
7 Like That – Quickspace (1998, Kitty Kitty Corporation Records, Taken from ‘Precious Falling’)
When I was seven years old we moved house. It was an exciting time. I remember reading all the information about my new school, proudly stating that I was going to join the football club, and various other after school clubs that the school appeared to run. The house we were moving was a bit smaller than the old one and my brother and I would have to share a room. Something we were excited about until about a week after we moved in, and we reverted to lengthy arguments about who could fart the loudest and whether we were cheating at Monopoly (we both were).
On the third day in our new house, our dad sent me and my brother out into the street to play football, so that he could properly unpack. Slowly a gaggle of boys our own age all turned up and a mass kick about was taking place on the small grass area in front of our house. After an hour we had learnt all the nicknames of the kids – some of which remain to this day, there was Baldy, Plum, Griff and a few others who I forget. It was like we had been picked up and dumped in an episode of the Bash Street Kids.
We all went in for our teas – shouting that we would see them at school tomorrow, which was conveniently located at the end of the road. Half the kids I’d been playing with would be in my class and I thought I would fit in really well. I was also better at football than most of them, apart from Plum, who despite only being 8 told me he played for Gillingham (he didn’t he played right back for Wigmore Whippets), and I had already been told by Baldy, captain of the First year team that he would tell Mr James, the ‘manager’ that I should play on the right wing, because I was better that Matty who currently played there.
Monday arrived and we looked forward to going to our new school. Baldy even knocked for us and said he would walk with us. Which is when my dad dropped the bombshell that we weren’t going to the school at the end of the road.
Turns out they didn’t have room for us and so my dad had got us places in the school about two miles away, the one stuck in the middle of a really rough council estate – not that I knew or cared about that back then (or now for that matter) – but they had plenty of room for us and according to my dad, school is school, they all teach the same stuff.
My new school was pretty rough, on my first day, I got thumped by the school bully, a lad called Michael (who got expelled in the final year for various nasty deeds, including taking a dump on the floor of the staff room). The reason for the thump is that I got the highest mark in the class for a times table test, and that I was a ‘boffin’. I’m not convinced Michael knew what a boffin was. In my second week I tried to get in the first year football team and failed miserably. A tall lad called Wayne, who claimed to be 8 but looked about 19, marked me out of the game completely.
Jacob Street 7am – Sabres of Paradise (1994, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Haunted Dancehall’)
Parallel 7 – Four Tet (2020, Text Records, Taken from ‘Parallel’)