THE GREEN, GREEN GRASS OF HOME 3 page

This early Manics line-up recorded some demos during the early part of 1986 (nth generation copies of which are still in circulation), and, without Richey Edwards, on 5 February they played their first ever gig at the Railway Inn, Crumlin, as support to Gatehouse?s band.[5] Richey Edwards wasn?t around to witness the Manics? first show, and he rarely saw them until around 1988, but if he had been there he?d have seen a raw, antagonistic display. The show took place in the basement with the sound system rendering James Dean Bradfield?s vocals almost obsolete, but he did exhibit a strong stage presence. ?He had a real ?Fuck you? attitude,? recalls Stephen Gatehouse. ?They covered ?Teenage Kicks? and the night ended when somebody threw a pint glass at the wall and, instead of smashing, it just embedded in the wall. A pint-glass-at-the-wall game ensued. No joking, the place was soon an inch deep in beer and broken glass. Anybode sensible legged it, leaving the promoter to face the wrath of the landlord. Again, like the Crosskeys Institute gig, two shit bands had acquired the notoriety of The Jesus And Mary Chain in the valleys. You had to be there!?

***

A-Levels results day, August 1986. A local TV crew are outside Crosskeys College filming a few vox-pops for the early evening news. Students are hugging each other and dreaming of their now-confirmed university places. Or otherwise. The camera focuses in on a serious-looking chap.

?What did you get, Mr Edwards??

?Three As.?

?And what were you expecting??

Mr Edwards looks right into the camera and, completely deadpan, says, ?Three As.?

For Edwards, the perfectionist, this still wasn?t good enough. He wanted ? no, needed ? to be the best and a simple grade wasn?t enough to confirm this, even to himself. Despite the outward arrogance, Edwards was actually full of self-doubt. 'When I got my A-Levels, I got straight As, but I thought they weren't as good as other people's straight As,? said Edwards. ?They would look at me as if their As were better. We didn't get percentage marks, so three As weren't enough. I wanted to know I'd got, like, ninety-five per cent. Three As is meaningless unless you're arrogant enough to think you're as good as them. Which I'm not. I need to see it written down to know.? He repeated a similar tale to Villa 65 Dutch Radio: ?I?ve always felt the need to prove myself against other people. I mean, I'm quite a weak person physically, and I think in school, I wouldn't sty I was bullied but you do feel scared sometimes, or frightened, and the only thing I thought I had that was different from other people was the fact that I was actually quite intelligent. I like reading and passing exams or whatever. Bat even things like A-Levels ? say somebody else got straight As ? I would not feel as good as them, because I didn't know what percentages we had. I wanted to know that I had ninety-eight per cent and they had ninety-five per cent. It wasn't enough. I felt next to somebody the same qualifications as me, I would not feel as good. You don't even know what it means. So you're constantly trying to get better and improve all the time.?

With thirteen exams now taken, all passed with A grades, he was living up to his self-imposed high standards. That summer Edwards passed his driving test, was allowed to use his parents' car, and by all accounts became more sociable. He drove Wire, Bradfield and Moore to an Echo & The Bunnymen gig in Glouchester, where Moore, got drunk, abused Ian McCulloch after the show ('Give me your fucking autograph, you cunt!'), and then threw up in the car all over the front passengers on the way home. Richey's sister Rachel was also into travelling to gigs. She?d sometimes report back about about bands she?d seen in Cardiff. Richey was happy to play the part of non-drinking driver. I gave him role and purpose within the social group, easing any self-doubts or crisis of confidence. Ocasionally they?d go by train, sleeping in the station before getting an early train home, or they?d get the last bus home from Newport.

It wasn't all gigs and parties however. More often than not, they'd be at home reading or watching TV. In 1986, there was a mini ten-years-on-from-punk revival and retrospective. Channel 4 broadcast a documentary on punk, presented by the late Tony Wilson, using footage from his decade-old TV show So It Goes, which he'd filmed for Granada with dive James. This was the first time that Edwards, and the others, had actually seen punk footage.

?That was the first time we'd seen The Clash because we'd never really been interested in them at all,? recalled Richey. 'When we saw them on this programme, it just started with this terrible noise and they were crap! It was just perfect! We got their first album and played it over and over again. At first we couldn't really understand it, but as time went on it meant more and more to us. Even though they were huge in America and all that stuff, they never lost their authentic English roots.'

The snarl of Joe Strummer and the stencilled slogans excited them, the Sex Pistols blew them away and they immediately had to search out VHS copies of the film DOA, which became instant and much-repeated viewing.[6] '[DOA] was the biggest culture shock we'd ever had!' said Edwards. 'When we started reading about them and learnt more about their history, they got better every day. They're probably the most untouchable band of all time. To put on a Pistols record after coming back from the pub really shook me out of my apathy. After deadening myself with alcohol all night, I'd put that on and it just made me feel ashamed.?

This belated discovery of punk set the cogs whirring in Richey Edwards' mind. Not only did he relate to the bands musically and politically, he realised that they weren't great musicians. Hell, just take a look at Sid Vicious for a start. Maybe there would be an opening for him after all. But first, he was off to university to get his degree. Preferably a First Class honours degree; preferably top of his class.

He had prepared carefully for today. He wanted to make sure that any loose ends were tied up in advance of his departure. He'd recently visited his parents for the last time, but of course he hadn?t spoken a word of his plans to them. His father had complained about his now non-stop smoking habit. He'd also intended to have a new tattoo before he carried out his plans, but a lack of time meant he had to abandon that part of the operation. He had, however, handed over the last of his writings at the last moment. While he'd been making his final preparations, no one would have known what he was planning because he seemed happier than he had been for quite a while.

Today is 25 November 1970 and here at the Eastern Army Group Headquarters on Ichigaya Hill, Tokyo, Japan ? in room 201, to be exact ? General Mashita is tied to a chair. Standing by is Student Captain Masakatsu Morita. Young Koga is also here. Old Koga, too. The shouting and screaming from outside the door has settled down now. Leader Yukio Mishima strips off his clothes, until he is wearing only a loincloth. Then he kneels down.

Today Mishima had risen early. He shaved carefully then applied some make-up to his cheeks and lips, made sure his series of sealed letters to family, friends and publishers were in order, and left a note on his desk: Human life is limited, but I want to live for ever'. Then he contacted a journalist and TV reporter, telling them where to go because something was going to happen.

When he had dressed in the uniform of Tate no Kai, complete with sword, he was collected in a car by three of his student cadets. He told them to read notes that he had prepared, explaining that they were not to kill themselves. He had also put some money is the envelopes towards the legal defence that they would later be obliged to provide. Mishima took along a brown attaché cay containing four books: three were his own ? Spring Snow, Runaway Hones, and In Defence of Culture ? plus a copy of A Philosophy of Modern Revolution. He planned to leave these books at the scene, the scene of his suicide.

Yukio Mishima, which means 'mysterious devil bewitched with death' (his real name, Kimitake Hiraoka, was changed as his father disapproved of his writing), was small of stature but he'd given himself a rigorous training regime, maintaining that physical and mental strength were of equal importance. He also deeply believed that he should follow the ancient Japanese rituals and traditions. He had prepared meticulously for the day. When the car arrived at the army base gates, the guards knew he had a meeting pre-arranged and recognised his face. They were waved through and parked near to the parade ground before entering the HQ building. After play?acting through some preliminaries, they tied General Mashita to his chair with some rope and blocked up the doors to his high-ceilinged office, threatening to kill him if the guards attempted to force their way in. Mishima had wanted to entice a military coup but his speech from the general's balcony drew nothing but jeers from the soldiers below. He returned to the office and prepared for the end.

Once on his knees, Mishima drew his knife with his right hand and plunged it four inches into his stomach then pulled it across from left to right. The ritual of what had to happen next had been well prepared. Morita had been given the task of removing Mishima's head, but there was a particular form to this act, too. He was required to carry out a single, accurate chop. He wasn't to send the head bouncing across the room but to cut through the neck from behind ? but not to completely sever it, ? flap must be left intact so that the head would drop forward onto the chest. With Mishima bleeding profusely and in a lot of pain, Morita stepped slowly forward, adjusting his grip on the sword nervously. Mishima had keeled face-forward onto the floor from his kneeling position. Morita swung, but missed badly and sliced Mishima across his back. He swung again and missed completely. Then, as panic began to set in, he swung again and chopped into the neck at the wrong angle. He then struggled to dislodge the sword and finish the job. Old Koga stepped in, removed the sword and removed Mishima's head in a single swipe, an arc of blood spraying across the room and decorating the air-conditioning unit on the far wall.

In his book Temple of the Golden Pavilion, Mishima used the character of Mizoguchi to discuss suicide in reference to the nature of beauty, needing to answer the question, 'What is beauty for?' Mishima did not hide his real self behind his writings but poured his innermost soul into them as he self-analysed his own demons, something he described as 'dissecting himself alive'. 'He's very much in Richey's mode in terms of mutilation and depression,? said Nicky Wire. 'I respect Mishima,? explained Edwards. 'He had sensitivity in his work and it fitted in with his life. His work is absolutely beautiful! Full of kindness and beautiful music. And he built up his body ? he had a really strong physique. He was tremendously sensitive.?

IV

VAGUE LITTLE CUTS

1986 to August 1989

It's only about thirty miles west from Blackwood to Swansea, but as far as Ricbey Edwards was concerned it might as well have been on the Moon. Dylan Thomas said that 'Swansea is the graveyard of ambition', and by the end of his course Edwards would have the academic life crushed out of him. At eighteen years old, he didn't see university from the same perspective as most of his Fresher contemporaries in September 1986. After enrolling on a Political History degree course, with vague thoughts about becoming a lecturer, he was billeted in the Mary Williams Hall on the Swansea campus of the University of Wales. The hall was a ten-storey block with Edwards being given a room on the fourth floor. His single room was basic but comfortable. A bed, wardrobe, desk and wash?basin were provided. Bathroom facilities were shared per floor (about twenty people). Edwards' floor was all-male, although the block was mixed. He shared a kitchen per floor, with only breakfast being provided in the cafeteria.

Richey's views of his fellow students couldn't have been more stark. ?I used to get woken up constantly,? he ranted, 'by pissed-up students coming home thinking it would be really funny to rampage up and down the corridors knocking on everybody's door and deciding to have a party in the kitchen at one in the morning. Pathetic!' Apart from dressing up as a sperm for a rag-week event, Edwards was far from your average first-year student. During the week he'd wander around in his slippers after lectures before making sure he was in bed after Minder, ready for a new day of learning. It was his willingness to learn that really set him apart. ?I despised those people who sat in the bar going, "Ooh, I was really rebellious today, I didn't go to one lesson!",? he said. ?I thought university would be full of people who wanted to sit around and talk about books and it wasn't like that at all. It was full of people who wanted to sit around and do as little as possible other than have as much fun as they could. But I never equated university with fun. I thought it was about reading and learning, but for most people it was about getting laid.' This was another non-typical student trait that set him apart as he continued to outwardly show little interest in girls, apart from one girl in his second year. In that respect, he left university just as he?d arrived ? still a virgin.

?To hole myself up in a tower block with hundreds of people I had nothing in common with was a really bad experience,? he said. ?I think if I?d been able to have a flat on my own, my memory would?ve been very different because I?ve never been good with very many different people. I?ve always surrounded myself with just a very few people.?

It was during his early days at university that Richey started drinking as a way to blot out the world around him. ?I started drinking at my first term at university,? he explained. ?It was something that I?d never allowed myself to do, but it was just a question of getting myself to sleep. It was so noisy, and I needed to get to sleep at a certain time and wake at a certain time, and drinking gave me that opportunity.? As well as drowning out the noise of drunken students, it allowed him to stop thinking about things too deeply and to get uninterrupted sleep ? what he called a ?blank? sleep. Again, this showed his unique take on life: he would drink, but ? unlike the rest of the student body ? he preferred to do it alone in his room. He made few new friends in Swansea preferring to keep in touch with friends at home and other Blackwood natives now in Swansea. He?d write fairly regularly to Nicky Wire and James Dean Bradfield, who were in their final year of A-Levels, and to Steve Gatehouse, who was working in Blackwood. ?When I finished my week?s work on a Thursday, I?d go to Raffles in Port Talbot with his to an indie club to watch bands such as The Primitives, The Soup Dragons and The Bodines,? recalls Gatehouse. 'Then I'd spend the weekend with him in Swansea, shopping for the latest indie releases and watching bands in the Union bar.?

Another of Edwards' favourite books was William Burroughs' Junky (titled Junkie, in some editions). It seemed to sum up his university experience perfectly. Old Bull Lee, as Kerouac famously referred to him, had met Allen Ginsberg at Christmas 1944 and when the two began corresponding, Burroughs' letters included chapters of what would become Junky. In these, he wrote of his disgust at the American education system: 'I majored in English literature for lack of interest in any other subject. I hated the University and I hated the town it was in. Everything about the place was dead. The university was a fake English set-up taken over by the graduates of fake English public schools. I was lonely. I knew no one, and strangers were regarded with distaste by the closed corporation of desirables.' Burroughs became a major influence on Edwards and was all over the Manics' debut album. He might also have appealed to Edwards because of lines such as, 'I'd once got on a Van Gogh kick and cut off a finger joint to impress someone who was interested in me at the time.?

Inscribed on the inside back cover of my battered, second-hand copy of Junky is a fading shopping list scribbled in pencil. The list reads:

2 Orange juice

Lemsip

Soluble aspirin

2 oranges

Was the book responsible for this list? Did the contents provoke an illness or was it a severe hangover? Was it a subtle joke by the book's previous owner?

***

Back home in Blackwood, the fledgling Manic Street Preachers were working up a nice little collection of original songs and experimenting with playing live. Through the winter of 1986-87 they penned around a dozen songs such as ?Whiskey Psychosis?, ?England is a Bitch?, ?Just Can?t Be Happy?, ?Anti-Love?, ?Eating Myself From Inside?, ?Love In a Make-up Bag?. One could be forgiven for thinking that these titles had more than just a tinge of Edwards about them, but they were all written without any of his input. Another song would survive to be recorded later, ?R.P. McMurphy?, while two others ? ?Go Buzz Baby Go? and ?Behave Yourself Baby? ? would later be picked over to add sections to ?Motorcycle Emptiness?.

While they hadn?t yet got themselves into position to headline an actual show, they did try a bit of live performing by busking on the streets of Cardiff. An attempt to play as a full band was abandoned when Sean Moore gave up trying to get his drums across the city. Further attempts saw just James Dean Bradfield (often topless) and Nicky Wire belting out Clash and Sex Pistols covers. What the Saturday afternoon shoppers were thinking is unrecorded but it was clear that musical aspirations had overtaken any literary ones.

During his first year, Richey had often travelled home to Blackwood for the weekend and now ? as he returned for the summer holidays ? he would see a marked improvement in his friends? band. He spent his time earning some summer spending money by mowing lawns for the council. Rebecca Williams and her friend Sally Killian remembered seeing Richey out and about in Blackwood that summer. ?Richard took summer work strimming hedges and he did reduce us to giggles when he told us how he?d strimmed through dog shit and it had splattered all over him,? recalls Williams. ?The men had sent him home early, because he stank so badly.?

Nicky Wire had just taken his A-Levels and spent the summer practicing with the band. Richey, ever keen to help out, was driving them and their equipment around but had no direct input yet.

Favourite drinking spots during the summer of 1987 included the Red Lion at the end of Blackwood High Street, with its ultra-loud jukebox seemingly stuck on an endless loop of The Alarm?s ?Spirit of ?76?, and further afield it was the Cuckoo down the road in Risca. Richey hadn?t yet started wearing much make-up but Nicky Wire was more proactive in the semi-cross-dressing stakes. 'We were lucky,' said Wire. ?I don?t know why, but we were more on the fringe, regarded more as eccentrics than anything else. We weren't victimised. We used to go into the Red Lion in Blackwood in the full regalia, clothes and make-up, and we were never beaten up, but there were always comments, "Poofter" or "Queer", but that was a teenage thing.? The students and underage drinkers would down pints of cider-and-black, eat Golden Wonder crisps and talk about books, music and who was going out with whom. The local rugby and football types were more likely to fall into the street, fighting, at the end of the night. The closest any of the Manics crowd came to trouble was when Nicky Wire was arrested for drunkenl? trying to steal an old Ford Escort on the way home from a nightclub. He was given a conditional discharge.

For daytime meetings the crowd would gather at one of the cafes in town, sometimes The Square, but more often At Dorothy's on the High Street. They'd sit around reading Kerouac or rummaging through Woolwotth's carrier bags to discuss the latest vinyl purchases over cups of tea and more packets of crisps. If Wire, Bradfield, Moore and Woodward were missing from one of these lunchtimes they were most likely sharing a bag of chips before an afternoon of practising in the Bradfield sitting room. James was working in bars at night, keeping himself fit by running miles around the town and practicing, practicing, practising on his guitar. By now they had decided on the name Manic Street Preachers, having finally voted against being named Betty Blue. Richey said it was a great name, and so much more original. This confirms that later stories about Richey coming up with the name for the band are untrue.

The sound of the band at the time was described as a mixture of Pop Will Eat Itself and Primal Scream, and they asked local girl Jenny Watkins-lsnardi to sing with them. James Dean Bradfield had always wanted to be the band's guitarist rather than guitarist and lead singer, but as no one else could fulfil the role it became his by default. The hand were all big fans of Blondie and the idea of an all-male band fronted by a girl was gaining popularity in the late 1980s with The Primitives, The Darling Buds and Transvision Vamp all using the formula. Watkins-Isnardi's first audition came when she was asked to sing to Wire down the line from a call box. The second audition was in Wire's bedroom, where she sang the Strawberry Switchblade song 'Since Yesterday'. She was eventually allowed to join the band for practice, which seemed to be a lot of hoops to jump through to rehearse with a band that had yet to really get out of the living room.

Another early show was played, again with Funeral In Berlin, at the Little Theatre in Blackwood. Miles Woodward circulated photocopied flyers, shaved his head and tried to pierce his own tar before the show but succeeded only in making a right mess of his ear lobe. Most of the crowd consisted of goths who only wanted to see Funeral In Berlin play, and by the end of their set the place all but emptied. The Manics took to the stage and belted out 'God Save the Queen' before getting cans chucked at them and a chair smashed into the house piano. All watched from the wings by Richey Edwards. The band was banned. Miles Woodward had had enough and wanted out. Nicky Wire tried to make him change his mind. They turned back to busking in Cardiff instead, this time with Sean Moore playing a tambourine. They made two pence in three hours on St Mary's Street.

'Everybody thought we were crap,? recalled Miles Woodward. ?There was a lot of abuse at the gigs. We used to like a lot of the same groups, but the others were also into indie while I liked a lot of heavy metal and American punk. They were going more pop; I just wanted to go more hardcore.' Woodward would leave the band soon afterwards. ?I do feel very proud to have been a part of it. Mates do have a bit of a joke with me when a song comes on the jukebox, saying that it could have been you, but I'm not that bothered. They were great times, I suppose. The best times ever had. That feeling you get from being in a great band, it really did feel like us against the world.?

Nicky Wire was overly ambitious from the start. After seeing The Alarm play in Cardiff he promised that the Manics would be 'a million times better than that!' He was convinced that it wasn't a case of if they made it big but when, and when they did, he told Watkins-Isnardi, he was going to kill himself and go out, in the words of The Alarm, in a blaze of glory. By now, he'd written the new song 'Motorcycle Emptiness'. When he got his A-Level results he realised that he could have got himself a better place than the course at Portsmouth Poly afforded him by his predicted three D grades.

In her book, In the Beginning, Jenny Watkins-Isnardi recalls meeting Richey while he was home for the summer of 1987. She writes of one evening when he held court in the pub talking about the withdrawal of J. D. Salinger and the death of Marc Bolan and other rock stars. He was heavily into the myths and legends of literary and rock'n'roll deaths, suicides and disappearances. He also bemoaned his lack of funds to see bands and the fact that he thought the other students were 'scum'. By the end of the summer, Watkins-Isnardi drifted away from the band, Wire headed to Portsmouth and Edwards went back to Swansea. As he usually did, Richey had one last stop to make before leaving Blackwood ? the Pot Noodle factory on the edge of town. He'd call in and buy a sack full of rejects to last him as his staple diet for the next term. This time he was out of halls and was in a shared house at Uplands in Swansea, a short walk from Singleton Park and the university campus.

The letters that Edwards continued to send to Steve Gatehouse provide an insight into his second-year life. He'd been getting questions from the careers office about what he thought his future direction might be. He previously considered going into teaching but now his thoughts were focused on the music industry. He hadn't quite worked out how he could achieve that aim, but he did plunge sixty pounds of his dwindling grant funds into a second?hand guitar. He told Gatehouse that he had to buy it despite having no idea how to play it because he didn't want a life of 'What if?' The money spent on the guitar meant his other social outgoings were seriously cut back. He decided that seven pounds was too much to pay to go and see The Pogues and a planned trip to see The Godfathers was also cancelled. While he was spending more time in his room he was excited about a radio documentary he heard about Joy Division, calling Ian Curtis' suicide 'the greatest loss in musical history'.

He also took some delight in reporting the latest brawls between 'townies' and students, often centred on Cinderella's nightclub. 'Last Saturday at Cinders (I was there!) there was a riot between our rugby team and townies,? he wrote. 'It ended up with a townie in intensive care ? MEATHEAD AND BOOTH Y (in hall with me last year) kicked his nose into his brain. Bastards. So since then they've been [sic] some serious repercussions. The next Saturday there was no one there and so the townies simply started beating students in the street. I don't blame them though.?

Mid-way through the autumn term of his second year, Richey was joined in Swansea by Nicky Wire. Wire's stint at Portsmouth Poly bad lasted just a matter of weeks and he described the experience as 'a Club 18-30 holiday'. His mother, Irene, put in some calls to Swansea, where Patrick Jones had studied previously, and secured him a transfer to a politics course. Wire, like Edwards, abhorred much of student life, yet ? unlike his friend ? he didn't throw himself into his studies, but took the opposite approach. Wire rarely attended classes, preferring to spend his time at the golf course or the pub slot-machine, and running up quite a debt while doing so. Wire hadn't exactly inherited his parents' work ethic; he would end the course with a 2:2, and only then after Richey Edwards completed some of his coursework for him. During one Christmas break he took on a job as a postman but lasted for just three days, and his father even had to help him finish his round. Wire was always proud to talk about being working-class, he just didn't like the 'working' part of it.

It was only now that Edwards and Wire really became close friends, much closer than they had been before. 'It's from this tine on that, to me, Richard became "Richey",? says Steve Gatehouse. ?He formed a close relationship with Nick and was disillusioned with his fellow students. He confined himself to a close circle of friends and rarefy socialised.?

With this further withdrawal, it therefore came as a surprise when Richey wrote to his friend of a girl that he'd become besotted with. ?It's true what you said about Capricorns being later starters in life,? he wrote, before explaining that he'd spied this girl at the student doctor's surgery (although he didn't expand regarding why he was there). He described her as 'mega' and admitted that he'd compromised his principles to attend the student ball in the hope of seeing her there (he'd skipped the event in his first year). He did see her, but she was with a boy, so Edwards consoled himself by downing a bottle of vodka. He ended the night on his knees, puking, and as she left with the boy, Edwards could only watch while vomit dribbled down his chin. 'I really would die for this shining beacon in a sea of mediocrity,? Edwards wrote to Gatehouse. Later the same week Edwards came across the girl in a nightclub; she was without the boyfriend and Richey was without the bottle of vodka. He says he managed to make an impression but she left him on Mumbles pier at two a.m. and he never met her again. Rebecca Williams remembers the events well. 'He would go to Cinderella's on the pier on a Tuesday night,? she says. ?Like most of us, he'd get sloshed. When sozzled he became even more adorable. He would make a beeline for Sally [Killian] and me in the hope that we could help him pull. He developed a major crush on a girl in my halls at one point. Her name was Ceri. She was a veritable Patsy Kensit lookalike, petite, pretty, alternative, but not in a heavy duty way, just enough to appear cool. She was very sweet, basically. Unbelievably, she wasn't interested in him and turned him down. I seem to remember him giving her flowers. The worst part was that she ended up with a boyfriend who looked like Chesney Hawkes.'

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 197