Words: Jeremy Miles
Something very strange will occur this weekend. Tomorrow my little brother is celebrating his 70th birthday, a landmark that he will no doubt take in his stride but one that is suddenly making me feel rather old.
For Simon is more than three-and-a-half years younger than me and if he really is 70 (and sadly the calendar doesn’t lie) it must mean that I am rattling at full tilt towards an age where delusions of youth frankly no longer cut it.
I can’t pretend any more. What I can do though is wonder how the hell this happened and muse on two lives that have followed parallel but very different paths in the creative world.
One minute Simon and I were children of the 50s and 60s and now what seems like a mere handful of years later, a half a century has passed and although we don’t feel particularly ancient, the heroes of our youth are making frequent appearances in the obituary columns alongside gradually increasing numbers of our direct contemporaries. It kind of tells you something and it is just a little uncomfortable. Where did those years go and how did it come to this?
Today I am a writer looking back on a career that has covered social history, theatre, music and visual arts with a wonderful series of travel gigs thrown in for good measure. It’s been a good life and thankfully it’s still just about chugging along.
Simon is an award winning lighting designer who can reflect on a long and illustrious Emmy-laden Hollywood career which has involved lighting stage, TV shows and videos featuring Sinatra, Streisand, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Kylie Minogue, Michael Buble, Joan Baez and many others. There have also been long-running television variety series like Dancing with the Stars and The Masked Singer.
It wasn’t always like this of course. After a classic and comfortable post-war upbringing in a family that loved books and theatre, we both started out like so many of our generation seeking adventures in rock and roll. I wrote about it and Simon lived it.
He toured the UK and Europe with everyone from Caravan and Barclay James Harvest to Iggy Pop and Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith. He worked with Blondie, Madness, Wire, Simple Minds, Lene Lovich and Status Quo – a curious slew of musical styles but they all needed lights.
In those early days it was all hair, flares and cheap and sometimes desperate living arrangements. It was tough at times. There was very little money but plenty of grand plans and good friends. To this day memories of those times bring back a distant nostalgic whiff of hashish and patchuli – the pervading bouquet of that unique era that just happened to coincide with our youth.
Slowly we both established our separate ‘grown-up’ careers and since 1981 Simon has lived in California. He has a CV that is considerably more impressive than mine but we’ve both had very interesting lives and met and worked with some fascinating people.
All in all we’ve both done pretty well. What’s more we’ve never been competitive and even though we live on different continents and don’t see each other as often as we’d like we always enjoy each other’s company.
He’s also a great guy: intelligent, informed, witty, tack-sharp and fun to be with. Not just my brother but one of my favourite people. I hope that his 70th birthday is an absolute blast even if it does make me feel old.