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Punk on the Motorway

Bradford Middleton

    “Hey, do you know how to get us to the Rough Trade shop in Covent Garden?”
    “Sure I do, it’s pretty easy until we get to the one-way system in town then it gets confusing but yeah I know where it is... why?
    “Well me and the band have got to go up there later today and then off to Manchester... you fancy joining us?”
    “Damn yeah, that sounds like a great time!”

    It had all started a couple of days earlier at a dive club in one of the seedier parts of south-east London when Jack had been asked to turn up and play some records for a bunch of drunk punk rockers. He had arrived early as he wanted enough time to get into the spirit of the night before going on to play to this increasingly drunk array of bad mohicans and studded leather jackets with way too much paint on them. By the time he finally got to the stage for his first set he had been galvanised by a large quantity of lager, an even larger quantity of amphetamine sulphate that had been imbibed over the previous forty-eight hours and a chat with the two best looking women there - Katie, the promoter of the gig, and Suzie, the headline band’s manager of sorts, who looked exactly the part. Ramones t-shirt, black leather jacket, she was constantly smoking and either drinking beer or chewing gum in time to the punk-full jukebox that was blaring away building up to the start of Jack’s set.. Jack had met plenty of women like Suzy before but there was something about her that just really got to him. Maybe it was her broad New York accent and the swagger and confidence she had that made her stand out. The band she managed was big in their scene, they screamed 77 punk rock, and were drunk and obnoxious to order the minute it was called for.
    Jack finished off his first set as the band took to the stage, Mike, the lead singer leant over the side of the stage and spluttered some vomit over an area of the floor right in front of the baying mob of an audience. They launched into their set immediately after and hammered their way through forty minutes of the grimiest, skuzziest pop-punk-rock Jack had heard for a long time. The crowd seemed to love them greatly and Jack thought their sound was pleasant enough, at the time he was mainly wired to his eyes on some form of amphetamine and into the harder, even nastier stuff such as the bands on Digital Hardcore or Slap-A-Ham record labels. He found the band quite fun and entertaining in all honesty and it made perfect sense to him that they would within the space of a week be playing with the legendary band The Misfits at their big reformation show in a big club in the heart of Soho.
    By the end of the night Jack had ran out of records to play and it had finally died down to a dull roar with drunk punks out looking for like-minded souls with whom they could carry on the night someplace else. Jack wasn’t interested in carrying on his night anywhere, he had finally felt the gentle hand of sleep coming to take him off to slumber after over fifty hours of being awake and out of his mind for about the last twenty of them, and just wanted to go home. As he squeezed all the records back into his box Katie came over and smiling, asked “Hey, could you do us a big favour tonight?”
    “Maybe, what you need... as long as it doesn’t stop me getting home and to bed as quickly as I can.”
    “Well how about if I told you I’ve sorted you with a lift?”
    “Ah right, what’s the catch?”
    “Well we just found out that Suzy booked a few days off for the band in London and well, basically, me and Dave don’t have the space to put them up for longer than a night and we were wondering if...”
    “You want that bunch of insane drunk American punks to stay at Shake? You think they’ll do an in-store? How long do they need to stay?”
    “Just a few days really... they got to go to Manchester on Wednesday so they’ll be out of your hair by then.”
    “I’ll have to check with the mad man but I don’t see it being any problem.” With that he was handed a mobile phone so that he could talk to the owner of the record shop above which he lived.
    A few minutes later and Jack turned to Katie, “We reckon it’d be Ok as long as they don’t mind being cold cos they are gonna stay in the practice room and as long as they do a gig in-store. Turns out they’re on the cover of Maximum Rock’n’Roll this month so the mad man is actually quite excited.”
    “Cool, I’ll go tell Suzy.”
    “I’ll come with.”

    Less than five minutes later and they were hurtling down Lewisham Way on their way to the suburban area where Jack lived above the record shop with the mad man who had practically saved his life a number of years earlier when Katie had thrown Jack out onto the street.. It wasn’t a normal record shop; it only stocked independently released music and was generally way too obscure for lovers of general music. It was designed as a hang-out for those who listened to music on the periphery that most people either didn’t understand or simply assumed didn’t even exist. It was common for there to be a show on most Saturday afternoons that would inevitably draw some confused or angry looks through the glass-fronted shop window from those not into the scene. It wasn’t a very regimented scene but pretty much everyone who came into the shop on a regular basis was into their punk rock and had, generally, been in a band or known someone who had been in a band who had played at one of the lunchtime shows. It was a close scene but with its key rivalries just to keep things edgy and interesting.
    As the van pushed through the streets towards its final destination the band continued their act of the drunk, obnoxious American punks. Suzy seemed happy that they would have a fun big place to hang out for the next few days with potential for just about anything to happen.
    Less than an hour later and they were pulling into the back parking area of the shop and the punks began to disembark. Jack walked up to the door and unlocked it.
    He turned to Suzie, who was following closely behind, and said “You peeps need to store your gear someplace or are you gonna leave it in the van?”
    “I think we’re going to leave it in the van as Steve,” the van driver it turned out she was referring to, “is going to sleep in here to keep an eye on things... I heard it can get a bit rough round here.”
    “Yeah, it can get pretty horrid sometimes but trust me your better off staying here than at Katie and Dave’s, they live on the edge of a warzone!”
    “Ah cool, so what now?”
    “How about a drink? Don’t think we got anything to eat but at least the drink will help you sleep more soundly tonight. It’s probably going to get real cold in that practice space tonight.”
    “A drink does sound good... we got some money so we could go out and get some if you guys don’t have enough to last the night.”
    Jack felt a connection with Suzie that he hadn’t experienced with a woman since he had got together with Katie a few years earlier and he was pleased to see that she seemed interested in him to some degree. She sure was one cool person and he was pleased of the attention. The next few days passed in a haze of pot smoke and beer and somewhere in the intervening chaos the band managed to crawl onto stage and perform some of their songs, as it turned out they sold more copies of their CD than they had at the big show the previous Saturday. Wednesday soon came round and Jack woke with a new invigorated feeling off being part of a band on the road. All this and they hadn’t even driven a foot yet. After a spot of breakfast, Jack’s usual variety of a strong joint and a large mug of really strong coffee, they were in the van. It took a while to raise the band from their slumber but eventually, just before lunchtime, they were heading up London Road on their way off to Covent Garden first and the nightmare idea of trying to find a place to park up near the Rough Trade shop. Jack and Suzie sat up front of the van with Steve the driver whilst the band fitted nice and snuggly in with all their gear in the back. It wasn’t one of those big flash touring bands that a lot use now but a pretty ramshackle affair – no area for dedicated sleeping, just a row of seats down either side with all their gear strewn across the floor. The band sat there getting their respective heads together however they chose to, for Mike it was a red Marlboro cigarette and a can of exceptionally strong beer. The rest of them merely sat around looking for all the world as if it was just another day which of course for them it was, just another day on the road. It didn’t take long for the band to reach the city. The instantly recognizable tourist spots came into view and the band suddenly appeared to perk up.
    Jack turned to Suzie and said, “This is the bit were it may get complicated... one of the upsides of being born in London is you never really need to learn how to drive so I never have, unfortunately in circumstances like this it doesn’t help that I know exactly where the store is but am not totally sure of how to get there. Baring in mind who I’m with though I think we’ll go the simple way I know for sure will work.” As the van pulled onto Whitehall Jack gesticulated at the upcoming Nelson’s Column, the dominant attraction in the Trafalgar Square, and said “... we need to go round to the north-east corner and follow Charing Cross Road up to Shaftesbury Avenue where we turn right and then go to Seven Dials. It should be pretty easy from there if we can get that far.”
    The band looked like bemused kids, peering out the window like awe-struck kids on their first trip to a big city, staring up at the impressive buildings and the vast array of shops that the van made its way by. Jack’s choice of route was spot on and within five minutes they were parked on the road by the alley down which the shop rented its premises.
    Suzie turned to the band and said “Go get yourselves some drinks guys, here’s thirty pounds, that should be enough for the time we got to spend in the shop and meet us back here in about an hour. OK?”
    “Sure...” Mike said, and turning to his fellow band mates, continued “...we should get some booze for the road... Suzie told me last night it’s going to take about five hours to get to Manchester! I’ll need a drink.”
    “I better stay here in the van as traffic wardens are probably right bastards in this part of town and the last thing we want is to get towed. If I see one of them about I’ll just drive round the block a few times. I’ll make sure nothing happens,” Steve informed Suzie.
    “Makes sense, we’ll see you in a bit, OK?”
    “Sure.”
    “Want to grab that bag of records Jack?” Suzie asked as she dragged a box of vinyl from under her seat and proceeded to stagger down the alleyway towards the shop. It wasn’t just her bands records she had been told to deliver but a load of records from the label she’d somehow managed to get the band signed to. “Do you know a guy called Sean? He works here apparently and is the man to talk too.”
    “Sean, yeah I know him.”

    Less than ten minutes later and Suzie and Jack were back out on the pavement without all the records and with a large wedge of notes stuffed into Suzie’s incomprehensibly tight black denim jeans. She looked real good.
    “How about we join the guys in the bar for a quick one?”
    “Sure, could do with some crisps too. That’ll do for lunch, a pint and something nice to munch on.”
    As they got back to the road they immediately noticed a traffic warden walking in their direction and no sign of the van so made their way over to the nearest pub. Suzie had known Mike for years and knew instantly he would have dragged the rest of the band in there at the first possible opportunity. Walking into the pub Jack noticed immediately that Mike was propped up at the bar, with a load of whisky glasses around a couple of pint glasses in front of him. The rest of the band was sat in the corner, a couple of them even drinking coffee rather than beer.
    Suzie walked over to the majority and offered them a drink after informing them they had got a lot of money off the shop and the deal she had settled upon with the label boss meant it was to go into the bands touring costs. Jack hadn’t really interacted with these three much during their stay at the shop and stood in the background and Suzie took an order for a whisky, a beer and another coffee.
    After about half an hour of sitting in their three distinct groups around the pub Suzie got to her feet and went over to Mike who by now was starting to feel the effects of the huge amount of whisky he had imbibed in the short time they had spent in the bar. He stumbled to his feet and with everyone else following him fell out on to the street. The fact it was only late lunchtime and they were still nearly two-hundred from their intended destination and the lead singer was already drunk it was best to get on the road as soon as possible.
    The band stood out on the pavement for a few minutes, Mike opened another beer and Jack began formulating the route in his head and the band stood around looking bored. The van pulled round the corner and Jack was delighted to not see any traffic wardens about as it pulled over to the curbside. The band got in the back as Jack and Suzie climbed up onto the front seat. Steve barely needed to stop to pick the band up and before long they were hurtling through the main thoroughfare’s of suburban north London towards the M6 which Jack had worked out they could pick up from Kilburn. It was to be a long drive and not much time to do anything but look out the window as the van careered through the countryside. Jack relaxed to the state where he felt himself fall into a short cycle of snoozing and waking, it was one of his favourite states. After passing Milton Keynes Jack came too to discover Suzie’s head rested on his thighs with her legs scrunched up so that she fit snuggly into the small space between Jack and Steve. Jack felt his loins begin to stir and rested back in his seat. The band were relaxing quietly in the back of the van, even Mike seemed to have switched himself off for the drive.
    Jack stared out the window at the passing scenery and began to remember driving through the countryside with his parents when he was much younger and all the adventures they had enjoyed. This was an all-together different kind of journey. The next sign on the road announced they were passing Stoke-on-Trent and were less than fifty miles from Manchester. The mood in the van changed dramatically as the band realised they needed to get into their stage personas. Mike immediately grabbed for the bottle of whisky they had bought in London and yet another beer. Jack was beginning to wonder just how Mike survived on tour what with all the drinking and the apparent lack of food he ingested and most importantly how he was going to get out of the van and perform that night. As they moved off the motorway Suzie checked her phone which read 6.30pm and turned to Steve and asked him if he knew where the venue was.
    “Sure I do, this is my area... it’s just London I have difficulty in navigating,” and within twenty minutes they were parked up outside the venue. Jack had felt a slight put-down in Steve’s last comment and felt he needed to prove his worth. As the band stumbled out the van, Mike took a wrap out of his pocket and lurched off towards the toilet. Jack and Steve began unloading the band’s gear with the rest of the band. Within ten minutes they were set up on stage and they still had an hour to sound-check before the hordes would be allowed to enter. The sound was good, better than Saturday, and the venue seemed to have a bit more to it than a stage in a corner of a pub. As Jack sat down at the bar, Suzie came over and told him to follow her as she had sorted the band out with a rider of booze. Mike suddenly came into view and it was clear to Jack what had been in that wrap he had seen him make off with the second they had got out the van. Mike’s eyes were on storks and he seemed incapable of standing still for more than a second, Mike was on some primo amphetamine’s and Jack was a little intrigued to find out if he could have some.
    As the first of the two local support bands went on stage the crowd began to enjoy themselves, dancing around, throwing their beer over each other whilst playfully battering each other senseless in the ensuing mosh-pit. By the time Mike got up on stage and announced the band the mob was huge and were ready to really explode in a cavalcade of chaos. Exactly on cue the band began with one of their pumped-up drunk punk tunes and the baying mob went ballistic with joy. Forty minutes later and it was all over and the crowd seemed to have enjoyed themselves. Mike had again been sick off the side of the stage during the band’s set and much beer had been shared around, generally through bottles being thrown in the air as the owner wanted more freedom to dance.
    “Another good show, I think” Suzie said turning to Jack who had remained by her side throughout the show.
    “It sure was, Mike is a great front-man and the band is pretty tight. Where’s the next gig?”
    “Ah, that’ll be tomorrow... down the road in Birmingham. Got us a place to crash tonight and according to Steve it should only take about an hour to get there tomorrow so we can spend the day trawling the bars and shops if you want?”
    “Nice, sounds like a plan. So where we staying tonight?”
    “At the promoter’s flat. He’s apparently got a bit more space than your friends down in London had so it should be cool. He’s even got a spare bedroom!”
    Jack’s mind began to wonder as to what she was inferring when she had told him about the spare bedroom. ‘What could she have meant?’ he wondered to himself.
    A couple of hours later, after they had finished off their rider and driven back through the centre of the city they ended up outside the promoter’s place in the depths of Salford, probably the roughest area in the entire city. It became immediately apparent why the promoter had more space. This was not a nice area and the block of flats where he lived was practically empty and a lot of them had their windows boarded up.
    The promoter, whose name turned out to be Sam, turned to the band and asked them, “You guys fancy staying in a proper punk squat tonight?”
    They looked nonplussed by the situation, it was probably something they were used too travelling around on tour as much as they did, and agreed it would be a cool thing to do. Sam turned to Suzie, Jack and Steve and told them, “I got enough space for you guys to stay if you want but I thought they might enjoy hanging with some new like-minded people” to which Steve retorted that he had better stay in the van again due to the notorious nature of the area in which it was parked. He didn’t fancy waking up the next day to discover an empty lot with no gear to be seen.

    As they got to the respective flats, next door to one another, Suzie grabbed Jack’s hand and asked Sam if it would be cool for them to share a bed that night. He seemed a bit pissed-off at missing out on the opportunity to stay up and chat with Jack and Suzie and see what he could develop with the sexy New Yorker in their midst. Sam showed them to the spare room and offered them a duvet and some pillows and moments later they were in bed. Jack could feel himself becoming turned on by the situation but it was Katie who he could not get out of his head. He lay there, awake for hours, holding on to her hand with her back turned to him and began wondering why he wasn’t ravaging this beautiful, sexy woman who was clearly up for some fun. He had to keep her at arm’s length once Sam had left them alone and she seemed pissed off by his rejection of her advances.
    After a short few hours sleep Jack woke up again and still Suzie was lying next to him in her t-shirt and panties looking just as hot as she had the night before and still sound asleep. He decided to go into the kitchen and make himself some coffee if Sam wasn’t already awake. As he walked out the bedroom he was surprised to see his host already sat at the breakfast table, devouring what looked like muesli.
    “Ah, morning Sam, any chance of a coffee?”
    “Sure man, no problem. Instant alright? How do you take it?”
    “Strong and black, just how I like my men!” Jack guffawed in response. “Seriously pour some milk in first and a few tablespoons of sugar and I’ll be fine.”
    They sat around in a tense state of silence devouring their respective breakfasts. Jack pulled out a bag of weed and proceeded to roll his second course of breakfast as he took huge swigs of his steaming hot coffee.
    About an hour later Jack turned to Sam and jokingly said, “Seems the band are enjoying their lie-in!”
    “It sure does... what you guys got planned for today?”
    “Not sure, all I know is we got to get to Birmingham at some point, then after that it’s back to London.”
    At this point Steve walked into the kitchen and reported that the night had been eventful and it might be an idea just to get out of Manchester as soon as they could. He was to return downstairs straight after getting a coffee and a couple of slices of toast to continue his vigilant watch on his property.
    “So what happened then last night?” Jack asked.
    “A couple of incidents when I almost feel asleep... a gang of kids came round and were clearly interested in the van and its contents so I had to stay up to keep an eye on them. As it is Birmingham isn’t my favourite city, an ex lives there so I’ll just catch up on my sleep when we get there.”
    “Sounds like a crazy night. I’ll go see what Suzie and the band are doing so we can get on the road as soon as possible if you want?”
    Within an hour they were back on the road and Steve was driving with his foot to the floor. He was clearly desperately tired and couldn’t wait to get to Birmingham and then get some much needed sleep. The band had seemed to have a spectacularly debauched night in the squat and even Mike was without his usual perennial can of strong imported beer. Suzie was still a bit peeved off at Jack about last night and concentrated on the road ahead and ensured Steve remained awake. Jack merely sat there in his stoned stupor and stared out the window at the industrial wasteland that dominated the journey’s landscape feeling glad it was a short journey.
    As they pulled up outside the venue Suzie looked at her phone and announced it was still only lunchtime and seeing as the band hadn’t eaten anything hot for a few days maybe they should all go out for some food. Jack hadn’t eaten anything of any real nourishment since the previous Thursday when the huge quantities of amphetamines had started to be ingested. These couple of days on the road had sure helped fire his appetite. They quickly found a place that specialised in deep fat fryer based food and Jack was delighted at seeing a true feast of a vegetarian breakfast served to him not long after they settled down and what’s more Suzie had said the band could pay for it.
    After they had completed breakfast they decided to decamp to a bar that Steve had told them all about on the motorway that morning. It was the major punk hang-out in town. By three o’clock they had their feet firmly under the table of the watering hole and Jack was beginning to see why Steve had apparently raved so well about this bar. Unfortunately Steve was not with them as he had promised himself some sleep that afternoon to try and make up for the lost hours the previous night. The bar had a couple of really sexy barmaids and a jukebox full of punk classics which looked like it had been there since before most of the music on it had even been made. It sure was a pretty decent bar, even by Jack’s standard of the bars in London.
    The gig that night seemed a bit flat, the band admitted later they had been too drunk to play as well as they normally would, and the crowd seemed not as into it either. Even Mike had seemed a bit subdued during the set. That night Jack thought to himself he would let Suzie do whatever she wanted with him and that he should let Katie finally go in his mind.

    The next morning they were back on the road to London and Jack felt like a new man after letting Suzie devour his every morsel during the night. She looked at him in a new way too and was really loved up for the ensuing situation which was much to Jack’s disappointment about to end.
    The van hurtled down the motorway as fast as it could, about fifty-five if they were heading downhill, and the scenery was beginning to look familiar again. It was the last journey that the six of them would share on the motorway but tomorrow night Jack was to meet some of his heroes in the form of the recently reformed The Misfits.

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