RIP to NME – the firebrand rock magthatelectrifiedmyteenyears Alright now, baby, itsa alright now to let your hair down and break Free
NME ( New Musical Express) magazine – which ceased being printed on Friday – was the holy bible for music loving teens over several generations.
Its demise brought a flood of memories back; memories of rainy Thursday lunch times spent flicking excitedly through the pages in the newsagents of my hometown. Stacks of NMEs, placed alongside Melody Makers, provided welcome relief from schoolbooks. The black print of the NME sang of the lives of rock stars – living amazingly exciting times. Band rivalries were played out in the column inches and band in-fighting provided a satisfying melodrama to while away hours on end. At a time when music videos were a rarity, the pages of the NME provided images of my favourite bands taken at gigs across the globe. The writers seemed, at times, to be as rock n’roll as the artists themselves and there was a clear sense that the musicians loved appearing within the publication’s pages. To be given a 5 star review by the NME, you got the sense, was the ultimate apogee a band could reach as the NME was a source of street cred within the industry, as well as being a trusted paper when it came to recommending bands to music hungry teens. The pages of the NME, (which I bought whenever pocket money allowed), afforded me a window into the world of the mad, the bad and the beautiful in rock at a time when who you felt defined by the music you listened to. I would glaze over the British underground scene, preferring to whet my appetite by reading the latest dispatches about American bands from Sebadoh to the Smashing Pumpkins, Jeff Buckley to the Stone Temple Pilots.
Growing up in a quiet town – made all the more quiet as I was shy and a ‘ blow in’ – I found company and comfort among the NME’s boldly designed pages. The interviews with rock stars from Richie Edwards to Flea (of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame), offered something real in what, at times, seemed like a world of academic box ticking exercises and saving face social etiquette. The paper’s reviews section was a shining light of journalism, where careers were made and destroyed in a few effusive or barbed remarks. I remember reading a review of Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness by singer with The Manic Street Preachers James Dean Bradfield, in which he suggested that the Chicago band’s caterwauling singer should be lined up and shot for his yelps on one track. There was a freedom to what was written and said which matched the boundary testing ragged language of the crowd of friends I hung around with. Today many artists, even good ones like Maynard James Keenan, have to resort to posting cryptic messages about upcoming albums on social media. In the good old days of the printed NME you were fore-told about new songs from bands you loved and got to read the reviews days before the cassette tapes hit the shelves of the local music shop. Gig venue and date lists were poured over, while images of bands wearing tattered jumpers or flouncy shirts in the case of Suede’s Brett Anderson provided sartorial cues for my generation, just as the Sex Pistols did for the generation of the 1970s and Morrissey and New Order did in the 1980s.
As the NME moves completely into the online sphere, having lost its way somewhat since the mid-Noughties, I, for one, will lament its loss; not because of what it will mean to the current generation, but as the end of an era of another publication, whose print got stuck to your fingers and whose words electrified your heart.
WELCOME to my time warp… Dishes to wash. The full range of dishes. Tricky, sticky pots to be scoured. Clinky, dinky glasses to be soaped and shone. Nicky nacky cutlery to be cleaned and sorted. Yawn. The time has come to turn the volume up loud, the full fortissimo, on the stereo. Time to put a backbeat to the housework. Time to break Free.
‘Alright now, baby, itsa alright now!’ A wooden spoon for microphone. Snapping the tea towel in rhythm. ‘Wow. Yeah. Alright now.’
Normally, the sound of 1970s pop is guaranteed to drive all other residents of the household to the furthest corners of The Manor.
But on this occasion, young Persephone decides to channel her inner rock chick while stacking a few plates.
Though born more than three decades after this song was on ‘ Top of the Pops’, she seems to know the chorus.
In fairness, there is not much to know.
‘Alright now, baby, itsa alright now!’
Then Eldrick appears, taking time out from his evening studies and ready to lend his talents on air guitar.
Now the kitchen is bopping like nobody’s business. Even The Pooch catches the mood, the atmosphere – heh, let’s call it The Vibe, man.
The dog has no sense of rhythm, bless him, but skips around the floor like a four-pawed, miniature Freddie Mercury at the height of his stadium blitzing powers.
All we need now is the star of the show. All we need is the ultimate glamour. And here she comes
For a moment, and only a moment, I fear that Hermione is going to blow The Vibe and bring us all tumbling back to boring old earth.
Her jaw is on the point of dropping as she puts her head around the door. Her eyebrows twitch as though poised to register surprise and scorn.
Her voice (though she denies it afterwards) is within a scintilla of emitting some mood wrecking comment along the lines of: ‘What is all this tomfoolery? Can’t a woman get a bit of peace around here?’
Instead, the head disappears as she retreats to compose herself and then she makes a proper entrance as befits the star turn. ‘Let’s move before they raise the parking rate.’
And she is back, a one-woman hurricane in a pleated housecoat and a pair of woolly slippers, arriving onto the makeshift stage with all the applause- and attention-seeking zest of an Elton John on springs, without the big specs
Except of course that there is no stage and no audience, just four lunatic humans using cooking utensils for props and one hyperactive canine near to wetting himself with the excitement of it all.
‘Alright now, baby, itsa alright now!’ Alright it is too, with all five of us giving it socks, while the suds and the pots are forgotten.
Hermione is throwing in a few of the dance moves which made her the talk of the Un-Yoke night club circa 1985.
Persephone is attempting to pick out a harmony line, of all things, from all the mayhem.
Eldrick has thrown aside his invisible Stratocastergibson guitar in favour of a phantom drum kit.
And I have swapped the wooden spoon for a vacuum cleaner attachment.
Eat your heart out, Rod Stewart.
‘Alright Now’ by Free. Lasts 4 minutes and 10 seconds. A hit internationally in 1970. Still riding high in the charts at Medders Manor – for one night only. After the full four minutes and 10 seconds have elapsed, the only sound is laughter.
And then, as though nothing had happened, everyone pulls themselves together and resumes whatever it was they were doing before the madness broke out...
Such was the success of our sink rock session that I am now planning an evening with Joe Dolan and the laundry.