Robert Rankin - Necrophenia

‘What is the “Key of La”?’ Toby asked me.

‘There is no such key,’ I said.

‘That’s what I said, but that great Amazon who’s got my bass says she’s retuning it to the “Key of La”.’

‘And who’s to argue at that?’ I said. ‘The Key of La it is.’

It must have been around eleven-thirty when Venus Envy took to the area of floor that had been designated ‘the stage’. It was lucky, really, that there wasn’t a raised stage as they would certainly not have been able to stand upright if there had been. Apart from the short one. And he/she was sitting down anyway. And I couldn’t really tell which one, if any of them, was Vain Glory. But I don’t think it mattered because whoever was doing what and playing what, they were complete and utter rubbish.

Which somewhat surprised me, I’ll tell you.

Neil and Toby were shaking their heads. ‘I thought you said that they were famous,’ Neil shouted into my ear, ‘and that their songs had meaningful lyrics.’

‘That’s what it said in Teenage She-Male Today magazine.’

‘But not in the NME or Melody Maker,’ shouted Neil. ‘To my knowledge, and my knowledge in these matters is considerable, they have never received even a paragraph in either of these esteemed organs.’

‘Organs?’ I said, fearing another ****** reference.

‘As in organs of public information. Newspapers.’

‘No mention at all?’ said I.

‘Nix,’ shouted Neil. ‘Zilch. Nothing. Not one bit.’

‘How queer.’ And I shrugged.

And eventually Venus Envy concluded their set.

And we clapped politely. Because although clapping is uncool, getting beaten up by a bunch of giant trannies for not clapping would have been uncooler.

Clap-clap-clap, we went.

And Neil even whistled.

‘I wish Mr Ishmael was here,’ I said to Neil. ‘I feel strangely vulnerable, amongst this crowd of weirdos.’

‘We could just grab our gear and run.’

‘Do you think they would let us?’

Neil eyed up Venus Envy and concluded, ‘They do look rather burly and “useful”, don’t they?’

And I agreed that they did.

But at least they were smiling.

At us.

‘I think we’re on,’ said Neil. And we were.

Toby and I were handed our guitars and did our very best to deretune the retunings.

Neil worried at this drum kit. ‘How can anyone put a drum kit out of tune?’ he asked.

But in a whispery voice. And close to my ear.

‘We’ll show them,’ I said. ‘We’ll rock the house, right?’ And I made a soul-fist at Toby, who responded with something resembling a frown. And very resembling it, too!

‘Are you ready to rock ’n’ roll?’ I asked Toby and Neil.

And they made faces at me.

‘Are you ready to rock ’n’ roll?’ I bawled into the microphone. Eliciting some hearty attention-grabbing feedback.

One or two winos gave me the thumbs-up with their sherry bottles and I counted in the first number.

And then we played that rock ’n’ roll.

Like the True Rock Gods we were.

We played an absolute blinder that night.

Even with the ropy old PA popping away and the ancient amplifiers fizzing and crackling and a variety of distortion coming out of the speakers the likes of which would not be heard again until nineteen sixty-seven, when, in the Summer of Love and hallucinogenics, everyone would be trying to capture that exact sound.

And I was very proud of the lads – they played a professional set. Neil thrashed those drums and Toby did things to his bass guitar that were probably illegal, but certainly got a cheer from the audience.

And it was a big audience now.

Packed very tight. And not smelling as sweetly as did Mr Ishmael. But we had a full house for certain. They just kept packing in, brushing the snow from their shoulders and rubbing their mittened mits together.

‘We’d like to play a song now that’s a bit of a departure for us. Slow the mood down a little with a bit of a ballad.’ And they cheered this. Loudly. ‘I wrote this number with Frank Sinatra in mind. It is called “The Smell in the Gents’ is Still the Same”.’

And as I said in the last chapter that I’d give you a sample of my lyrics, here is that sample now. You have to picture it being sung by Ol’ Blue Eyes himself, probably on stage at the Stardust casino in Las Vegas. It goes something like this. Oh, and please bear with the spellings of the place names – I was young then and had not perhaps taken the best possible advantage of the education I was offered.

THE SMELL IN THE GENTS’ IS STILL THE SAME

I’ve been to Shanghai

Pagodas hang high

Upon the Shaolin plain.

But no matter where I roam

Over land or over foam

The smell in the gents’ is still the same.

It’s quite a mystery

How come can this be?

I’ve smelled it time and again

In Trinidad and Tobago

Or Tierra del Fuego -

The smell in the gents’ is still the same.

[Middle eight]

If you’re caught short in Kioto

Rangoon or Minisoto

In Cuba or Toledo

In Mexico or Rio

Hawaiee or Tahiti

New Zealand or Wai-Ke-Kee

You’ll sniff this curiosity

This nasal atrocity.

I pose the question

Take all suggestion

To fill this void in my brain.

How can it be

From Irish Sea

To some Tibettan Monastery,

From any pub in Brentford

To the distant shores of Tripoli,

From John o Groats

To God knows where

This frightful perfume

Fills the air.

This sordid stench, this acrid pong

It lingers loud and lewd and long.

This wretched wang, this pooey niff

You really can’t but take a sniff.

The smell in the gents’ is still the same

Oh baby

The smell in the gents’ is still the same.

Fade out.

Applause.

And they really loved us.

In between ‘The Smell in the Gents” and ‘What’s That On Your Shoe, Young Man, Please Don’t Tread It Into the Carpet’, I whispered to Toby, who still had not retuned his retuned bass to his personal preference.

‘It’s tuned to the Key of Doh,’ said he.

‘They love us,’ I whispered to Toby. ‘If there were any teenage girls here, clean ones who didn’t smell of old kippers, I bet we’d get off with them.’

Toby muttered something. But I didn’t hear what.

But we were on our way to greatness, I just knew it. And Toby knew it, too, I knew that he did. Even if he wasn’t letting on.

We ran through all our numbers that night.

All six of them.

And when the crowd called out for an encore, we did ‘It Will Never Get Well If You Pick At It’ once again. Because that involved us each getting an instrumental solo.

And there it was. We were done.

We came off that bit of bare flooring that had served as a stage as the true stars we were. There was no doubt that we had triumphed. That we did have our foot on the ladder. And several rungs up, at least.

We did that thing known as the ‘high five’ to each other and Neil even threw his drumsticks into the audience.

‘You were absolutely brilliant,’ said a gigantic womanish creature.

‘It has been an honour to have shared the same floorboards as you.’

‘Well, thanks very much,’ I said. ‘I appreciate that.’

‘Tell you what,’ said the tottering gargantuan, ‘me and the other girly-boys of the band would be really honoured if you would join us for a drink. At our expense, of course.’

‘Well…’ I said. And, I confess, with a degree of hesitation.

‘It would mean so much to us,’ this being continued. ‘You wouldn’t want to let us down, would you? That wouldn’t be very rock ’n’ roll, would it?’