Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room The Street

I turn the corner and I'm in that street again. The rest of the town is shrouded in a fine mist but in this street it's always more like a dense
fog, as grey as the steel electricity pylons, grey as the beating wings of accipiter ovampensis. It blurs the edges of my vision in all directions, giving the effect of an artist's rough sketch which doesn't quite fill the page, with indistinct edges. As I enter the street, the fog attaches itself to me like microscopic beads of mercury clinging to every available surface, cold like the early morning frost on the underside of an iron bridge. Each mercurial bead is attached to the next and so I'm attached to everything in the street, I am everything in the street. I am the lines of sentinel trees at either side of the road, their heads lost in the fog, I am every leaf that ever fell from those trees. I am every grain of sandstone in every wall, I am the long since eroded toolmarks of the stonemason's trade, the rippling, distorted fluid glass in each Victorian window pane, the dark velvet green tendrils of moss growing on every garden wall. The fog silences my footsteps, no sound can enter or leave here, no light escapes the confines of the fog. I move silently through the street like a blood cell through a vein. I am vital to the street, it only exists when I walk through it, I am its lifeblood. I can't always find the street, it never seems to be in the same place twice, never appears on any map, it has no name. Time has no meaning in the street, distances are vague and irrelevant. Sometimes it takes me a whole day to walk from one end to the other, but sometimes less than a minute passes from when I enter to when I leave. Occasionally I turn around and try to walk back the other way but when I do, the street is always gone and the fine mist in the town has burned off and given way to sunshine. The bustle of life surrounds me on all sides but the street is gone. Occasionally people give me strange looks as I stand there looking for any sign of the street, even offering to help me find my way as they assume I must be lost. I smile and thank them as I decline their offers of help. As I walk away tiny microscopic beads of mercury drop from my clothes and evaporate as they hit the ground.

Excellent piece of writing. Thanks for sharing it with us.
very evocative - I am there too, and My Lost Coity is playing in my head.

Nice ornithological reference too...

I'll second what Martin says , even though to my great chagrin I was expecting something about Ken and Deidre Barlow !!
Re your first gig thing Lucky you seeing The Skids Ace band , they appeal to my inner Paul Calfe
They also remind my of flying from Genoa to London and back in 24 hours to see my beloved Everton get snotted by Charlton Athletic* then spending a sleepless night at Stansted on an uncomfortable chair , my head the worse for ale abuse and pesky all night cleaners whizzing round on on those annoying noisy trolley things Truly Ballardian in its hellishness

*as you probably know The Valiants play at the valley so at half time you get blasted with "INTAE THE VALLEY:::::"
I see you're new , so welcome to the madhouse

Thanks guys!

Not really new, just been away for ages and forgot all my login details so I re-registered, was just much easier.

As for airport cleaners, had a similar experience myself after the Harold Budd farewell concert in Brighton. Got a lift back to Gatport Airwick for my flight to Edinburgh. Tried to sleep on the uncomfortable chairs but every time I tried to drop off the PA would blare out "This is a security announcement..." - every fifteen minutes, so no sleep for me! Ballardian? It was downright Orwellian!

'The Street' has been in my head for about 30 years. It's based on the memory of a day when I was skiving off college and wandering aimlessly around Stirling. It was still just a 'town' then but big, noisy and busy. It was foggy and I just wandered into this street and it was as if somebody had pressed the 'mute' button because it was suddenly quiet. It was that kind of fog / mist that condenses on your clothes and makes you sort of shimmer with little beads of water. I felt that sort of dislocation that John is famous for describing, singing about. I spent a little time there just enjoying the atmosphere and the silence, sitting on a moss covered sandstone wall. At the far end of the street I came back into 'civilisation' and it was again as if someone had pressed the 'mute' button, this time to bring the sound back on. On subsequent visits to the town (I lived about 10 miles away so went there fairly often, especially when I was supposed to be in college!) I was never able to locate that street again and had no idea what it was called. In the intervening years I've thought of it often, especially when listening to either Dislocation (original Ultravox version) or Metamatic. Sometimes I still wonder if it really existed outside my imagination.

As for The Skids, they were brilliant! Jobbers' rapport with the audience of about 50 people (for "rapport with" read "verbal abuse of") was as excellent as it was on subsequent occasions when I saw them at bigger venues. An example from a gig at Stirling University goes as follows. Bearing in mind Jobson is originally from a little village called Saline (pronounced 'sal-in' rather than 'sale-ine'), he introduced one song by saying "This was number one in Saline". When the wittier members of the audience questioned the veracity of this statement he snarled "Aye it f****n wis!" (translates into English as "Yes, indeed it was"). Ah, you had to be there!

Anyway, I've used the word 'subsequent' twice now so I'll need to go and lie down in a darkened room for an hour.

P.S. A lot of artistic license has been used in 'The Street'. At the time I had never even heard of an Ovambo Sparrowhawk, far less watched one terrorising the little birds that come to my garden!

P.P.S. Birdsong, what is a 'coity'? :p

Hiya Bob!

Great piece - keep them coming! Many thanks for sharing.

PS - We love artistic licence on here! We just call it 're-purposing'

Thanks RB.

I don't know about keeping them coming though, I really don't write much at all. As I said, that memory has been in my head since late 1979 / early 1980 and I only just got round to putting into words today. It may be another 30 years before you get another one! I spend more time these days writing nonsense verse, much easier to do

P.S. For the sake of enlightenment, here is the aforementioned accipiter ovampensis (Ovambo Sparrowhawk) sitting on the aforementioned pylons, terrorising the aforementioned garden birds just by sitting there.

I've just put down 'The Atrocity Exhibition' & thought I'd check out what's been a-happening on't forum & I find myself transported & psychically connected on reading SB's immersive writing.

Welcome back, my dear friend.

Love & a hammock of throbbing gristle

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Greetings my ilektrikal friend. Watch your inbox - you never know, something of interest might just appear there soon!

And since I've been rumbled, I might as well start inserting my little ASCII character face again

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Thanks for posting 'The Street'

I love that experience of turning the corner and suddenly finding yourself in an unexpectedly quiet part of the town. Last time it really left an impression on me was a few years ago in Glasgow one early summers evening, a blue clear sky above, and long shadows cast on the ground...

magic.