David Stuart - In the all-night café: a memoir of Belle and Sebations formative year

Copyright 2015 by Stuart David
First published in the United Kingdom by Little, Brown
First published in the United States by Chicago Review Press Incorporated
All rights reserved

Chicago Review Press Incorporated
814 North Franklin Street
Chicago, Illinois 60610

ISBN 978-1-61373-078-2

Typeset in Dante by M Rules
Cover design: LBBG Sian Wilson
Cover image: Karn David
Author photo: Elle Zober

Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1

One afternoon, in 1994, I had an idea.

It wasnt a particularly profound idea, or even an original one; I knew for certain that hundreds of people had had the same idea before me. But it came to me quite suddenly, quite out of the blue, and within a few weeks it had begun to change my life.

At that time, I was living in a small town on the west coast of Scotland called Alexandria, the place where Id grown up. It lies twenty miles north of Glasgow, near the shores of Loch Lomond, and every afternoon when I needed a break from whatever song or story I was working on, Id walk out of Alexandria and up into Balloch Park. I always took the same route: up the main drive, down the steep hill, through the arbour to the walled gardens and then home by the river. And it was while I was walking through the arbour, with the skinny trees twisting around and above me, that the idea came to me, almost as if it was spoken by a voice.

Initially, the idea presented itself as the solution to a problem. For months wed been auditioning bass players for my new band, Raglin Street Rattle. But everyone we tried seemed to be a frustrated lead guitarist rather than a bass player. Everyone wanted to play guitar, no one wanted to play bass. I was the singer and guitarist in the band, and as I walked along beneath the trees, it suddenly occurred to me that if I could learn to play the bass we could have our pick of guitar players. And that would be a blessing because I couldnt really play guitar very well.

I emerged from the arbour in a bit of a daze, trying to see if there was a flaw in the plan. I couldnt find one though. It didnt occur to me that I might not be able to play the bass. That didnt seem to be a possibility. So I hurried down through the walled gardens and out onto the path by the river, then I rushed home to phone my drummer and main collaborator, David Campbell, to tell him about the new plan.

I was twenty-four years old the afternoon the idea came to me, and for a while there had been a major threat to my way of life looming on the horizon. Like most people who came to prominence during the Britpop and BritArt era, Id been funding my musical apprenticeship using Unemployment Benefit (or more specifically, Income Support), using it as an unofficial artists bursary in the absence of anything more legitimate. But now the government were beginning to crack down on the various misuses to which their 46 a week was being put, and I knew I was on thin ice. They were herding everyone who had been claiming benefits for more than a year onto Training For Work programmes, and then into invented jobs and Id been claiming for almost eight years, ever since a Modern Studies teacher had given us a brief lesson in how to sign on and attend school at the same time. So I knew my time was running out.

My drummer, David Campbell, had found a solution that was working for him. In order to fund his regular American road trips, hed given up his benefits altogether and enrolled in a scheme at the hospital to have medical experiments carried out on himself; he only had to take part in a study for about one week every couple of months to make enough money to get by. But I was pretty certain I didnt have the stomach for that. So Id been filling in my Looking For Work diaries, attending enforced meetings with assessors, and one unhappy Tuesday morning I found myself sitting in a cramped boardroom with ten or fifteen fellow claimants, being shown by an enthusiastic man with a flipchart how to look for work.

The irony of the situation, the fact that he didnt appear to have anything you could seriously call a job himself, wasnt lost on the party, but it didnt really matter. It turned out that we hadnt been gathered there to be taught how to look for work at all. Towards the end of the morning, he brought out a folder and started passing bits of paper around, and it seemed this was the real business of the day. We were told to look down the list of courses typed on the sheets of paper, and then choose one wed like to sign up for, otherwise our benefits would be stopped.

My heart sank. I scanned the sorry list of options, wondering how I could rearrange things to get by without my 46 a week. Ever since Id turned fourteen, Id been convinced that writing songs and stories was my vocation. I considered my work to be similar in nature to a religious calling, and Id dedicated myself to it accordingly. No other possibilities existed for me. Id always just refused to consider anything else. But Id only been able to win the ensuing teenage battles about my career choice with teachers and family and peers because Income Support had given me a modicum of financial independence. My benefits had allowed me to follow my own path, despite what anyone else said. Without the benefits, I knew Id be fair game again for the factories in the valley and the nuclear missile base on the other side of the hill: the twin evils Id been born and raised to provide cheap labour for, just like everyone else in Alexandria.

I looked down the list of courses again, even more desperately this time, and it remained a sorry selection: flower arranging, dog grooming, car mechanics. But then, just when I was on the verge of giving up all hope, something seemed to materialise near the bottom of the page a late addition, in tiny writing. A course in Glasgow that appeared to have something to do with popular music. I thought I might be hallucinating. I called the flipchart man over and asked him about it. He took the piece of paper from me and stood staring at it blankly.

Hmn he said after a while. I didnt know that was on there. That sounds strange.

Then he wrote my name down, said he would look into it for me and sent us all home.

For a few weeks I didnt hear anything more about it, and after a while I decided I must just have imagined the words onto the page through sheer force of will. I forgot about it, borrowed the money to buy a Fender Squier bass, and started taking lessons at a youth club in the next town along from mine, on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It wasnt until I got called into the unemployment offices again and asked what I intended to do about this new deal of theirs that I mentioned the music course I had heard about.

The woman behind the desk looked at me uncomprehendingly. She studied her notes and said there wasnt a music course, then she tried to get me to choose from one of the other courses she suggested. I told her there had been a music course on the list at the Looking For Work seminar, and that it was based in Glasgow. She eyed me suspiciously, studied her notes again, then told me Id be hearing from them in due course regarding a decision about my benefit.

That seemed to be the end of the interview.

A few days later, though, I got a letter saying an appointment had been set up for me at an unemployment office in Glasgow, and when I arrived there it turned out that the music course existed after all.

The harassed-looking man who interviewed me said the course was called Beatbox. And although I thought the name was daft, I liked the sound of some of the things it had to offer.