- Observer Music Monthly, Sunday 21 August 2005
The only way that the older residents rationalise the evil that hits their town on summer nights is by thinking about the days of their youth when they scared their own elders with their Elvis, Duane Eddy and Hank Marvin. But what they hear every Friday night between June and September seems like something else, a new level of incomprehensible musical uprising. 'It couldn't have anything to do with fun, really, could it?' they think, as Paul does the first of his 36 circuits of the one-way system. He loves the looks the ones brave enough to remain out on the street give him: somewhere between awe and incomprehension, he reckons. If he checked his rear view mirror more often, he'd see them speculating about the diminutive size of his manhood and just how much more bass he'd have to give his stereo before it made him spontaneously lose control of his bowels, but as it is he's too lost in the throb of DJ Sammy and his own self-importance.
The possibility that anyone could think he was anything less than cool in this machine and this Sergio Tacchini top is a bit like long division at school: an equation one step beyond him.
Frequently, Paul has driven the Subaru Impreza without a functioning exhaust, but, should one of his sub-woofers break, he wouldn't dream of even edging it out of the drive. The last time one of his Wharfedales went bust, he borrowed his dad's Merc and proceeded to blow its weedy Blaupunkt. The old boy wasn't best pleased and put him on all the crap roofing jobs at work.
Working part-time for his dad in construction and still living at home is a convenient arrangement for Paul, who would be a likely contender for the title of Wales's Youngest 25-Year-Old, if they had awards for things like that. For two days a week, he will use all his nepotistic craftiness to get a nearby chippie or tiler to shoulder his workload. This leaves plenty of time for ordering pizza, overgelling his mini-mullet and impressing sixth-formers with stories of the times (ie time) he used to organise (ie go to) illegal raves. As he lingers in the pay and display behind Dominos, he will lean on the open door of the Impreza and form a 'T' with his hands every time Vibe FM plays an appalling remix of an old skool rap tune.
His dad can't fathom what all this 'Come on!' and 'Get in!' business is about, but it's all Paul and his mates ever say to one another. His only consolation is that his son's interests seem so fleeting. By next year, he'll perhaps have dropped the strange Welsh take on cockney rhyming slang. Maybe then they'll have The Talk - the one about taking a bigger role in the company. Of course, he should also say something about the driving and the bass and the nine points on his licence. But what can you do? You're only young once, aren't you?
· For previous Lost Tribes, see www.observer.co.uk/omm/losttribes/archive
