Five discordant notes. That’s all it took to change Jane’s life forever.

 

Although in some ways, perhaps her life had always been leading to this specific moment in time. The combination of a motorcycle mad father, and a dippy hippie mother had ensured she’d been brought up on Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Captain Beefheart, Yes and Genesis. The constant diet of psychedelia and rock had ruined her for everything else. Not for Jane anything out of the Stock, Aitken and Waterman stable. Hell no! And no diva women warbling away their heartbreak or promising eternal love either. Jane’s world revolved around rock and metal. The heavier the better.

She’d been fifteen when she’d first come across Wild Dogz. Her school friend’s brother Robbie, had acquired a bootleg tape of the band’s first album and from then on insisted on playing it loudly in his bedroom whenever Jane came around to their house. Having been distracted from the homework project she and Marnie were working on, Jane listened to the frantic drumming originating from the bedroom next door with increasing interest. The music, albeit coarse and rough-edged seemed somehow exciting. Jane asked Marnie to persuade Robbie to let her have a copy, and he, flushing with unrequited adolescent ardour, and a year older than Marnie and Jane, had readily agreed.

That album had been Diamond in the Rough, and the cassette quickly became the soundtrack to Jane’s summer. She scoured the music press to find information about Wild Dogz, but the bootleg was a US import and there was little material in the British press. The album had never officially crossed the Atlantic. Her father, Roy, amused by his daughter’s passion for the group contacted an old navy buddy residing in New Jersey and a massive Bon Jovi fan to boot, and asked if he could indulge Jane.

Slowly but surely Jane built up a collection of research into the band. They heralded from Texas, and had been together since High School, hanging out in the drummer’s garage and thrashing out rough covers of classic tunes. Diamond in the Rough contained a number of interesting covers and a few of their own works. It was derivative and yet somehow innovative. Their youth and passion for life covered a multitude of musical sins, poor mixing for starters, repetitive chord patterns for main course, and naïve lyrics for dessert.

For her sixteenth birthday, Roy presented Jane with her own vinyl import of Diamond in the Rough sent from the USA especially for her, and six months after that, he bought her their second album, Feral Green, when it gained a release to an unsuspecting British public. This time, certain sections of the music press began to take notice, and magazines such as Kerrang! carried the odd interview with the group.

Jane saved the magazines. Sometimes she bought more than one copy so she could snip out the images and the interviews and glue them into a scrapbook. She was at ‘that’ age, hormones raging, when hot rock stars fuelled her fantasies. Silas Garfield, the lead singer, had certainly caught her imagination.

She decorated the wall around her desk-come-dressing table with his face. He stared out at her while she studied for her exams. She couldn’t tell what colour his eyes were, so she imagined them as blue. His hair, long and brown and permed and all the rage, flowed over his shoulders in studio shots, or flew in the air, back lit by dramatic stage lighting in the onstage photos. He was shown bending double over his guitar, or howling at the crowd. In groups shots the band rarely appeared serious, gurning at the camera and holding onto each other laughing instead.

A handsome man, with good teeth, a seemingly great sense of humour, and probably way too old for her in reality.

It didn’t matter. That’s what fantasies are for when you’re 17.

***

Jane headed off to Bristol University in the September after her eighteenth birthday. She shared digs with a goth girl named Terri, who liked to drop a lot of acid, and avoided doing much work. Where Jane was easy-going, laissez-faire and grounded most of the time, Terri tended to have too many issues, and turned most situations into a drama. Nonetheless they became the best of friends.

They grew their record collection together over the next few years, experimenting with a variety of artists. Jane introduced Terri to Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth - and Wild Dogz of course - and Terri played her a back catalogue of music she would otherwise probably have never been properly exposed to, including The Cocteau Twins, The Birthday Party and Alien Sex Fiend. They enjoyed a certain amount of overlap in groups such as The Mission and The Cult, and this gave them a little-needed excuse to get out to gigs together. Terri loved to stand at the front and really get involved, however Jane hated the crush. She preferred to stand behind the mosh, slightly to the side if she could. The problem for her was her height. She wasn’t stunted by any stretch of the imagination at 5 foot 8, but preferring to wear Dr Martens rather than anything with a heel, meant that she had an issue seeing over the heads, shoulders and big hair of the men who attended the gigs.

And in the late eighties and early nineties there were a lot of those.

Terri was vibrant, vivacious and extroverted. She drew people to her with her warmth and exuberance, and yet her tendency to over-dramatize often sent them scurrying away as quickly as they came. She had her pick of guys, and went through them like a dose of salts, impatiently searching for the man who would light her world up and never quite finding him.

Jane remained reserved and choosy. She began a relationship with a quiet guy named Tim during the second year of her degree. He had long hair, and like her, was reading English. He professed a fondness for Russian literature and she found him quite romantic in a geeky kind of way. He would read to her, great chunks of literature he’d enjoyed, and she would cook them pasta. Afterwards they would head to bed with a cheap bottle of plonk.

Terri couldn’t get her head around Jane’s relationship at all.

“What do you see in him?” she asked incredulously, one Sunday afternoon after Jane had kissed him farewell and he had headed out into a cool, grey Bristol afternoon clutching several volumes of Dostoyevsky he was in the process of re-reading. Jane had settled herself beside the stereo and was contentedly picking out tracks from her favourite albums. Terri stretched out, hogging most of the sofa and reapplying glittering black nail polish to her toes and finger nails, scowling at her friend.

Jane smiled. It was a conversation they shared frequently. “Leave him be,” she responded.

“Seriously Jane, look at you. With a bit of slap on and a tight top, you would be hot, hot, hot. I’ve seen the way guys look at you when we’re out clubbing. It’s like you don’t notice.”

To be honest, Jane didn’t notice. Primarily because she wasn’t looking. “I’ve got all I need. Tim’s a cool guy.”

“There is nothing cool about Tim. He’s got hair like a haystack and he dresses like a lumberjack.”

“He’s sweet.”

“Sweet? Sweets are for children. You want …” Terri clawed at the air looking for the right word. Black nail polish dropped on to her thigh and she absently smeared it away. “Steamy! Steamy is what you need.”

Jane curled her lip. “Ugh. I’m not sure I do, really. Steamy? What does that even mean?”

“Does Tim make you sweat?”

“Terri!”

“Come on. Does he bring you to the brink of passion before taking his foot off the clutch? Or does he go at it like a steam train and collapse on top of you like a limp rag? He kisses you like you’re his sister, for pity’s sake. Do you burn like a furnace when he kisses you?”

Jane screwed her face up and frowned.

“I’ll take that as a no then, shall I? And that’s my point. He’s a nice lad, but you can do so much better.” Terri returned her attention to a second coat of polish on her toes.

“Like who?” Jane smiled, content to play along with Terri for a while.

“Well you know. Guys. There was that Phil we spoke to in the club last week. He was drooling all over you.”

Jane shook her head. “Who? I don’t remember him.”

“How do you not remember? Phil. Big blonde hair. I mean big. Big! Out here big. Like a great cloud,” Terri gestured dramatically around her head. “Dad’s huge in communications or something, in London.”

“Oh yeah. That’s right.” Jane thought back, remembered him and snorted. “Nah. Pseudo rocker. He was slumming it, Terri. On the pull. Not relationship material.”

“You see, I don’t know what’s wrong with that. Why do you want to settle down with one bloke? Sow some oats. Have some fun.”

“I am having fun.”

“With Tim?” Terri asked, with such disdain that Jane could only burst out laughing.

“Yes.”

“Oh I give up.” Terri sniggered. “There’s no hope for you. In fact,” she pointed at the record player. “I have just the piece of music for you. Take that one off.” Jane did as she’d been bid, lifting the needle from the record and carefully removing Megadeth from the player.

“Right. Wait, wait, wait!” Terri jumped up, hobbling like a duck to the shelves where the young women stored their records. She looked comical, her jet black hair tied in tight little bunches on top of her head, and wads of cotton wool stuffed between her toes, piercings standing out in her make-up-less face. She cocked her head sideways, examining the titles until she found what she was looking for. “Look away,” she ordered as she drew the record from its place and eased the vinyl from the sleeve. “Okay, let me see.” She glanced at the listing, checked which side down the record needed to go and switched the turntable on, before manually hoisting the needle into place. It found its groove. The speakers crackled for a few seconds and then the opening bars sounded.

Jane groaned and covered her ears. “Dear Jesus,” she said. “Save me,” and Terri laughed fit to burst as The Bangles’ Eternal Flame filled the room.