one who tries to pretend to be young by shagging all those women and making that sad album with those hip-hop guys. I saw that documentary about him on TV, where he was taking the piss out of Kate Winslet.â
âWhat about Keith Richards?â
âThink so.â
âYou should do. Heâs the really cool one. What about Charlie Watts and Ron Wood?â
âUmmm . . . not sure.â
I decided not to mention Bill Wyman. As a rule, itâs best not to. Besides, we had only just eaten.
It was one thing playing Peter The Stonesâ invincible 1973 album,
Exile On Main Street
(Peter: âThis is alright, actuallyâ), going into a bookshop and showing him a picture of Keith Richards taken during the making of its predecessor,
Sticky Fingers
, and convincing him that The Stones had once been the coolest men on earth. It was another thing entirely trying to convince him that theyâd been the wild men of rock as well. One of Peterâs favourite bands, Slipknot, regularly defecated live on stage without being noticed, never mind arrested. Merely by opening their mouths and switching on their microphones, other groups he listened to could replicate the sensation of having someone projectile-vomit down your ear canal. Why was he going to be impressed by a group of former art students having a slash against a petrol station?
I pictured the months ahead, and wondered what kind of battle I was facing. How hard was I going to have to try to impress him? Just how anaesthetised was he to the murkiest reaches of Rock And Roll Babylon? As we stood and focused on the scene of the crime, I attempted to give him a sense of historical perspective: a 1965 world on the brink of upheaval, with flower power just around the corner, when pop music genuinely seemed dangerous. He nodded a lot â it was difficult to know if he was taking it in or not â then went to purchase two tubes of Pringles from the kiosk.
âCan you feel it in the air? The sense that youâre somewhere special?â I asked him upon his return.
âIâm not sure. Iâm a bit too cold to feel anything at the moment,â he said.
âBut can you picture it? It was a pretty daring thing to do in 1965, you know.â
âYeah. It sort of sounds like fun. My mate Rafâs brother sometimes drives around with eight people in his car. I think youâre supposed to only have five.â
âYou could probably fit eight in a Daimler, though.â
âYeah.â
âI suppose itâs a good job that the car didnât cut out when they were trying to pull away. That would have ruined the moment a bit.â
âMmm.â
With one last wistful look â well, a wistful look from me; a slightly relieved one from Peter â we turned for the Focus. It started first time. Sticking our hands out the window in a well-known gesture that the Rolling Stones probably didnât use, we waved to ournew friends in the booth and pulled out into the unruly early evening traffic. It was, after all, just a wall, and there was only so long you could stare at it.
REALLY FUNNY
â IT WAS REALLY funny. Thereâs this guy in my year, Sam, whoâs, like, really cool on guitar. He can play all bottleneck and stuff, but heâs a bit of a mosher . . .â
âWhatâs a mosher?â
âWell, itâs kind of like a goth, but not quite.â
âWhat? More energetic?â
âYeah.â
âItâs weird. Moshing was just a kind of dancing you did when I was a kid; now itâs a whole lifestyle choice. Bizarre. Anyway â sorry. Carry on.â
âYeah, so Samâs like showing off in Mrs Williamsâ music class, playing this Feeder song, and Raf, whoâs in year eleven, walks in, and heâs like, âWhatâs going on?â And weâre like, âOh-oh,â âcos Rafâs, like, the best guitar player in the world,
Carol Durand, Summer Prescott