My Metal Guru

For Joel Flynn

One thing I have learned the hard way this past week is the importance of letting people who are special to you know they are special.
If someone is fucking wonderful tell them they are fucking wonderful, on a regular basis. If you admire the hell out of them, tell them – because you never know when the window to do so will close.

This weekend I said goodbye to a friend who touched my life, a friend who I have kept in touch with via Facebook for years but didn’t make the time to see enough of when I visited home.

I have so many friends like that.

When we met I was about 17 or 18 and I was utterly in awe of his style. He was a vision in glitter and black velvet – looking like a sort of man-pixie cross between John Lennon, Robert Plant and Marc Bolan.

I didn’t know who Marc Bolan was at the time but he sure taught me!

Joel was a few years older than me and as far as I was concerned he was a music guru. He was responsible for my early Bowie education. I was in the throes of a fledgling Bowie obsession. My gateway drug was the Labyrinth soundtrack, I had pinched a Best Of CD from my Mum, loved Ziggy and Aladdin Sane, but that was where my knowledge floundered. Joel introduced me to Hunky Dory and The Man Who Sold the World and opened a whole new chapter.

He told me Width of A Circle (a 9 minute opus with lots of guitar noodling) was one of his favourites. I thought he was such a dude that I went home I got my copy of The Man Who Sold The World (a cassette tape at that point) and memorised all the lyrics to that song so I would be able to sing it if he played it. Sure enough, he cranked it up at a party at his house and I was able to jump around the lounge with him singing it word for word. I felt like the coolest person in the world.

Width of A Circle was the song I picked for his memorial.

It wasn’t just the music though. When you were in a room with Joel, even if there were 50 other people there, it was like you were the only one in it. We met through my boyfriend at the time who was a good friend of his and I went from a friend’s girlfriend to a special person in my own right within seconds. As another friend said “Every time I saw you it felt as if you’d been waiting just for me to arrive.”

I started visiting on my own, outside parties. When I was super excited by discovering Velvet Underground, when I just wanted a bit of advice.

I have a clear memory of dropping in to his place when I was going through a bit of a bad patch. I was a ball of insecurities and quite down on myself. He made me a coffee and we just talked. He ended up telling me he thought of me as the Yoko Ono of Christchurch. At first I was outraged. I hadn’t broken up any bands had I? But then he explained it was because he thought I had my own unique style, that I didn’t care what others thought and he admired that. Coming from someone who I saw as a sort of guru that meant so much. It was a massive confidence boost and exactly what I needed at the time. Years later I still think about that conversation. I never told him. I wish I had.

When Facebook happened and he got back in touch I was super excited to feel that connection again. I promised myself I would visit him when I came home, that I would make an effort to catch with all my friends from that part of my life. But every year I would come home for Christmas, be knackered from work and just want to chill out at Mum and Dad’s. Each year I would promise myself the next visit I would be organised and catch up with people and each year it didn’t happen.

It seemed okay though, we all spoke to each other most days on Facebook. We all had our own lives and our own issues, but we could peek in and see what each other were up to. We could like and comment and emoticon. We still ‘saw’ each other.

But just because you ‘talk’ to people every day through social media doesn’t mean you know what is going on in their lives. Most people project the best versions of themselves to the world. I know I do. It sort of lulls you into a false sense of connection. It’s great, but it’s not 100% real. You may connect most days but before you know it a decade has gone by since you have been in the same room together.

It had been more than decade since I had seen a lot of the people I caught up with on Friday night, but we picked up where we left off. It almost felt like we had never been apart.

We met at the Christchurch Botanical gardens where we spent a lot of time back in the day. We each picked a song that reminded us of Joel and played them through an ipod speaker. It went from the sublime to the ridiculous. From Led Zeppelin’s Friends to 10 CC’s Dreadlock Holiday. The latter made me smile because it was picked by an ex-boyfriend (the same one who introduced me to Joel). He says it was because he dropped in to visit one day and found Joel playing it, which resulted in an argument that included the phrase “Shit like this is why Punk had to happen!” I can clearly see this happening in my head, and now it makes me giggle every time I hear that song.

Everyone had a story behind their song and each song was perfect in its own way. We threw flowers from each other’s gardens in the river and watched them drift away. Then we polluted it a little by throwing glitter (sorry environmentalists, I’m sure the ducks will only have psychedelic poos for a couple of days!) The glitter was perfect, and very Joel. Another friend of his swore he coated his sofa with the stuff on purpose just to piss people off.

It was universally agreed that we needed to make sure it wasn’t something shit that brought us together again. We have a reunion in the works for next year. I am determined to get in touch when I go home for Christmas.

These days we are so connected but also so isolated. Finding and getting in touch with people is so much easier but you need to make time to make the next step. To really see each other. I’m not saying we have to live in each other’s pockets but just that we need to actually see each other every now and again. Drop in and visit, pick up the phone. If you don’t like the phone drop them an email. Tell people you are thinking of them when you think of them, otherwise they will never know.

So to all my friends and family I haven’t seen for a while. It may take a bit but I am going to do my best to get in touch with you in some form. I think of you all a lot – when I read an article, when I hear someone say something, when a song comes on.

You all have a place somewhere in my heart and you always will have.

I love you.

I’ll leave you all with a playlist and the promise of a cheerier blog next time.

(Just a note I have noticed videos aren’t coming through in the blog emails so if you want to watch any of these then click through to the blog site)

Remembering Joel:

Friends – Led Zeppelin

Trippin – Push Push

The Slider – T Rex

Telephone Line – Electric Light Orchestra

Silence – The Tea Party

Dreadlock Holiday – 10cc

Dirty Work- Steely Dan

Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin

Shake that Devil – Antony and the Johnsons

The Show Must Go On – Queen

Love is Like Oxygen – Sweet

Width of a Circle – David Bowie