I Was A Teenage Rosehip - Glenn

It was another Glenn who entitled his memoirs ‘I Was a Teenage Sex Pistol’, so I hope you’ll allow me the self-indulgence of confessing that I was a teenage Rosehip. Well, I was for a little while at least, as I was 19 when we started the band. And as I’m now hurtling towards middle age, my recollections of the very beginning are rather patchy. Ant and I had been in a number of very loose collectives, playing what could be even more loosely described as music: our spiritual guides were fantastic but painfully noisy bands like The Membranes, so you should understand that some of the finer points of virtuosity went unaddressed. Also, we all had a big Fall thing going on, as I for one still do. Anyway, the details are very hazy on this but I seem to remember Ant and I expressing a degree of pissed-offness with some of the other collaborators and, although I’m sure they’d not done much wrong and didn’t deserve it, we pulled the sneaky old pretend-you’re-splitting-then-instantly-reform-without-them stunt. We recruited Yoland (who had yet to undergo her risky but thankfully successful name transplant – and no, I’m not going to tell you her ‘other’ name without permission!) at the local youth club, of all places, which I realise makes us sound rather unsavoury, and then Mark 1 from somewhere or other.

  Fast-forward (very fast, in fact it seemed like just a few weeks) and we were celebrating signing a modest record contract with The Subway Organisation in Bristol. Indeed, so modest was this contract that it was barely visible to the naked eye although we did get a few quid here and there and we always got on fine with old man Whitehead and could never understand why other bands were always bellyaching about him. Ideas above their stations, perhaps, as several of them went on to join ‘proper’ record labels only to fall rather amusingly on their arses. Ho ho ho. Anyway, as an inveterate punk rock layabout, I wasn’t interested in anything so bourgeois as a musical career (good news for all concerned) but was hopelessly in thrall to romantic notions about being played on John Peel’s radio show. In this respect at least, my time as a Rosehip can only be considered a four-star, copper-bottomed, ripsnorting success. Peelie loved us, which of course in turn served to intensify our reciprocal affection for Britain’s greatest ever broadcaster. Time may be playing tricks, but it seemed like he played one of our records every night. Usually, conveniently, just as I stumbled in from the Duke of York – so maybe it’s not just time that’s playing tricks. Of course, we loved John’s little quips after each song and some entered into Rosehips folklore: ‘sounds like he had the same piano teacher as me,’ I can still remember him jibing Mark about his one-fingered Stooges-style ivory-tickling.

  Of course, it was all very ‘a time and a place’ and if it hadn’t been for the ‘C86’ indie boom happening all around us (which we just about pre-dated but absolutely typified) then nobody would have paid us the slightest bit of attention. Our songs, certainly at first, had nothing of any interest to say and, although our playing was certainly rudimentary enough, we sounded nothing like The Membranes or The Fall or any of our other real musical loves. What we sounded like, in common with several thousand others, was The Shop Assistants. On reflection, I suppose we had something of our own that marked us out a bit – an ability to play much louder and faster than our peers, in a futile but enjoyable attempt to emulate the American hardcore punk bands we also listened to – but essentially we were a Shop Assistants tribute band, down to the stripy t-shirts and everything. Well, it was easy. It was fun, too, and we met some lovely people: we managed to become a few people’s very favourite band, rather than a band quite liked by lots of people. Given a choice, I’d prefer it that way round.

  After Mark 1 got bored and left, and Rocker and then Pete and Mark II came along, I think you could almost view us as a completely different band, and one that was much better in lots of ways. The first Mark was an effortlessly gifted drummer, who held us all together on countless occasions, but Mark II really knew his musical onions as well as having great natural ability and I’ve genuinely seen few more impressive drummers down the years. Rocker brought us a new energy as well as his experience and enormous organ, and as it’s Pete’s website I suppose I’d better say something nice about him, too. Pete makes a nice cup of tea. Anyway, as the songs got longer and finally developed a bit more light and shade, I think the records got better – ‘Bloodstained Fur’ is miles better than anything else we did, in my humble opinion – but by this stage nobody was really listening. The initial flowering of the bedroom-label scene was over and we were inextricably associated with its naffest features. Maybe we should have regrouped, reinvented ourselves (like Bowie or Dexys or Victoria Beckham, the true chameleons of pop) and made a fresh assault on superstardom but, certainly in my case, having achieved the dual ambitions of seeing my likeness in a record shop and hearing myself on John Peel, the motivation just wasn’t there. Not so for the others, Mark and Ant in particular who directed their greater energies and musicianship into a proper band and saw the world with The Venus Beads whom, if you haven’t heard, you probably should.

  A few favourite memories: the first time we played in Bristol, and Martin from Subway ran over gabbling non-stop about how he wanted to make records with us; turning up for an early gig at some community centre in Shrewsbury which we snootily imagined would be crap, going to the pub for a few pre-match Britneys, then getting back to be met by what seemed like hundreds of totally up-for-it bods who’d packed themselves in during our absence and proceeded to go apeshit for the duration of the set; supporting the Wedding Present in Plymouth on another night when absolutely everything was perfect – venue, sound, (big) crowd, everything; walking up the big old hill in the dark after we’d played at Glastonbury and watching New Order’s lasers hit the Tor to the strains of ‘Your Silent Face’; opening for the Fuzzbox nativity play underneath Central TV in Birmingham; the beer. So much fucking beer – that was one way we did emulate The Fall; the air thick with the makeshift confetti of the Rosehips Barmy Army, Nottingham Division at the Manchester Boardwalk as we hit the first chord of the night, and the apoplectic venue manager afterwards: ‘you’ll never work in this town again!!!’ We probably didn’t. Who cares?      

  Anyway, there you go. Thanks for reading. And thanks for taking an interest, although I can’t imagine what sort of nutter would visit a Rosehips website in the twenty-first century. Go out and get some exercise for Christ’s sake. Oh, and of course I was joking about Pete. He remains one of my dearest friends, although he lets the side down rather badly by his refusal to acknowledge the genius of The Darkness. He’s also a marvellous guitarist and offers very good hourly rates. It’s been fun dredging up some of these memories from what honestly feels like a former life.

 
Glenn

Bye. 

Cover of Glenn's zine "Vandalized Idol" which ran to one issue only! 

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