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Man 1: Oh, there we are, Thursday morning, just walked into the NME.
Immediately big buzz going round, Andrew Collins sitting there saying
Ooh, something’s happened. And what is it?
Collins, presumably: The thing that’s happened, right, is that last night
Steve Lamacq went up - where did you go?
Lamacq: Norwich.
Collins: He went up to Norwich to do a planned live review / feature on the
Manic Street Preachers. Right?
Lamacq: Certainly wasn’t what I was expecting was gonna happen.
Collins: And, anyway, Steve was a bit suspicious of them so it was gonna be
this sort of - not a backlash, but he was gonna suggest that maybe they’re
not all they’re cracked up to be. And anyway, he went up there, saw the
gig...
Lamacq: You won’t get much coherent sense out of me, I’m afraid.
Collins: And, er... you know what they’re like, young punks basically,
sort of return of punk. And a lot of people are very suspicious of them,
think they’re all sort of just faking it and slogans and trying to get rich
and famous and they’re not really being serious. So Steve did half an hour
of chat with - which one was it?
Lamacq: Er...
Collins: Richey? Richey.
Lamacq: Yeah, you know we were supposed to sort of hate each other
and everything. I was a bit nervous, I suppose.
Collins: And after this half-hour of chat, after which they agreed to
disagree - you know, Steve says I’m not convinced by you, fair enough,
we’ll leave it at that, he said - do you want to tell them, or shall I?
Lamacq: No, you tell them.
Collins: I’ll tell them.
Lamacq: Richey said, Have you got a minute? Come backstage, one last thing
I’d like to say. And so we went backstage and I said I just don’t think a
lot of people’ll think you’re for real, and he got - I don’t know where he
got it from - he got a razor blade and wrote ‘4 REAL’ on his arm, down the
side of his arm. While I was standing there watching him. And that’s about
it, really.
Collins: This is quite interesting already. This is good. This is a good
story.
Lamacq: He actually said at the time Believe me, we are for real, and we’re
not the next Birdland, and we sort of carried on talking for about another
three or four minutes. By that time he was dripping blood all over the
floor, beginning to stain the carpet a bit.
Collins: And, er, everybody will have a reaction to this story. He said,
unfortunately, Ed Sirrs didn’t get any pictures of it.
Lamacq: I just, you know, I had to wind it up. Went out and found the
manager, told him to get backstage pretty damn quick.
Collins: [sounds like you think you’re hard.] Never mind. Tell the story,
Steve. So the page that it was gonna go on will be taken up with this
story. Then Ed Sirrs turns up, right, with colour pictures of [flippantly]
this awful event.
Ed: Some roadies rushed round, lashed some bandages round him, and I
hooked [?] the camera out and he took the bandages off for me and quickly
said that you can...
Man 2: So he actually said, Oh, I’m gonna take the...
Ed: Oh yeah, I mean I didn’t have to suggest it.
Collins: Close-up, nasty, gory pictures of this blood, and it’s appalling
picture and everyone is running around getting upset and appalled and
excited.
Man 3: He actually said do you want a photograph of this?
Ed: Oh yeah, I’d better take the bandages off. I mean, they’d just been put
on, so it was mint.
Man 3: [amused] So you’ve got a mint wound?
Ed: Oh yes.
Collins: And, er, question is, can we print this picture? Cos it is really
’orrible! I find it extremely ’orrible. ’E’s upset, people down there are
upset, grown people are upset by this picture, it is an ’orrible picture.
Danny, as I say, Danny’s in a meeting, he hasn’t seen it yet, he’s gonna be
jumping around - it’s a bit of news even if you could say it’s trivial.
But as I say, within our little world it’s not trivial. It is quite a
thing.
Man 4: How do you feel about all this?
Lamacq: Er... I don’t really think I’ve quite got over the shock of it,
really.
Man 4: Do you in any way regard it that you may be responsible for that
in any way, because he did it for you, almost.
Lamacq: Nah. Not really. He chose to do it. He chose to make his point in
that way. I don’t kind of feel guilty about the fact that he’s done it.
[huge sigh] Dunno. It’s been one hell of a week, now!
Man 5: Morning, Danny.
Collins: Danny? Get down there! And find out! We’ve got bloody colour
pictures of the mutilation!
Danny: Oh, er!
Collins: It’s just too horrible to look at, you’ll faint.
Karen: The guy is sick, he really is.
Man 6: Well, yeah, I know, but I’m in the publishing paper, aren’t I?
Collins: You’ve got to see it, it’s a very important thing.
Karen: There’s no way you can print those photos.
Collins: That’s, that’s -
Karen: Cos you’ll get all their fans doing the same thing.
Collins: Rubbish, Karen. Really delicate issue.
Lamacq: More people see gore every week [?]...
Man 7: Well, I’m in charge of this.
Collins: Well, I’m gore editor.
Man 8: Don’t think you’re clever.
Man 9: You had anything to eat this morning?
Collins: Yeah, thanks.
Lamacq: It says ‘4 REAL’ there. Doesn’t say T-Rex.
Man 10: Oh - my - god!
Collins: That’s Danny Kelly.
Lamacq: That’s the R, the E...
Man 11: 4 REAL.
Lamacq: I don’t think it’s 4 Real.
Collins: It’s a problem, innit?
Man 12: Well, no, it’s not a problem.
Collins: You don’t think it is?
Man 12: These things happen. It’s a newspaper, not, not...
Ed: Good man. That’s one of us [?].
Collins: This is what Ed was saying.
Man 13: [shouts] Print them, Danny!
Collins: What do you think about them?
Man 14: I think they’re disgusting.
Woman 1: I think it’s absolutely sick.
Man 14: But - I can see -
Man 15: Revolting.
Man 16: I mean, it’s just shock horror, isn’t it?
Man 17: Yeah, but it’s a music paper, isn’t it?
Man 18: Perhaps - what if we convert them to black and white,
just use black and white?
Woman 1: But it’ll encourage, if he keeps getting it printed every time
he does it then he’s gonna do it too many bloody times.
Man 18: The colour’s just too dreadful [?], isn’t it? It’s just awful.
Woman 1: What’s he gonna do next, cut his throat?
Man 19: I hope so. Well, maybe they’ll all just cut each others’ heads off.
[laughs] And that’ll be an end to it.
Woman 1: Oh, that’ll be great.
[loud pub noise]
Man 20: You know about last night and all that? Obviously everybody’s
going a bit berserk here. We’re going to do a story on it, so have you got
any details about...
Woman 2: I don’t know, I’m only the scum assistant so I don’t get to -
it’s not my decision. It’ll be Danny’s decision because it’s quite,
you know, it’s up to him to take responsibility. I’m gonna say,
I’m not happy to take responsibility for a story like that.
[office noise]
James Brown: [squeak] Where are these photographs?
Man 21: Here it is. Here, look.
Collins: If you think you can handle it.
[pause]
Brown: Ah, that’s nothing!
Man 21: That’s my man, that’s my man! Wasn’t expecting that.
Man 22: Come and stand in this corner.
Brown: Looks like T-Rex, anyway. He’s spelt it wrong!
Man 21: [laughs] Dyslexic.
Brown: It doesn’t say T-Rex, it says T - R - E - A -
Man 23: Well, what do you think, it’s coming from Welsh, isn’t it?
Man 24: Yeah, it could be a Welsh statement.
Brown: God, you’ve gotta print that. It’s rock’n’roll, innit?
Woman 3: This is self-mutilation, though, James.
Brown: I think it’s an excellent photograph, good one, Ed. I bet Mark
Ellen [?]’ll print it.
Man 25: I don’t think we should print it.
Brown: God, I should. I think more bands should do that sort of thing.
Man 25: Well, yeah, very clever.
Brown: I do.
Woman 3: One thing is...
Man 25: Oh, yeah, yeah. You label a picture by what you’re expecting them
to do [?]...
Brown: Oh, come off with the moral stuff. We have people smoking in the
paper every week...
Woman 3: When somebody carves themselves up...
Brown: We have people like Jack - who used to work here - glorifying
drugs for weeks on end. We’ve had a letter E on the cover when E was a
national symbol for Ecstasy...
Woman 3: All you need, all you need is one child to copy that, and kill
themselves, and you’re whick [makes noise to indicate imminent doom].
Brown: You wouldn’t kill yourself cutting yourself on your forearm.
Woman 3: You could if you missed.
Brown: If that was bad - did he faint, Ed?
Ed: Nah.
Mark: I just think it’s ludicrous and childish and we don’t have to...
Brown: Yeah, but nobody says that about bloody Sid Vicious, do they?
Mark: We’ve been through that before, we write a history that doesn’t
have any interest -
Brown: Not to you Mark, because you’ve maybe seen it before, maybe you’ve
passed it.
Mark: Well, yeah, probably, and I’m pleased to be old [?], I’ll tell you
that.
Brown: I mean, Sid Vicious only took it from Iggy Pop. It doesn’t seem
to be T-Rex, though.
Man 26: No, it’s 4 REAL, it’s the letter 4 and the word REAL.
Brown: Ah, cos it looked like TREAT, or something... [fade out]
