Pastelism

formed Friends of the Pastels hold an unusual fan club gathering.

ME, I'm a pretty unclubbable guy. Joining things has never been my

idea of a good time, excepting only the ABC Minors and the Happy Smile

Club. The latter was a 1960s promotional venture for a toothpaste firm

and sent you a free comic, at highly erratic intervals, featuring a

villainess called the Wicked Witch of Decay. A mouth like a derelict

cemetery, she had; you could whiff the gamma-ray gingivitis right off

the four-colour litho.

Tooth-loss and gum-blight have been my portion ever since The Ivory

Tower discontinued publication. The ABC Minors, meanwhile, had rather a

covetable Art Deco enamel badge (giving it the edge on, say, the

Ovalteenies) and a club song pleasantly redolent of the jolly idealism

of the Postwar Period:

We are the ABC Minors

And we are pledged to be

Good citizens when we grow up

And guardians of the free . . .

You roared that out and then got back to the serious business of

shooting dried peas at the screen and letting your pals in at the fire

exits. No wonder the picture palaces are shrines to bingo now. I lost

the badge somewhere as well.

Anyway, after these encouragements to collective-mindedness went the

way of my caried fangs and Roy Rogers second features, I went it

existentially alone. Bought a trenchcoat and took up Strand cigarettes

(pretty cool for 13); shunned associations, leagues, fraternities, and

anything that might involve wearing exotic regalia and taking part in

weird secret rituals, like the Scouts or suchlike. I stuck my neck out

for nobody, bud. Until I discovered the Friends of the Pastels.

The Pastels, as in a better world nobody would need telling, are a

gloriously quirky, wispy, idiosyncratic, lovable, and deeply

uncommercial beat combo from Bearsden, where the Scottish groups come

from. Orange Juice and the Commotions are the better-known exponents of

the Bearsden Sound, but they never offered a dinky green-and-gold badge

(see above -- unauthorised reproduction punishable by death or forced

audition of a U2 album) or the opportunity to accompany your heroes on a

night out at a speedway meeting at Shawfield. I know that doesn't sound

very rock'n'roll lifestyle, but it's where I came in.

Told some weeks ago that a Friends of the Pastels outing,

get-together, and soiree had been arranged on the Pastelian grapevine,

and that it was expected to be productive of newspaper copy, or else, I

took myself along to the rendezvous at Glasgow's Central Station armed

only with mild curiosity, one newspaper cutting on the band, and a

distinct fondness for their 1989 LP Sitting Pretty, a small but

perfectly formed eccentricity in which the spirits of Iggy Pop, Jonathan

Richman, and the Velvet Underground combine in wistful splendour.

Standing around the station entrance in the rain with the air of a . .

. dammit, the air of a bunch of people standing outside Central Station

in the rain -- were a dozen or so young persons of vaguely alternative

mien, dressed not much like each other (especially the one in the

psychedelic anorak) but even less like your soberly sombre-suited

correspondent. I felt like one of those reporters at early Beatles press

conferences who had to ask which one was Ringo. Old is what I felt, too.

''Hello,'' I trilled merrily. ''Are you all here for the Pastels? I'm

Kenneth Wright of the Glasgow Herald . . . '' That introduction, apart

from gaining confirmation that they were indeed the Friends of the

Pastels and not a touring cricket side, did little to break the ice. I

stood waiting with them, bright questions like ''What is it you like

about the Pastels?'' coagulating on my tongue like tomato juice left in

the glass overnight, for the arrival of Pastels frontman Stephen Pastel,

who would at least be expecting me.

Small and fragile-looking, face poking pixiely out of a hooded jacket,

he came. ''You're Kenneth,'' he accused me. I nodded cagily. ''I believe

you're favourably disposed towards us.'' ''Gosh, yes,'' I said. An

amiable blond gent called Duglas, selected as MC because of his

schoolteaching experience in herding crowds of disaffected youth around,

then announced our destination to the company, most of whom had come on

the Mystery Tour principle, and organised the 25 of us into taxifuls.

Off we went.

Stephen and co-Pastel Aggi are speedway fans from way back. They

seemed to know what was going down between the home side, the 261

Tigers, and Edinburgh-based visitors, the Belmont Monarchs. For most of

the rest of us, including me, it was mainly an opportunity to sample a

new subculture. Two thousand or so fans, many of them in family groups,

were evidently having a knowledgeable and enthusiastic good time, from

which we ignoramuses at least picked up the right moments for

applauding, though largely unmoved by the spectacle of four men on

brakeless and noisy motorbikes going round and round a dirt track. Each

race (sorry, heat) was preceded by a recording of Fanfare for the Common

Man. There were 12 heats.

It seems a very chummy sport. At football and rugby matches fans shout

the players' surnames, but here Christian names were the vehicle of

reproach and encouragement. Shane! Kenny! Phil! they cried, showing an

enviable faith in the identity of the men under the helmets. The match

programme has a Photo Call feature, this time showcasing rider Kenny

McKinna. With his helmet on. At least the visor's up and you can see his

eyes. He's one of the Tigers who have their own fan clubs. Also in the

programme is an advertisement for a video of the season's highlights,

including ''The Best Crashes of 1989.'' It's very rare for riders to be

badly hurt, though.

By this stage a certain camaraderie had begun to grow up between Press

and Pastelists. Chatting in the bar, away from the two-wheeled

Scalextric on the track, I discovered that what a great many Pastelists

have in common, apart from a heartfelt and utterly justified passion for

the band (''I wouldn't say we're obsessive about the Pastels,'' says

one; '' . . . well, I suppose we are, really'') is that they're in bands

themselves. Duglas is a BMX Bandit. Eugene is a Vaseline. So are quite a

few others.

They all seem a very nice and satisfyingly non-ageist bunch, I must

say. It was like one of those old youth films where the city fathers bar

this dirty rock stuff from the town until they discover that The Kids

Are All Right. I felt like a benign 1950s vicar with a youth club full

of Cliff Richards.

Stephen Pastel tells me about his idea of the Pastels and their

Friends, his distaste for the rock hierarchy of musos and punters, his

happiness with the cottage-industry level the Pastels are running at.

''I'd be quite happy just to carry on as a librarian and do the Pastels

when we feel like it,'' he said. ''It's more than a hobby, though; we

want to keep doing good stuff and we want to get better, but it's

important to keep this informal feeling . . . it's meant to be fun.''

There is little risk of the Pastels ever doing a stadium tour. Bless

them. They're so unshowbiz.

Later, at a party in the West End of Glasgow (the Tigers won, by the

way) jolly Uncle Duglas makes us all get up and announce our names. He

writes them on gummed nametags for us so that we'll all know each other.

We also get Pastelism badges. It was at this moment that I decided to

abandon my misanthropic aversion to joining things and become a Friend

of the Pastels. Two days later a membership form arrived at the office.

One part (optional) says ''I want to be a Friend of the Pastels because

. . . .'' Well, because they're there. Because they're talented and

funny and nice. Because it's meant to be fun, after all.