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Writing to Teach You | |
Off to college, but not sure what you're letting yourself in for? Sex, drugs, drink, a couple of hours' work a week, maybe? We ask former students TRAVIS to tutor us in the ways of academia.
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The scruffy little tyke clings onto his dearest buddy's arm, pouts his lower lip, and wails, "Huhhhhh? No way, miss! He's maaa bestest pal!" But the
stern-faced secondary school teacher is having none of that. "You think you've got friends now, do you, Francis Healy?" she barks, cruelly. "Well you might've made some friends at school, but you're yet to make the firends you'll spend the rest of your life with."
Fran picks his nose and sulks. Grows up. Goes to Glasgow School of Art, becomes the singer in a band, and drops out of college after two years. Moves down to London, records a Number One platinum album, does a photo shoot for the Maker at St. Mary's School in West London, and says, "And she was right. The friends you meet at college are the best you'll ever make."
Actually, it's something of a myth that Travis met at art school--a myth fertilised by the histories of countless, rather more dungy, art school bands. The band actually formed around Glasgow's Horseshoe Bar, where drummer Neil Primrose worked and the others drank (Neil, incidentally, being the band's sole non-GSoA alumnus, favouring computing at Glasgow's School of Commerce instead). Nevertheless, Travis did play their first-ever gig with bassist Dougie Payne at the GSoA, a show that Fran sniggeringly describes as "fucking shambolic!"
"Absolutely rubbish!" nods Dougie. "But you know: rubbish with a bit of charm."
We'll return to forming bands in a bit, but there's at least nine other essential facets of student life to natter about with this year's Student Guide cover stars first. We'll cover everything from Dungeons & Dragons to puke-spattered lasses, and that's a promise. But first on the list is...
Communal Living
"Which," teases guitarist Andy Dunlop, "is quite apt for Dougie!"
"But we did move in with each other when we elft and came down to London," notes Fran, "and that was almost the same as moving into student digs. Plus, being on the dole was exactly the same as living on a student grant. You can't afford to go out on 35 quid a week, so you just stay in the whole time."
Did it come as a shock to you when you had to move away from home and live wtih other people?
"Nah," shrugs Neil, "we kinda knew what to expect before we moved in 'cos we were already mates."
"That's the advice," agrees Dougie. "Otherwise, you might end up living with some madman who just wants to steal your fridge contents!"
"'You've been touching my cornflakes again!'" shrieks Andy, before answering the Maker's next question: "Were we stinky bastards? No, we were all quite clean, actually, and the bathroom was practically sacred. It was a really harmonious little house, actually: if any tension did start to brew, we'd just go out for a walk before it escalated into violence. That's the best advice: just let it lie, and go for a drink."
Booze
"Yeah," nods Fran, "we spent most of our time on the piss, but so did the tutors!"
"You'd be sitting in the student bar," hums Andy, pensively, "and you'd see one of your tutors trying to swim across the floor! Pissed out of his face!"
What's the drunkest you remember being at college?
"I broke my arm bin surfing once," he blushes. Bin surfing?
"Yeah," he cringes. "I was going to this party with a girl I was trying to impress, so I jumped on a bin, and it fell over! I still went to the party, though. Just with this broken arm!"
"Now that's the way to impress a lady," says Dougie approvingly.
"I remember having a tequila night round at my friend's house," shudders Fran. "Four bottles between three people, doing slammers one after another, after another, after another. It ended up with my friend looking through the bathroom keyhole and seeing my hairy backside staring him in the face. I'd fallen asleep with my head stuck down the bog!
"Hmmm, he frowns, "I haven't touched tequila since."
Happy days, then?
"Oh yes," they chorus. Then they remember the headaches, and their smiles turn to grimaces. But only for a second.
Drugs
"There was some really cheap speed now and again," shudders Dougie, "which you just didn't go near."
"And amyl nitrate," purrs Neil.
"Ahhhh," shudders Dougie. "Poppers!"
"That," notes Fran, "definitely did the rounds for a while. We've never been a Class A act--if you know what I mean--but we saw some other people get really fucked up. There was this guy at art school who died from taking too much acid. He started getting flashbacks, then more flashbacks--the one day, he just never flashed back. The thing is you're institutionalised as a student, none of it's real. And once you leave, you can see how mad it all is.
"We did a couple of university balls in our early days," he continues, "and I remember looking at the girls in their lovely dresses, all covered in puke, crying at the end of the night with their knickers round their ankles. It just pushes you to your limit, doesn't it, being a student."
Sex
"What? Sex?" queries Fran. "I never did much of that at college."
"I had a grilfriend pretty much all the way through art school," nods Dougie, mournfully, "but I'm sure other people were up to all sorts of libidinous mischief!"
Would you recommend that?
"Oh absolutely," he smirks. "As long as you're sensible and take precatuions, then where's the harm? You've got no responsibilities, so you might as well try and experience as much as you can. Threesomes! Bondage! Gibbing!"
"If," pauses Fran, "you want to. But I never actually knew anyone who slept around loads like students are supposed to. Is there a difference between student sex and proper grown-up sex? Well, I suppose as a student you're just amazed you're getting any in the first place!"
"I think there's very little sober sex that goes on at university," admits Dougie. "It's all a bit...well, messy, isn't it?"
"Just a lot of furtive fumbling," smiles Andy. "Besides, aren't you really there to learn stuff?"
Actual Education
"You've gotta be able to come out as the next doctors and lawyers and prime ministers," reasons Dougie, "and if you just fuck about, you'll end up being useless at you do."
"Learning's only boring if you choose to study something that never interested you in the first place," argues Fran.
"Don't just listen to the fucking careers advisers at school," reasons Neil. "Those idiots who say, 'Right, you've done your aptitude test, now go and be a banker'."
"But if nothing really jumps out at you, then don't go!" barks Fran, "Get a fucking job! Travel! Save up for a while, and try and figure out what what it is you really want to do. I went to art school 'cos I had a total vocation to make stuff. Of course, having said that, I did always fall asleep in lectures!"
"Yeah," laughs Dougie. "We went, but we're not saying we always paid attention! Personally, I learned more down the library than I ever did in lectures, except I couldn't go there for a couple of months after Franny quit 'cos I'd lent him some books, and he'd chucked them in a skip and left!"
Fran turns a guilty shade of red.
"I didn't mean it, though! See, when I left, I left. I left my paintings at the studio; I left the paint on my brushes; I left my bag, my overalls, my folio, everything. So I didn't actually throw them in a skip myself, Dougie--they just ended up there."
"I know," says Dougie, soothing over an old argument. "I know."
Political Activism
"Political activists are the most annoying people in the world!"
Thanks, Dougie.
"Seriously, though," adds Andy, "we were students when all the Poll Tax stuff was going off in Scotland, and there was a march going on every second hour. But they were useless! It was just people bunking off lectures to go and drink in the sun and riot."
Fran nods, sadly.
"When I see those marches on TV, I always think, 'What on earth are the majority of people in Britain gonna make of this bunch?' It's admirable that they're making an effort and all that, but they're doing it in a terrible way. Anyway, you don't have to be at university to make a difference. I know people who don't have any academic qualifications at all, and they're doing fucking fantastic--and it's because they measure their success by how much they can do for other people, rather than just what they can do for themselves.
"You can be the brainiest person in the world," he concludes, "get the greatest education, but if you don't have any compassion, you'll never get anywhere."
Sport
"We were playing at St. Andrews once," he groans, "and this rugby player stripped down to nothing right in front of me during my acoustic spot! His balls were about two inces from my face! But during his strip, his car keys fell out on the floor, so someone slid them away and hid them! We tried to find his car afterwards, to nick it and leave it on the beach, but there were too many people milling about."
"He was too drive to be drinking anyway!" gurgles Dougie. "Ermm, too drunk to be driving. Sorry, I've had a drink!"
Not that Fran's allowed that incident to taint his views of the sporting/studying life, though.
"I admire people who're into sport," he hums. "If you're good at sport, you're fucking good at sport, you know? If yo go to university and end up doing great in athletics rather than just doing physics 'cos it seemed like the right thing to do, then great. Do whatever you show a particular aptitude for, that's the thing."
Poverty and the Art of Staying Alive
"And you can always get a student loan out," advises Fran, "which you should blow too! It's the only chance you ever have to really treat yourself! See it, buy it, blow it. Waste it on rubbish!"
"Just don't try and eke it out, for God's sake," warns Dougie. "If you spend it all in little bits here and there, you'll find you've got nothing to show for it afterwards. Anyway, student poverty's not exactly life-threatening, is it? You probably won't die."
"Sperm donation!" blurts Neil. "Did I do that? Uh, nooooo. But my friend used to make a fair bit out of it."
"And puggies!" coos Dougie, excitedly. "Fruit machines! If you've got a puggy called 'Count Cash' in your union, you're sorted. Five pence a shot, £75 jackpot--that's how me and Andy survived some weeks! You've got your bus fare home, now do you risk it? Maybe you'll have to walk home, but maybe you'll have a brilliant night."
"And some nights," smiles Andy, "we had a brilliant time!"
Entertainment, Union, Societies, and Gigs
"Joining the Dungeons & Dragons club!" shudders Neil. "Sad, sad, sad, sad! The only thing I ever participated in was the annual fashion show, but everyone went mad about that. And they'd have the odd band on at art school, so we'd go to those."
"Jeff Buckley at the Glasgow School of Art was the best gig I've ever seen," nods Dougie. "Just him, his electric guitar, and a pint of Guinness. Astonishing, totally magic."
"I remember seeing this notice once," adds Fran. "'Tonight: Belle and Sebastian,' and I thought: 'Excellent, I'll go and see that.' 'Cos I'd heard Stuart was in a band, and I was convinced that it'd be absolutely fucking rubbish! Stuart was always cuddly-wuddly, this friend of a friend, and I just couldn't iimagine him singing. So we all went to watch him go down like a lead balloon and...he didn't. It was absolutely fantastic. From the moment he opened his mouth, everyone went: 'Jesus, this is amazing.'
"Then," he smiles, "one day this other wee band played there...and you're sitting next to them!"
Forming a Band
"There were always guitars about at art school," recalls Andy. "We'd have a big jam in the printmajing department every Friday night and get fucked up on Thunderbird!"
"It's an absolute laugh," grins Fran, "and at least you've got something to do when it comes to college talent shows."
Doesn't everyone in a student band reckon they're some kind of local hero, though? Swanning around dressed like David Bowie and thinking they're a star?
Dougie winces as his raw nerve is tweaked.
"Ahem," he blushes. "You should never expect anything to come of it, but who knows, y'know?"
"You can do anything if you've got enough belief," insist Fran, tapping a ruler against the school desk in front of him, assertively. "If I decided that I wanted to part of the monarchy--which is completely stupid--then I could. If I really wanted to.
"That's the whole point of studying," he concludes, as the home bell rings and the puggies and pints beckon us toward the neearest pub, "to pursue whatever it is that you really, really want to do with your life. So go, stretch your brain, make some friends, from a band, whatever. Just have a fucking brilliant time."
Melody Maker
Not, it turns out, the best place to start, since all of Travis bar Neil lived with their mums as students. "We just didn't have the money to move out," explains Dougie. "I didn't get a grant or anything, so I worked in a camping shop to pay my way."
Students have something of a reputation for drinking--small wonder, seeing as how a pint of subsidised beer costs about a 50th of a price of a textbook, and there's always a friendly student health centre to hand if your stomach needs pumping. "Art schools are full of people who drink," announces Dougie. "People expect them to be full of these pale, fey boys sitting in the corner, drinking tea, and talking about Keats or something, but they're actually full of booze monsters!"
"It's definitely the best time to do them," argues Fran, glancing around the suddenly inappropriate surroundings of the schoolroom where we're sat. "If you're gonna do them. 'Cos you don't have any responsibility whatsoever: no kids to look after, no job to go to, nothing. Were drugs easy to get hold of? Well, there was always hash and stuff about, but there wasnae any Es or cocaine or whatever."
Now, rampant drug abuse might be one reason for girls to wander around with pants for ankle bracelets, but there's another rather more traditional reason when you're a student.
Well, apparently, Andy. Actually, Travis are rather old-school on this one (every pun intended), believing wholeheartedly in the value of expanding your mind, as well as your loins and liver.
The troublesome issue of "whatever became of Dougie's books" resolved, talk turns to other questions of social injustice. As a student, of course, your heart is obliged to bleed over issues like university funding, racism, homophobia, environmentalism, and every individual's right to wear plaid shirts and smell bad. The only problem is that...
In particular, rugby: the sainted preserve of both old-style university traditionalists and hideous, dribbling psychopaths. Fran winces, recalling an incident which provides a unique perspective on the mating rituals of the subspecies known as the rugby lad.
"Poverty's nothing to be afraid of!" shrugs Neil. "You can only make 40 quid go so far, so you might as well blow it all in one shot."
Freshers, be warned: you will encounter numerous societies at college who will try and lure you away from the joys of puggies and booze, telling you that havinng a brilliant time actually means...
"That's something you should definitely do as a student," enthuses Dougie, returning to the topic where we began. "Just give it a go, see what it's like."
October 2, 1999
Lords of the Dunce: Robin Bresnark (words)
and Piers Allardyce (photos)
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