There’s no other way.
Its 1990. The end of my second year at University. The third year is a placement year and I can’t wait. I went to Bradford University hoping to find late night conversations of philosophy, politics, Milan Kundera and Jean-Jaques Beinex (pretentious? Moi? Yep, a little). It wasn’t quite like that. I was looking for great venues and cool bands. It wasn’t like that at all. In reflection this was a good thing as it made my friends and me get off our arses and start our own club nights and create our own scene, design our own posters and DJ ourselves (I say DJ, I just clashed records into one another. The House of Love “Destroy the Heart” into Happy Mondays “WFL” into NWA “Express Yourself” into 808 State “Pacific” – I know, I know). By the end of May 1990 I was done with Baggy, I’d turned-down tickets to Spike Island (maybe a mistake in hindsight), I was still in love with Chicago House but it was increasingly being usurped in clubs by Techno. So I headed off on my placement year working in Camden with huge excitement. And, dear reader, I wasn’t disappointed.
I worked on Arlington Road, about 100 metres from the Good Mixer. At this stage the Good Mixer was not a place to be seen/scene. There was a male homeless hostel over the road and the Good Mixer was the venue of choice for residents after they were sent out for the day. It took another two years before it became the Brit-Pop pub of choice. Camden was tired but I still loved it. It’s really uncool to say, but I still do. I’d pop for a spinach and feta pastry from the Greek Deli on the high street, chat to Alan Bennet (he lived around the corner) on the way, queue up with Normski (always had a sausage roll) and pop in and say hello to Jazzy B on my way back. This was normal. I erroneously thought the rest of my life would be like this, it hasn’t been. I loved that job and I had the second-best boss I’ve ever had. But outside of work things were about to get really interesting.
I shared a flat in Muswell Hill with art students from Middlesex Poly. All notable in their own right. One went on to be the animator for Charlie and Lola and Peppa Pig, one went into porn production for Richard Desmond and is now high-up at Channel Five (I know, TV right, where dodgy people hide in plain sight), and the other made art from dead animals before Damien Hirst (I’d often come home and find my spinach in the freezer nestled alongside road kill and a deceased kitten). I was studying Environmental Science so it was utterly joyous and eye-opening to share time and space with artists. One of their course mates was round the day I moved in. Her name was Jess and I really liked her. I moved in on the 21st of July, Jess said her brother was in a band and they were playing in Tuffnell Park the following Wednesday, would I like to come? I’d never heard of her brother’s band but the support was Eusebio who I really wanted to see.
“You bet” I said.
Jess explained that her brother’s band had just been signed to Food records and things were looking and sounding good for them.
So 4 days after I arrived in London I met Jess and the gang in a pub and off we went to see her brother’s band Blur. For the first of many times.
They’d just changed their name and were working-out their identity. They looked a bit baggy with bowl haircuts and shambolic dancing (the latter trait remains) but I liked them. There was a swagger and confidence that stopped short of arrogant and the guitarist was clearly a genius. Damon owned the stage and his acrobatics were already famous. Even at this stage he was musically adventurous playing about with a tiny Harmonium. Nothing like the creativity after he freed himself of the constraining belief of being in an indie band and created the Gorillaz, but you could see the corner of that golden ticket under the wrapper of Blur.
Anyway, I saw the band every week or so. Got to know them a little. Damon was lovely, Graham shy but brilliant, Dave like a normal bloke and Alex was (pre-cheese) utterly beautiful. Nice men, great music, good times. The first single was a double A-side “She’s so high/I know” and it’s a great track. Then the second single “There’s no otherway” took the charts by storm peaking at number 2 in the pop charts and lifting the band into the Premier League. The first album was called Leisure and that’s what I want to talk about. Many people will have come to Blur through their third Album “Parklife” as it was era-defining but for me the Leisure and the second album “Modern Life is Rubbish” will hold a special place in my heart. I want to talk about Leisure as its often over-looked and under-played.
The band are often dubbed an Art School band and its easy to see why. They embraced the popular culture of the 1960s in the imagery and branding. The poster and cover for the first single used a striking image of a Hippo by Mel Ramos from 1967. It caused a great deal of controversy when Blur used it as the hippo has a naked woman laying on top of it. This controversy was followed by the video being banned as Damon was wearing a t-shirt with a full-bleed image of the front of the Penguin Books Classic “The Thin Man” on it. Both works of art in their own right. Damon’s parents are both artists (as is sister Jess now) and came from the 60s pop art stable. Damon spoke about living in the only house with a silver-painted room in his home-town of Colchester. Graham too is an amazing artist and design and art and creativity runs through Blur’s work.
Now music is a time machine and when I put the album on and “She’s So High” grinds into gear I’m transported back to the hazy and smoky summer of 1990. It gives way to the Stephen Street produced “Bang” where we begin to hear the start of a London sound, a British sound, before it became the caricature that Parklife (Oi!) became. Then the album grinds down a gear with the very spliffy “Slow Down”. In this track Graham’s punk streak begins to emerge and Dave’s drumming pushes it forwards. “Repetition” is just beautiful, and you can hear elements of this appear again on The Great Escape album. Damon plays with voice distortion which he continued to do throughout the next 30 years. Then the opening of Bad Day breaks into a slack and very baggy drumbeat. The crowd at gigs would come alive at this stage. Not moshing as such but I was definitely lifted up and surfed at this point. Damon shifts instrument and the piano intro of Sing heralds my least favourite song on the album but, but, you can hear the half-life of this this song in “This is a low”.
This is cleared out of the way by the raucous and unmistakable start of “There’s no other way”. A staggering and swaggering anthem, a siren call for the dancefloor at the Camden Palace. One of my favourite songs and my phone ringtone for a long time. Still my starter record if I ever get asked to DJ (which thankfully is rare).
The song ends beautifully suddenly and tips us into “Fool”. Damon’s delivery has an indie whine ahead of its time and it’s a decent enough tune. Danceable in an indie-disco, cardigan-wearing, doc-shuffling way. Graham’s guitars herald the start of the next track “Together”. This is another ‘front-of-the-gig’ crowd pleaser with enough energy to keep the crowd on a rolling-boil. We then head back into the slack-beat of ‘High Cool’. This is one of my favourite tracks on the album and a regular at early gigs. The next track is Birthday and it’s a winding tune that predicted shoe-gaze. It gave the front of the crowd a rest.
The original UK release ended with Wear Me Down. A weird love song that speaks of resignation more than passion. But I like it none the less. I can’t finish this without a mention of the double A side of “She’s so high”. A song called “I know”. Its brilliant. It’s not on the original album release but replaced ‘Sing’ on subsequent pressings.
The last time I saw them for free they were supporting The Soup Dragons at Brixton and were remarkable. There were more people there for Blur than the mighty Soup Dragons. I got a lift back to North London with Damon’s folks and sister. The pride and love in the car was wonderful. To get a glimpse into the heart of band, a movement even, so early on was a real treat.
Music is a time machine. Impossible to un-velcro from the era when you first heard it. For me this album takes me straight back to 1990 and 1991. The years I fell in love and got married. I still had to go back and finish my degree and I did so with a pocketful of memories and grooves.
Blur’s transition to Brit Pop shouters is well documented on “The Rise and Fall of Brit Pop”. The advent of grunge, the rise of Seattle and slackers nearly finished them off. They had to regroup, re-imagine who they could be. This started with going back to the 60s, to that pop-art era that inspired their posters and sleeves and to ride high on a wave of New Britishness that culminated in Cool Britannia. Anyone digging into Blur for the first time will feel the pull, the centre of gravity of Parklife, and it’s a fine album. But for me Leisure and Modern Life is Rubbish are the places to find four young men trying to find themselves, including this (once) young man.
Footnote: This piece was originally written for www.unspunheroes.com. This is a fledgling side-project I’m supporting. Started by Simon White it aims to share and re-press albums deserving of wider attention. For me Leisure fits the bill. It’s the Raleigh Chipper to the bigger brother Chopper. Parklife was so big it took all the light from the previous two albums. Time to remedy that.
