Parly

Extra parlys
More story. 3rd and final main character

Chapter 3. Mo
Mo believed 1968 was the ‘Summer of love’. He wasn’t sure, not having been there physically (living in suburban UK) or mentally (only 6). 1976 was definitely the ‘Summer of punk’ though. Mo was there, one of the bands jumping bandwagons, changing his flares into drainpipes, covering his jacket with badges. The bands homemade bondage chic with sped up R/B was suddenly playing to hundreds of people at the Vortex or the Roxy. Unexpectedly part of a scene without ever having talked to anyone else associated with it, Mo was on a wage, £35 a week picked up from an office in Finsbury Park. It was small beer, but better than working on the building sites and furniture warehouses he was used to. There were some great gigs supporting Siouxsie at the Nashville, X-ray spex at the 100 Club and some bad ones in the suburbs, double booked with cabaret bands and being bottled and spat on by the press fed locals. Like any scene there were commoners and royalty. Mo was definitely in the former category, nursing his lager, watching on the periphery like a small drab bird, his imagination and daring stretching to short hair, tight jeans and a few safety pins. He loved the royalty though, the Bromley contingent with their sharp mix of peroxide, fishnets and eyeliner vying with their rivals, the Heartbreakers Entourage, a sleazier tribe of fur bondage and New York drug chic. When the band came on, it didn’t matter who you were, you all pogoed together. He saw all the young unknowns, later to be stars, turning up to sound check in jeans and oxford bags but at night transformed into Adam and the Ants and Generation X. Names spray painted in dressing rooms, then on front pages. Reggae and punk bands mysteriously united in some vague rebellion. By 1978 Mo’s band was all over, the guitarist a dad at 17, the drummer returning to work for the council, making tea for the dustcarts. He often sat reflecting on the coincidences, the momentum, the sheer absurdity, incompetence, disorder and wit of it all.