Young Jobless
I sat with a two-litre bottle of cider in one hand and a roll-up in the other, watching the video screen in my landlord Steve's living room. Roger Maynard, then a news presenter at BBC East in Norwich, was interviewing a young man. The young man, in his 20s, was dressed almost entirely in black, his thin face appearing more gaunt for a surfeit of smeared mascara. He lurched uneasily in his seat as he fielded the interviewer's questions. Did he think, asked Roger Maynard, that a record whose subject matter mentioned unemployment and drugs was relevant as an educational aid for youngsters? The young man stared vacantly at the camera: “Well it’s gotta be better than rock-climbing and Duke of Edinburgh Awards... annit?” he slurred. Then he laughed, lurching almost out of his seat.
Even I, by this time well-numbed with cider, was slightly shocked as I watched the video recording of my first live TV appearance.
Everyone, apparently, had seen it. The pub, so Steve said, had been a-buzz with it earlier. Even an uncle of mine in distant Buckinghamshire had witnessed it. Shortly afterwards, during the course of a telephone conversation, he told me quietly that he thought I’d let myself down. It hadn’t been the plan. I’d put a sharp black outfit together. A little bit rock’n’roll maybe, but smart-ish It was on the train to the Norwich studio that I noticed my throat was swollen, my head ached and I felt slightly other-worldly. The meet and greet person at the BBC showed me into the Green Room (which they still had in those days) pointed to a large drinks cabinet and gave me one of those, you-know-what-to-do gestures. No sooner had the door closed than I’d sprung briskly up and mixed myself a whisky mac. Then, quickly, another. Still no one came to collect me. So I had a third. I now felt confident, witty and erudite.
Thus began My So-Called Fucking TV Career. A few days earlier, my mum had telephoned me at 7.30am and said, “You’re in the Daily Mail. They say that a 'dole and drugs record’ written by a part-time washer-up has been sent out to hundreds of schools as an educational aid. And a Tory MP Nick Budgen, has condemned you publicly." She sounded rather more excited than alarmed about it. On Radio 1, the DJ Dave Lee Travis was playing ‘Young Jobless' at lunchtimes. The record company informed me that my disc had been C-listed, which meant ‘sporadic’ airplay. The drive-time DJ, Peter Powell, had played it too. For the next fortnight or so, I’d be washing up at the restaurant on a busy lunchtime session, and I’d suddenly hear Max Volume’s guitar riff chugging in, as my record came on.
“Hey, that’s my record again!” I’d squeal. The whole shift would come to a halt until it was finished. I was getting Radio 1 airplay. One evening they played it on Radio 4’s PM news show. I never heard it of course. In those days I only ever listened to pop music stations. Because of that particular news item, some high-up at EMI Records had also heard it.
The next thing you know, along with Kris and Stuart from Offstreet Records, I’m sitting upstairs at EMI’s Manchester Square HQ, negotiating a one-off, piss-poor, four per cent record and distribution deal. The record was hurriedly re- released on EMI's Liberty label. Now we were motoring.
We sealed it with a lukewarm bottle of Chablis, which I'd found while nosing around in their broken fridge, when instead I should have been listening to what was being said. In the bogs later, just along the corridor, I met Mensi, cheerfully ebullient singer of the Angelic Upstarts. “Do some fookin work, yer lazy bastids!” he yelled in broad Geordie, as we passed back through the typing pool together. On the way back up to the meeting room, finding myself on the wrong staircase, I met a few glamorous- looking New Romantic types: tablecloths over shoulders, leather trousers and big ’80s hair. They all had flutes of cold fizzy in their hands. I was informed that it was some kind of reception for Dexys Midnight Runners. And there's me, Kris and Stuart, crammed upstairs in an office with a paper cup of warm Chablis each and a song about the plight of Our Unemployed Yoof. Every expense spared, then.
