Never let go read the words etched onto my right forearm in Cyrillic lettering. Somewhere across town, a girl wears an identical design in the same spot. It's faded a little – a decade does that – but the sentiment still burns bright. I'd thought it was a relationship I was vowing to hold onto, but I was wrong – it turns out it was an entire scene.
‘‘Band rehearsal and chill-out facilities’’
July 7th 2005. While all eyes are on London, 400 miles north something is stirring in a quiet enclave of Aberdeen. 18A James Street is the address, but to its new tenants, the premises goes by one name only: The Lok-Up.
Over the next eight weeks, the former workshop will change beyond recognition as an army of volunteers scrub, scour and remould it in their image. Moss is pressure hosed into oblivion. White emulsion is liberally applied, spattering jeans, hair and skin. Punk rock stickers are plastered across the desk. A pool table is maneuvered through the double doors, followed by a pinball machine and an arcade emulator. Then a Jesus rug is procured from a charity shop and a giant spliff stitched between his fingers.
Upstairs, a collective of artists find a blank space and set about conjuring skater kids, mermaids and tripped out fractal designs. Downstairs, the gleaming black and white tiles are complemented by black lettering daubed across a lyric wall above the couch. Each line is plucked from a favourite song, with a preponderance of punk and emo: Matchbook Romance, Dr Dre, Manic Street Preachers, Alkaline Trio, AFI, Blink-182, Atreyu, Taking Back Sunday and, amidst all the platinum-sellers and arena artists, one local band – Stayover.
‘‘I fall asleep tonight cos that brings me closer to you’’ – Matchbook Romance, Promise. From The Lok-Up lyric wall.
Stayover are Robert Knight, David Milne and Daniel Mackintosh, better known as Bob, Milner and Dan. They're not the only good band who will perform at The Lok-Up, but they're the only band to make it onto the wall of feelings, as feels were still called back then. The Last Song is about a funeral and I'm taken by its refrain: ‘‘It wasn't like the movies, it didn't rain that day’’.
Evocative as it may be, it's not the best song Stayover have written – that accolade goes to I Found You. It is, I recall proclaiming, not just a great song by a local band, but a great song. Period. I like it so much, that summer I play it on repeat, pushing the headphones against my girlfriend's stomach so our daughter (still six weeks away), can hear it too. I Found You is Bob's baby, but it's the band who make it fly. That discordant guitar intro, Milner's harmonies offsetting the harshness of Bob's vocals, followed by a tantalising pause and then...and then it begins.
I found You is the sound of a band who are comfortable to the point of cockiness. Lethargic and yet electric, it's Stayover at their effortless best, from the call and response vocals to the breakdown, just Bob and a timid guitar. ‘‘And you wore the same old frown I'd seen you wear a thousand times before’’. Then Dan's bass kicks in and they're off again to reprise that euphoric chorus before the final refrain rings out with the harmonies split three ways, but it's Dan's twang that cuts through the distortion and steals the last line: ‘‘I found you out’’.
Bob, a tousled troubadour, is the brains of the band; Milner, bold harmonies and impeccable hi-hats, is the pulse, and Dan? Well, Dan is just Dan. Efficient. Dependable. Newly 19 and adroit at every instrument he touches. As befits the class of '05, he is pop punk through and through: his jeans baggy, wrists accessorised, nails painted and vocals a nasal Tom DeLonge. Beneath a soft brim cap, a tuft of perfect hair sprouts, dyed the colour of that month's particular flavour; Dan changes his hair as often as he changes his headwear. He's not the loudest voice in the room (that honour falls to Bob), but what Dan may lack in decibels, he makes up for in attentiveness. He's a listener, and when Dan isn't speaking, you get the impression that he's taking it all in. He's the Stayover member I know the least and yet, even back then, I know this much: the kid's switched on. He thinks more than he says. He knows more than he reveals. He can see the world through eyes other than his own, and there aren't a lot of teenagers that can do that. Hell, there aren't many adults that can do that. Solipsism is our generation's default setting.
It's all too easy to assign attributes with the benefit of hindsight, but this much is true: there was a gentleness about Dan. A kindness. And, on the outside, he was always smiling.
Always.
‘‘You used to read me stories as if my dreams were boring’’ – Blink-182, Aliens Exist. From The Lok-Up lyric wall.
Ten years ago – to the day – I shared a stage with Bob, Milner and Dan, joining them for a run through of 15's Close Enough as Stayover covered local bands at The Moorings. I wish I could remember more about the occasion, or the night I filled in on guitar for Dan's previous band, Lost. At the time though, you're always too caught up in living the moment to reflect. Then, years later, you find yourself combing through memories, trying to retrieve fragmented snippets of conversation; a nod of a bleached fringe here; a shared toke there.
The tail-end of 2005 spanned some of the worst months of my life and yet, elsewhere, good things were happening: The Lok-Up; Stayover; Edgar Prais. And then fatherhood, because as one era ends, another must begin. The girl I got the matching tattoo with that day is no longer my girl, but two daughters and an enduring friendship are reason enough to regret nothing. The relationship, like the ink, was worth it.
‘‘Who calls out my name? Who can tell me what happens when I close my eyes for the last time?’’ – Atreyu, The Remembrance Ballad. From The Lok-Up lyric wall.
There are only two occasions when music becomes more than just a soundtrack: when you break up with someone and when a friend dies. That's when you no longer listen to music – you inhale it like oxygen and it sustains you. Every line is lived. Every feel is felt. And in those moments of despair, paradoxically, you feel more alive than you've ever felt before.
And so, in a fucked up way, Dan's parting gift was to infuse our favourite songs with added poignancy, making each emo track more emotive and every pop punk anthem more anthemic. His was a life devoted to music and now, thanks to him, I can't listen to Adam's Song or The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows or any other song from that era without feeling my throat tighten. In life I'll move on, but in music I'll be forever stuck in a 2005 time warp because those were the songs of my youth and that was the last time when everything was OK.
So thank you Dan. For the music and for the memories and for always smiling, regardless. Every punk tune, every fingernail painted, every smudge of eyeliner and every joint sparked. Every time I load your Facebook page and every time I see Bob and Milner, Ryan and Beattie, Ron and Kev and all the rest. I'll remember. We'll remember. Because our memories may be imperfect, but we could never forget.
‘‘It wasn't like the movies. It didn't rain that day’’ – Stayover, The Last Song. From The Lok-Up lyric wall.
As for us, the class of '05, we'll grow old and have kids, and our kids will have kids, and we'll do our best to make the most of the hand life has given us. We won't live in the past, because we can't live in the past, so we'll grit our teeth and move on, but every now and then – when a Blink song comes on the radio or a shortcut leads us by the harbour – it'll all come flooding back, and in that moment we'll know that no matter how good we have it, we'll never have it as good as we did back then, with Stayover and My Minds Weapon. With RX Bandits and Brand New. With The Used and Jimmy Eat World. With the class of '05. And with Dan. Always with Dan.
–★★★–
