temperance

today was humid. and. the sun shone. i'm still waiting for the rain. but. for now i will take the warmth. i commented this morning that i am sick of wearing black. it's summer and we are all still wrapping up against the elements. by this afternoon it was obvious i was wearing the wrong outfit. driving home from work, windows down hoping for a breath of air to waft through and cool the dark interior, i was stuck in traffic. the car behind was doing the same. only his car had a stereo that worked. this song wafted through the traffic jam.

the stones roses. i was immediately transported back to my youth. i frequented the hacienda as a student. this song was a regular on temperance nights. this was a song that made you feel like you belonged. in the middle it breaks down. if you were on the dance floor when this was playing and you knew the track, you knew how to dance to it. if you didn't. you didn't. it separated the men from the boys. the cool kids from the wannabes. the roses are everywhere at the minute. they play heaton park in manchester this weekend. a reunion tour. obviously some guy was getting himself in the mood early. it made me think about this track too.

this is my favourite new order track. temperance nights always played this 12" version. i still remember the image of a lad who every week without fail would be on the stage dancing to this. fringe covering his face, arms alternating up and down in time with the music, silhouetted against the coloured strobing lights. that was the thing about going regularly to the same club night; there were some tracks that were played every week. not just that. there were some tracks that were played at the same time every week. when the beatles ticket to ride and the mamas and the papas california dreamin' came on you knew it was midnight. stuck in traffic today i remembered that growing up in manchester gave me access to the first "super club". to me it was my back yard. i thought every teenager had a hacienda in their town. as you gain life experience and knowledge you realise that not everyone did. my formative musical taste was formed by this kind of experience. this kind of music. as a teenager i didn't go to local pubs, i would catch the 157 bus, change at parrswood and get the number 50 to the international. a £2.50 ticket would buy you access to a support act, a headliner and a disco afterwards all washed down with a vodka and lime. again i took this for granted. funny how a few bars of a song can bring all this flooding back.  music. the world would be poorer without it.


Emma