LOUDER THAN BOMBS!:

VHS

It was the summer of 1989. Me and Shay, my best friend then and now, were fifteen and still in secondary school. He was the funny guy always in trouble with the teachers at school for acting the clown, a lover of The Smiths and Morrissey who had his haired styled exactly like the alternative music legend from Manchester. I remember on Friday nights we’d go to the local video store, Video Busters, on Streetly Road in our neighbourhood and hire one or two movies. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Ghostbusters II. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Asinine fair, mostly, recommended to us by the guy who worked there fulltime, Tim, in his mid-twenties back then. Tim was no Quentin Tarantino, no movie aficionado. He hated films, in fact, and he hated working at Video Busters, but it was a job all the same and it paid the rent on his crummy flat he was sharing with his girlfriend. We enjoyed watching them nonetheless, all to the accompaniment of ten packs of crisps, a multipack of Marathon bars (the following year changing its name to Snickers) and a large bottle of Coca-Cola between us.

ALCOHOL

On Fridays Shay’s parents would go out, usually to a bingo club, or a pub. Sometimes I’d stay over. Sometimes I wouldn’t. One night, and after watching Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (with comedian George Carlin, my all-time favourite truth-sayer, starring), we discovered Shay’s old man’s drinks cabinet — not really a drinks cabinet, in all honesty, but a stash of alcoholic beverages under the sink. I’d had a few sips of beer before: off my dad, just to try. Little sips here and there, but nothing major.

“You wanna try?” Shay asked me, holding a bottle of whiskey in his hand.

“Go on then,” I said — it was almost the weekend and there was no school the next day. Or no school for three more weeks, as it was the summer holidays.

He took out a glass from the press, poured a little in, then said:

“Who’s first?”

“Go on,” I said, “drink,” I goaded him.

He took a gulp. His contorted face said it all.

“Your turn,” he said, handing me the glass.

“That’s disgusting,” I said after necking it.

He put a bit more whiskey into the glass. We had another few sips each, this time holding our noses.

“How do you feel?” he asked me.

“Tipsy,” I answered.

We both started giggling, as teenagers do.

“So, you wanna stay the night?”

“Yeah, why not,” I said as my body became suddenly warm. I was drunk.

We went upstairs to Shay’s bedroom.

AMERICAN FOOTBALL ON CHANNEL 4

Now Shay was a music enthusiast. For a fifteen-year-old his LP collection was impressive: lines of long-play vinyl albums and 12inchs from Animal Magnet, Echo and the Bunnymen and The Fall were a precursor to his present occupation, a professional DJ working the pubs and working men’s clubs of north Birmingham.

“Pick something and put it on,” he said while he was taking his kegs off.

“Ah, shit,” I began, pulling the album sleeve out: it was Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s early 80’s classic Welcome to the Pleasuredome, “Can I put this on?”

“If you like,” though by his tone, Shay didn’t seem that keen.

The reason for my enthusiasm was I loved the song, Two Tribes. As an active American football player at the time, I was obsessed with Channel 4’s American football highlights coverage programme presented by such luminaries as Nicky Horne, Frank Gifford, and Mick Luckhurst. During the results section near the end of every show, the montage of the games and scores would be accompanied by the song Two Tribes.

I put it on. The first song was the eponymous album track Welcome to the Pleasuredome. I got undressed too until like Shay, I was down to only my briefs.

We were in the bed now, dancing to the tune, drunk.

And then it came:

‘THE AIR ATTACK WARNING SOUNDS LIKE: THIS IS THE SOUND…’

BOMB SIRENS

“Ah, I love this one!” I exclaimed as the bomb-siren intro to Two Tribes started. I blasted the volume up.

“Yeah, it’s louder than bombs,” Shay said, mentioning the Manchester quartet’s compilation album Louder Than Bombs.

PIANO THEN. DRAMATIC MUSIC. CYMBALS CRASHING. MAIN BEAT.

‘WHEN YOU HEAR THE AIR ATTACK WARNING: YOU AND FAMILY MUST TAKE COVER.’

Holly Johnson in physical pain.

‘LET’S GO…’

Johnson was about to start his lyrical input when the bedroom door opened violently: it was Shay’s old man, Dominic: Shay and I were dancing on the bed at that moment, hugging each other when we got the shock of our lives:

“Wha’ in the hell are you two doin’?!”

We jumped up from the bed, nearly shitting ourselves.

“Jaysus,” he said, “yer pair of queers!”

He stormed out, not before telling us to turn the music off.

We didn’t know what to do.

“Did you hear what he said?” I commented to Shay, my t-shirt back on me now.

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” Shay answered.

Soon after we fell asleep.

SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

The next morning, we went downstairs with big hangovers.

“How’s Danny LaRue and Rock Hudson this morning?” Dominic, sitting downstairs in the living room with a cup of tea beside him, said.

Shay’s mother, Patricia, popped her head around the living room door from the kitchen at the back.

I didn’t know where to look.

“We’re not gay, Dad,” Shay said to his old fella.

“Are yer sure abou’ tha’, son?” he answered with a wink. “Hey, Darg, did yer enjoy it last night?”

I still didn’t know where to look.

“We’re not gay, Dom, I swear,” I then said.

“Did yer hear this, Pat, they’re not at all like Frankie Howard…”

They were winding us up all along, but I’ll never forget that night and the initial embarrassment it caused the both of us. Back then, in the late 80s, homosexuality was still very much a taboo subject. Up until that point, I’d never really thought about it much, and that was the first time I really did. I can say proudly, as a straight male, I’ve always been tolerant regarding a person’s sexuality — more so as I’m getting older. It was still funny, though, and something which Shay and I still talk about with a smile over a pint or two from time to time.