I remember Stu well, although life only brought us together for a short period, maybe the first two years of Charge – something that happened thirty years ago. Running the daner of turning into a boring old fart, it’s good to remember the moments that prove that only a free life is worth living.
Living in various hovels with them, going to sleep to the sounds of their rehearsals and waking up to a diet of maccaroni and cheese (Sundays only), I am still grateful for the respite their company gave me.
Stu seemed to me a gentle, poetic soul, totally unconcerned about what others thought of him, a free spirit.
But despite being always good for a laugh, he persevered with what he wanted to do – the extent of which I didn’t recognise then. People didn’t generally bullshit around him, either – he despised vanity and easily saw through people.
In those days, he was very close with Toni, his girlfriend. Apart from Charge, he seemed to be acutely observing rather than taking part in the rest of life. I suppose it wasn’t surprising that characters as diverse, stubborn and gifted as Stu and Iain McLaughlan didn’t remain together. Still, as bands go, Charge were a pretty stable set-up.
From around April '79, I had just returned from India, we were sharing squats, a noble, three storey one in Highbury New Park and then a lesser one just off the top of Camden Road, hidden behind some bushes. Apart from the band, there were Kim, Gina and me. In the first squat there were about seven of us with five teacups, while in the next one we managed with three.
Both squats were empty before we moved in to them. Although Buckhouse was also empty, we didn’t take it. You could at least flush the toilets there, but it turned out to be haunted.
Stu was often walking his guitar, for example down the tube, usually next to a sign saying ‘buskers and street musicians are not allowed to perform in this station’. This didn’t matter, because he was a) so skinny that only people with very good eyesight could see him and b) he was a classic musician. I went with him a few times. I felt easy by his side and tried to sing ‘Wild Thing’ in the intervals of his strumming.
Amongst the ruins of my memory a few things stand out. Around his left knee, probably from doing his roll-ups there, Stu always had a big hole in his pair of jeans. It miraculously remained the same size. Jeans companies later patented and standardised it as the Stu-hole.
Miracles by the way occurred quite regularly around him. When they were doing their famous first tour in Germany, having long run out of money, having nearly run out of van, they also ran out of petrol on the Autobahn.
Unconcerned, or to be precise, only concerned with serving the audience of their next gig, the gang filled up at the nearest petrol station without paying and Stu drove off, probably closing his eyes as he did so.
Only fifteen minutes down the motorway, the flashing lights of a police car caught up with them – they’d been video-ed and odour samples had already been taken. With Stu in the centre, the police didn’t jail them or anything, just got them to somehow cough up the money or promise to do so (Iain, Dave, Martyn or Ann maybe recall the details). Around this time, John Peel played them on the BBC, but record sales didn’t improve.
Some other time, bored with what was on the table at Highbury New Park – fag ends, old dishes, Jew’s harps, cold tea, rarely a joint – Martyn decided to cook an incredibly exotic African dish for which most of the ingredients had to be flown in (unlike most of us, Martyn held down a job for a while and put us off work with lovely descriptions of the character of his boss and his mates).
The whole house was in uproar, something exciting was about to happen. Only Stu in his wisdom kept away, he knew it was only going to be some ‘hippie-food’ probably containing rice, but most of us were truly intrigued. Vegetables we had never seen before were cut up and joined the great melting pot. There was an exotic, slightly modern smell, coupled with the intense feeling that Martyn with his outback-down under genius was lifting the food culture up to unknown levels. We were salivating for hours, all help was offered, although the huge steaming pot itself remained strictly out of bounds and in sole Charge of Megawatts-Martyn. Then he announced it only needed to simmer another half an hour, and we all withdrew to the main room in quiet anticipation.
As he finally got ready to serve the food, loud cursing was heard from the kitchen – not having anything to stir it with, Martyn had left a large plastic spoon inside the fabulous stew and it had nicely coagulated with the rest. No plastic spoon in my mouth, Martyn thought. After that it was back to fish’n chips and bread pudding.
with love and thanks -
Mike
(now Berlin)

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