Threepenny Memoir: The Lives of a Libertine. Carl Barat
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the relentless miles slipping by under our prone bodies.
DVDs, then, were my first vice with Peter, the first thing I splurged money on, and it seems strange to me now that it took me a while to splash out on a nice guitar. I remember the day I did, however. Peter and I went down to Vintage & Rare, the pair of us as pleased as punch and practically glowing with pride, both very naïve. The proprietor must have seen us coming, because he was standing behind the counter rubbing his hands together with glee. I bought my Melody Maker, which I still use, and Peter bought the Epiphone Coronet, which I believe his father impounded for reasons that still escape me.
Even though he’d ultimately kick my door in and try to steal my stuff, Peter gave me security and confidence to go out and do that, to believe that I could go out on a limb, even in prosaic, financial matters. When we were really firing on all cylinders and were together then it really felt like no one could touch us, and that nothing else mattered. As much as I try to deflect it, play it down and be English about it, there was a very powerful romance and beauty to our friendship. At the beginning it was pure and uncomplicated; there was a chemistry. Together we were a complete unit, in each other’s company quite different from how we were with other people. I can sit here as the shadows get longer and be diffident about it until the sun comes up again tomorrow morning, but the fact is that if that dynamic between us hadn’t existed none of this would have happened, I wouldn’t be lamenting what I lost – what we both lost – I wouldn’t be writing it all down. When we’re together and we can forget about bullshit, we become two old souls, kindred spirits in seclusion.
∗ ∗ ∗
Enough of lamenting what we’d lost, though. When we signed to Rough Trade, it was all just beginning, and before we’d had a chance to realize what was happening, The Libertines were on the cover of the NME. The new deal with Rough Trade had brought us a new family, not least in the shape of our press officer, Tony the Tiger, a lovely man whose mum knew him better as Tony Lincoln, a man who always wore a backpack, even with a suit. I found that charming. He made an effort to take us aside just before our NME cover photo was due, when the single was getting played on radio stations, and he said, in the nicest possible way, ‘You do you know, after this Wednesday, that things are going to be very different, don’t you? As soon as this cover comes out you’re going to be very, very famous. I’ve seen this before, so just prepare yourselves.’
How did we prepare ourselves? You can get the NME in the West End on a Tuesday, a day before it gets sent around the country, so, come Tuesday, Peter and I reconvene at home in Bethnal Green, suited, booted, sunglasses, acting absurdly cool, and take the Tube to Tottenham Court Road station. Sure enough, there we are, on the front cover, on display on a little news-stand opposite the Astoria. So we ask for a couple of copies, give a knowing nod to the woman behind the counter and then … nothing. Peter very slowly takes the change from her hand and tries to meet her eye, and she just smiles at us and moves on to the next customer. We spent all day walking around clutching copies of the NME, cover out, and nothing happened that day, or that week, not a sausage. It was a fallacy, a funny one, but a fallacy nevertheless.
I’m not quite sure what we were expecting, but, when we broke, we broke big and we broke quickly. We stepped up to the plate and swung, as an American fellow told me as we stepped off stage at the Astoria, the very place, only months before, we’d been to buy the NME. We were supporting The Vines; it was meant to be their first headline show at the venue, but they pulled out and we got top billing by default. That’s when I realized that we were breaking – no one, but no one, gave their tickets back, and as we stepped out it was if they were there to see us. Even the balcony was a mass of adoring silhouettes. We stepped up to the plate and swung. These are the inescapable moments.
All of a sudden, we were recording our first single for Rough Trade with Bernard Butler. Initially, Peter was in thrall to Bernard: he placed him on a pedestal in many ways. As a young man Peter was an NME boy, a letter writer, and Bernard was the cover star, someone who, as part of Suede, helped change the musical landscape for a while. I remember Rough Trade brought him along and he was wearing his Converse and had a big parka on; he was looking very Bernard Butler, which endeared him to me. I sometimes want people to look and act like my perception of them, like the picture I hold of them in my head. When I meet people, fans who stop me for a photo in the street or people who just want to say hello, I always hope that I come away and leave with them the impression they’d hoped for. So, in one way, Bernard was the man we hoped he’d be, quite a player, amazing style. He was also very, very methodical and slightly schoolmasterly in his production approach, which I also found charming. He was like some cool, floppy-haired teacher whose lesson you always secretly looked forward to. And we needed it at first, that hands-on approach, making sure all the boxes were ticked.
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