Testi Defibrillator - Alex Kapranos

Defibrillator

Defibrillator\nwritten and read by me: Alex Kapranos\nI didn’t know Big Jamesy that well\nHe hung about with McPherson, my flatmate\nI met him on Christmas day when I worked a shift at the 13th Note\nHe sat at the end of the bar, drinking and drinking\nuntil he threw up over it.\nWatery spew dripping onto the pint glasses on the shelf below\nChristmas day\nThanks Jamesy\nMcPherson was the star of the Glasgow easy listening revival\nspinning Klaus Wunderlich and Peters and Lee records\nand a kipper tie and polyester suit\nsmellig of Oxfam\nand Brut for men\n«Let´s get a band together! It’ll be great! Big Jamesy can play guitar.\nHe’s rrrrrreally good»\n«Okay\nI’ll ask Baldy Keith to come down and play drums\nHe’s got a band as well»\nSo I was back in the basement at the 13th Note with Big Jamesy, McPherson and\nBaldy Keith\nWe didn’t have a name\nany songs\nor any idea of what we were going to do other that it was going to be\n«rrrrrrreally heavy»\nBig Jamesy looked like one of those late Ramones\nYou know those guys that came in to play the drums\nor the bass when Dee Dee had gone off to rap\nLeather jacket, black bowl cut, surly stoop and malnourished frame\n«And on drums it’s… BENNY RAMONE»\nInstantly identifiable but completely anonymous\nWe set up our gear\nBaldy Keith’s parents had bought him a huge, ostentatious kit\nwith too many toms\nand one of those backwarrds cymbals\nMcPherson’s bass a beautiful Paddy’s market semi\nthat shreked when any amp was turned over two\nI was gonna sing\nAnd Big Jamesy brought out his Charvel\nand plugged it in a luminous, yellow DOD, Metal Maniac pedal\nThen turned every dial into Peavey tranny amp as far to the right as it would go\nThen he started\nAh shite