Sunday 24 February 2013

no real reason

I was listening to a few full albums on youtube and 'Machine Gun Etiquette' by the Damned came on. I've not heard this since I was a lad (around the time it came out '79/'80) and when pleasantly listening to it when 'Smash It Up' came on.
Now.....when I was at school around this time (St.George's Middle in Wallasey-don't look for it, it's not there anymore) we would have school discos at the end of term and the end of year and they were usually dull, boring affairs of shy boys and shy girls not dancing together and drinking flat pop and eating stale crisps (or where those my birthday parties?); and the music was a mix of pop trash, disco rubbish and other chart garbage (Dollar, Abba, Leo Sayer, Sheena Easton!) with little or no 2-tone, mod (except maybe the odd Police or Madness track) and definitely, absolutely NO punk or metal being played (despite it being a rather thing in the UK)
Anyway a guy that was in my class, Gavin Curry, had obviously had enough and brought in his own copy of the Damned single and asked the teacher to play it whereupon he started to dance (all by himself on the dance floor) as the song played, not giving at rat (scabies)'s arse about what anyone thought about him. It was brilliant!
The boys all cheered as he took a bow and the teacher gave him back the record and refused to ever play it again! Rock and fucking roll people!

We moved to different schools at the end of summer '81 and I never saw Gavin again and would never see him again after he had hung himself in a bizarre prank, in which he was joking around with his girlfriend and mock 'hung' himself in a tree with his braces and slipped.....tragic really. He wasn't a close friend or anyone I hung out with but I did go to school with him and he must have left some kind of impression on me because I'm writing this post about him after over 30+ years since I last heard this song and thought of him.


The Damned- Smash It Up