Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. (11 page)

All the things I’m so embarrassed about, John’s made into virtues. He’s unapologetic about who he is and where he comes from. Proud of it even. He’s not taking the world’s lack of interest as confirmation that he’s wrong and worthless. I look up at him twisting and yowling and realise it’s everyone else who’s wrong, not him. How did he make that mental leap from musically untrained, state-school-educated, council-estate boy, to standing on stage in front of a band? I think he’s brave. A revolutionary. He’s sending a very powerful message, the most powerful message anyone can ever transmit. Be yourself.

I’ve always thought that my particular set of circumstances – poor, North London, comprehensive school, council flat,
girl
– haven’t equipped me for success. As I watch the Sex Pistols I realise that this is the first time I’ve seen a band and felt there are no barriers between me and them. Ideas that have been in the back of my mind for years rush to the front of my brain …

… John Lennon, Yoko Ono, the Kinks, the possible female in Third Ear Band, the untrained female drummer in Kokomo, Sandie Shaw, Suzi Quatro, Emma Peel, the two girls in the Incredible String Band, Patti Smith, Mick Jones, Johnny Rotten, my love of music …

… This is it. At last I see not only that other universe I’ve always wanted to be part of, but the bridge to it.

24 VIV AND MICK

1975

The day after the Sex Pistols’ gig, Mick comes to my studio at college. He hovers in the doorway until he catches my eye. We lean against the wall in the fluorescent-lit corridor. He’s sought me out to ask what I thought of the band. I’m exultant. Inspired. I tell him, ‘I can’t even remember what they sounded like, what I got from them was,
I can do this too
. Not, this is easy and I can do it too, but this is GREAT and I can do it too. And I’m going to do it.’

Mick listens to me eulogising with a sulky expression – he was obviously hoping I’d say they were rubbish. He seems to think that me liking the Pistols is a criticism of him and his music.

Mick’s getting yet another band together – he’s found a bass player, a handsome guy called Paul Simonon. He can’t play bass yet, but Mick says it doesn’t matter, he looks good. He’s also found a singer, who’s not handsome but has a lot of charisma: Joe Strummer. Joe was in a band called the 101ers. I really liked their single, ‘Keys to Your Heart’. The rest of the 101ers are upset that Joe’s leaving them, they’re a very relaxed bunch of guys and think Joe’s selling out by joining a band managed by Mick’s dodgy friend, Bernie Rhodes. Bernie puts a lot of pressure on Joe to join Mick’s band, he keeps meeting up with him and saying that the 101ers are out of date and this new band are the future. Bernie eventually convinces Joe, and he joins up. They all try and come up with a name, the favourite at the moment is the Young Colts. I try it out by carving it into the wooden counter at the Acton dole office.

Even though he is aware of coolness, Mick would never change himself to be cool. If he likes something or someone, he sticks to his guns – that’s one of the best things about him. He’s the only one of us who doesn’t take drugs, won’t touch them, he’s adamant, just drinks lukewarm tea. He’s an independent thinker and won’t drop mates because they don’t look or behave right, like lots of people do. He’s loyal to the bands he loved when he was growing up too – no hiding LPs for him, like I’ve done, shoving Donovan and Sparks records in drawers when someone’s coming round, or taking them down the Record and Tape Exchange – Mick’s kept all his old records. He’s turned me on to a lot of good music too: Velvet Underground, the 13th Floor Elevators, the New York Dolls, MC5, Mott the Hoople. He doesn’t just play the records, he explains what’s good about them, points out nice harmonies or guitar riffs. He half-heartedly tried to teach me a few chords a couple of times, but once you’ve shagged a bloke he can’t really be bothered to teach you anything, he’s got what he wants.

I’m not going to let Mick Jones know I’ve fallen for him, not yet; I’ve got to get used to the idea myself first. I’ve never felt proper love before, I’ve just fancied a boy because he looks nice. Mick’s a whole different thing: he’s interesting, the smartest, funniest person I’ve ever met. But I still try to hide my relationship with him from other people. ‘I’m independent, we should only see each other when we feel like it, we don’t own each other,’ I tell him. It’s a constant battle between us, because he wants to be with me in a traditional, openly affectionate relationship. He’s a passionate, possessive person; it must be hell for him.

I’m meeting new and interesting guys every day. There aren’t many girls on the scene, so I get loads of attention. Mick’s always having to ward boys off. I don’t have sex with other boys but I do spend a lot of time with them. I’m not very reassuring either, I never say anything like, ‘Oh Mick, don’t worry, darling, I’m only here for you.’ More like, ‘I’m off. See you later!’

25 THE CLASH

1975

Paul Simonon, Mick’s bass player, hasn’t got anywhere to live so he’s moved into my squat. Paul is as handsome as a film star, like Paul Newman and James Dean rolled together, and he’s nice to girls, not chauvinistic. He’s a bit tongue-tied and bashful but he can afford to be, his looks do all the talking. It’s Paul who comes up with the new band name, the Clash, from a newspaper headline. Paul and I really like each other and he respects me, which always goes down well.

With Paul Simonon, 1976

Because Paul now lives with me and Alan at Davis Road, the Clash have their band meetings here. Mick lives with his grandmother in Royal Oak, so they don’t want to go there, and Joe still lives with the 101ers. I wouldn’t mind the Clash all filling up the place but they close the door of the kitchen and have this very self-important air about them. I don’t take their meetings seriously, but Bernie does: you’d think he was planning World War Three. Bernie’s always the last one to arrive. I open the front door and he pushes past me, knocking me out of the way, and stomps upstairs to the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. Not a word spoken. I can’t stand him. He’s a vegetarian – not that that makes him horrible – he told me once he was brought up a vegetarian, and when he’s feeling rebellious he goes out and buys a burger.

The one thing Bernie and I have in common is what we think the Clash’s songs should be about. We both think it would be better if they stopped writing soppy love songs and wrote material that reflects their everyday lives. We bang on to Mick and Joe about it, they take it in and turn ‘I’m So Bored with You’ into ‘I’m So Bored with the USA’, and write more political stuff like ‘White Riot’, about confrontations with the police during the Notting Hill Carnival, and ‘Career Opportunities’, which refers to the time Mick worked at the dole office and had to open suspicious-looking letters that could have been letter bombs – the senior staff wouldn’t touch them.

Funny though, now my favourite Clash songs are the love songs: ‘Stay Free’, ‘Train in Vain’ and ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’. Mick is a great love-song writer.

26 FIRST GUITAR

1976

There’s no such thing as a wrong note.

Art Tatum

I care what people think about me to the point of despair, am over-sensitive to criticism and lacking in self-confidence but I don’t let my negative feelings stop me from doing stuff.

My Swiss grandmother, Freda, dies. She leaves me two hundred quid in her will; it takes a huge amount of self-control not to dip into it and fritter it away. I’m sure I’ll never have that much money again. I’ve been mulling over what to do with it for weeks – there’s no way I’m going to save it, but what to spend it on? I was thinking of buying an old Norton motorbike, but since seeing the Sex Pistols, I’ve decided to buy a guitar.

Walking along Shepherd’s Bush High Street with Mick, on the way home from college, I say, ‘I’m going to buy a guitar. An electric guitar.’

The words come out a bit too aggressively because I’m secretly dreading him laughing at me – when I think about it, this is quite a ridiculous thing for me to say. I’m a twenty-two-year-old girl who’s never had a music lesson and never touched a guitar. Everyone I’ve heard of who plays electric guitar is male and has paid their dues by starting out on an acoustic, which I can’t be bothered to do. And electric guitars are very expensive, not something to mess around on, not a toy or a fad. But times have changed. Just for a second, the impenetrable iron door that is convention has been pushed open a tiny crack, and if I’m very quick and very bold, I might just be able to dart through to the other side before it slams shut again.

I steel myself for an onslaught of hilarity and derision from Mick – but after a pause he says:

‘Yeah! I’ve got a girlfriend who plays guitar!’

It has to be the guitar. The look, the size, the shape, it’s all recognisable to me – like when you meet someone for the first time but you feel like you’ve known them your whole life. I like the way the guitar weaves and chops through the other instruments. I know that I’m not grounded and steady enough to play bass, not outgoing and confident enough to be a singer. I need an instrument to direct my emotions through. A little distance. The size of the strings and neck suit my fingers and the frequency of the notes is familiar, near to the pitch of my own voice. The guitar resonates with how I talk. It’s all and none of these things really. It just feels right. No question. It couldn’t be any other instrument.

Mick and I go to Denmark Street to choose a guitar. I’ve got no idea what to look for. I might as well be going to buy a semi-automatic weapon. The shop assistant is a bit sneery towards Mick, I can see he thinks it’s pathetic that this boy keeps asking his girlfriend which guitar she likes. When he realises the guitar is for me and I can’t play a note, he becomes very impatient. He watches with a smirk on his face as Mick tests guitars for me. We ignore him, we know a change is coming and we’re part of it. After he’s strummed away on it for a while, Mick hands me a little red guitar called a Rickenbacker. I hold it awkwardly.

‘John Lennon used to play one,’ he tells me.

I’ve never held a guitar before. I look at it, the assistant looks at me, I can’t even hold down a chord. I’m beginning to feel a fool, I’m not sure I can keep up this veneer of confidence any longer but Mick isn’t embarrassed, so we keep going. Eventually I buy a single-cutaway sunburst 1969 Les Paul Junior. I love its simplicity, the two gold knobs, the single pick-up, the curves, like it’s got a cute bum. I think Mick did well there. He’s no idea what kind of guitarist I will turn out to be. He’s helped me choose a guitar the right size, shape and weight for me. It’s simple and classy. It’s a serious guitar. Mick has taken me seriously.

With my Gibson Les Paul Junior at the Stowaway club, June 1978

My new guitar costs £250. I can’t afford a proper case so they find a grey cardboard one out the back, it’s got an embossed snake-skin print stamped into it, and an ivory-coloured plastic handle. I carry my guitar through the streets of central London, prop it against the bus stop in St Martin’s Lane – without taking my hand off it in case someone tries to nick it – heave it onto the bus and sit with the case wedged between my knees, thinking to myself, ‘Nobody knows I can’t play it. At this moment in time, I look like a guitarist.’

I head down Davis Road to the squat, changing hands every few steps to give my arms a rest. For the first time in my life, I feel like myself.

27 THE ROXY

1976–1977

My insistence on Mick and I not merging into a couple is not just to do with being free to hang out with other guys, it’s also about wanting to be seen as a separate entity, rather than ‘Mick’s girlfriend’. Mick can play guitar, he’s been in bands before. He’s a bloke. He doesn’t have to prove himself like I do. I’m trying to be a musician in front of all these new people, a very bold move as I can’t play guitar and haven’t written any songs. Sometimes I think I might as well say, ‘I want to be an astronaut.’ I don’t even know if I can do it myself, why should anyone else have faith in me?