Chapter Fourteen
The first thing that Theo noticed about Wells was that he was not wearing his trademark vest underneath a colourful checked shirt. In fact he was wearing no colour at all. He was dressed head to toe in black: black Dr Martens, black drainpipes, black leather jacket, and underneath the jacket a black t-shirt with a gigantic circle with a cross in the middle of it - the unmistakeable logo of anarchist punk group Crass. Since when had August Wells been into Crass?
The second thing to go through his mind, once he had taken in Wells' appearance, was the state (and smell) of his room. The window had been closed since this morning, and as he had spent much of the day here, he was sure that the musty smell had returned. This was confirmed for him when a female form appeared behind Wells whose face turned to wide-eyed shock as she entered.
"Hope you don't mind us calling in unannounced" said Wells, "This is my girlfriend Sophie. Can we have a quick chat?"
"Of course, come in," replied Theo, "Please take a seat on the er... bed."
It was then that Theo realised that the bed had remained unmade all day, and he could see tell-tale tissues from the morning's studying of The Observer magazine on it. He leapt up from the drum stool and quickly pulled the bed sheets up towards the pillow, grabbing the crusty tissues as he did so. To his relief, August and Sophie didn't seemed to have noticed.
Once the bed had been made, August and Sophie sat down and looked around the room. Like Wells, Sophie was dressed head to toe in black, the only colour coming from her bleached blond hair, the tips of which had been died blue. Theo had the feeling that he had seen her before. She seemed older than Wells. Then it struck him: she had gone out with Jon, his brother a while back.
"Can I offer you a drink of anything?" Theo managed to say, a slight quaver in his voice.
"Sure" replied Wells, "What do you have?"
Theo looked at the empty beer cans on the floor by his drum stool. "Er, white wine?"
"Sounds great" replied Wells, and Sophie nodded in agreement.
"Cool. I'll just nip down and get some glasses. Make yourself at home."
With that Theo left the room and took the stairs three at a time until he reached the kitchen, where he grabbed three tumblers of differing sizes and ran back up the stairs two at a time.
When he got back to his room, Wells was studying the Wallflowers logo Theo had done earlier. "This is nice, what is it?"
Theo went bright red, and managed to stammer out a quickly invented response "Oh, just something I'm working on for art class." How he dearly would have loved to say This is the name of our new band August. You and me, you and me...
Instead he put the three glasses down on his desk. The bottle of wine was under the bed, the exact location of which was currently guarded by Sophie's legs. Not quite sure how to relay this information to his guests, he moved towards her, pointing at her legs and saying "Can I just..."
Sophie looked panicked and turned to Wells for reassurance. "Er, can you just what?"
"Sorry, it's just that the wine is, um, under my bed..."
"Oh right." Sophie lifted her legs up, and Theo reached under the bed to retrieve the bottle. He unscrewed it and handed out the glasses.
"Sorry if it's a bit warm" he said as he filled their glasses.
"Doesn't matter pal, booze is booze. What happened to your hand?"
"Oh, just scraped my knuckles carrying the drums the other day."
"At the Steal Guitars gig? I heard about that. Shame. Still one door closes and another door opens"
Theo's heart began to race.
"So listen" Wells continued "Dunno if you heard or not, but I left New England Planets. Andy was starting to get on my wick, and we hadn't seen eye to eye musically for a long time. He got really shitty with me after the last gig so I told him to go fuck himself. So I'm forming a new band. Are you interested?"
"What, as drummer?"
"Of course as drummer. You're the best one around. Steal Guitars' loss is my gain."
"Of course August, of course!" replied Theo.
"Brilliant" August stood up and held out his glass "Cheers!"
Theo and Sophie both chinked his glass and they all sat back down again, August and Sophie on the bed, Theo at his desk.
Wells continued "Have you heard of The Subhumans?"
Theo had indeed heard of The Subhumans - they were a local punk band who had a massive live following and had released records that had made it into the Indie charts. It was quite a common sight to see punks walking around with the logo painted on the back of their leather jackets, the name divided into three blocks of letters, each block with a white border around it: SUB HUM ANS.
But why was August mentioning them now?
"I've been really getting into them recently. I saw them over at The Viaduct a few weeks ago and they were phenomenal. Real power, real energy, and real anger. Made me realise how poppy and bland the music The Planets were playing was. I managed to sneak in a Pistols song at the last gig - their most poppy one probably - but apart from that I just couldn't get on with the set list"
I liked that set list, thought Theo. That ten-minute version of Sloop John B was really good! But he said nothing and kept nodding.
"So yeah, seeing The Subhumans really put things in focus for me, and made me realise the sort of music I wanted to play. Sophie is going to be the joint vocalist with me, and I'm in the process of getting other musicians involved who feel the same way. You were the first one I tried to contact. I reckon you're that good. As soon as I heard about you not playing for the Guitars anymore I looked in the phone book for your address. You're the only Hanlon in there by the way. I've been writing songs like crazy, and I reckon there is some pretty decent stuff there already."
He then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cassette.
"I recorded some Subhumans stuff, and there's a bit of Crass on there too, to give you an idea of the sort of direction I'm heading in." He handed the tape to Theo, who wasn't sure if he was meant to listen to it now or not.
"Have a listen later maybe. It's a bit heavy - we won't be able to hear ourselves think. Ha ha!"
Once Wells had finished his wine, he reached for his jacket and pulled out a tobacco tin.
"Mind if I roll up a joint or two?"
"Be my guest"
"Your parents won't mind?"
Theo hadn't thought about that. "Er maybe I should open a window just to be on the safe side."
"Good idea" said Sophie.
Theo offered more wine, but Wells and Sophie declined on the basis that they were about to smoke. Theo topped himself up and went over to the record collection to find a replacement for the Genesis single. He put London Calling back on, feeling that the Clash album would be half way between Theo's 'anything as long as it's melodic' policy and Wells' newly-found hard core punk sensibility. As the record began, Theo felt a momentary echo of yesterday's post-Steal Guitars misery, but the prospect of playing with Wells soon banished it. Joe Strummer sang away as Wells outlined his vision for his new musical venture.
"So are you in? I know the music will be different to what you're used to, but I really think this is going to be the future, all that poppy stuff is starting to sound really old."
Theo nodded in agreement and drank his wine. "So do you have a name for the band?" He asked, guessing that 'the Wallflowers' probably wouldn't be quite right.
"Sure, I thought we'd call ourselves 'Extradition', but it won't be spelt 'extradition' in the traditional sense; it will be spelt 'capital X, then a hyphen, then Tradition."
Oh great, after 'Steal Guitars' comes another confusingly spelt band name. Would you look under "E" or "X" in the record shop?
"Yeah, it kind of has a dual meaning" Wells continued: "Extradition obviously means when someone is forcibly removed from one country to another, and that kind of ties in with the way I feel about this country right now; that it's become this new Thatcher-ite state that I have no say in. It's like I've
been expelled from the country I grew up in. And the second meaning of the name is that we are 'ex-tradition' i.e. we are turning our backs on all traditions and creating a new sound, a new movement."
Wells leaned back and inhaled deeply from the joint and passed it to Sophie.
"Oh, I see, that makes sense" was all Theo could think to say.
So he had started the day dreaming of being in a band called the Wallflowers with August Wells, and he ended the day being in a band called X-Tradition with August Wells. Could be worse, Theo concluded.
They continued to chat until Wells and Sophie finished their joint and side one of London Calling came to an end. Wells reached for his jacket.
"Well pal, we'd better get going, got things to do, people to see. I'm hoping to do auditions over the next few days at my house, but I've already got some songs together so I was wondering if you'd like to come over and jam sometime soon, maybe tomorrow?"
Theo said that he had the Blues Train gig at lunchtime, but was available after that. They arranged it so that Wells would come to the White Hart after the gig and take Theo and the kit back to his place for an afternoon jam session.
Once they had left, Theo took the extinguished joint from the ashtray and smoked it down to the roach, while finishing off the litre bottle of wine.