I often talk about the unreliability of human memory and how we tell a different story about an event from the past every time we recall it. But when you are presented with photographic evidence of a particular moment in time, there is an undeniable story right there.
It’s a strange feeling when you see a photograph of yourself that you can’t remember being taken – one that you never knew existed, and had never seen before.
This happened to me recently when Andy Phillips, a music photographer I used to work with in the Eighties, connected with me on Facebook and started sending me images from his old contact sheets – pictures of me that he had taken at parties and clubs when I worked for the pop magazine Record Mirror.
Who is that girl, staring out at me? I know her, but yet I don’t. There she is, dressed to the nines in her rubber jacket, standing next to Tony James of the pop group Sigue Sigue Sputnik. It was taken at a Daily Mirror party at Stringfellow’s in 1986. That girl was 29 – half my current age.
She looks glamorous and confident. She isn’t wearing glasses. She doesn’t have a fringe. Looks nothing like me. Yet she is me.
And while I might not remember the story of that photograph, I do recall my time with Sigue Sigue Sputnik. Tony James was the band’s chief conceptualist. A former punk (with Generation X), he was a great ideas man and knew how to work the media. It probably helped that his girlfriend at the time was Janet Street-Porter, who was busy reinventing youth TV.
I had been attracted to SSS because of their extraordinary image: it had elements of Elvis, punk rock, big hair and fetish fashion. Tony used to wear pink rubber trousers with a boxer’s leather protector over his crotch and pink hair extensions piled on top of his head like a giant yucca plant.
At the start of 1986 they were the biggest news since the Sex Pistols. They had signed to EMI Records for a reported £1m and were about to unleash their debut single.
It was my editor’s idea that I should join the band on their first UK tour as a volunteer Ultravixen – the name given to the band’s roadies, who wore fetish gear and five-inch stilettos.
I had unwittingly stumbled into the tabloid newspapers’ Most Wanted Story. “Sputnik Shot Down” screamed the Daily Mirror. “Band kicked off stage by spitting fans”. They thought it was 1976 all over again: the punk rock wars revisited.
The band gave me a new name – Stiletto Sexqueen – which I gratefully accepted. It was all a bit of fun, wasn’t it?
What I hadn’t realised is that the band and their PR had made the decision to “get into bed” with The Sun, agreeing to let my old friend Garry Bushell (former Sounds writer, then chief reporter for The Sun‘s Bizarre showbiz column) tag along to make mischief and whip up some stories.
I was soon in danger of becoming the story myself. I was cornered by the band’s guitarist Neal X, who was wearing a pair of red rubber trousers that left nothing to the imagination. He was keen for me to shine him up with some Mr Sheen, which I duly did while kneeling at crotch-level.
All of this was being photographed, and I came close to agreeing that a picture could be used in The Sun. It hadn’t occurred to me that I might have been set up until I saw Neal’s T-shirt, which said: “I love a Wapping one”.
A few weeks earlier, some 6,000 employees of News International, the company that owned The Sun, had gone on strike after negotiations for the workforce to move to a new plant in Wapping had broken down. Journalists had been given two days to choose between their employer – Rupert Murdoch – and the union.
And here was this upstart band, promoting The Sun when there were journalists and print workers on the picket line. I felt a little bit ashamed. But not enough to abandon the story.
At the band’s next gig, I stood at the side of the stage in my fishnets, stilettos and bright red PVC mac watching lead singer Martin Degville in his fishnet mask and high heels. There was no sign of the violence that had been reported in the papers – just a lot of sweat.
Over breakfast the next day, the so-called “shock rockers” discovered they had make the front page of the News of the World (The Sun‘s sister paper): “Horror of Sputnik Maniac” shrieked the headline.
The story claimed that drummer Ray Mayhew had thrown a bottle into the audience at the band’s Reading gig, and that it had hit an innocent kid who subsequently needed 34 stitches. Ray was hanging his head, realising that a moment of thoughtlessness had caused a lot of damage.
The tour continued to Coventry, where it became clear that a contingent of football hooligans were keen to cause trouble. Martin started to wind them up, inviting them to throw things at him.
Sigue Sigue Sputnik had become hard to ignore, but the hate was spiralling out of control. They recruited a security adviser for protection. We all felt like fugitives on the run.
Even worse, Ray had discovered that the police were pressing charges against him for malicious wounding. This was serious.
The press descended on Stoke to see “the new Sex Pistols”. A crash barrier had been erected at the front of the stage and security ensured there were no bottles or glasses at the venue. Three bouncers were placed between band and audience. Not surprisingly, the band lost their edge.
I had been carried away by the adrenalin-rush of it all, but really I’d just been a tabloid tart, colluding with Garry and The Sun. The aftermath unfolded as follows: Ray was charged with three counts of wounding. Tony made an impassioned speech underlining the fact that the band didn’t condone violence. Martin was hit by a coin at the next gig and stormed off stage. And despite The Sun‘s efforts, the band’s single peaked at number 3 in the charts.
I’d witnessed the reality of media hype at first hand and vowed never again to believe anything I read in the papers. I’d also seen the ugly side of the red-top tabloids – and how dangerous whipping up hatred could be.
Not long after, I was invited to join the reporting staff of The Sun‘s Bizarre column. I politely declined, knowing that I just didn’t have what it takes to cut it in the tabloid jungle. It was a decision I have never regretted.
There’s no way that girl in that picture could have played fast and loose with the truth.
A mate of mine who lived along the balcony adjacent to our flat was good friends with Sputnik. We turned up at The five bells in Chelsfield Kent one night, proper little locals country boozer. Imagine their faces! All was going well until one of the band members, cant recall who, stood on the table and plopped his balls in a half drunk glass of wine!
Ray Mayhew used to pop round my place and sit and watch TV, it was all quite surreal at the time but he was a top bloke who enjoyed a bit of normality between touring.
Thank you for sharing your memories! Yes, Ray was a top bloke who was playing a role in the band. He was quite normal underneath.