F has gone. Tappy lapping off to London town with a pocket full of railway tickets, and an acoustic, an electric, and a bag full of guitar pedals and strange complex music programmes slung over his shoulder. It was the usual last minute dash…train at 4pm and F still slinging stuff in his bag at 3.30pm while I stomped around the place saying such helpful things as “When I asked you last night if everything you needed was clean and packed and you said yes, I wasn’t referring to your pedals, I meant your clothes” and “how should I know where your glasses are, you haven’t worn them in three years which, by the way, is the same length of time you’ve had your contact lenses in - it might be time to change them as you’re only supposed to wear them for a month at a time”

Now this is not usual behaviour for me. Normally I am Super-girlfriend when it comes to getting F’s kit ready. He slings his gear into his bag and I cram in clean socks and undies around it. But this is different. He’s going to London and I am not happy about it. In fact I am extremely pissed about it. London is MH territory.

Now MH is not an ex-wife/girlfriend or anything so mundane. MH is far more dangerous. MH was a band. MH was probably the band. Lamacq called them an adrenal Suede - Jgirl and I called them a bunch of arrogant tossers who couldn’t find their instruments with both hands if there was a gaggle of supermodels in the room. Well actually we didn’t. We just called them a bunch of tossers. Usually behind their back but sometimes to their face - it all depended on how much we’d had to drink. But they were good. They were real dammed good. On stage that is. On stage they kicked ass. Usually each others. The number of nights that Jgirl and I have stood at the front and silently prayed “F please don’t hit J with the guitar it’s not insured and we can’t afford a new one” would probably add up to..well at least the number of gigs that they played and probably about 99% of their practices. When they weren’t beating each other up they were shooting themselves in the foot - I mean I’m not a musician but even I can hazard a guess that on being offered an album deal the thing to say “thank you pass me your pen” not “Fuck man, you’re brave - we hate each other so much we could split up at any moment”

Off stage, they were probably all really nice people but as a girlfriend I never got the chance to find out. We were in separate camps right from the start. That’s the way it is in bands. Even if they’ve never seen Spinal Tap all musicians view their band mates girlfriends as the enemy. Their own (should they have one - and they quite often don’t, as only a masochist would put up with the amount of self-absorption required to be a musician) they think is an angel fallen from heaven who is always right. About everything. No matter if they’re playing death metal and her favourite band is Take That she is the font of all musical knowledge. They have to think that because if they disagree with her they don’t get laid - and that, my friends is the reason why musicians pick up their instruments in the first place. The other band members girlfriend’s they see as a threat. Partly because they have all seen Spinal Tap and have a terrible feeling that one day they’ll have to get on stage dressed as their star signs but mostly because if there’s a girlfriend around they can’t practise the evil little head fucks they love so much. Boy, did they practice head fucks. Every single little emotional trick in the book. The only trouble is that woman are genetically so much better at them. We’ve had more practice. Subtly kneecapping someone’s self esteem? please…we learn that as soon as we go to school. Guilt tripping someone to get what you want? We pick that one up when we get our first flat and need someone to decorate it. Emotional blackmail - don’t even go there. It comes fitted as standard. Thing is, it didn’t matter how much they practised they still stunk at it. Forget the steel hand in the velvet glove - they were the concrete fist in the iron mitten.

So MH hated J girl and I, and Jgirl and I reciprocated. It wasn’t difficult. They hated me because they wanted F to live and breathe and be with them 24-7 and Jgirl and I hated them because we were bored. F didn’t take too much notice either way- he had a guitar, an amp an ebo, a zoom and a slide…he was busy experimenting about how little like a guitar he could make a guitar sound.

It’s a strange thing but of all the bands F has been in and of all the deals he’s had, the band he misses most is MH. Maybe it’s because it was the one band he didn’t get signed to a major. It broke his track record. Maybe it’s because they were fucking good, or maybe it’s simply as a friend of Jgirls once said when I was trying to explain the weird evil chemistry they had which made them so good “that’s not rock and roll - that’s dysfunction..” I always thought that was the same thing but there you go.

This new recording is with 2 ex members of MH and with F down there that makes three. Althoughit pains me to admit it - it is a good band. Loads of interest too, and I wish them well (not exactly from the most altruistic of reasons I admit, as F has written, played and produced some of their stuff) He’s been working with them on and off via virtual reality for a while. It was bad enough when they lived in the computer - at least I could shut them off but now he’s actually meeting up with them in real time I foresee it all starting over and I’m too old and too tired for all that girlfriend V band shit.

On the other hand there’s nothing much to do once the nights draw in and I’ve been looking for a hobby…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 17th, 2004 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.