When I used to work for Nick, a music manager / promoter, in the 1990s, he stupidly decided to be listed in the Music Week directory, and as a result we’d be swamped by demo tapes. Not just demo tapes, actually, we’d also get mailshots from jugglers, lookalikes, stand-up comedians… For years I had a glossy picture on my wall of a fire-eater called Bruce, on which the letters “Bruce” were embossed in large gothic script. Bruce wasn’t on the wall because I thought he was a great fire-eater – although he may well have been – I put him there because it was funny. At the time it I may have found it hilarious, but in restrospect I realise that, every morning, opening the mail was a tragic sift through the dreams of a dozen or more people who wanted desperately to make their livings as entertainers. To Nick’s credit, we listened to every tape that arrived, (Bruce obviously didn’t send one) even if it was for scant seconds before being wrenched from the hi-fi and put back in the jiffy bag with note saying “not our kind of thing, sorry.” The artistes in question ought to be thankful that we didn’t add our own sheer incompetence to their lack of talent to make a cast-iron showbiz failure.

Not so for this band called Spearmint. They had already gained a sheen of professionalism in our eyes by sending us a 7″ single that they had pressed up themselves, rather than a tatty cassette. On the A-side was a tune called “Somebody”; it started with a cyclical, sampled riff from Paperback Writer (an audacious decision, as using Beatles samples still gets you sent to the same musicbiz dungeon that Jonathan King languished in) and segued into a snarling lyric that might, or might not have been laden with irony: “I sometimes dream of my parents dying – I’d be so sad, I’d get sympathy”. I remember Nick played it about 4 times, and said “actually, this one isn’t bad.” We duly dispatched ourselves to watch them play at the Orange in West Kensington, an appalling venue known primarily for bands wishing to showcase their talents to A&R scouts who never turned up, and whose names were never, ever ticked off the guest list. Spearmint were great – a mixture of firey Buzzcocks-style pop tunes, and slick Northern Soul samples. A couple of weeks later, we became their managers.

We failed to get them a record deal – a masterstroke of management that would later be sarcastically applauded for its spirit of independence – so they put out a string of singles on their own label. One of them, Sweeping The Nation, ended up plastered all over XFM; two weeks after its release Spearmint played the Bull & Gate in Kentish Town, and it was uncharacteristally rammed solid with punters who had paid to see them. As they walked on stage there were cheers and rounds of applause. Blimey, I thought, they might actually make it. The next single reached number 83 in the UK Top 100, funded entirely by overdrafts and loans taken out by Nick, Shirley (vocals) and Jim (bass). Work started on an expensive debut album; the redoubtable Dickon Edwards joined on guitar, and they made this video which has long languished in obscurity for reasons of “bad acting”, but I’ve got huge affection for it, having worked like a bastard to make the whole thing come together.

Shirley had big dreams. Not necessarily the conventional dreams of being a popstar, but dreams of expansive projects. His lyrics referred to musicals he’d planned at university, and in 1997 he already had Spearmint’s first three albums mapped out; any discussion about putting a certain song out as a single would be met with “No, I’m saving that one for the third album.” He was 35 when I met him, he had already experienced horrible musicbiz heartache, and was clearly in it for the long haul. With the money from a stupidly reckless advance that was given to us by a pioneering mp3 company (they paid out £10,000 and sold about £3 worth of Spearmint tracks before they went bust) they made a Christmas album called “Oklahoma!”. Dickon left, Jim moved to guitar, Andy joined on bass. Then they made that third album which Shirley had talked about 4 years earlier; it was called “A Different Lifetime”, and it ranks as one of the most poignant and moving records about love and loss that I’ve ever heard. It includes this song, Go, which I can barely listen to (for all the right reasons) and which Paddy McAloon would be envious of, if he’d ever heard it, which he probably hasn’t. Shirley always had the knack of tapping into the emotions of pissed-off men, but never as beautifully as this. I’d stopped working for them and Nick by this point, and had just split up with my wife. I remember sitting on a stage at the Spitz after they’d played the album, crying my eyes out while they all bought me pints that I was already in no fit state to drink.

Over the next few years, Shirl enlisted me to produce some of their songs, as they had already spunked huge wads of cash up the wall paying expensive producers whose time was, supposedly, very precious. My time wasn’t in the least bit precious, and I took up the challenge with gusto. I worked on half of “My Missing Days”, tracks on “A Leopard And Other Stories”, and most of the recent Paris In A Bottle. Last night at The Luminaire they played selected tracks from the last 10 years – as they had the previous week – and, such is my tangential involvement with them, both nights were like having a decade of memories – both musical and personal – laid out in front of me. Of course, at the point today where their massive catalogue of fantastic tunes should make them British pop darlings, their relative poverty has meant that their audience has dwindled in size to a hardcore of devoted disciples like myself. But I don’t think Shirley cares too much. While 10 years ago Sweeping The Nation sounded like a call to arms to bands who hadn’t made it to get off their arses and put in a bit of effort, today it sounds like a piece of sage wisdom – that success means nothing, but persevering like hell with your best mates can mean everything. Shirl, Jim, Arn, Si, Andy – thank you.

Oh, and if you like any of these mp3s, why not go and buy some of their rekkids.