Odell - Rock bottom: a music writers journey into madness

A bed. South London.

Stop shouting! Stop shouting, youll wake Ronnie!

What? Wait! Where the hell is the band?

The band isnt here. You are home. This is reality.

Reality, I note with a sigh, is not as well-appointed as my dream-life. There is no fancy room service buffet or deluxe hotel chandelier above me but instead a modest Ikea lampshade and a large guitar-shaped damp patch on the ceiling. Before I left on my trip, the patch was about the size of a seven-inch single. Now it has swollen and grown two long tentacles. Its about the size of the preposterous double-necked guitar Jimmy Page used while Led Zeppelin were in their 70s pomp.

The pretty, freckled face of my girlfriend Nicola peers down at me, a scientist examining a specimen. The fringe that makes her look like the dark-haired one from the Human League swishes into her eyes. She flicks it away to improve her view.

Morning, she says jauntily enough but her eyelids flicker, betraying a reading on the spectrum between curiosity and trepidation.

Hello, you, I say, blinking myself fully awake. Sorry, I thought I was

Michael, you were having a bad dream.

No, I was asleep, I say.

But you were shouting, Pete! Pete!

Whos Peter?

How the hell should I know? It was your dream!

Peter Townshend. Peter Doherty. Peter Hook. These are all Peter rock stars. I know this because I am a rock writer. I have been interviewing rock stars for twenty years. In fact, I have just returned from a testing international assignment. Thrombosed by the contortions of an Economy seat, blunted by in-flight refreshments, I climbed into bed next to Nicola late last night. I slept terribly and woke feeling vexed and haunted. I was dreaming about rock stars. I was on a tour bus with a band. There was music, beer and louche pterodactyl laughter, but the precise details evaporate upon probing. I certainly dont recall any Peters.

Get up. Have a bath. Youll feel better, Nicola advises.

Yes, good idea, I say catching the fug of my own long-haul traveller armpit.

Nicola is very good about indulging the peculiarities of my job. You might say it comes naturally to her. She works in mental health, running a South London day centre where she helps a varied clientele adapt to a self-supporting life in the community. Its not so far from living with a rock journalist: if I need rousing or cajoling, she has the skill set to do it.

So, where did you stay? she asks, drawing back the curtains.

The Four Seasons, I say, Toronto.

And the weather?

Cold as a witchs tit.

But they were nice?

Who?

Were the band nice?

I wince at the question.

Nice? Why are you asking me if they were nice?

You went all that way; Im just asking if they were nice to you.

Come on, I say, you dont really want people like that to be nice.

Rock stars are combatants in important cultural wars. They are required to be many things but nice isnt preeminent among them. However, Nicola is less bothered by the complex code of how rock stars should behave than I am. To her mind, they should assume the off-stage persona of cordial and respectful citizenry. Nicola is for common decency. She is for manners.

What was Mick like? she asks, with a cautious elevation of one eyebrow.

A businessman. Emotionally disconnected from his product. Very much focussed on maximising profits, I shrug.

Oh, she says with distaste.

I have been to Toronto to interview the Rolling Stones. In his dressing room, Sir Mick directed me to a seat ten feet distant from his. Across this chasm of empathy, he offered a wily, craggy defence of the Stones legacy. Hes been their frontman for over 40 years now. No wonder he feels more like a brand ambassador discussing augmentations to the product line than a rock star.

I went for broke. I lobbed in my hand grenade question: Is it possible, as Keith and I discussed earlier, that the Stones sexual threat and perhaps even the entire permissive 60s may have originated with your cock?

Great quote. No comment.

In most interviews the grenade question, something incendiary dropped onto the floor and left to roll around with the pin out, opens things up. But not this time. He was too good. Nevertheless, eyeballing the walnut-faced Jagger up close was a solemn and special occasion for me. Jagger and Keith Richards are members of the Big Six, the giants, the founders even, of modern rock whom every rock writer would like to interview. The others are Bowie, Townshend, Page and McCartney. They are getting old now and soon they will all be dead. It is my sworn aim to find the big beasts before they go extinct. And before I do too. In six months I will be 42.

After the Stones, I expect youre feeling tomorrow will be a bit of a come-down, Nicola says.

Tomorrow. Whats tomorrow?

The Q Awards.

Oh yes, I remember now. Tomorrow Q magazine is holding its annual awards bash. Each journalist must chaperone one of the star guests up the red carpet, through a global media maelstrom and into a hotel ballroom where gongs will be handed out. I have been allotted Britpop titans Oasis. Oasis are not in the Big Six, but they are still a major force in rock. Just thinking about chaperoning them makes me feel anxious. I have spent quite a bit of time with the band in the past and, although they are funny and charismatic, they can be wildly unpredictable.

I think you should get a new suit. And new shoes, Nicola advises, after studying my outfit for the awards.

Why? Those are fine.

Come off it, she says. The shoes are so 1980s, and the suits ridiculously small.

I dont care. I am wearing them.

Last year, as I chaperoned the exquisitely tailored Elton John up the red carpet, one of the magazines top brass hissed at me coldly. Why arent you wearing a suit? she said. You look like his bloody roadie!

It pisses me off that this year she has stipulated all writers should attend in formal wear. I will wear the ridiculous suit as a protest. A suit that brazenly refuses to do the conformist work of a suit. I do not believe rock writers should conform. Why should we, mavericks who articulate the voices of the counterculture, ape the dress code of The Man?

For Gods sake, just go and buy one, says Nicola, holding it up with clear distaste. Theres nothing wrong with looking presentable.

I sense we are about to argue, once again, about the place that conformity has in rock n roll culture. But we are interrupted by a noise outside the bedroom door. The tentative rat-a-tat of a small human knuckle.

Nicola winks at me as a cue to prepare myself. Heeeeereees Ronnie! she cries, like an MC introducing an act on an old-time TV rock show, and our nine-year-old son Ronnie shoulders through the door. He is wearing his Who pyjama set with a toy plastic guitar slung round his neck. Nicola gently guides his back as he hops onto the bed, as if onto a low stage. Then, with apple-cheeked intensity, he begins mimicking the riff to My Generation. Instead of electricity and amplification, he deploys growls and phlegm for effect. When he gets to the line Hope I die before I get old, Nicola arches a quizzical eyebrow. When he has finished, he waves to the imaginary crowd, takes off the guitar and assumes his ordinary persona.