Like almost every other trainee genius at art school, I played in a band. Or bands. “It’s like some Northern England punks have rediscovered Motown,” I said. In hindsight, it was a poor description, but it sounded right at the time.
I was somehow out of breath as if my heart had expanded in sorrow and joy, crushing my lungs.
I don’t feel the need to bump a Smiths track when it comes up on shuffle, for no-one can tear asunder what Morrissey and Marr put together all those years ago.
Our latest Centre Stage column shines the light on New Zealand writer Maria Majsa.
Tired. Burnt out. I want out. I don’t want to be here. I need something new. What’s next? No solid plans. Wing it. Improvise. Until the money runs out. Or until I get bored doing nothing.
There is much conjecture and disagreement about the trajectory of Paul Weller and friends, the evolution of The Jam from punkish to mod to pop to pastiche, ending in the Style Council, of which I was never a fan (you can tell a Weller woman by the way she wears her hair etc).
Maria Majsa University of London Union, Malet Street, WC1, 1986 He smiled, stared at his shoes and said Hello. He looked so pale and young. I said Hi in a voice I didn’t recognise.
Maria Majsa London, 1985 I used to go for rides with a friend who was a fellow Smiths fan. We stopped at a riverside pub called The Old Ship to order drinks and compare favourite lines and I fell momentarily in love with him.