I Wasn't There - Cashing Out

BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live used to have a slot titled ‘I was There’ featuring interviews with people who were at auspicious events, had brushes with royalty and the like. My contribution to such a series would be more likely to reflect a number of notable occasions I missed:

In 1985 the touring production of 'Pump Boys and Dinettes' came to The Theatre Royal, Brighton. The cast included Paul Jones (no relation, but a source of constant confusion) Kiki Dee, Brian Protheroe, Carlene Carter and Gary Holton, an old friend of mine from London.

He was better known as the lead singer with The Heavy Metal Kids...

or Wayne in Auf Wiedersehen Pet! depending on your cultural references.

Gary had called to say he was in Brighton and that he would leave a ticket for me at the box office. After the show I went for a chat with him and expected that we would indulge in our usual pastime which involved finding a sleazy pub, drinking beer and talking rubbish until closing time.

But it turned out that one of the cast's parents had come to see the show and were taking the everyone out to a local oyster bar for supper and Gary suggested I join them. I do not really like eating with large gatherings, let alone with a herd of performers, as they have a tendency to get up their own fundaments. So I said 'thanks, but no thanks'. Gary tried to persuade me and called across to Carlene confirming that "It's OK if Richard joins us, isn't it?" to which she answered very charmingly in the affirmative.

But I stuck to my guns, narrowly avoiding an evening of puffed up luvvies and, unknown to me until a country music loving friend of mine pointed it out, supper with Carlene's mum June Carter, and June's husband, Johnny Cash.

Bum!

No really, it stinks.

I found myself thinking about Nik the other day, no particular reason, he just popped into my head the way people do from time to time.

Nik is that strange combination, a confirmed petrol head and hippy. He used to live with his mum, two brothers, sister and a selection of miscreants too numerous to name just up the road from me  (it was a big house).

I am reliably informed that he is presently in Oz building machines for the new(ish) Mad Max movie Fury Road. I tried Googling him to see of there was a link to works in progress and to see if I could tempt him with my brillint idea for a road warrior battle sequence (which I have subsequently forgotten), but the only reference I found was to his brother, Andy, on this Polish web site:

 It reads (approximate Google translation from the Polish) "Andy Smulion had a debt recovery service. He turned up in stinking rags so that those unable to stand its smell, without batting an eyelid, gave money."

Celebrated for a while in the tabloids in the 1980s, Andy was known as the Smelly Tramp Debt Collector. He would dress as a derelict (his general demeanour gave him a head start in this respect) and, accompanied by a vicious stink, visit the offices of the debtors where he would present a copy of the unpaid bill which (we were told) was usually paid PDQ provided he promised to get out. The stink was carried by a disgusting old tweed coat which had been dowsed in a home made concoction reportedly whipped up from 'the juice of rotten cheese, eggs and kippers', but were, I suspect, simply the more mature contents of his fridge. He kept this garment in the garage of the family house. When the wind was in the right direction we could smell the damn thing from our house - they could probably smell it in Poland.

I hadn't though about him and his niffy dunning activities for ages - funny old thing this Internet...

Going Deaf for a Living

There is a parachute school just up the road from the Chicken Ranch. During the summer we hear the planes climbing in circles prior to chucking their students out at 10,000 ft (or whatever height you make your first jump from). I did a bungee jump once and have some idea how it feels to stand on a threshold trying to take a step that 10 million years of natural selection has told us is 'not a good idea'.

They say that public speaking comes just ahead of parachute jumping in the list of 'scary things to do'. Until the mid-1990s I would have put them equal first, but at that point I had not been pushed out of a plane in the line of duty...

For six years I was tour manager with John Watts' band, Fischer Z. John is a particular individual with very strong ideas about what he wants. For most of the time we toured together he did not like being introduced at the beginning of a show and many gigs would start with him wandering on stage strumming his guitar and taking the audience by surprise. This changed on the last tour I did with him. He decided that he wanted to be introduced and he wanted me to do it.

 
I am a backstage sort of chap, I am not a performer. In fact I have always tried to avoid having anything to do with the actual process of running a live show, but if Wattsey wants something he usually gets it and I gave in. After all, I thought what can go wrong? I stand up in front of an audience of (mostly) foreigners and talk bollocks for a few minutes and end up introducing the band.


What could go wrong was that he wanted me to start off talking about something important and suggested AIDS would be a good topic. And then after a couple of minutes I could introduce the band.

John baffles RPJ with a song which may (or may not) have been aboutAIDS

It is the first night of the tour. I cannot think of anything to say about AIDS but think I can get away with some nonsense and leg it back to the safety of backstage. This is based on my experience of the Fischer-Z audience who are invariably supportive, enthusiastic and, well, nice. I work on the basis that regardless of how good their English is, they will think I am immensely cool and clever and will not suspect that the words I speak are tosh and nonsense.

Anyway, I have faith that something will occur to me, if not I will say something like ‘AIDS is bad, don't get it, here is Fischer-Z’ and go and hide somewhere with a beer.

Keeping my head down backstage with the accounts.

We are playing The Paradiso in Amsterdam. The stage is set, the band are waiting in the wings, well, The Paradiso does not have wings as such, but they are waiting to come up from the subterranean dressing rooms. I am standing down-stage centre.  The lights dim and I am looking at a room full of expectant faces. Looking up I notice they have opened the balcony as well. This is a full house. I have no idea if they understand English. Well, this is Holland, so of course they do, but how well? 

What can I say? I start with a fairly safe opening: "Hello". They shout "Hello" back. I say that John has asked me to say a few words about the state of the world and how we should all be looking after ourselves, especially our health... at this point my mind, working at some fabulous rate that has more to do with fear than ability, comes up with something which I cannot remember now, but seems to meet with general approval and I leave the stage with applause ringing in my ears.

This was not an entirely new experience. I have spent much of my working life and leisure time in close proximity to loud music.

My first working gig, cuddled-up to the PA - and probably talking shit.

I have lost count of the times I have come home from The Marquee, The Roundhouse, Dingwalls or some gig in a squalid pub with a loud ringing in my ears. It would still be there in the morning and would slowly fade during the day. Over the years I learned that this wasn't a good thing. When I started touring with John I started wearing earplugs during soundchecks and shows. I did not intend to join the squadron of my colleagues with tinnitus. But I did not make a big deal of it because it is cissy. Real rock’n’rollers just kick out the jams with no-nonsense, head-banging boogie, turned up to Number 11, hoping to die before they get old - and talk a load of shit.

At the next gig I am back on stage, looking at a crowd of young, impressionable people. Many of them may well find some of the gigs they attended too loud but do not want to admit it. They go to many more gigs than I had at their age, they have stereos at home to rival some of the early live PA systems, they have portable tape and CD players and listen on headphones everywhere they go. Music is ubiquitous. Young people today seemed to have more opportunities to be deafened by the music they love than ever before.

My subconscious  may have remembered what my conscious mind had completely forgotten, that the second Fischer-Z album cover featured an ear being attacked with a pneumatic drill. The album  was called Going Deaf for a Living. This may have been a complete coincidence, but it is then that I realise I am really  wimping out. Not by wearing ear plugs, but by not proclaiming it. All that will change,  I will do something good, something worthy.

   

“Do you like music?” I ask. “YEEEEES” comes the emphatic reply. “Do you want to listen to music forever?” Another "Yeees".

“Well, you won’t be able to if you go deaf. And some of you will go deaf.”…  I blurt out and continue “Most of my colleagues have hearing problems… being deaf is not cool… that’s why I wear ear plugs on stage…” and I pulled them out and wave them about a bit… This thesis develops as the tour proceeds and my half-minute turns to several minutes. I am in my stride, ear plugs are cool… And then it is over. I have no idea if it changed anything. I fear not.

Anyway, that was nearly 20 years ago. In the inertevening years I have met a lot of people with tinnitus from years of working with bands. Most of them regret their failure to protect their hearing. Tinnitus is serious stuff and I have always been thankful for my good fortune or good luck in remaining unafflicted.

Around 5.30 on the morning of 23 October 2011, I woke to the distant sound of the parachute school  plane circling overhead. It does not usually start that early in the morning, and they tend not to jump in the dark. I pull the pillow over my head in a pathetic attempt to get back to the silence of sleep. But there is no silence. There is no plane. There is just a very low pitched buzzing sound that will not go away. 

I Wasn't There - Days of Wonder

BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live used to have a slot titled ‘I was There’ featuring interviews with people who were at auspicious events, failed to recognise celebrities, had brushes with royalty and the like. My contribution to such a series would be more likely to reflect a number of notable occasions I missed:

In the 70s I was half the road crew of a rock band touring UK clubs and colleges promoting their first album 'High Street'. The band played a rocky-boogie style, in the Humble Pie vein and the audiences were mainly young men with long hair, trench coats and a propensity for head-banging.

Very macho, very geezer, very 70s

A 'novelty' single [Get Outa Me 'Ouse] strayed into the charts and led to a spate of TV appearances squeezed into a busy touring schedule. After one such recording in Birmingham (which may have been Lift Off with Ayesha Brough or some show involving the word 'Cue' with Mike Mansfield) we went to the hotel and retired to the bar for a beer or several. Our keyboard player, Kenny, doodled around on a baby grand piano in the corner of the bar to the general enjoyment of our fellow guests and a bit of a sing-song ensued. It looked like they were settling in for a session, so around 11pm, unable to keep eyelids apart, I sloped off for an early night. 

Kenny Daughters, one time truck designer and ivory tickler

At breakfast next morning amid the general hubbub of conversation I heard several references to a brilliant night, some great music and a wonderful performance. Bloody hell! I thought, these people must be really hard up for live music. After all, much as I liked the band and enjoyed their music, only their most ardent head-banging fans would pile such praise on the a few bar tunes from our keyboard player. It seems I was wrong.

It turns out that about half an hour after I had left the bar, the assembled multitude had been treated to an impromptu session on the bar's piano by another hotel guest, also in town for a TV show, Stevie Wonder.

1975? somewhere between top right and bottom left, I guess

Of course he wasn't the God-like legend he is today, just your ordinary run-of-the-mill international million-selling superstar who seldom played live - bugger!.

Keep an eye open for more tales of stuff wot I missed...

Tourists Beware!

Christmas Day. Tricia and I are listening to the wireless (for younger readers it is a primitive, but effective, broadcasting system - like television but with better pictures). I think the programme is The Best of Woman's Hour. There is an interview with Annie Lennox of The Eurythmics during which she sings a slice of the hymn In the Bleak Mid-Winter.

Later in the interview Annie's previous band, The Tourists, is mentioned and I am catapulted back to the bleak mid-70s.

 

My girlfriend, Mandi, had met someone connected with the band who told her that they were looking for someone to design a logo. Always up for the game, and convinced that I was a talented graphic designer (probably because I had told her that I was) she put my name forward. 

A few days later I am on the phone to The Hope and Anchor pub in Islington:

RPJ: Hello, can you put me on the guest list for Thursday?

H&A: Why?

RPJ: I have a meeting with someone from The Tourists.

H&A: Err.. OK, what’s your name?

RPJ: Paul Jones (I seldom use my full name with people I don’t know as they have a problem with the implied hyphen, so I tend to drop the ‘Richard’.

H&A: Hey! Sorry, of course. No problem…

I am somewhat confused but content that I can get into one of north London’s better pub gigs without paying - so if nothing else happens, I am in credit.

It is Thursday. I arrive at The Hope and Anchor. The chap at the top of the stairs to the basement venue where the bands play holds his hand out for my ticket. I trot out the awful line “I’m on the guest list... Paul Jones” He pauses, looks at me, looks at the guest list, seems satisfied but unsatisfied at the same time, and after a second’s pause (that seems to last an age) nods me through.

I find the band’s dressing room and spend half an hour talking about all sorts of things including a little of what is required. The conceit is that The Tourists are visiting Earth from another planet. I am sure that this will be reflected in their lyrics and that careful listening will flesh out the very brief brief. 

However, as may become apparent in future blogs I am ASTONISHINGLY bad with lyrics and tend not to listen to the words in songs. This is a serious failing, and one to which I will return, but suffice to say that I stayed for the gig but do not remember a thing about it, or the lyrics, or the songs, or the tunes, or the members of the band - or anything else for that matter.

Later I did a few sketches of ideas including one of which this is the essence.

For reasons to tedious to go into, I never submitted my thoughts. Whether they would have been appreciated is unknown. Now that it doesn’t matter, whatcha think Annie? 

By the way, I did not know that former Manfred Mann singer, Paul Jones (real name Paul Pond), and his excellent Blues Band, were regulars at The Hope and Anchor. I suspect that the ticket-checking chap on the basement stairs had been comparing me with his mental vision of Mr. Pond and decided I was close enough, and was not prepared to make a scene.

(Left) Paul Pond, (Centre) you choose (Right) RPJ

Many years later I was to miss another opportunity for a serious name-dropping experience when I went for a pint with my mate Gary who was in Pump Boys and Dinettes, a touring show with Paul Jones, Kiki Dee and Carlene Carter... (see I Wasn't There - Cashing Out).