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LONDON HAD ALWAYS EXERTED A STRANGE FASCINATION UPON THE Anderson psyche."I used to get a shiver of excitement just arriving at Victoria," he once admitted."I always felt it was where I belonged." But when it came to school-leaving times,it was Mat Osman,not Brett Anderson,who actually moved to London, to study politics at the LSE.Brett, who left school with A-levels in Maths,Physic and Chemistry,went to Manchester to study Architecture.Ather two months ,he dropped out,but stayed in Manchester for the rest of the year ,earning a crust as a DJ. "It was at this seedy little club.Pissed-up blockes uesd to come up and ask for'True' by Spandau Ballet so that they'd get a song.I'd refuse,and I'd get bottles thrown at me." The following year,he decamped to London and managed to wangle a place at the Bartlett School,part of University Collage,studying Town And Country Planning,Which was as boring as it sounds. "I thought the only point in being there was to meet people who could stimulate me,"he recalls."All I knew is that I wanted to do something creative." He shared a tiny room in Ridgemount Gardens,a grandiose Victorian block behind Tottenham Court Road,living three to one bedroom with Osman and another friend.Berfore long, they saw sense and moved into a bigger place."There were?about seven of us living in this huge dilapidated house in Finsbury Park,"Mat remembers."It was ,"says Anderson,"a shithole." Around this times,Brett did indeed meet someone who could stimulate him-Justine Frishmann.The daughter of a wealthy architect/builder(her father built Centre Point,the skyscraper which dominates central London), she came from Richmond,but her parents had set her up with a pad in Kensington.The pair hit it off instantly."She had a similar brain to me,"Brett explains,"I just got on really well with her."???? Mat Osman remembers the frist times he met Justine,at the house in Finsbury Park."I just remember Brett saying, 'You've got to meet this girl.' I walked in one day,and they were in bed together,totally off their faces."The Frischmann of 1989 bore little resemblance to the modern,Elastica-ted incarnation."She was a bit of a hippy girl in some ways:she had long hair and her music taste was Joni Mitchell,but she was doing architecture and she was totally modern,one of the few totally modern people I knew .She knew London ;it wasn't a foreign country to her.The other thing was that we were so fucking skint at the times,and she wasn't.She paid for Suede to be born ,to be honest."?
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BY 1989,BRETT AND JUSTINE HAD MOVED IN TOGETHER ,TO A FALT on Highlever Road,White City.Osman would often come round and jam in Brett's bedroom. Somethimes ,Justine would chip in with backing vocals and guitar.But when they acquired a drum machine,says Mat,"That suddenly made it different, because you have to sart and stop together."More importantly,Brett had amassed over 50 songs' worth of lyrics"about subjects which were quite weighty,but I saw a way in which they could fit into pop culture". It was Frishmann who coined the name Suede,as much for the visual aesthetics of the letters as the sound of the?word.So far,thought,Suede remind a half-hearted hobbly. "But oe day,"remembers Brett,"we were watching The Chart Show and there was all this poodle rock,and I was thinkig,'This is rubbish.'The white indie thing had died off and there was no alternative voice.I saw a kind of niche." They placed a classified ad for a guitarist in an October,1989 issue of the NME.It ran:Young guitar player needed by London-based band.Smiths, Commotions,Bowie,PSB.No musos,please.Some thingare more important than ability.Phone Brett..." Just two applicants turned up.The frist was "awful",but the second was "uncannily brilliant".His name was Bernard Butler.???? ? |
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