I remember a guy in college, I think his name was Phil, who always wore a purple corduroy blazer with an Up The Bracket button with pride of place on the lapel. I didn’t know what ‘Up The Bracket’ was, what it meant, and wouldn’t for another three or four years until Alex moved in. He knew. Come to think of it he had the same haircut as Phil.
“Do you know The Libertines?” he must have asked at some point. I didn’t of course, having taken the deliberate decision in 2001 to stop listening to the radio after deciding there was never anything good on. Music magazines were out too, I’d never heard of Pete Doherty or Carl Barat, The Libertines had passed me by completely. Alex was an avid reader of the NME and a subscriber to The Daily Pete, an email service with nightly dispatches on Doherty’s exploits.
When I first heard Up The Bracket I thought it was hot garbage: too messy, too sloppy. One night we were slamming CDs into the stereo in the small hours and the record just clicked with me. The Libertines self-titled came next then the Babyshambles debut. None of them are as good though.
Alex’s ability to breezily learn songs on guitar by ear was seriously impressive. I had a tin ear and had zero idea how it was done. That winter we spent countless hours in a freezing garden shed bent over guitars, sharing a cigarette, him showing me the chords to Up The Bracket songs. How could he tell what chord was being played? How did he understand whether it was major or minor? It was like black magic.
It wasn’t punk music, not really. It certainly wasn’t Metallica, but I dug it all the same. I wouldn’t be seen in an indie disco before Up The Bracket, not on your life, but afterwards it didn’t seem so lame.
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