks!

I began to cut away from the pop music of my peers. I remember playing ‘The Psychedelic Furs’ to a bemused mate on the day he bought ‘Uptown Girl’ by Billy Joel – I don’t think he never came round again. While my brothers went on to join the US Navy my sister and I joined CND. I crimped my curly ginger hair straight (which looked as ridiculous as it sounds), then, after a lifetime of waiting, at last, the ‘sixth form’ came along and with it my release from compulsory uniform.

A compulsory uniform that I duly swapped wholesale for another, but this time a dark gothic one that offended my teachers’ eyes. I found a mail order catalogue that sold me winkle-picker boots, a leather jacket, drainpipe jeans, a studded belt and of course … Peter Murphy’s eyes!

My life became a stream of gigs and T-shirts, each time I returned late to school I felt even more of a freak … but now I began to relish it! I remember being told I couldn’t take Holy Communion in a Jesus and Mary Chain T-shirt despite being the only kid in my class who still went to mass on a Sunday. I was pushed further and further away from dogma and compliance and it felt good!

Then there was a moment of clarity at Reading Festival when I looked around and thought:

“I have never seen so many GINGERS in one place! My people …I HAVE FOUND YOU!”

So anyway, coming back to the point - when I found out about the blog My Band T-Shirt I felt compelled to write something. Alas it took longer than anticipated because at one point in my mid 20’s I had stumbled into a very sensible relationship and something terrible happened.

My then partner was not a freak. She was a nice girl. She was doing her ‘wild rebellion’ like a poorly paid gap year when she met me and it soon became apparent that she expected me to grow up with her when it was over.

Things had already changed; Rave had broken the monotonous uniform of black clothing and drainpipe jeans that carried me into the 90s. Instead we began to sweat our individuality into our Global Hyper-Colour tops. That was a sea change for me but for her it was just the start of a new direction.

She bought me a suede blazer jacket to replace my painted leather jacket. She began to ask questions about what ‘we’ were going to do about all my old T-Shirts. The alarm bells were ringing but she (being handy with a needle) offered to ‘make them into something’, she would sew them into a patchwork blanket thing so I didn’t have to throw them out (an offer forced into existence by my refusal to do the latter). So I ruefully gave her all my shirts.

Soon our life together began to drag, plans were being made, events were being dutifully attended and even her Airline Pilot Father complimented me on a pair of sensible shoes I was asked to wear.

I could see the uniforms coming to get me and I wasn’t going to go out like that. I panicked and split with the girl – she, to the best of my knowledge, burned my rebellious shirts. At the time it didn’t really matter, I knew I could never go back to those days anyway, life had moved on. Please don’t get me wrong, she was a lovely girl, but she had a very different outlook from me, it was always doomed.

So anyway, when I decided to write something for the blog I journeyed deep into the heart of my wardrobe but the pickings were awfully slim.

There was no Wedding Present ‘Russian Tour’, no My Bloody Valentine ‘Kiss’, no embarrassing Gene Loves Jezebel, Mission or Balaam & the Angel T’s. In fact apart from solitary Loop shirt (Id been wearing that fateful day), there was almost nothing to tell My Band T-Shirt about.

Then like a time team special – just when I thought I had nothing to show and tell, I found a relic of the past. Hidden in a bag that vaguely whiffed of Petula oil was my very own ‘Shroud of Turin’. A faded face looking out at me 30 years on, a testament to my faith in the freaks … my band T-shirt has Peter Murphy’s eyes.