Here's how I remember it:
My girlfriend at the time, whom I will refer to as Ms. Polly Purebread, and I got together partially over a mutual love of The Cocteau Twins and Kate Bush, among other bands contemporary of those times. Skip forward a few years and Ms. Polly heard that The Cocteau Twins were playing in Chicago. Sadly I had to decline seeing them at that time due to work, school, and financial commitments, but I enthusiastically encouraged her to go. Her best friend was living in Milwaukee at the time so Polly was to take a Greyhound from Minneapolis to Milwaukee, then go with her friend on to Chicago and to see her favorite band.
In the time that she bought her ticket for Chicago and the time of the actual concert a Minneapolis date was announced and we bought tickets for that show.
The time came for Ms. Polly to depart for Milwaukee, and slightly disheartened that I wasn't able to go with, saw her off on her whirlwind bus trip.
She and her friend attended the Chicago date of the tour, and had a great time. She said the band was better than she could have hoped them to be. Miraculously, or not, after the concert she was able to get backstage and meet the band. When she returned home she regaled me with tales of meeting the band and being allowed to hang out back stage. She told me I just had to meet the guitar player, Robin, as he was a grumpy man far too old for the time he'd been on the planet, and she thought that we'd get along famously. On top of that she had gotten permission from the band members themselves to photograph the Minneapolis show the next night (Nov. 28 1990 for you nerds that need details).
Showtime rolls around and we were standing in line in front of the Orpheum Theater. Ms. Polly had her big, clunky, 35mm film camera. I had an even bulkier cassette recorder with me in a vain attempt to surreptitiously record the show (for the life of me I can't remember if the show got recorded. I'll have to check the vast archive vault at Fort Stench and see if it indeed exists). Mazzy Star opened, and they were phenomenal. We had their debut album and I really liked it a lot, and I had been a passing fan of the band they grew out of, Opal, but seeing them live, recreating their sparse sound perfectly, was amazing. Then the Cocteau's came on and were even better.
After the set Ms. Polly and I took our place by the backstage door and soon enough she was recognized and were invited in. There were about 15-20 goth kids milling around, some "industry" people, and other general liggers (as the Brits call them, we don't seem to have a word in American for these people). There was a couch at one end of the dressing room, and a television tuned to Warner Brothers cartoons. Robin Guthrie was ignoring all the people vying for his attention and was just enjoying his Porky Pig. I sat down on the couch next to him and said "Sorry to interrupt your cultural edification for the evening, but I've got you figured out." He slowly eyed me up and down and said gruffly "Whaaat tha FACK are you talking about?!?" I said "I got you figured out... your a fat scruffy guitar playing bastard from Scotland. Admit it, you're really Big John Duncan from The Exploited!" Robin got a big, shite-eating grin on his face and said "You fucking bastard!!! You're alright! I like you!" Then he continued "I used to be at a lot of the same parties as John, and I pissed in his beer once, He drank it down without even noticing it!"
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| Robin Guthrie |
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| Big John Duncan |
I excused myself and made my way over to where Liz was holding court with the earlier-mentioned goth kids. I interrupted and said rather boisterously "Hey Liz, Robin told me to tell you to show me your Exploited tattoo!" She turned beet red and walked towards me, and pulling me away from the goth gaggle by my jacket sleeve. She whispered "I DON'T have an Exploited tattoo, but I do have this" and she pulled down the collar of her shirt exposing her back shoulder blade where she had a very crude, homemade stick-and-poke tattoo of a safety pin and 'Sid Vicious'. She then turned back to me and said "You'll never see a photo of me sleeveless." and with that she returned to the crowd she had been entertaining.
I made my way back to the couch where Robin was still just watching cartoons and ignoring everyone.
He got a good chuckle out of me getting to see Liz' evidence of her misspent youth, and then we started talking about Sesame Street. Talking of our love for the mis-understood psyche of Oscar The Grouch, and how The Count was the ultimate goth and how Dave Vanian from the Damned ripped him off. As we were engaged in such deep intellectual conversation a very young, lone goth boy approached carrying 2 gold colored angel statues. The boy handed one to Robin and stammered "Mis... mis... Mister Guthrie, could you sign this for me please?" Robin took the statue, looked at me and winked, then turned back to the kid and shouted "FUCK OFF!!! I DON'T DO CHERUBS!!!"
The kid looked like his puppy was just shot in front of him and dejectedly walked away. Robin looked at me and smiled and said "I don't do fucking cherubs!"
After about a half hour more Ms. Polly Purebread and I were escorted out of the dressing room as management was taking the band back to the hotel. We made our way home happy as two little goth kids that actually got their cherubs signed.
The next day Ms. Polly got her film processed and printed at a one hour photo mart. When she got home from work that day we were going thru the pictures and she noticed that there was an extra print of one of the shots. She got really upset and accused the kid working at the photo mart of printing an extra set of her pictures for himself. I told her it wasn't that big of a deal but she wasn't having it. She finally calmed down enough and we went about the rest of our lives.
HOWEVER... years later I was at a party, or bar, or some kind of gathering where I was forced to be social and interact with others, and I was telling the same story I have just related in this post, but I didn't say anything about Ms. Polly accusing anyone of stealing her photos. Without any prompts the person I was talking to said "Yeah, I couldn't go to that show, but the next day some chick dropped off film at the photo hut I was working at, and she had taken some really good shots at the show. I printed an extra copy and kept them." I replied "Well, you kept most of them. You left one in with the prints she picked up, and when she figured out what you did she was PISSED!!!"
