Ray Morgan: Back to the Brush

March 14, 2017 by Ray Morgan

The writer Bill Bryson once joked in a book that there are three things you can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he is ready to see you, and you can't go home again.

He meant that once you've moved out of your childhood home, even when you go back there as an adult, it's not the same. There's a truth and poignancy to it; when I go to my parents' house (where I grew up), it's very much their home now. I never know where things are in the kitchen cupboards anymore, and there is a calmness to it that didn't exist when my stuff was everywhere, Converse discarded in the hall and Friends posters all over my bedroom.

The concept of returning to something once-familiar is all too apt for me; this weekend I went 'back' to the Pink Toothbrush, an indie club in Rayleigh where I spent every weekend between 2001 and 2007. It was my spiritual home: all baggy jeans and cans of Red Stripe, Marlboro Lights getting caught in my waist-length hair on the dancefloor and the Smiths, Blondie and Jimmy Eat World playing too loud every Saturday night.

My friends and I worked in a shop together, and every week we'd go back to mine to eat pizza and get ready, and go to 'the Brush', all staying over at my house (correction: my parents' house) ready to go to work again on the Sunday. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I'd request the same songs (Interpol, Fischerspooner, the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Black Keys) and drink the same drinks, see the same people and eat the same burgers from Darryl's, the fast food van parked outside in the early hours.

Now, in 2017, I'm 32 and things are different. There's no smoking inside the club now, and the place smells like feet and farts. For reals. It's terrible. There are cages to dance in. Blerg. The two signature 'cocktails' (that's a generous word for beer, cider and alcopops mixed in a plastic pint glass) are now £5.80, not £3. The kids are *young*. Fresh, baby faces. Girls crying in the loo because they'd lost their iPhones (which didn't exist when I went). Toilet graffiti about Obama surrounded in hearts. I had no clue what the music was!

The kids mouthed every word just like we used to, but I couldn't dance as it was so unfamiliar. My friend went to request some songs in the DJ booth, but got told to "stop asking for songs from 20 years ago"! It was also weirdly empty. I remember it being so rammed, you couldn't find a seat. The people who did sit down were mystical back then: how did they find the seats? How long had they been there? Now every booth and seat was vacant, which made me feel sad. AND THE PIZZA HATCH HAD GONE. No more slices of terrible pizza at 12am.

Having said all that, I had a great time. The alcove full of seats had amazing lighting, perfect for selfies. The booze flowed. We finally had our Prodigy request played. We danced madly. 'Wonderwall' came on - one of the worst Oasis songs, but we sang every word along with the 20 year olds, who probably knew it because their mums and dads loved Oasis. We sang it for nostalgia, for the 90s, that we knew and loved. I looked at the other club goers and they were dressed like it was the 90s. Probably one of the worst decades for fashion. But we've all done it with generations before us.

The lights went up at 3am (they don't play Duelling Banjos or These Boots are Made for Walking anymore) and we went to the chippy, in place of Darryl's long-gone van. Going back is a weird thing. I probably won't go again now, but I'm glad I saw it with 32 year old eyes, and I love that a whole new generation is going every week and singing their songs and having their own traditions, finding their scene. Long may that continue.