We’re past the halfway point now, and I still don’t know who you are or what you want. I’ve thought about this memoir in so many different ways that I’m getting weary of the whole concept. How are you finding it? You surely would have known better than to expect a straightforward, reliable, honest coffee table book. Will you feel short changed if you don’t come away with authentic slices of my history to take home and file away on your shelf?

All I know is that the more I go back to the obvious sources for this year of my life, the sicker it makes me feel. There’s not enough of that person left to draw on. You’ve heard that old cliché about every cell in your body regenerating every seven years, well, that’s not true of your brain, heart and eyes, so I’ll consult the memories of these cells to tell you about the period between 29th April 1989 and 28th April 1990, when I was 36 years old.

And please excuse the momentary weakness of an Elderly Gentleman midway through his memoir, but I still can’t quite let go of the documented facts of lore. So, this was the year of the filming of The Grey Room. If you’ve read this far, and good luck to you, you might already know what I’m talking about here, the road movie/soundtrack album that consumed all the money we’d made and maybe didn’t turn out quite the way we had thought it might.

Or...

Perhaps you saw me in some other film where I said that after all the filming in Paris and Egypt, we were left with long, dull swathes of film which looked great but nothing much happened. But that’s not the whole story, nor is it why the film and soundtrack took so long to emerge following the year in question. No, the project was doomed not by lack of money or lack of action but by a phenomenon that remains unexplained to this very day. This footage will never make it out of the vaults because it doesn’t exist, the memory held only unreliably within the cells of the brains, eyes and hearts of those who experienced it.

It was one day in 1989, I don’t remember when, except that it was definitely after 29th April. We were filming one of those seemingly endless sequences in the Saharan Desert. The air seemed charged with a weird kind of electricity as the cop car sped through this region of myth, legend and dreams. Suddenly, the car came to an abrupt screeching stop, and we exited, much against our will, to see a vast ball of red and yellow lightning suspended in the sky directly above our heads, crackling and fizzing with a fearful energy. As we watched, it veered sharply to the right and crashed to earth, cracking great fissures into its surface. It was then that we became aware that we had company, a child, a SCISSORMAN SCISSORMAN girl of about seven years old with large teeth and wild curly hair, impassive, her expression unreadable, her intentions impossible to discern. She stood stolidly, gazing straight ahead, seemingly ignoring us. She looked like she was going to have a hard time in life, if she wasn’t already, but she seemed to have been in control of the lightning and unfazed by its effect.
We tried to get back into the car to escape, but at that moment, there was a great screech and commotion, and we were suddenly knocked to the ground. Something was on us, hissing, spitting, tearing at our skin with claws and teeth, drooling foul-smelling saliva over our faces. Screaming in fear and agony, we writhed, making vain attempts to fight the creature off which only enraged it further. Until, after what seemed like hours, the attack finally stopped. As the beast pulled away, we caught the briefest glimpse of its hideous face, like that of a monkey.

The child had disappeared, and the atmosphere had returned to its normal state. After some time, we managed to pull ourselves back into the car, sweating, shaking, dripping with blood, vomit and face monkey drool, struggling to come to terms with our ordeal. We were still alive and ostensibly intact, but we were unutterably changed forever.

All the footage we had filmed that day had been wiped. And while the physical scars healed over time, nothing was ever quite the same for me. No, it was a different person who returned from that journey. It seemed that nothing was ever quite right again. Ill fortune, a variable temper, lifelong minor difficulties along with a resurgence of limitless ambition and energy plagued me each day from that point on until at least 28 April 1990, if not beyond, and shaped the rest of this history.

All manner of difficulties might be directly attributable to these events. Whatever attacked me that day entered my very soul and refused to leave. I have no explanation save that the monkey-faced creature may have been a particular kind of mythical being associated with the region. And what of the lightning, and of the child? You can interpret those ones for yourself. We have never spoken of what happened from that day to this, it’s only now that the truth can be shared. A memoir is a good place to take stock and assess, after all.

Are you happy with this story? Is it the kind of thing you were expecting, or do you find it too obvious and cliched? It’s not like me to ask myself so many questions, I wonder what has happened. But in any case, no need to worry, we’re almost at the end of this section and another part of my life is opening up for you to examine. Just read on a little further, we’re almost there, another seven words... 

We’re all ready now…

Off we go!

I entered my 36th year with the hope and optimism that one would, considering the SCISSORMAN of our last 12 months with SCISSORMAN and our latest incarnation as SCISSORMAN, especially given the contrast of the dramas we’d endured with SCISSORMAN.

1989 felt like a completely different era, both creatively and politically. There seemed to be a feeling of change in the air, certainly that year kick-started by the Chinese students in Tiananmen Square, though sadly their quest ended in the most brutal of ways.

Nevertheless...

This feeling of change was everywhere and was SCISSORMAN embodied by the emerging rave scene which had been SCISSORMAN since the Summer of 1988. In time, the period of 1988-1989 would be known cynically as the second ‘Summer of Love’ and during this, we wanted our records to hold the emerging scene to account.

Having witnessed SCISSORMAN of punk, we’d seen first-hand the SCISSORMAN of DIY people who had no idea how to do something, but because they wanted to, just got on with it, however shite the results were, it did not matter. Acid-house was no different; democratisation by technology. The Telecasters of 1977 was replaced by Roland 303 and 808s, and these, along with the already ubiquitous Akai sampler gave musicians all they needed.

In Spring 89, we released the original Pure Shite versions of SCISSORMAN and SCISSORMAN, with SCISSORMAN featuring in many DJs’ playlists and apparently being very popular on the burgeoning SCISSORMAN rave scene. As much as it was intended a ‘shite’ record, quite often it would sit in mixes alongside what you’d now call ‘house’, ‘techno’, ‘hip house’ or other ‘rave’ tunes. At that time, rave music didn’t seem to be confined genres; it was more about the feeling and that’s what we wanted to create in ours.

We took a different take with SCISSORMAN which was more of a nod towards my appreciation of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit factory which at this time seemed to be an unstoppable juggernaut churning out hits not only for Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan, but also established acts like the SCISSORMAN Donna Summer. For the video, we used some clips from The Grey Room movie we’d filmed a few months earlier. It didn’t get much radio play nor chart, but all things considered, it probably helped keep SCISSORMAN name safe so we could continue our defacing of rave culture. 

About the same time, we played our first live gig at the Land of Shite club night at Heaven in London. It was quite a SCISSORMAN affair, but we wanted something to make people remember the night they’d had, even if it wasn’t what they were expecting. To us it wasn’t just about the SCISSORMAN - this was SCISSORMAN, and it was to be experienced, to be felt. This was the first of many ‘live’ gigs we’d play. The ‘live’ part alluded to The Accomplice, and I were definitely there ‘live’, however the technology and the set-up time available meant there was no chance we could actually play the instruments, or rather not to the standard required to deliver a ‘performance’. Besides, this was the E generation and I defy anyone to drive to the middle of nowhere, set-up and play their instruments whilst dealing with the effects of psychedelics. 

That said, the Land of Oz gig wasn’t our last and we did get invited back to play again, sometimes to DJ in the ‘SCISSORMAN’ room. We took this as an opportunity to explore where we could take rave as a SCISSORMAN. Certainly, when we’d either been at, or playing at, a rave, it felt as though it had already reached a peak with Black Box’s Ride on Time, which made us want to take a different SCISSORMAN and SCISSORMAN direction. So, we started DJ-ing with copies of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop albums and mixed them with Elvis, news clips and anything we thought would send people in the room a little bit more on their way. Eventually we put out a record, appropriately called ‘SCISSORMAN’ based on these sessions.  It was a passing phase, as all music should be.

But back to the second ‘Summer of Love’. Orbital raves, as they were called because many eventually took place somewhere close to the M25 Orbital road around London, were happening weekly, usually without the permission of the local licensing authorities, but hey, this was the new punk right?

Most of the promoters were posh boys, cynically sharpening their teeth before entering The City to make their millions in the bank business. Helter Fuckin Skelter is what I say. I don’t want to come over as too cynical but these things were just the symptoms of a generation going up its own arse not knowing they were being taken for a ride.

And we allowed ourselves to sucked in and off just like the fuckin rest.

I have never aspired to happiness in my life. I have always seen the pursuit of happiness as the ultimate weakness in us as a species. A weakness that is commodified at every turn.

At least within a few months, this Second Summer of Love was as dead as the last one was by the time Woodstock came around.

At least some history started to happen with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc, with the Berlin Wall literally crumbling before our eyes. But like Paris 68, before the Arab Spring was yet to come, what might look like something to celebrate in the moment, turns to shite. All of it driven by male egos, hiding behind some concocted utopian vision. 

Never trust anyone that wants to stand on a stage and have people look at them, whatever is coming out of their mouths, what they are really saying is, look at me, don’t you want to be like me, don’t you want to fuck me, don’t you want me to be your leader, am I not the best thing since Joe Strummer or Martin Luther King, or Adolf Hitler, or Donal Trump, or whatever superstar DJ was playing when you last got off your face.

All bands are made up of liars, if you want some truth step out your front door and go for a 23-mile walk.

You enter Toxteth Cemetery from the Smithdown Road end, past through the gate lodges.
In the distance a group is gathering around a grave.
You walk through the cemetery.
You reach halfway through the cemetery. To the left on two gravestones sit two Crows. The group is now fully gathered and is concluding its activity.
You continue on towards the group. It is beginning to move away in the opposite direction.
You reach the grave around which the group had gathered. The group is now moving out of the cemetery. You know that it is heading towards the Unitarian Church. You follow.
You reach the turnstile at the end of the cemetery. It is locked. There is no way to follow.
You turn to go back.