Author: MQ

Turner’s Furniture on Beverley Road in Hull had an ad in its window in 1982. “On Sale: Everything But The Girl” (serving behind the counter). Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn took the name. They struggled, had modest success, then a big hit and a phone call to their Sydney hotel suite where Bono asked them to open for U2 on their North American tour. Tracey Thorn decided then and there to walk away, start a family and fade into obscurity.

She raised her children. No-one at their school knew she’d been a pop star. Until the day she stood at the school gates, waiting for the kids, chatting to the other mums and her cover was blown.

Continue reading “Schoolyard”

Xmas Eve, 1984. Wham throws an exclusive Xmas party for 12,500 people. Technically, it is a concert and we have all bought tickets. But it feels like a big party.

The party starts before Wham come on. Gary Crowley, the Capital Radio DJ, plays chart hits as the warm-up act and the arena explodes when George Michael’s bit of “Do They Know It’s Xmas?” comes on. It is a joyful riot from that point on.

Everyone is given a party bag. The bag has a hat, a party popper and a Xmas cracker in it, with strict instructions not to pull the cracker until George and Andrew say so. We wait on their order but, amidst all the excitement, they never give the word.

Continue reading “WHAM!”

In 1998, we got married and drove across America for three weeks in a convertible Mitsubishi Eclipse.

From Vegas to San Francisco, a minor detour would take us through Joshua Tree and 29 Palms. I called the Joshua Tree Inn to book a room. They asked how I’d heard of them. I told them I was a Gram Parsons fan. They asked if I’d like the room he died in.

Continue reading “Honeymoon”

If you’re traveling on the tube (subway/metro) in London, you’ll be advised to “mind the gap” between the train and the platform edge by the recorded voice of Phil Sayer.

Unless you’re at Embankment station.

There you’ll hear his predecessor, Oswald Laurence. His voice was restored – but only at Embankment station – in 2013 after Tube bosses learned that his widow would visit the platform just so she could hear his voice again.

You can reach Embankment by crossing Waterloo Bridge, preferably at sunset.

No dry run for that solo and nobody knows where that guitar went.

Continue reading “Heavens”

“How do you turn a duck into a soul singer?”

Continue reading “Bill”

Spirit of 76 was a big tune for us and we would follow The Alarm around religiously. Never more memorable than the time at Brixton Academy when we were down at the front, tightly packed together with our arms pinned by our sides.

Which was how Damien Cosgrove’s enormous sneeze happened into Allison Thompson’s hair.

Continue reading “Spirited”

The B-side to Bobby Gentry’s first single was 7 minutes long, with 11 verses, and with all that room to work in, she went to town on the story.

When the record company pushed for it to be a radio single, the fat had to go and one of the great stories in song was honed.

Continue reading “Stories”

This is a tune from Bob Mould’s first solo album. Many people say they first discovered Mould in Sugar, but that honour actually goes to Alexander Fleming.

Continue reading “Mould”

I’ve been reading a couple of mountaineering books recently, which led me to explore a little more about the unsolved mystery of Mallory and Irving’s Everest attempt in 1924.

Last seen 800 feet short of the summit, we will never know whether they died on the way to or from the summit of Everest. No further trace had been found until 1999 when a body was found.

The mystery of who the body belonged to was rather helped by his having sewn a label with his name on it under the collar of his coat.

Continue reading “Mountains”