Chapter Text
The old squirrelcage is getting rusty, I fear. Images and words from the past I could recollect in a jiffy are fading out fast. I can't remember the name of that pub in Liverpool where my cousins and I played that Beatles cover before I went to New York. I can't remember what the sunshine in Hydra felt like on my skin, what the air on the island smelt like. I can't remember the last time I kissed Al.
God knows how many more such bits and pieces have already escaped me. I have lost them forever perhaps, and it will be a moment of time before I lose the rest. Al would've revelled in a situation like this, he liked to shrug off the past any chance he got like old snakeskin. But I like to hold one to it, to whatever memories I have left, the warm ones and the painful ones, all of it. Al would've wanted our story to have gone with the two of us, lost to death like our bodies would be. But I would like it to live on in some shape or form, long after we both are gone. A love like ours, if I can call it that, didn't happen often and to everyone, and even he would agree to that. Shouldn't we keep some of it captured somewhere while we still have time?
Thus was my reasoning when I sat down to write. A memoir if you will. I had set out to be as truthful and as detailed as I could be about the comings and goings of my life and career, but then I figured a lot has been written and recorded about that already. So I had ended up putting in paper the story of my long association with Alex Turner, in as much of its complications and beauty as I could. Even if no one will set eyes upon these papers before long after me, Al and anyone else who has a part to play here are gone, it feels good to have left something to history. The story of Al's life is history and I might have contributed to capturing a small, if not insignificant part of it.
If nothing else, I have something to flip through and reminisce on my deathbed. When I breathe my last breath, it is the enormous love I felt towards Alex that I would like to be the last thing I remember."
Miles Kane's Personal Journal, May 2016.
The Sunday Times, 21st April, 2030
Miles Kane Passes Away at 80:
Rock legend Miles Peter Kane, one of Britain's most beloved names in music since the 1970s passed away yesterday midnight at his home in London. He had just turned 84 this March. The statement from his publicist informed that the singer-songwriter had been suffering from age related health issues for a few years but his last hours had been peaceful. He is survived by his husband of 10 years, Claudio Ricci, and some family in Liverpool. Besides his discography spanning four decades, Kane will be remembered for his impact on fashion, which few male musicians had had before or since. His stage and personal looks, which played heavily with androgyny and blending elements of mod and glam rock aesthetics, will be well remembered by the fashion and art community as well as his beloved fans, much of which had been documented by legendary photographer Esther Simon who often called him her muse. We reached out to Simon and his other friends and contemporaries,for comment.
The Daily Mail, 23rd April, 2030
Alex Turner Declines Comment on Miles Kane, Stirs Speculations:
The tumultuous public (and some say, private) relationship of rock poet Alex Turner, 80, and recently departed singer-songwriter Miles Kane has been talked and discussed and written about in great detail over the decades. But speculations stirred up once again when Turner vehemently refused commenting anything on Kane's passing away last Sunday. Sources claim numerous respected media outlets reached out to Turner's team, but they were "harshly" rejected.
Though we are unsure as to what the status of the old associates' relationship was in Kane's last days, it was mutual friends claim that the two had managed to get back on somewhat of talking terms in the years following their infamous performance at La Cigale, Paris in 1998.
We have never simply been just friends , Alex and I.
In the many years of knowing him, I can't quite recall any time when I could've said, confidently and with pride, "Alex Turner is my friend." It is a strange connection that binds us, twisted and convoluted, far from being honest or pure, but beautiful in a way I'm not sure anyone who isn't me or him will ever understand.
I first met him decades ago, it might've been 1971 or '72 if my memory serves me right. Back then the two of us were mere specks in the whirlwind mayhem of New York- he hadn't released his first record yet, and I hadn't written my first song. But big dreams we did have; fresh off the ships from Bristol, the salt still clung to our skin and the wretched feeling of homesickness hadn't quite set in. We wanted to do something, create something, say something real, like a hundred other mayflies who had been drawn from the drabness of their small town existence to the lights and glamour of the big city.
In an elevator of the fabled Chelsea Hotel was where I had first laid eyes upon Alex. Or Al as he allows his dear ones to call him; as I've always called him in my mind. A rainy night it was, I remember, the kind when the chill in the air seems to seep through your coat and skin to prick at your bones and your feet get numb just from walking a few blocks. I had been out with a few friends I had recently made, in a grimy bar, the only one in the neighbourhood we could've afforded with the limited money we had in our pockets back then. Though us true artists and rockstars would've told you we don't give a damn to money and materialistic concerns, but even we had to think of feeding ourselves and paying the hotel rent.
Money was tight, life was far from smooth but we were positively buzzing. I wasn't making any then and had only what was left of the amount I had saved up back home in Wirral. But I had truly in my heart believed that to be a true rockstar, it was mandatory to stumble into your hotel room at fuck o'clock in the night, more than a little tipsy, smelling of cheap liquour and smoke. We were sitting at the table and discussing Dylan Thomas and Buddy Holly, jamming on our acoustics and talking of the great future with new friends. We were living in Chelsea fuckin' Hotel! It was where all the art and music and greatness was, to us back then. I was the happiest I had been, felt like I had finally begun to live my dreams. Young Miles dreamt in simple terms.
I had walked into the elevator wobbly on my feet and there was a man standing there already. Slouched in a corner, pale and petite framed, a face with a prominent nose and delicate features. He was dressed in a black turtleneck and a matching leather coat with longish hair falling in layers across his forehead like one of those actors in French films. Even through my unfocussed vision and fuzzy mind, I had immediately noticed his big doe eyes. How warm they were, how brown. Those were eyes you saw once up close and never could erase from your mind. I haven't been able to myself and believe me, I have tried.
He looked familiar, I thought, I had seen a face like that somewhere, somewhere surely - "Are you Leonard Cohen, by any chance?", I fumbled out.
The stranger in the elevator looked up at me startled, like my slurred question had abruptly yanked him out of his thoughts. After a few minutes of inspecting me up and down, he answered, "Don't we all wish that, mate?"
His voice was deep but delightfully timid. Laced with a thick accent that sounded so much like home.
"A-are you s-sure?" I slurred, "Thought I've seen this face s'mewhere."
"I wouldn't be surprised with that, my face isn't particularly unique. Can't complain if another bloke's gotten a same one."
I stared at him for a while, stared at his eyes and his little smirk curling the corner of his lip. "Oi don't say like that- 'tis a very pretty face."
The man docked his head and blushed, and god he was pretty. I hadn't quite thought of a man as pretty before, though certain stirrings I've had towards a few before weren't unnoticed by me. But I hadn't allowed myself to pay any attention to them. I had bigger things to think about.
We had made small talk for the rest of our elevator ride. It was short, surely, but in my memories the seconds stretched long and momentous. What exactly we conversed about I can no longer recall- it might've been me half-jokingly airing out my drunken disappointment about not managing to end up in an elevator with my songwriting hero. Or playfully whining about getting my leather boots damp and making him laugh.
Al told me ages later, how outrageously I flirted with him that night. I remember none of it clearly but maybe I should be thankful, for God knows how many I would've spent tossing and turning and agonising myself over the words that I said to him. Being homosexual was an outrageous thought back then, an inconceivable state of being. Even a slight suggestion was terrifying and loaded with potential for ruin. And a rockstar couldn't be gay!
But I had followed him out when his floor came and followed him still when he walked onto the balcony overlooking the Manhattan skyline, many floors below my destination. We chatted till orange peeked at the edge of the horizon, smoked our way through Al's pack of Malboros. There was something about him, something so irresistible and electric that made you not want to walk away from him, no matter the heavy exhaustion or concerns for propriety or anything trying to drag you away.
He laughed a lot that night, hadn't quite laughed that loud in a while I got to learn later. Perhaps that's what had made him linger on and engage my drunken ramblings. Now I am a person who takes great joy in being the life of the party, in entertaining people and giving them a good time. But to have Alex Turner laugh fully and freely is a pleasure of another kind altogether and to know I've had that talent since the very beginning is a special thrill.
Our tryst ended with him walking me to my room. I suppose we would've made quite a sight. Al's 5"7' stature hauling me down the corridors, both of us tumbling on our feet and giggling like schoolgirls.
"I f-forgot to ask yer name, Mr. Not-Cohen", I let out between fits of giggles, "what should I call ya?"
Al was leaning against the doorframe as he watched me take off my coat and peel the boots off my feet. My befuddled brain then didn't understand why he just stood there, his eyes tracking my every clumsy move, as if waiting for something to happen, as if waiting for a signal before taking a big plunge.
That signal never came for him I gather, for soon he smirked again and replied, " S'ppose you need to get caught with me in an elevator another day and find out."
With that he turned back and closed the door behind him. I promptly passed out on my tatty single bed.
The New York Times, music and arts section, December 1971
Collins Enlists Young Brit Poet For New Album
December 1971, New York: Folk superstar Just Collins has invited the young British poet, Alex Turner to collaborate on writing songs for a new album, sources report. The 21 year old Cambridge student's recently published debut collection of poetry, Favourite Worst Nightmare had taken the literati circles across the pond by storm and had been taken notice of here in the States as well. The collection has been widely acclaimed for its honest depictions of the working class Yorkshire youth life and words rich in sardonic humour. Critics and public alike are eagerly waiting to see how he translates the stark originality of his poetry into lyrics for folk rock.
I did learn his eventually, not from him though. I never spoke with him in the rest of the months we both stayed at the Chelsea Hotel. We encountered each other plenty, in corridors, at dining rooms, in bars and at mutual friends gatherings- the hotel wasn't a magically infinite place after all. But he never came up to me to say hello and I, rather embarrassed of drunkenly accosting him the other night, never broached the gap either.
But it wasn't particularly difficult to know about Alex Turner if you ran in the young artist crowds in New York back in those days. A poet he was, had published some stuff which had caught the attention of Judy Collins or someone important like that, and he had been summoned across the pond to meet her and probably write for her next album. That had prompted him to leave his studies at Cambridge and pack his trunks to come join the dreamers and thinkers in NYC. Everyone who came across him thought it was a matter of time before he became the next big thing, a Turner next to Dylan and Cohen.
"He comes from Sheffield I have heard", my friend Esther informed me over lunch at a tiny eatery in Chinatown a couple of days after that encounter in the elevator. She was a wild haired, bespectacled photographer from Arizona, whose boisterous energy and tendency to rarely stop to inspect the words that came out of her mouth quickly made her one of my best friends. And almost fourty years later I can still say I have no greater friend than Esther Simon.
"You're from someplace like that too, ain't it?", she asked me between mouthfuls of soup.
"Wirral", I answered, "it's in Liverpool. Different city."
"Ah sounds all the same to me", she waved off, "I'm surprised really you hadn't known 'bout him. I thought all of y'all knew each other on that tiny island."
I snorted at her half serious tone. "I wish."
I, in fact, hadn't been surprised at all. I was a butcher's son after all, who sneaked into the record store in town and our local pub on the weekends to listen to music. Who was supposed to take over his mam's shop as soon as he left secondary school. It was natural that I hadn't known of the young genius who had gone to school in Cambridge and read poetry in London.
"So what's the sudden interest in Turner?" Esther peered at me over her yellow tinted Lennon-esque glasses.
I squirmed a little under her sharp gaze but then recounted the story of the entire meeting. Right from the moment I wobbled into the elevator, to my embarrassing ramblings and his endearing smiles.
"Whewwwww. So you met the young maverick after all huh. I was wonderin' if he was real at all."
"Why'd you say that?" I was intrigued.
"No one ever hears from that guy. Doesn't ever come out to say hi or join us for drinks or anything. They say he's very shy and all but I think that bastard thinks he's too good for the rest of… these tortured genius types are like that ya'know."
"He didn't seem like that to me at all, no. He was really nice in fact, shared his fag with me and walked me to me door… stood there till went off to sleep too." I had barely known that man for a few hours, I probably shouldn't have claimed his niceness with that kind of certainty. But I had trust in my ability to judge people, and Alex has come across as anything but rude and snobbish.
Esther stared at me again. I could see mischief sparkling in her dark eyes as if she was waiting for the ball to drop, waiting for me to catch up to the punchline of a joke that had already settled in her mind. She twirled her fork in her fingers impatiently.
"----what?"
She smirked wickedly. "Oh my sweet, sweet boy. Ya didn't realise, did ya?"
"Realise w-what?"
"That guy wanted to fuck you!!" Esther exclaimed, hands slapping the table in victory, rattling the cutlery. “So that’s what it's all about!!”
“Esther STOP!!!!” I shouted in alarm. The eatery was bustling with patrons and waitresses milling about, and our matchbox-sized booth wasn’t private by any means. Anyone could’ve heard us and my heat thrummed erratically thinking of what that could entail.
“Ah they can’t stop me from talkin’, we are in a free country”, she announced with her usual nonchalance towards what I had always grown up learning were sacred social dogma. The way she casually went back to her food, you’d think she had no care for the rattling thing she just said out loud.
“And you just told me how pretty and beautiful he was about five times over the past hour so don’t you go lying and tell me that thought hadn’t crossed your mind once .”
I would’ve come to that conclusion myself had I had the self-awareness and acceptance of who I truly was that years of living has since bestowed me with. But at the time I had none of it, so the only thing I could hear was the blaring sound of alarm bells clanking in my head and blood rushing to my ears. I wished I could just melt into the ground and disappear.
“Ah look at you! You little smitten boy…all scrunched up and red.” Esther gleefully jabbed a finger at me. “I know how these things go, you can trust me on that. How do you think Josh and I ended up together? He walked me to my door one evening and then I dragged him in by the collar and rode him till sunri--”
“Esther!! Oh my God shut up!!” I squealed while hiding my face in my hands.
London Music Review, Issue: Summer 1972
Album Review: Yorkshire Lad Invokes Mod Memories
Aspiring Liverpudlian rocker Miles Kane released his debut album, Colour of the Trap in June of this year under the New York based record label, Columbia Records. A concise no-nonsense affair of 8 songs, the 22-year -old singer-songwriter packs in catchy lyrics heavy in Yorkshire colloquialisms, quirky guitar riffs and vivacious drum beats. It is an ambitious first attempt at blending elements of classic rock and roll with motifs of mod music though the overall record falls a little short of its goals. With his Beatlesque mop and crisp suits, Kane seems to be more interested in recreating an image of the early years of the past decade rather than say anything new or experiment sonically. But it is a solid debut nonetheless, and a very enjoyable record at the core so we are greatly looking forward to if this fresh talent ventures in more exciting directions in the future.
It wasn't until the summer of 1973 that I saw Al again. Nearing the end of the year we met, I had managed to compose and record my debut album. It wasn't received badly but neither had it been the raving success I had dreamt it'd be. But I was happy with the work we'd done and had managed to earn enough through sales and playing a few gigs that financial uncertainty stopped bothering me for a bit.
So as the dreary autumn began to descend upon New York City, I left my room at Chelsea Hotel- which had been home for over a year by that point- to chase the Californian sunshine.
Those early days in Los Angeles had been good for me, I think. I quickly came to the realisation that the days of modish mops and northern soul beats were dwindling soon and the glitz and vivacity of glam rock were all the rage back in the UK. Bowie had just released his album and the only thing anyone could talk about was Ziggy Stardust. People loved him and hated him, they looked at him with scorn and worshipped him. I could only look at him in total awe.
I had managed to go and see Bowie when he played in LA later that year. I hadn't seen anyone like him before. The shocking red hair, the sequined jumpsuits, the skimpy kimonos, the heeled boots, the makeup- I hadn't ever imagined a man could look like that and make music like that. I desperately, desperately wanted to do that too.
It was in LA, in the haze of drugs and sunshine and exciting new tunes, that I finally laid the little boy from Wirral to rest. My days of dreaming of being a proper mod were over as well, and now I mingled with jazz and soul and rock musicians and weaved their sounds into my own music. Changed my style too, I did, and found a stage costumer in the city who could get me decolletage-baring glittery jumpsuits and animal printed silk shirts for cheap. I had come to terms with my homosexuality as well. For the first time instead of fighting my attraction towards other men tooth and nail, I revelled in it, I ran after it. I had a brief fling with one of the sound engineers in my new studio, and even though today I can't recall his name or face anymore, I still haven't forgotten how good and confident that whole episode made me feel.
My new skin suited me very much and I loved wearing it.
Alex, for his part, did end up writing tunes for Judy Collins' album and it did end up becoming the huge deal everyone expected it to be. Literary journals and music magazines, the New York Times for fuck's sake, wrote about and pondered extensively over his lyrics. They marvelled over his starkly honest words, the peculiar way he wove them and the wistful musicality in it all. Everyone wanted a piece of the brooding bard from Sheffield.
I had listened to Judy's angelic voice sing them and then scribbled them down in my little notebook to study them. I wasn't educated enough to appreciate the literary devices and rhyming schemes and the rest, but what struck me was the intense aura of melancholy the lyrics had in them. It was the same aura I had seen hanging around him in those brief glimpses back in New York. It was beautiful and sad and strangely attractive, like one of those tragic heroines Victorian painters painted about.
Instead of enjoying and revelling in his newfound fame, Alex left New York and moved to the seclusion of the Greek Island of Hydra. I had heard from friends that he had refused Judy's offer to appear on stage with her at the festivals that year and had found a muse for himself in some stunning French actress who joined him in bohemian existence on the island.
I suppose those kinds of things were a rite of passage for all great poets. I weren't interested in all that so I hadn't paid much attention to the going on of his life. However the deep attraction I had felt for him had never managed to leave my mind, and it only solidified its position in the light of the new discoveries I was making about myself in Los Angeles.
***
In the summer of '73 we had all travelled across the sea and set up camp in Glastonbury. It was my first time returning home since I had set sail for the states nearly 3 years back. And the gloomy skies and constant rain and knee high mud that one had to wrestle through to move around that I would've complained about earlier, had now become things that made my heart warm with fondness. I had missed home.
So the first thing I did when the ship docked at Bristol was to buy a ticket and get on the train to Liverpool to my mam. She held me at arm's length and inspected me up and down, ran her fingers through my now longer hair, fed me the best shepherd's pie in existence, showed me the album where she kept cuttings of all my interviews and articles and photographs and shouted to all the neighbours in glee that her rockstar son was finally back home.
After spending two days with her, I made my way to Somerset. The festival had just restarted a few years prior and it was my first time playing at Glastonbury. My debut record had done better in the UK than the States and I had been told by my manager I had amassed somewhat of a fan following here. I was stupidly giddy about it all, and the waves of nerves and excitement that crashed on to me in waves rendered most of the memories of those few days a blur in my mind.
But if there is one memory that is still crystal clear as the day I experienced it, it would be the first time I heard Alex Turner sing.
It was the afternoon of the first day of the festival. I had just come back from Liverpool, while the rest of the people had already been there for a while. I was in the queue in front of a beer tent counting down the seconds when I heard, “Kano! Kano! You’re here!!”
The 5ft body of Esther Simon swiftly launched herself into my arms. I squeezed her as hard as I could, I hadn’t seen her in months now that she had become the official photographer touring with Josh’s band. “Oh I missed you, I missed you,” she mumbled into my shoulder, then pulled back to ask with a comical pout, “Did you miss me?”
“I missed you terribly too, darlin’” I answered fondly.
“That’s like it,” Esther replied and she grabbed my arms and attempted to pull me away from the tent, “Now c’mon don’t waste your time here I have something very very important to show you.”
I was a little puzzled, “B-but me beer?”
“Aahhhh, it can wait”, we sludged through the mud and made our way to the large stage on the eastern edge of the grounds. A crowd was huddled near already, someone’s set was about to begin.
“Who’s supposed to come on?” I asked Esther as the three of us climbed up a little hillock nearby from where we could get a better view of the stage and settled down.
“Just you wait.”
About fifteen minutes later we saw a figure in a short blue dress and long blonde, an acoustic in hand, strutting onto the stage with the gait of a goddess. The crowds erupted in cheer for Judy Collins. She took her place at the centre of the stage and then waved to someone in the wings.
A lithe figure soon followed, dressed in a dark trench and his face partially obscured by even darker chestnut locks.
Alex Turner.
He had grown his hair longer, the unruly curls now brushed his shoulders. The new style gave him an ethereal, nymph-like quality I thought. He threw a tiny wave at the audience and then ducked his head as he adjusted the strap of his guitar around himself. There was something so captivating even in the most innocuous things he did- the way his hair fell over his eyes, the way his eyes constantly avoided the crowds, the way his fingers moved across the strings.
I was absolutely enthralled.
“You can see friends, I have finally managed to get a hold of the elusive Mr. Alex Turner”, Judy smiled, “He wrote a number of wonderful songs for me, and today it is my pleasure… to be able to sing them to you, for the very first time, with Alex by my side.”
Alex gave the crowds another one of his shy smiles and then the two of them launched into their first song. Judy's voice was high and soaring, angelic in the way it floated above the crowds and danced with the strums of her guitar.
Alex had a voice that was mellower and deeper than the one he spoke in. He wasn't much of a singer I could tell but he held the lower notes and complemented Judy's melodies beautifully. They seamlessly harmonised together.
It was as if their voices crept up to me and filled the pores in my body. One of those instances when the music takes such full control of you that you become unaware of your body and your surroundings for a while. I couldn't be bothering about the boulders pressing against my back or the soil staining my pants or the fly buzzing above my head.
It was just two pure voices and two guitars, the sunshine peeking through the parted clouds and a hundred people held together in rapt attention.
"A great surprise, eh?" I heard Esther whisper to me later when their set was finished. Alex thanked the folks and walked off after singing a handful of songs, to a thunderous applause. Judy continued playing for a while longer, bringing back some of her old classics.
I shuddered out the breath I had been holding throughout the performance, "That's an understatement if there was ever one." I chuckled shakily.
"How'd you know he'd be here?" I asked Esther as we got up and dusted off our clothes.
"I got my sources, I do", she smirked, "I met Judy's manager back when we were in Nashville. And she told me they were trying to convince Turner to show up at Glastonbury; he's apparently releasing a record or something this year and his label wants him to come outta hiding and do gigs and all---"
I was only partially hearing Esther's ramblings. The words and chords of Judy and Alex were still swirling around my brain and I had wished I had my little yellow notebook with its annotated pages with me. I didn't want to forget this heady trance; I wished I could capture the feeling in a bottle so that I'd be able to twist the cap off and take a swig later.
"Do you wanna meet him?" my friend asked me later when we were huddling with our plates at a corner of a tent serving lunch.
"Huh?" I looked at her quizzically, "What for?"
She peered at me over her glasses in her typical scrutinising way. "Stop being daft, you idiot. I can see you want to snog the life out of that boy."
I was aware that the attraction I felt towards Alex, it was resting somewhere deep in the back of my mind all this while, had come back to hit me with the force of a fire truck. I was in no denial about it, but neither was I so about the fact that our initial meeting had been such a mess.
I snorted, "Nah I think I pass up on that mate, don't fancy making a bloody fool of meself again."
"That's not like you, Kano", Esther told me then, softer and without any snicker, "You aren't the kind to be so", she waved her hand in front of my face, "-so hesitant about meeting new people."
"You remember what went down when we met last time. I really don’t think he’d want to chat me up after that. He must think I’m some drunken creep who keeps on staring at him from across the corridor.” I said with a chuckle.
“Since when have you started to think about what other people might think of you?” Esther gave me a bump on the bicep, “C’mon tiger, it doesn’t hurt to try, does it? He might’ve forgotten what shit you said to him pissed off already-”
“Esther, I think you’re forgetting a very crucial detail, dear. He is probably as straight as anything---”
“Well then instead of a smooch, you score a new friend. It’s a win either way.”
***
That evening Esther and I found ourselves at Judy’s afterparty. Esther’s friendship with her manager proved profitable for us indeed, for we had no reason or excuse to be there at all. But we were cocky bastards, the two of us, so we dressed up real good and headed down to their big tent with a mission.
The tent was packed wall to wall with people. Judy was the headline act that year, and seemingly everyone who had descended upon the fields of Glastonbury had turned up to have a piece of the good time. The air was thick with the smell of sweat and booze and weed and exhilaration.
"Okay Kano, whatever happens we're gonna have a blast tonight, right?" Esther tugged me down and warned right into my ear. Soon, bottles of beer and joints had been passed into our hands, and half an hour later we were already buzzing. My spirits and confidence soared.
But I hadn't spotted the man I had come for yet. I began to get doubtful, I admit, if he would be there at all. The press and grapevines had spoken enough about his apparent misanthropic tendencies even back then.
My eyes scanned the throngs of people on the dancefloor, at the bar, coming and going at the doors. On the makeshift stage where some record was playing on the turntable and on the couch placed in a corner where a bunch of girls were already passed out.
And then I saw him. Standing in the farthest corner of the tent, shadows shrouding his face. He was hunched down in a way like he wanted to curl into a ball, hands shoved into the pockets of his pants, eyes hid behind the curtains of yellow-tinted hair.
Alex was around my age I had guessed, but he looked so small and vulnerable then, somewhat like a lost woodland creature.
Esther had spotted almost as soon as I did. "Oh there is our poet boy." she whispered in my ears, and dragged me over to him before I could voice any more protest.
Now my friend clearly hadn't thought Al was some woodland creature out of its natural habitat or anything for she straight up walked over and barked at him gleefully, "Alex Turner there you are! You are Alex Turner right?"
Alex jerked up to look at us in alarm. Like he had thought he was invisible and now someone had perceived his existence against his will. His big brown eyes were blown wide with anxiety.
I felt sorry for that poor bloke, I really did.
"Um- yeah- yes? It is indeed me." he stammered.
"Oh that's wonderful!" Esther exclaimed, "Well this-" she shoved me rather unsubtly forwards, "is Miles Kane, the next biggest rockstar in the world. And I," she adjusted her glasses primly, "am Esther Simon, photographer and the only woman he's ever loved!"
I loved Esther to death but sometimes I really wished I got smash her face into the wall. This was one of those times undoubtedly. "Esther!!" I pinched her, begging her to stop ruining my reputation before I even got a chance to redeem it.
Alex stared at us open mouthed, surely wondering what exactly had we snorted. His eyes bounced between Esther and I, blinking rapidly as if he were trying to get his brain cogs turning and recollect where he had seen us.
A minute later it struck him, "Oh it's you ", he said to my face.
I was sure I had turned blaring tomato red by then.
"Yeah", I replied in a small voice and ducked my head to avoid his gaze.
"Look at that you already know him!" Esther squealed, "How wonderful, we are already a few steps ahead. So I must leave you two to get- how'd'ya say it?- acquainted - with each other, while I-" she turned to me, "go and find my friend Mary"
And with that she quickly slithered back into the crowds, leaving me stranded alone in the middle of the minefield.
"I- uh- My friend is a great photographer but an absolute madwoman. I'm really sorry- I didn't want to bother you. I'll get going-" I turned on my heels as swiftly as I could.
"No wait-" Suddenly I heard Al call, "Don't go."
I turned back.
"It's fine, you weren't bothering me at all." Even though he looked far from relaxed, the clouds of anxiety had lifted a bit. There was even a tiny smile at the corner of his lips.
"You never managed to get caught with me in a lift again and learn my name."
I'm positive I let out a little gasp. He did remember.
"That's what I should actually be sorry for really. Believe me I'm not that lousy normally. I were drunk that night- I shouldn't have imposed meself upon you like that."
Alex chuckled kindly, "And here I thought we had fun that night."
"We did?" I couldn't help but smile.
"You made me laugh a lot. I met lots of interesting characters at the Hotel but you were probably the most memorable."
Out of nowhere, a warm flush rushed through my veins. "I had fun that night too."
"Yet you didn't seek me out in an elevator again," Al pouted playfully, and it was unreal how adorable that man looked. "How'd you have known my name then?"
"It's not terribly difficult getting to know about you, Alex." I replied as I leant against the damp cloth wall of the tent, mirroring his position.
"As for you." I found him peering at me from under his fringe. "I saw you perform last month- in LA. I was there for some work and saw a poster of your gig. The name struck me as familiar but I didn't realise it was you. Asked my friend about it and he told me you're gonna be the next big thing in the scene. So I thought I must go and see you, so I can boast to the world I knew of your greatness before anyone else did."
I laughed, "And what's Alex Turner's verdict about me performance?"
"I enjoyed it greatly", he said, and the sincerity in his tone made my heart flutter. Then after a moment of pause he added, quietly, "Couldn't quite manage to take my eyes off you."
I stared at him and wondered what I had heard was real or a figment of my imagination.
It was getting hot inside the tent, suffocatingly so. My yellow silk shirt was sticking uncomfortably to my skin, the stench of the party was clogging my nostrils. It was getting hard to breathe a little, and I’m sure my galloping heart wasn’t helping things at all.
“Do you wanna- uh- head outside?” I asked Alex.
Alex nodded enthusiastically, “Please let’s do that- I’ve been dying to escape and you are a perfect excuse.”
We made our way out of the tent as quickly as we could struggle through the crowds, making sure to grab a couple of beers. The night air was cool and sobering, jerking me straight out of the intoxicating daze I had been in. The festival hadn’t become the big hullabaloo it is now, and one could easily find paths to stroll about without running into many people. You could still see the stars clearly in the sky, and hear the crickets chirp in the woods.
“Smoke?” Al held out his pack of Malboros towards me. I took a cigarette, held it between my lips and let the sense of deja vu take over my mind completely.
***
Alex and I chatted as we strolled around. About a thousand different things, perhaps trying to catch up on the friendship that we had missed out on building in the previous year. There was so much we found in common-- people we knew, records we liked, places we had been in at the same time. We could have become the best of friends had I had the courage to overcome my embarrassment and walk up to Al back in the Chelsea Hotel.
I couldn’t help but feel a little wistful about that.
We talked about our performances as well. I told him how thrilled I was about my set the next day, he told me he was more thrilled for he would get to see me on stage again. I told how much his own performance with Judy earlier that day had moved me-- though fear my tongue tied brain never did manage to fully express how poetic that feeling was.
“I really didn’t want to do that, the thought of being up on stage is one of my worst nightmares. But it was Judy who asked me, y’know? And I couldn’t say no to her any longer- she has always been so kind to me…”
I learnt that it was his first time singing in public. “ I don't think I'm a performer like that at all. But apparently if you want to release an album you have to ‘put yourself out there’ or whatever--- in my label’s words,” he snorted.
“I couldn’t have told that. You were a natural, Alex. You sounded so good! You had everyone hooked!”
He chuckled, “You’re being too nice… if there’s anyone’s a natural on stage that’s you. I dunno how you do it?”
I didn’t know either. I still don’t know, if I’m being honest. I don’t know how cavorting around on stage, singing to hundreds, playing guitar without a care in the world feel so right for a butcher’s boy from small town Yorkshire. It just did.
I told him as much, then.
“Waiting for that kind of epiphany for me, I am.” Alex replied.
Our conversation eventually veered towards our lives before Chelsea Hotel and New York. He was from Shefflied, son of teachers. He had been writing for as long as he could remember, and went to Cambridge to study literature, with the idea that he would join his parents in their profession too. That had, obviously, gone poof when his first poems blew up and he came to New York.
“All of it seems so surreal. So many things are happening all the time an- and I’ve been running around so much- I can barely remember some moments sometimes. And those are things I should remember.” Alex had said.
I could relate to that. I hadn’t had as much of an explosive start as Alex had had but my life too had changed so rapidly and so drastically over the months that I could scarcely keep hold of it all.
We had been smoking and chatting for over an hour at that point. The way we howled as we traded jokes and spoke over each other and teased incessantly, one would think we'd been friends since primary school. But that wasn't the case of course, whatever we had between us was as instantaneous as it was electric.
It wasn't new to me, making quick friends. I had chatted up people and found connections in hours aplenty, be it at parties or in the grocery store. With Al it was different though, and even back then I could see it. The attraction was there, yes, and it was growing more intense by the second. The way his eyes gleamed in the moonlight and the way his hair fell over them, the way he stuttered and paused and rewinded to find the perfect words for his sentences, his dry quick witted remarks and the drawl of his accent, the way his striped button down hung from his fram and the daintiness with which he moved his hands. It wasn't difficult to get completely enamoured with Alex in seconds.
But there was something more in there. Something about the fact that I could see and understand how much effort he was putting in, that despite his shyness and obvious discomfort with interacting with people that I had seen, he had been joking and laughing and keeping up the conversation with me. There must've been something he saw in us that warranted that kind of opening up surely?
My heart was getting high on hope, that there was at least a genuine friendship here if nothing more.
Al's Malboros were finished by then and then my pack of Camel's came out. We had drunk our way through the beers as well, we both were a little tipsy. We walked close to keep each other from stumbling on our feet and against the chill midnight breeze.
"I feel we should head back now-" Alex said to me, the last of his giggles from a joke I had said dying down, "You have an important day tomorrow and I shouldn't keep you from your bed any longer."
"Ah man, I'd gladly stay away from any bed if I can hang out longer with you… we should've done this ages ago!"
"Imagine we'd both grown a pair back then." Alex joked.
"I was so embarrassed!" I screeched, "Really the way I said all the stupid shit and came onto you that night… How was I supposed to face you after that? I was so sure you'd spit in my face the moment I'd say hello."
Alex smiles a little rather than laugh along, as I had expected. We had turned around from the edge of the woods and back on the secluded dirt track that led to the tents. He didn't say anything for a while, but I didn't notice, all concentrated on making my way over the stones and boulders without tripping.
"Well…. you thought wrong." I then heard him say. It was a quiet admission almost whispered to the wind.
I turned around to Alex, and found him similar to the way he was when I first saw him that evening. Head ducked, fingers fidgeting with the rolled down shirt cuffs, the edge of his lips bitten between his teeth.
"Thank god for that innit- imagine you-" I was going to make another clever quip that I hoped would make him laugh when he suddenly interrupted me.
"I thought- well, there was this moment that night- I was wondering if-" Alex scrambled around looking for the perfect words. He had stepped an inch or two closer.
He then looked up at me and it was the first time I had seen his chocolate eyes up close. Really close.
I held my breath.
"Everything would be really really fucked up if I got this wrong, I know- b- but I don't think I have, have I? Please tell me Miles that I haven't." I thought I saw imploration in those eyes.
"About what?" I mumbled, even quieter.
"That night-" Alex pushed through, "that night, when I walked you to your door-" he gulped, "there was this moment wh- where I thought you'd- that you'd invite me in perhaps," he shuddered out a breath from all the effort it had taken him to let those words out, "that- you'd perhaps fancied me."
I felt a huge tsunami had crashed over me. Or a storm landed over my body. The buzzing in my ears was so loud, my heart rate was running a mile a second- I felt like I'd have a heart attack or something.
"Was I wrong about all of it?" Al stared up at me when it went too long without me saying anything. I swear I saw a spark of fear flash in his eyes.
The truth was, I couldn't get myself to speak. The words all got stuck somewhere the moment I had turned to look at Alex.
Words being out of service, I raised a quivering hand and placed it gently, as gently as I could, against the curve of Al's jaw. His eyes immediately fluttered close and we had gotten so close that I could hear his ragged breaths. As I'm sure he could hear mine. He could probably also hear how my heart was threatening to beat right out of my chest.
"Well, you hadn't thought wrong," I whispered as I leant down.
And so, it was at Glastonbury Festival of 1973 that we graduated from one time acquaintances to one night lovers.
[Photograph titled "Glastonbury '73", shot on Canon F-1, courtesy of the Esther Simon Archives. Few of the photographer's oldest friends and longtime collaborators are present, famously her future husband Josh Vandenberg and his band the Firedrakes, singer and actress Anya Ginsburg and future music executive Mary Dunce. Miles Kane and Alex Turner are pictured at the centre of the group, wearing matching brown leather jackets and matching wide grins, their arms around each others' waists]