You’d think I’d remember more about my very first trip abroad, to London, 40 years ago this week. But that was a long time ago: I was 19 years old, the world was on fire (when was it not?), and the whole trip feels like a movie I vaguely recall seeing some late night on a wonky VHS player.

40 f-ing years.

Thankfully I still have a few tangible audio-visual keepsakes from the trip to fill in the blanks.

If you were of an American teenager of a certain musical persuasion — entranced by all things New Wave and Post-Punk (The Cure! Elvis Costello! XTC! The Clash! Squeeze!) – London was your musical Mecca. On MTV, on the radio, on the news, it was all about the UK and Ireland, all the time. Live Aid at Wembley was still a fresh memory, with the ubiquitous Phil Collins flying transatlantic-supersonic to play the same day at Live Aid in Philadelphia. Princess Di – a big fan of Wham! – was on the cover of People Magazine and the National Enquirer every week, unavoidable in the grocery store checkout line. “The Young Ones” was on heavy repeat on MTV, and you needed both hands to count the number of songs by English artists assailing Margaret Thatcher with their wit, anger and searing guitar solos.

I knew nothing about the City of London in 1986, having only just gotten comfortable with the City of Boston, USA, where my family had moved to from the quiet suburbs a few years earlier. I was so clueless that on I recorded a “leave me a message I’m in England” message on my answering machine with the French national anthem (from The Beatles’ “All You Need is Love” as background music), thinking it was English. My good friend Bob still teases me about that answering machine message four decades later.

Thankfully, I was not alone on this wide-eyed adventure to another country: I had my trusty Pentax K-1000 camera and my good friend Gus with me. He was there for a semester studying something. Business? Pubs? Girls? I’ll have to ask him sometime.

A few weeks before I visited Gus (in Kensington?), terrorists had attacked air travelers at airports in Rome and Vienna, killing 19 and injuring hundreds. Anti-American sentiment was high across the globe, and the US bombed the daylights out of Libya just a few days into my trip. Why I decided that dressing for this trip like a dime-store Army soldier was a good idea is beyond me.

Did I mention I was a vapid 19 year old and thought the French national anthem was English? Dummy.

Anyway…thanks to some old photos, I can reconstruct a few fleeting moments from my short and low-budget jaunt around London with my good friend Gus.

Here’s us posing in urban decay for our imaginary album covers, just like every band from Manchester was doing back then. Fingerless gloves. Pegged camo pants. Trench coats. Converse high tops. An actual waistline.

So cool then, so cringe-inducing now. So treasured nonetheless are these faded memories.

Gus.

Me again.

Pilgramage(s)

We had to go Abbey Road, of course, but I think we went to the wrong one. No goofy picture of us two friends walking the famous Beatles crosswalk, but we still had photographic evidence that we’d tried.

And we were quite enamored by Pete Townsend’s latest solo album White City: A Novel — enough to take the Tube to the check out the real White City (which Pete described as “a black violent place.” I don’t think we strayed very far from the station itself.

Gus not engaging in “White City Fighting.”

We visited Trafalgar, too, doing the nasty tourist pigeon thing.

And I have no idea today how, in a pre-internet world, I knew about the existence of Camden Town, famous for its many street vendors selling bootleg cassette tapes. But Gus and I found it, and I found this bootleg of Elvis Costello in concert. (Elvis was, and remains, on my musical Mt. Rushmore of UK artists.)

And we came across this poster for Costello’s seminal King of America album, inspiring Gus to strike a pose.

We never did see this punk guy in person, but I scored a copy of his iconic post card for posterity’s sake:

Chances are this guy was probably from Ohio.

I’ve been back to London many times since 1986, mostly for work, but sometimes for pleasure. As a relatively well-capitalized adult in the 2000s, I always had a great time in the city.

But I wish I could remember where to find that pub where I had my first English pint.

40 f-ing years ago.

Good times. Cheers!

Thanks for reading

if you liked this nostalgic bit of visual junk food, be sure to get a copy of my new book, online here.