A Meditation On 'Backlash Cop'

I moved to London in late 2003, just before Jetplane Landing released their second album, 'Once Like A Spark'. Four years later, and I'm still here, and their third album has (finally!) just been released.

The first 'long term' (I believe it lasted nearly 5 months) job I had while living here was working in a hellish wasteland part of Enfield called Brimsdown, an area comprised of grim indentikit housing, dual carriageways and industrial estates only a mile or so from the M25. I worked for an alcohol distribution company, in a perpetually freezing cold portacabin situated in the corner of a warehouse. My role there was never clearly defined, and I would just do whatever work people threw my way, and for this I pulled in something like £12k. My rent was £400 a month, so the appalling wage I was earning didn't leave much. Despite this, I still managed to see Jetplane Landing eleven times between October '03 and September '04, in London, Oxford, Cambridge, Kingston, Glasgow and a bunch of festivals. Most memorably, I saw them three times in the space of five days. The bottom line was, no matter how little money I had, how my flat had no furniture, how I ate awful 'Value' food, I still found cash to go and see them.

When bands don't tour or do anything for a while, you can sorta forget quite what it was that drew you into them in the first place, what made you go to such ridiculous (and, really, it is ridiculous when you look at it in the greater scheme of things) lengths to see them.

'Backlash Cop' makes me remember why.