How do I feel about my shoes?  It reminds me a bit of a spoof Private Eye used to do about collecting teaspoons, but yeah I think it’s a great idea.  You know me.  Any excuse to air a few pop yarns.  It’s a line from a Smiths song isn’t it?  Hmm they really did have a bit of a footwear problem if I remember rightly.  They ushered in that whole era of the Wedding Present, which was horrible. 

I have just the photo to kick off your series.  It’s one taken of me when I must have been 17.  I say must have been because I’d argue you can remember summers by your shoes.  Kevin Rowland claimed you remembered them by the songs you were listening to, but shoes are a real giveaway.  I only had to look at this photo and I knew it was the summer of 1981.  The chinese slippers are a dead giveaway.  I was obsessed with Scars, who should have been the biggest stars of that summer, and I saw this photo of their singer wearing a pair, and I just had to get some.

The slippers were hilarious.  I remember getting them in Kensington Market.  It’s long gone now, and good riddance to it in many ways as it needed to be  put out of its misery.  But at that time it had a real glamour.  Well, at least from a distance, when you’d read about it in The Face or the early editions of i-D.  But when you got there it was pretty horrible.  Fascinating nevertheless.  Rockabilly stalls.  Mod into regency places.  Hairstylists.  Record shacks.  New designers.  Vintage clothing.  Old bowling shirts.  Hair gel.  But for each of those there were horrendous hippy places selling ethnic prints, tie-dye, patchouli oils, incense sticks, nasty jewellery, and so on.  And the place was like a rabbit warren, over I think three floors.  I would get the bus down from Marble Arch if I was going, and on this occasion I remember tracking down the slippers in this big clothing place on the top floor.  One of those places where the assistants were so cool you were terrified to speak, but anyway I got the slippers, and they were dead cheap and quite lovely.  I was delighted. 

And the jeans in the photo.  They were from this place in Oxford Street.  One of those dodgy places, which might have later transformed into Mr Byrites, but then wasn’t part of any chain, and in among the cheesecloth and smocks were some real finds.  They had the best ranges of Fred Perrys anywhere, and these jeans were incredibly cheap.  They were slightly baggy but with tapered bottoms.  Funny colours.  But we were so poor that they were a real bonus.  I thought they were incredibly cool, and very Orange Juice, and Stephen Daly had been pictured in a very similar pair, and he was impeccable, particularly for a drummer. 

You can see from this photo that I was obsessed with Scottish pop groups.  The t-shirt is one of the great State Arts ones.  Scars ski.  That was the only group t-shirt I ever bought.  Long before the selling of t-shirts became an industry in itself.  How stupid was it that people like James and the Inspiral Carpets sold more t-shirts than records?  But the State Arts range was completely cool.  They were something to do with Al McDowell, who is now a top Hollywood designer, but then was Rocking Russian, graphic designers with fingers in many pies, including managing the Rich Kids and later Scars themselves, and setting up i-D magazine, and there was a fantastic Scars flexi-disc, which was dazzling gold, with the third edition, of Your Attention Please, the adaptation of the cold war Peter Porter poem. 

I can remember buying the Scars ski t-shirt – and incidentally the only other person I remember seeing wear one of those was Joe Foster – in the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street.  And funnily enough I was thinking of the day it opened – when was it? 1979?  I’d gone up there with my best mate, but we’d walked too far up Oxford Street, right up as far as Marble Arch, where there was another Virgin shop, and as we walked through to the back of the shop there was none other than John Lydon kneeling down flicking through the reggae 7”s, and these tiny skinheads were pestering him for autographs, and Johnny was charming with them, and as we walked back through the shop there was none other than Feargal Sharkey, who was our real hero at the time, and we went up to say hi, wanting to get his autograph but none of us had pens, and we told him Johnny R was in the shop too, and Feargal asked us where the new Megastore was.  Well, a bit later we saw him in the Megastore, buying a Bette Bright 12”.  That was quite a day.

Well I remember buying the Scars ski tee in the Megastore a couple of years on.  And around the same time I remember getting The Fall’s Slates 10” in there.  They had a big display of them.  The Fall loved Scars because they were supposedly opposites.  Scars being very flamboyant and buccaneering.  But The Fall were almost pop stars at the time.  All the new groups were big fans, and Smash Hits was featuring them even.  I still believe that record was maybe The Fall’s best.  For years there was a spectacular piece of graffiti along the track near Blackheath station saying in huge letters: “And I feel like Alan Minter …”.  It was there for years.  Thousands and thousands must have seen it without realising it was a line from a Fall song.  In fact it’s probably still there but just covered by overgrown vegetation, which says a lot about infrastructure maintenance.

And though I don’t have the photos to prove it, more generally around that time I would have been wearing yachting shoes or deck shoes that summer, which was a bit of a tradition.  You don’t really see them now, but you’d get these blue plimsolls in Millets or yachting shops, and wear them with striped t-shirts like Warhol or the Velvets on the sleeve of 1969 Live.  And topped off with a cord jeans jacket, which again you’d get from that place up the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street, and maybe a Joe Orton style cap.  There was a bit of a Postcard Records vibe to that look.  The next generation.  Jazzateers.  Bluebells. 

I can remember escaping from the Royal Wedding that summer, going round the local park, which was deserted.  And I just sat round there in peace, reading that week’s Sounds, which had the great Dave McCullough on the Bluebells, who were very much then in the pro-Monkees pop subversion camp, and putting together an early set which was like the Hollies or Searchers doing the Cost of Living.  I can remember sessions they recorded for Gary Crowley and brilliantly poppy songs like Red Guitars, Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool, Sugar Bridge, and Happy Birthday, and reports that they covered Outdoor Miner and Boys Don’t Cry to show their roots and punk hearts.  It was a shame their actual records never captured the true Bluebells’ energy, and Nick Heyward stole their best ideas.  Serves them right.  It was a kiss of death getting involved with Elvis Costello, who was quite possibly the world’s worst producer.  Just ask the Specials. 

There you go.  Shoes can tell you so much.  Look you don’t really want to use that photo do you?

© 2007 John Carney