The Girl From Mars

Meeting Ash at the Blues Brothers Bar

Yesterday I was reading Cathy Rentzenbrink’s excellent book, Write it all Down. She suggested writing your own Desert Island Disc list, as a way to trigger memories for a memoir. The list she gave as an example included the song by Ash, Girl From Mars. It immediately brought back memories from a certain time, long ago…

…An overnight bus from Bangkok plus a sea spangled ferry ride and we finally arrived to kick back on the Thai island of Ko Samui. We rented a small cabin with a porch right on the beach and breathed in the tropical sunshine. We did the usual tourist thing — hanging out on the beach, catching up on a year’s worth of reading, and sizzling in the sea when the heat got too much. Evenings were spent in the hammock on the porch, drinking the last of the duty frees, or walking into the small town to promenade along the neon strip, lined with bars, restaurants and cafes.

Somewhere around this time we got word that ‘diet pills’ could be bought at the local pharmacies. No questions just bhat. Diet pills is a throw back term first coined in the West when they were issued over the drugstore counters in every small town and city, but were actually pure amphetamine sulphate. I guess, South East Asia was their last hiding place.

Now please sit up and listen. Here comes the anti drugs message for all you youngsters. Speed is not a sensible life style choice. No argument. But I guess, at the time, we weren’t feeling very sensible. We were into experimentation of the hedonistic kind, and also being able to stay up past 10 pm without falling asleep. Even all those years ago, it was a problem. Only speed would do. Fortunately it never became something I wanted to regularly pursue. When it comes down to it, sleep is okay. Every drug has its price. And it’s common knowledge that speed exerts a high one. You can’t live your life in fast forward for too long. The cost of the comedown becomes too much.

Yet I remember a few excellent nights in its company that I would never wish away.

With Johnny Walker and amphetamine coursing through our veins, we hit the town. Food was out, of course. They’re not called diet pills for nothing. And we didn’t actually hit the town. It was too small to be hit and, anyway, it was a weekday and there weren’t enough people. So we found ourselves inside a place called the Blue Brothers Bar. It was virtually empty with just a few shadowy figures hunched over the scattering of tables in the gathering gloom.

We took up position at the bar and ordered drinks from a young girl with tired eyes. It was somewhere in the mid-nineties and the fleeting ascendence of Brit Pop had reached all corners of the globe. Oasis and Blur blared out in between the more classic rock of The Doors, Velvet Underground and a smattering of Dylan and Tom Waits — so much for Brits. And I thought then, who ever is controlling the music knows their stuff.

And he did. His name was Scott. He was from England and stopped by here for the season after he was offered the job of playing records. Not bad work if you can get it.

We told him what an eclectic mix he was offering then proceeded to badger him with a string of requests. I remember by the end of the evening we had played the entirety of Rum Sodomy and the Lash by The Pogues, stretched over a four hour period.

Somewhere during this time Scott had become our best friend. And we were all jabbering at 100 mph and talking about music and exchanging autobiographies and topping up with Pogue tracks to keep our bounce and necking extra capsules to really keep our bounce, well into the night and early morning. And by this time we had reached the stars and weren’t ready to come down any time soon. We were far too busy riding the cosmos and grinning insanely.

And at least every hour Scott played something called The Girl From Mars by Ash. I’d never heard it before but the end of the night I had more than made up for this unseemly gap in my knowledge. It is a Yin and Yang of a track. Yearning, melodic vocals contrast with a punk-like thrashing of crunching chords, and a guitar solo that soars and and struts its metal pedigree for the occasion.

The Girl from Mars had hit the UK charts in 95, and was off Ash’s debut album, 1977, that was released the following year. They were a bunch of kids. Two days after completing their A levels they played Glastonbury. Aged 17, Tim Wheeler wrote the song in the wake of his first break-up. The song poses an imaginary past love affair with a mysterious girl from Mars. He was inspired by bands such as The Pixies, Teenage Fanclub and Thin Lizzy. Of course, Bowie’s Life On Mars is another influence, courtesy of his elder sister who was a big fan. The line about smoking Henri Winterman cigars comes from a family holiday in France a year before the song was written. Even at such a young age, the song conjures nostalgia for a lost youth and innocence.

After the Blues Brothers Bar, Scott locked up and we headed to a club. The rest of the night and early morning is patchy. We danced a lot. That I remember. And, before the club closed, I launched into a massive solo on air drums. Apparently it drew a crowd. Idiotic. Embarrassing. But memorable — just about.

So after dancing stupidly and outrageously until dawn, we hitched a ride back on the back of a flat top truck, back to our small cabin on the beach. I sat on the porch for awhile before I succumbed to sleep. My heart was still crashing in my chest. Somethings are only meant to be done once in your life. Or at least have a strictly limited period. A sell by date. But still they are important. Too much and you die. Too little and you fail to live.

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