A few weeks back I was re-reading Julian Cope’s superb memoir Head On/Repossessed. Writing about the recording of Fried in Cambridge, he describes the city as having ‘a vibration similar to San Fransisco or Amsterdam. It’s one of the last bastions of free-dome. And Fried was as free as I could ever be’...
I’m Cambridge born and bred. The freedom Cope picked up on - with his finely honed cranial receiver - definitely exists, albeit subtly. I think it’s partly because Cambridge is a city that retains a sense of mystery: you can live here for years and never quite get under the skin. The University world remains as alien to most locals as the average tourist. Big chunks of the city are, essentially, cut off (it’s the same in Oxford, of course - slightly starker, if anything) and if you’re ‘town’ as opposed to ‘gown’ you’re kind of an outsider in your own city, by default. It has a slightly surreal edge, too - a feeling of reality bent west; slow moving rivers, dappled meadows, ancient bridges - that lends itself to fiction and psychedelic adventuring equally. Mark E Smith wrote about his love of MR James in his autobiography Renegade; how he imagined him reading his stories ‘out loud in a plummy accent in a Cambridge college in the winter, with the mist rising up from the river’ - and that kind of mysterious romance is ingrained here.
From a countercultural perspective, the city will always be associated with Pink Floyd, of course. Grantchester Meadows, in particular, lend themselves to woozy psychedelic whimsy. It’s a magical space, rolling meadowland with cows roaming - free land, proper free land - and an outdoor party scene thrived here, and elsewhere around the city, during the 90s and 00s. In the early 00s, the main system was Life4Land (based in Bristol now) and they were just sheer chaos. They focused on jungle, gabba, dub and breakcore and put on legendarily intense raves - out on the meadows; in a tumble-down barn in Madingley directly opposite the big American WW2 cemetery; in the ancient beech woods on the Gogmagog hills; all over the place, really. Then there were the Fulbourn warehouse parties on an industrial estate just outside the city, run by various other systems. They operated in a strange semi-legal loophole whereby they live-streamed (in the more primitive days of the internet) claiming that everyone in the warehouse was ‘a spectator’, running a bar where you could only buy ‘raffle tickets’ (every single ticket, of course, ‘won’ a can of Red Stripe) - somehow they got away with it, for years.
But thinking specifically about record shops, two places immediately came to mind. Streetwise and Parrot Records - both King Street, both sadly gone. Mill Road has always been ground zero for alternative Cambridge - decent pubs, book shops, kebab shops, the seedy backstreets of Romsey Town etc. However, King Street was equally important in the 90s and 00s. It all centred around The Cambridge Arms: a legendarily motley King Street boozer (again, now sadly gone) - a temple of sin where bikers, underage drinkers, speed freaks, wayward polytechnic lecturers, artists, skaters, smack heads, punks, buskers and ne’er-do-wells of every conceivable persuasion congregated.
Parrot Records and Streetwise Records were, handily, just up the road and both played a vital role in my musical upbringing. Parrot was mainly indie, punk and metal while Streetwise was dance music, with a strong focus on DnB, house and breaks. When I was in my early teens I’d go to Parrot mainly for the legendary ‘five pound tape rack’ which was on the left hand side, near the counter, as you walked in. It had loads of metal, and lots of 1990s American punk rock - all the Epitaph bands: NOFX, Bad Religion, Rancid, Pennywise - you know the drill - as well as noisier gear: Melvins, Amphetamine Reptile records, Alternative Tentacles etc. I loved the way the guy behind the counter was always subtly trying to turn people onto weirder stuff. Like, if I went up to the counter with a NOFX tape he’d invariably smile and ask if I’d ever heard of the Dead Kennedys or Black Flag. Not in a snobby way - he just genuinely wanted his younger customers to listen to more interesting music, to connect the dots.
Looking back, Parrot played a really important role in the genesis of my book Monolithic Undertow as, later, it was the first record shop where I was exposed to more hypnotic, heavier sounds. As a lover of all things heavy (and combustible), I gravitated toward the nascent stoner rock scene in the mid 90s, and Parrot stocked a lot of it. Three specific albums stick out from that time - all were really important gateways to heavier, weirder, dronier stuff in later life - and all three still stand up, and get regular plays, today.
Fu Manchu - In Search Of…
I love Fu Manchu. They remind me of AC/DC or Motorhead in that they never, ever change. I love that about them. You know what you’re going to get within twenty seconds of putting a Fu Manchu record on - massive, fuzzy, dayglo riffs and lyrics about UFOs and dune buggies and surfing and camper vans and beer and bongs. It’s really great, simple, dunderheaded escapist music. Singer/guitarist Scott Hill famously listens to nothing but 1970s rock and 1980s hardcore - literally nothing else - and that kind of obsessive focus drives the band. They are utterly impervious to the fickle winds of trend. In Search Of… is a total beast that pivots on hypnotic riffs, smoking grooves and raw punk energy. Killer.
Karma to Burn - Karma to Burn
A strange and mystical band from the badlands of the West Virginia mountains, Karma to Burn are (usually) an instrumental group but - on their record company’s behest - they were forced to hire a singer for this debut album. It’s like nothing else: a deeply sinister, mezcal-scented, woozy, amphetamine psychosis kinda vibe - a mutant Sam Peckinpah soundtrack type affair - all gut-rot wine, too much sun and bad prescription drugs.
Iron Monkey - Iron Monkey
One of the strangest and heaviest bands of all time. Iron Monkey were from Nottingham and were often touted as ‘England’s answer to Eyehategod’ but, though sharing a similar sludgy sound, were way heavier. Lyrically, singer Johnny Morrow (who sadly died of kidney failure in 2002) delivered cryptic, nightmarish, Burroughs-esque cut-up vignettes in an anguished scream that sounded like armageddon. The most extreme vocal delivery of all time? Quite possibly. But the whole thing is grounded by these gargantuan grooves and swirling riffs - a monolithic slab as hypnotic as it is aggressive. 100% essential.
