From ‘You’re Doing It Wrong — My Life As A Failed International Rock Star (In The Best Band You’ve Never Heard)’
In the mid 00s, I was the bass player and singer in a mid-tier indie rock band called We Are The Physics, who briefly flirted with fourteen short minutes of fame.
As well as the painfully wrong declaration that we ‘might be the most perfect new band ever’, the NME magazine, still fat on power from the successes of the bands they’d been championing, spotted a bunch of new-ish young acts incorporating synths into fairly derivative dance punk, and decided to coin a genre.
Spearheaded by the much maligned Klaxons, and others with vaguely bleepy presences like MGMT, Late of the Pier, Shitdisco, and Does It Offend You, Yeah?, the NME clumped them all together into a tenuous scene that they dubbed ‘Nu Rave’.
Not long after the term had been involuntarily yanked alive, I was sat backstage at a bowling alley slash music venue in London, where we’d just played to twenty disinterested bowlers, with an NME journalist who turned to us and said, “You know these kids doing Nu Rave? They weren’t even alive in the early 90s when rave first hit it big.”
“But it’s 2006,” I said, confused, “Are you telling me Klaxons are fifteen years old?”
The music industry had always been obsessed with age, youth, scenes, movements, and things that didn’t really matter to the people actually involved in them.
At some point during a tour we had stopped at a service station, and I had taken the opportunity to exercise the one true natural skill I possessed — playing with the crane claw grabber machines. The ones that are rigged against the player. The ones with a claw so weak and pathetic it merely stroked the glorious items stacked at its bowels, never mustering enough strength to actually grip one.
But, I’d actually inherited a skill for it. My brother had always been freakishly talented at it, and he’d passed down the secret. The key to success with these unfriendly totems was never to engage with the machine unless certain the claw could hook a rogue element of the prize — a prominent feature, a bent edge, a raised arm or leg on a splayed stuffed plushie. The claw would never close its jaws enough to seize anything properly, and could barely hold the weight of the chosen prize either. So the ‘skill’ of winning on a machine like that was simply process of elimination.
By scouting the available cabinets, I’d be able to determine which of the prizes were winnable before investing my money. I’d usually be able to bag a win in one or two tries, much to the gawping astonishment of anyone watching. I was a bit like a psychic cold reading a room, except on a machine full of stuffed toys in the vague shape of Bully from ‘Bullseye’.
On this occasion, I’d dunked a pound coin into a machine in the hope of winning a stripy-shirted Bully as our newly-appointed manager, Becca, looked on. She’d been on tour with us for a couple of days and was already withering from boredom and lack of food.
As I aimed the claw directly above the half-buried Bully, she looked at me through the warped glass and said, “Do you know how old Jamie from Klaxons is?”
I dropped the claw, and it hooked a Bully.
“How old?” I said, my eyes burrowing into the claw’s feeble grip as it slowly ascended towards the roof of the machine.
“Twenty-six,” she said, almost in a mouthed whisper that was hard to hear over the machine’s interminable shrieking, “Twenty-six years old!”
Like being twenty-six was a war crime, or a hidden secret. Like she herself was in disbelief that Klaxons were actually over the twenty-five-year-old cool wall, and that this would be detrimental to their public image if spoken into existence.
The claw shuddered at the apex and the Bully fell loose from its grip, dropping back into the swamp of other Bullys.
“Ahh, bad luck,” said Becca, shaking her head, “The game is rigged against you anyway. You’ll never win.”
But there was a brief moment, as Nu Rave was bubbling, and the pounding, luminous mania of it all was about to kick off, that we almost accidentally ruined it.
While we were never considered for the Nu Rave cool list, our staccato approach to songwriting and fast, constant driving kick drums meant we often ended up lumped in with those bands on the live circuit. A new flavour of the day had sprung up, and I won’t name them, but let’s just call them Radouken. The night after they’d played a sweaty, heaving gig full of excitable neon-haired fourteen year olds in a Barfly somewhere in northern England, we were doing a gig to their tired and balding dads who’d heard us on BBC 6 Music and thought we sounded a bit like Devo so had trundled along, promising their partners they’d be home by 10 P.M.
After the show, the promoter approached us backstage. She was a gaunt and happy woman who would tuck her thumbs into the belt loops of her jeans, and then remove them to point at you with them as she spoke, like the Tony Blair of gigs.
“Guys,” she said, one thumb pointed at my head, “Great show and whatever.”
We all said thanks, which collectively sounded like a moist grumble.
“Got a little offer for you,” she then said, tucking the thumbs back in, “You’re headed back to London tomorrow?”
The moist grumble of agreement reemerged.
“Radouken played here last night,” she said and her mouth grew toothy, “It was an awesome show, absolutely amazing, have you seen them?”
The grumble was less moist and more soggy now.
“Absolutely wild!” Thumbs said, yanking her trousers up higher by the belt loops in excitement, “But they’ve accidentally left a little keyboard behind. They’re going to be in London in two days, any chance you can take the keyboard to the venue and leave it there for them? It’d be a massive help.”
The grumble grumbled on.
“I’ll make sure you get some food in the venue,” Thumbs added, eyebrows raised.
The grumble became sentient.
“Absolutely! 100%” we said, chests puffed with enthusiasm, dutifully saluting and bowing, “Don’t you worry, we’ll get it there in ship shape. You can count on us, no doubt about it!”
“Fantastic!” she said, and she might’ve given us a thumbs up, but it was hard to tell.
Thumbs then presented us with a tiny grey cardboard box, no bigger than a child’s shoebox, that was taped up with worn-out backstage passes.
“This it?” said our sodden guitarist Chris, looking down at the box.
“Yup, just make sure you get it there tomorrow!” she said, leaving the room, “Fantastic show tonight, guys, very… very tight.”
‘Very tight’ was a common compliment we’d get. It usually meant the person administering the compliment didn’t actually like us, but didn’t want to be mean. By describing us as tight, it meant we were at least musically competent. Other backhanded compliments expertly fed to by otherwise nice people who didn’t want to piss on our parade were things like ‘it sounded great out front’, ‘you looked like you were having a lot of fun’ and that it was ‘energetic’. One time a less than sober audience member cornered me after a gig and said, “I didn’t like that lyrically, but I liked it… noise… noise-i-cally.”
That person also bought a lot of merchandise from us, drunkenly and wrongly assuming we were the New York-based band We Are Scientists, and we didn’t bother to correct him.
So we sat staring at this box for a bit, but mostly thinking about the food we’d get for delivering it. Food, particularly warm food, was a rarity on tour.
In fact, due to the We Are Scientists merchandise mix-up, we ended up making enough money that we decided on a late night trip to an all-night supermarket, where we invested our profits in a cheap mug each, a travel kettle, and a variety pack of instant soups. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt elation like the first dampening of my lips from that warm, salty gloop.
However, this night, everyone knew who we were, so we were skint. Disinterested in the delivery side quest administered by our thumbsy promoter, our tour manager Gary slowly rolled a joint in the corner.
But we were focused on this little nu rave coffin in our hands.
“Should we open it?” I said.
“We probably shouldn’t open it, it’s their synth, and we don’t want to damage it,” said Chris, who had picked up the box and was shaking it beside his ear.
“What sort of synth is that small anyway?” asked the solemn mouth of our emotionless drummer, Michael Drum, who then grabbed the box from Chris, amplifying the shake.
“Could be a wee micro Korg or something?” suggested our guitarist Michael Guitar, who accidentally dropped the box while snatching it, “Probably very delicate.”
“Or,” orred Chris, “It’s not a synth at all.”
We shared a glare and telepathically understood.
“Is it drugs?” asked Michael Drum, “Are we drug mules now?”
Suddenly Gary had leapt into frame and had his sweating hands on the grey container.
“Did you say this might be drugs?” he said excitedly.
“I don’t want anything to do with delivering that,” I said, holding my hands at a distance, “You don’t know what that is, I don’t want to traffic anything. And I might have to write about this in a story for the internet in fifteen years, so I just want to be clear that I do not condone this, your honour.”
“It’s probably just weed,” said Gary, who was already ripping the lid off it.
The backstage passes that gingerly held it together came away easily, and we were all equally disappointed, except for Gary who was tremendously disappointed, that it did indeed contain a very small plastic synth.
“What the fuck is that?” said Michael Drum, looking down on it like it was a primitive tool.
The red and pink and green plastic box with white and black keys looked like something from a child’s bedroom. Not quite the accessory of Britain’s next big buzz band. But then again, we were a band who used a basic fridge magnet on our guitar’s pick-up mid-song, and we were also in the NME. Something about the little synth was eerily familiar, like I’d seen it a thousand times before, but couldn’t place where.
As we were loading out later, Thumbs stopped us, “Thanks again for taking the synth, boys,” she said, the thumbs firmly in the belt loops, “Please, please, please take super care of it, it’s so important to their set. And this gig is a big industry showcase.”
There were no judgements from us. Without some of our electronic trickery, it was almost impossible for us to play our set. Instead of effects pedals, we’d use a large multi-effects box that would face the scorn of guitar purists whenever it was spotted on the stage with us. Once, on the way to a gig, Chris’ pedal was damaged as it slid around freely in the back of the van like a prisoner being transferred to a more secure complex. It was at that point we realised how much we relied on that pedal, and no amount of fiddling with its innards could make it work. Chris eventually repaired his pedal by putting a Fruit Shoot plastic cap on top of the damaged part and it was fine after that, which led us on a paranoid frenzy of stocking up on Fruit Shoots in case the exact same damage occurred again, which it never did, but we all developed an addiction to Fruit Shoots.
We carefully placed Radouken’s little grey cardboard box in the back of the van, lodged between two amps so it wouldn’t slide around. When we’d stop at petrol stations, we’d check on the box in the back to make sure it was well and coping with Gary’s erratic driving. While I was distracted in one service area by a huge white room of solely grabby machines, shrieking and yelping in tortured unison, Chris had gone to the shop to buy some glue to stick down the backstage passes so it looked like we’d never opened it.
Fifty miles or so from London, we stopped for coffee because Gary said he thought he was starting to dream the road in front of him even though he was awake. It felt safer to stop. Michael Guitar claimed the role of box chaperone, and swiped it from the back of the van, carrying it with him into the coffee shop like the urn of a loved one. He placed it in the centre of the table, so we all had eyes on it. Unfortunately, the table only had four chairs, so Gary sourced a chair from another part of the shop. This chair happened to be around a foot higher than the rest of them, so he towered above us, having to stretch downwards with a groan just to place his cup on the table. We found this collectively hilarious, and spent the entire time snapping photos on our phones, so we could post them online with captions like ‘haha, look how high up Gary is.’
Amongst the hilarity, we were already well on our way to London when we realised nobody had picked up the box from the middle of the table. We cagily told Gary and he was seething, “I told you not to get so distracted by me being up really high on that chair!”
We were already running late because Gary had taken so long to find that big chair in the coffee shop, but we didn’t have any other choice. This was non-negotiable. We had to go back to the get the box, otherwise we wouldn’t eat, and Radouken would kill us, and we didn’t want Thumbs to give us the thumbs down like ‘Gladiator’. We came off the motorway, and doubled back.
Screeching to a halt in the coffee shop car park, I leapt out the van with Gary and ran in where we found ourselves staring at an empty table. The tall chair was still there, but the box was gone.
“Excuse me,” said Gary, grabbing a staff member by their apron strings, “We left a box here an hour back, did you see it?”
The staff member just nervously choked on Gary’s grip and squeaked a ‘no’.
I dashed to the counter and asked around, but everyone was completely unaware, like they’d never even seen it and like the query itself was moronic.
Gary had his hands on his face by this point, breathing through the bars of his fingers, “Oh, we’re fucked, we’re fucked,” he said, “We’re fucked.”
“We’re not fucked,” I said, “It must be here somewhere,” I ducked down, peering under the tables, and let me tell you this, never look under the tables in a coffee shop because there’s no un-seeing what’s there.
There was no sign of the box and, by this point, I saw Gary had his head in one of the large bins digging deep in the hope of finding it. With his shoulders entirely engulfed, I heard an encouraging monosyllabic exhalation from among the discarded cups and cake bits.
“It’s here!” he shouted, and pulled backwards out of the bin, the lid still attached to his shoulders like some sort of medieval ruff. But it was there, in his hands, the grey box!
“Oh thank fuck,” I sighed loudly, realising I’d been holding my breath behind the airlock of my mouth.
But as Gary pulled the lid, it came off even easier than before. And inside was nothing.
“It must still be in there!” I said, pointing at the bin as Gary tossed me the box and headed back in. The lid ruff was still on his shoulders, restricting his entry like a dog holding a very big branch trying to get back into the house.
As he continued to dig, it became obvious that it wasn’t in there, and the panic doubled. This was no longer a lost item, but a stolen one.
“Who’d steal a fucking Fisher Price keyboard?” I spat as I threw my body angrily back into the seat of the van.
Michael Guitar was nervously cracking his knuckles, lamenting the potential loss of our meal in London.
Chris slammed a clenched fist against the side of the van with an ominous, metal clang.
Michael Drum looked emotionless, as usual.
“Can we maybe buy another one?” asked Chris finally, “They must come from somewhere.”
“I just don’t know where we would get something like that,” I said, and even as I was saying it, I remembered, “Except…”
SCREEEEEECH!
Gary pulled an emergency u-turn and we headed back up the motorway to the service station with the giant white room of grabby machines.
I stared into the whooping neon cabinet before me, itself an ancestral representation of Nu Rave. Its innards were lined with an elaborate swamp of plushies, tiny footballs, and one singular red, pink, and green keyboard.
“I knew I’d seen this before!” I shouted, my voice buried among the independent robotic shrieking noises coming from the machine and the pounding, irritating tunes it bellowed.
My comrades lined its sides, staring in at the keyboard, and at each other through the grotesque, twisted glass that obscured our depth of field, designed in such a way that the machine’s operators could never pinpoint the exact angle it’d take to drop a successful grab.
“You telling me they got this from one of these machines?” said Michael Guitar, “You’re saying this is just a grabby machine keyboard?”
I peered down into the abyss of shit prizes, “It looks exactly the same.”
It really did look exactly the same as Radouken’s keyboard, and there was only one in there. I pulled around ten pounds in coins from my pocket that I’d been saving up to stock up on secret Pot Noodles. This was the true test of my worth. This was the grab that would save our lives. And at least get us that hot food in London.
I dunked in the first pound, the machine screamed to new level of irritation.
“Gooooood luuuuuck!” it screamed at me, and I exhaled with scorn.
“I don’t need luck,” I said, and pushed the lever too far right and way past the keyboard.
Chris looked at me through the wobbling glass, “A wee bit of luck wouldn’t hurt though, would it?”
“Yeah, no harm in it,” I said, and slammed another pound into the machine.
GOOOOOD LUUUUCKKK!
I manoeuvred the stick expertly, dangling the claw over the plushie that obscured the keyboard.
“We first need to remove this obstacle,” said Michael Guitar, his index finger pressed against the cabinet’s transparent casing, “And then we’re clean sailing to the keyboard.”
I waited until the claw stopped swinging from its initial movements, then slammed the drop button. It plummeted downwards, the length of its cord far too long for the height required, and the claw rested pathetically against the plushie, closing with the enthusiasm of a coffin, and it grasped at nothing but thin air.
Another pound dunked. Another misfire.
Sweat began to drip from my hair. Chris used a backstage pass ripped from the box to mop my brow. Gary clutched the side of the machine, staring in, mouthing prayers. Michael Guitar administered positive sentiments, telling me I had this, that all it required was belief. Michael Drum looked emotionless, as usual.
On my fifth or six try, I’d finally got a real feel for how this machine handled, and the limp claw caught itself under the arm of the plushie, pulling it upwards. As it dangled in the air, we all cheered, but when the claw moved back towards the drop hole, its flimsy grip couldn’t bear the weight of the smiling stuffed toy, which then tumbled downwards into the mess of other crap.
“No!” I screamed, as the machine yawped ‘Better luck next time!’, and then, I swear to god, it laughed. It fucking laughed at me. A big robotic snigger, distorted by the machine’s tinny speakers.
“Who are you fucking laughing at?” I screamed, my face close to the glass, fogging it up with my fury, “I will actually boot your cunt in!”
Chris grabbed my shoulders, to hold me back. I wasn’t a violent man, but I was about to do time for this mechanical bastard.
“It’s alright, he’s no’ worth it!” he said, “We don’t need the plushie, we just needed to move it!”
He was right, the plushie had fallen, but had freed the path to the keyboard. Its plastic casing now peeked high above the balls and furry toys.
Another pound clunked its way into the glutenous stomach of the machine, and it was soon obvious that there was no way this claw would hook into the plastic glossy surface of the keyboard. There were simply no physics on earth that could do this. Each drop saw the claw lazily massage it, but never hold firm.
Until one fortunate drop, ten or twelve pounds later — the claw caught the on-switch of the keyboard, and we saw it slowly arise through the plushies, emerging from the swamp like a corpse exhumed by the police.
As it ascended, we held our breaths, expecting the worst. And the worst happened. As it hit its height, and the claw swung dramatically, the keyboard became unstuck and it tumbled back into the plushies, deeper and more embedded than before.
“BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, HUH-HUH-HUH!”
“This is fucking unbelievable,” I gawped, “How did Radouken do it? How did they fucking get the grabby fucking claw to pick this fucking thing up?”
“I thought you were good at this!” screamed Chris.
“I am! I usually am!” I protested, “But, look at the layout, look how they’re all lying in there. It doesn’t matter how good I am at it, it’s just luck! It’s just fucking luck!”
“You bastard!” screamed Michael Guitar at the glowing box, “You cheating little bastard!” He hammered the glass with his fist, which caused a loud wailing siren to fill the room, emanating from the machine itself.
The eyes of the drivers and passengers and tired pissers bore into our heads as we ceremoniously stood around the machine, defeated with a blaring siren soundtracking our loss.
A worker from the service station approached us with a set of keys hanging from his belt. He just kind of tutted as he inserted a key into the machine and turned it, immediately stopping the alarm. Its howling wail still echoing in our ears, he looked up at us.
“You trying to get one of these things?” he said.
I pointed at the machine, my finger bending upwards against the glass.
“The wee keyboard,” I said, “We really need it.”
He stood up straight, and fixed his cap, “How much have you put in already?”
“About forty quid.”
He didn’t say anything, he just turned back to the machine, with his key still in the slot, and casually opened its glass door. Nonchalantly, he picked up the keyboard and placed it in my hands.
I stood there, in genuine awe at this man’s power.
“I can’t… I can’t believe this,” I stuttered. I could honestly hear a choir in my head as if presented with the eucharist.
“They only cost about a pound each,” he said, closing the cabinet with a dull thud, removing his key, then walking away whistling the incessant, repetitive theme tune from the machine.
We all stared in silence at this glorious item in my palms, and walked it straight to the van, never taking our eyes off it. Chris placed it in its box, sealed the lid, and bowed his head in silent prayer.
With reverent soundlessness, we continued the journey to London, handed over the box, and got our congratulatory food. Even though we’d spent enough money on the grabby machine that we could’ve just bought our own food, it never tasted better.
No idea if the little synth was even the same synth Radouken had. Regardless, they went on to find enormous, if short-lived, fame as Nu Rave pioneers. Somehow, we did not. But, who knows, there was a moment where we could’ve ruined that for them as well as ourselves. Sorry about that. Better luck next time. Huh-huh-huh-huh.
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