ENTWISTLE’S OX, City Hall, Newcastle, December 8, 1974

Fifty years ago this weekend past, on a break from my posting as Melody Maker’s man in New York, I was in the north-east of England to witness the debut of Entwistle’s Ox. It was the only time during the career of the original group that any of its members undertook a full tour away from The Who. John’s bass actually made his band sound a lot like The Who and it brought home to me, and probably other Who fans who were there, how much John actually contributed to the noise The Who made.

Here’s what I wrote for the December 14, 1974, issue of MM, slightly re-edited. 

“This has cost a bomb so a few more quid won’t make any difference,” murmured John Entwistle as he signed a bar bill for slightly over £8 at the Five Bridges Hotel, Gateshead, on Sunday evening. “I mean… what’s money for? You can’t take it with you so I might as well spend it while I can.”

John Entwistle’s money is currently being spent on his latest passion, The Ox. Apart from being his nickname, The Ox is a rock and roll band of four, augmented by a saxophone player and two girl singer, who made their public debut in front of a sparse audience at Newcastle City Hall a few hours before John signed that bar bill and knocked back several large brandies. 

About 300 tickets were sold for the show, one of three warm up gigs planned this year. Next January they’re embarking on a 14-date British tour, mostly universities, and in February – all being well – The Ox are off to America where demand for Entwistle and his music is greater than in his home country.

The fact that so few people bought tickets for his opening concert didn’t appear to worry John in the slightest. In fact, he seemed surprised that 300 had bothered to cough up £1.25. The Ox is, in fact, a very expensive hobby. How much? I asked. “Oh, I dunno. About twenty-five grand,” said John.

As a band they’re pretty hot, though several rough edges need straightening out, and something has got to be done with the volume. For some reason, John chose to completely shatter his audience with the loudest music I’ve heard since Slade played Earls Court.

They were certainly a lot louder than The Who, a fact confirmed by sound man Bob Pridden, The Who’s regular sound mixer who’s just finished a stint with Eric Clapton. Bob is one of the best in the business, and when he grimaces over the volume then something is very wrong. Actually, John chose to use most of the Who’s amplification equipment and most of their crew for his show, so much so that the smallish City Hall stage contained enough gear to equip several bands.

“Next gig, I’m gonna leave some of them speakers behind,” Bob told me back at the hotel. “Bleedin’ daft. I’ve bin arguing with ’im all week over the bleedin’ gear. There’s enough stuff for a band to play Hyde Park and be ’eard in ’Ounslow.”

The Ox played for just over one hour and the material was a mixture of tracks from Entwistle’s solo albums, including one by The Ox due for release shortly, and the songs he has written for The Who. He opened with ‘My Wife’ and guitarist Robert Johnson began the show by cracking out the chords for ‘I Can’t Explain’. Other Who songs featured were ‘Boris The Spider’, ‘Whiskey Man’ and ‘Cousin Kevin’. They’d rehearsed ‘Heaven And Hell’ but didn’t play it as John completely forgot. 

It doesn’t take much to realise that John is an old rocker at heart. The set was liberally spiced with some beefy rock and roll, and he encored – yes, the 300 demanded an encore – with Eddie Cochran’s ‘Somethin’ Else’ and Little Richard’s ‘Keep A Knockin’’. One of the new songs was called ‘Cell No. 7’, apparently written when The Who were arrested in Montreal last December following a hotel fracas. 

The bass was turned up throughout and if the band does nothing else, it enables John to show off his bass technique splendidly. He really is one of the best white bass guitarists in the business. His runs are often stunning and his finger plucking technique is quite breathtaking, unbelievably fast. His lines ripple out like machine gun bullets and, at the volume he chose to use, they had an odd effect on the audience. Shell shock, I guess.

Robert Johnson is good guitarist too, but he was frequently lost in the mix. I kept waiting for him to spin his arm around but he didn’t. The band don’t really need a drummer – Entwistle’s bass is a one-man rhythm section – but Graham Deacon fought manfully on, often unheard.

The Who numbers went down the best but requests for ‘Postcard’ – from Odds And Sods – went ignored. They did a knockout version of ‘Not Fade away’ and a curious instrumental called ‘Jungle Bunny’ which featured backing tapes and appeared to come unstuck towards the end. It was a dull tune, anyway.

‘Cousin Kevin’ – with girl singers – was a highlight but ‘Whiskey Man’ didn’t come off as well as it could have done. John is best doing straight rock and roll: his grating voice suits the 12-bar structure; he’d make a suitable replacement in The Wild Angels or their ilk anytime.

I think they were a little under-rehearsed. In the bar of the hotel before the gig, the saxophone player was busy copying down chords on scraps of paper. “Just to make sure,” he said after thanking me for a mention in the Raver column several years ago when his horn was pinched. 

I enjoyed myself and I think everyone else did, not least the fetching Miss Doreen Chanter (one of the two girl singers) who attracted much attention back at the hotel. Her sister Irene went to bed early as she had a session at Trident Studios in London the following day. 

One final point: it was refreshing that John laid himself open in such an unpretentious fashion. None of that bleating about keeping the press away from the opening concert from The Ox, and all power to John for it.

LYNYRD SKYNYRD & GOLDEN EARRING – Rainbow Theate, London, November 1974

        Here's another 50 Years Ago This Week post.

        Back in London during a three-month break from my tenure as Melody Maker’s US correspondent, this would have been the last concert I saw at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. My date was a secretary on MM, same of Sue, and we had great seats, next to the aisle about five rows back from the stage. I’d seen Skynyrd in New York’s Central Park earlier in the year and knew they were hot shit, and this was their first ever UK appearance. I suspect Golden Earring didn’t know much about them or they wouldn’t have agreed to have them as support and, in the event, it was a bit of a coup perpetrated their manager, my friend Peter Rudge, whom I would go on to work for after I left MM. Golden Earring were on Track Records, The Who’s label, and Pete looked after The Who’s US affairs at the time, hence the connection.

Here’s the Caught In The Act I wrote for the MM issue dated November 30, 1975. 

Rarely has a supporting act received such an ovation as that afforded to Lynyrd Skynyrd at their concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre with Golden Earring on Saturday evening. 

And it was richly deserved. The seven strong Skynyrd band, on their debut tour of the UK, brought with them a brand of southern rock and roll that has been sweeping the southern states of the USA for the past two years in the wake of the Allman Brothers.

Such was the response that Skynyrd have added a second Rainbow appearance to their British itinerary. This time they’re topping the bill. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd utilise three lead guitars, each instrumentalist taking turns to come forward and whip up excitement with music that seems to flow like a river in flood. Each player seems to play as if in competition with his two rivals, each one determined to extract even more from his axe than his immediate predecessor. Responsible for this ever increasing surge of inventiveness are Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Ed King.

Their material seems tighter and more arranged than other Southern outfits, and each number incorporates an instant hook that simply gallops along. Singer Ronnie Van Zant plays a relatively minor role – he dedicated the band’s closing number ‘Freebird’ to Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, the two Allman Brothers who died in motorcycle accidents – but pianist Billy Powell made his presence more than felt with some fine rattling keyboard work.

Golden Earring are taking a gamble on this coupling – the reason is that both bands are on the road together is that upcoming rock mogul Pete Rudge, now resident in the US, has an interest in them – but it must be stated that they successfully appeased an audience that would certainly not have complained had Skynyrd played for another hour. There were isolated shouts for Skynyrd as Earring took the stage, but half an hour later they had ridden the storm and claimed an equal response. 

They’re much improved since the last time I saw them, and guitarist George Kooymans, dressed for the occasion in a sparkling white suit, obviously has his eye on becoming a guitar hero for the seventies and rightly so: his fluid technique, speed and general good taste in the lines he played impressed me a lot.

Earring eventually had everyone out of their seats, just as Skynyrd had done earlier, as ‘Radar Love’ echoed around the Rainbow rafters. It was, after all, two good bands for the price of one, and there can be few who returned home from Finsbury Park dissatisfied with the value they received.

In 1977, working at Pete Rudge’s Sir Productions in New York, I would do promo work for Skynyrd and I still have my ‘management’ laminate from that time, as seen above. Elsewhere under Skynyrd on Just Backdated I write about my involvement with the group and the night of the plane crash that devastated them in October of that year. 

ROCK STARS’ TELEPHONE NUMBERS

Being interviewed about my Just Backdated memoir by Simon Morrison at Louder Than Words in Manchester over the weekend brought back an odd memory of my early days on Melody Maker, one that I didn’t mention in the book but probably ought to have done. 

        When I attended a training course for journalists at Bradford Technical College in the mid-sixties I was taught that at the end of an interview a good reporter would ask for the phone number of the interviewee, be it a local councillor, a high ranking police officer or anyone else who’d come to the attention of the paper for which you worked. This was so you’d be able to call them if a follow-up question was necessary or if you needed clarification on some issue or even if you were unable to read back your shorthand notes properly – yes, I wrote shorthand in those days. This procedure became automatic for me when I worked on regular newspapers. 

        So it was that when I joined MM I did the same thing, at first anyway. The first interview I did for MM during the first week of my employment there in mid-June 1970 was with Paul Rodgers, the singer with Free, as I recall in the Just Backdated book. I went to his tiny flat in a redbrick building in Clerkenwell and we talked in a nearby greasy spoon café. As was my regular custom, at the end of the interview I asked Paul for his phone number and he gave it to me without thinking twice about it, though in hindsight he might have felt it was an odd request. That same week I also interviewed Don Everly of the Everly Brothers but that took place in the Inn On The Park hotel where he was staying and I figured that if I needed to ask a follow-up question I could always call the hotel and ask to be put through to his room, at least for the week when he was in London. I also interviewed Cliff Richard on the phone and made a note of where he was speaking from, his manager’s office as it turned out.

        I continued with this practice for about a month, finally realising that it was probably inappropriate to ask the musicians I interviewed for their phone numbers. Then, six weeks into my job on MM, I was appointed the paper’s News Editor, unexpectedly fast promotion, and because Free was the band of the moment, with ‘All Right Now’ topping the charts, over the next few weeks I called Paul Rodgers on a fairly regular basis to ask how the band was getting on and if there was any Free news worthy of inclusion in MM. He always seemed a bit surprised to hear from me and didn’t have much to say, and before long he moved from Clerkenwell and changed his phone number anyway. 

        The only rock star of note to give me his phone number from that point onwards was Keith Moon whom I got to know fairly well as I went to lots of Who shows and wrote extensively about the group. I suspect he gave out his number to all and sundry in those days, discretion being foreign his make-up. It was a Chertsey number and I called him a few times to ask about Who news and if he was up for a drink locally. In those days I had friends in nearby Englefield Green where I once lived, so if I was in the neighbourhood I’d call him and, being Keith, he was invariably up for a brandy or three. In April, 1972, I called him to arrange an interview at his Chertsey home there, one of the longest interviews he ever did, as detailed in the Just Backdated memoir. There was something strangely fulfilling about arranging interviews in this way, sidestepping the protocol of the music industry. 

        Finally, I should add that it was probably more out of hope than expectation that in New York I asked John Lennon for his phone number, my boldest ever inquiry along these lines. He didn’t know it, of course. “Yoko’s always changing it,” he told me. As I’ve written in Just Backdated and elsewhere, John nevertheless offered to call me if I sent him a telegram with an interview request and included my own phone number. He was as good as his word too. “Hello Chris, it’s Johnny Beatle,” he would say when he rang back. 

        The editor of Melody Maker, Ray Coleman, was a newspaper man at heart and I think he’d have approved of this way of doing our business. I guess it was simply a case of nothing ventured nothing gained. 

JUST BACKDATED AT LOUDER THAN WORDS

It was my misfortune that on Saturday night at the Louder Than Words celebration of music writing at the Innside Hotel in Manchester, my Q&A session with Dr Simon Morrison was timed to occur at precisely the same time as Stuart Maconie was speaking in an adjoining room. A BBC radio DJ, TV presenter and former assistant editor of NME, Stuart has written for several other magazines and newspapers and is far better known than I am. As a result, I attracted about 25 people and Stuart attracted maybe ten times that.

Stuart, whose session was with David Quantick, another NME alumnus who’s gone on to become a noted screenwriter, was plugging his book The Full English, a best-seller that, according to its jacket blurb, “explores our national identity and how it has evolved during the last century”, which suggests it is not a music book. I, of course, was plugging my Just Backdated memoir of the time I spent on Melody Maker during the early 1970s, which is definitely a music book even if I do stray into areas that involve sex and drugs alongside lots of rock and roll. 

Simon Morrison, whom I met for the first time just before our Q&A session, turned out to be a PhD who lectures in music journalism at the University of Chester. Of course, the concept of training to become a music writer on a university course is as foreign to me as the seven years I spent on Melody Maker would be to the students who attend his classes. There can be no doubt, however, that they’d be mighty jealous because what I did in those years in simply unattainable in today’s world of music journalism, which is one of the reasons why I wrote that book in the first place.  

Simon Morrison and myself on Saturday evening. 

        Simon had obviously read my book from cover to cover and we had an hour-long conversation that, I think, entertained the 25 folk who chose me over Stuart Maconie. He was interested in my newspaper background and in the circumstances that brought me to MM and when we moved on to my role as the paper’s US editor I could sense the envy of those in the room who could but dream of the lifestyle I led. I was asked about the rivalry between MM and NME and I pointed to the differences in the two publications; that MM was first published in 1926, NME in 1952; that MM was initially a trade paper for musicians while NME was always aimed at music fans; that MM covered all music of types of music – jazz, blues, folk, balladeers, rock and pop – while NME focused solely on pop, morphing into rock. Perhaps more importantly, MM treated the music and musicians more earnestly, which served us in good stead until NME was re-staffed with a crop of great writers from the underground press and covered punk rock with more enthusiasm than MM, at first anyway. 

        I namedropped shamelessly, Lennon, McCartney, Bowie, Bruce, Debbie and the rest, and told one or two tales that I didn’t include in the book. I contrasted  the media friendly attitude of The Who with the less than welcoming outlook I sensed from Led Zeppelin, and mentioned how Bowie – whom I described as “rock’s greatest magpie” – used an interview to gather intelligence from the interviewer by asking him or her whether they’d seen any good bands recently, heard good records, watched good movies or read good books, and stored away the information so he could use it himself at some time in the future. “He was also great at grabbing headlines,” I pointed out. “He might not have told the truth but he knew how to get on the front page.”

        After our chat the audience was invited to ask questions, one of which concerned the issue of copyright in the articles that appeared in MM. I tried to explain how the ownership of IPC – MM’s parent company – had changed hands several times over the years and that in my opinion the current owners, a company called Future PLC, don’t even seem know what they own anyway, and no one seems to police the use of material from MM’s pages. Furthermore, the situation is complicated by the fact that freelance music writers – as opposed to staff men like myself – retained copyright of their work anyway, and these days no one seems draw a distinction between the two. 

        At the end of my session I signed several books for those who’d brought them along or bought them at the stand in the hotel, including one for a lady named Stephanie, who turned out to be the daughter of Les Perrin, one time top music biz PR to the likes of John, George and Ringo, and the Rolling Stones. In my book there’s a tale of how he sleazy PR Max Clifford, who worked for Les at the time, enticed me to a Status Quo show by promising me a “bird” for the evening. “He always was a slimy piece of work,” said Stephanie, “My dad fired him when he heard that he was showing dirty movies to some of his clients.”

        All in all, a good day’s work and my thanks to Jill Adam and her Louder Than Words team for putting on another fine festival of fun. 

HOLLYWOOD DREAM PART 2

To Third Man Records on Marshall Street in Soho, to hear Pete Townshend talk about Thunderclap Newman alongside Mark Ian Wilkerson, author of Hollywood Dream, a biography of the band that I reviewed on Just Backdated in August.

It’s a fairly exclusive event, limited to 40, all of whom have some connection with the author or the trio that hit number one in June 1969 with that wonderful single ‘Something In The Air’, which Pete produced. We are gathered in a small basement, sat on ten rows of bench seats, four to a row, and at 7.30pm last night Mark and Pete took their places at the front of the room, sat down and spoke to us as we listened in hushed contemplation. 

Pete Townshend might look a bit older these days, with what remains of his hair now silver, but his eyes are as bright blue and piercing as ever and that mind of his shows no signs of stagnating. As was the case all those years ago when I interviewed him more than once for Melody Maker, ask him a question and he’s away, riffing on the answer, spreading out his thoughts, veering off into areas only tangentially connected with the issue and chucking in a tale of two, often amusing, sometimes harsh, occasionally giving the impression that he has a bone to pick and here’s an opportunity to gnaw it dry. 

        His memory is still top-top. He recalled how when Track Records was launched it was his role to find acts for the label, preferably oddities like Tiny Tim, whom he failed to sign, and Arthur Brown, whom he did. Pianist Andy Newman was certainly an oddity and he teamed him up with John ‘Speedy’ Keen, who’d been working as his driver and become, in his words, “his best friend” in those days, which was 1967, and Jimmy McCulloch, a pint-sized guitarist he’d encountered at a Who concert in Greenock in 1965. McCulloch was 12 at the time.

        A year passed before this unlikely trip assembled in London, specifically at Pete’s Thames-side house in Twickenham where they recorded the LP Hollywood Dream which included that hit single. Pete was voluminous in his praise for Keen whom he regarded as an excellent drummer, a bit like Charlie Watts in that he played a fraction of a second behind the beat, thus giving the group an edge that he found inspiring. Under the pseudonym Bijou Drains, he became Thunderclap Newman’s bass player, of course, but it was the camaraderie within the group that he enjoyed the most. 

        “I felt I was just part of a group,” he said, or words to that effect (I didn’t take notes). “Even more so than The Who which I was the leader of, in a way, because I wrote all the songs and made those demos that they copied. I didn’t write for Thunderclap Newman. I was just their bassist and producer. Speedy did and he was a great songwriter, though he was better at coming up with titles than actual songs.”

        Oddly, Pete spoke far more about Keen than he did about Newman and McCulloch, revealing that Keen played drums on some of his Who demos. Also, he seemed to have hardened his position with regard to the nefarious behaviour of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp who, as well as managing The Who, were the businessmen behind Track Records. “I never saw a penny from ‘Something In The Air’,” he told everyone. “Neither did the band. The Who and Track were managed by crooks, and one of them bought a palace in Venice with the money they should have passed on to us. We – The Who – were supposed to have shares in Track but we didn’t see a penny.”

        Such sentiments were delivered with a degree of passion but, as ever, Pete was able to switch gears quickly and return to the subject in hand. He regretted the collapse of the Newman band, and felt that when Keen stopped playing drums and became their front man, singing and playing guitar, the unique characteristics of the group were lost and they became “just another band”. In any case, he had too many other things on his plate.

        Alongside Pete, Mark Wilkerson had the easiest job in the world as an interviewer. Still, he was fulsome in his praise for the time Pete gave him during his research on the book and Pete, in turn, was magnanimous about the book which, it has to be said, is extraordinary comprehensive, as I point out on my review. (https://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2024/08/hollywood-dream-thunderclap-newman.html)

        At the end of the evening Pete and Ian signed books and though I’d left mine at home I joined the queue – behind Pete’s Ealing Art College mate Richard Barnes as it happened – and when I reached the front I asked Pete about something that was on my mind regarding Speedy Keen. “Tell me Pete,” I asked. “That song Speedy wrote for Sell Out. Is it ‘Armenia City In The Sky’ or ‘I’m An Ear, Sitting In The Sky’?”

    “The second choice,” he replied. “I’m An Ear, Siting In The Sky’.”

    Not sure whether I believe him but it’s always nice to spend an hour in the company of Pete Townshend. 

(The picture at the top of this post, with CC between Mark and Pete, was taken by a friendly girl with my camera, the inferior one of Mark and Pete by me, from the second row.)

GIVING PEACE A CHANCE AT THE CONVIVIAL RABBIT

The Convivial Rabbit, a tiny, one-room pub tucked away down an alleyway off a back street in the ancient town of Dorchester, is unlikely to attract much passing trade. On its walls are photographs of comedians and a few faded music posters, and the furniture, the tables and chairs, look like they were picked up at clearance sales. An old upright piano, rarely played, could use a skilled tuner's TLC, and on its top is a notice that reads, ‘No drinks, drugs or firearms on the piano’. The beer, however, is excellent, served straight from the barrel and the gentleman behind the small bar was kind enough to charge me only half the price of a pint when he was unable to fill my second glass to the brim because the barrel had run dry. 

        This gesture warmed my heartstrings, as did the evening’s entertainment for on Sundays at the Rabbit there gathers a group of amateur musicians who play and sing for one another, simply for the joy of it, about 20 of them, young and old, and being as how Sunday was Remembrance Day the theme of the evening’s music was peace, a sort of antidote to those events where it seems to me that war is glorified while those whose lives have been sacrificed by it are simultaneously honoured. On Sunday night at the Convivial Rabbit war was blamed for causing the loss of far too many innocent lives. 

        I was in Dorchester overnight to stay with a musician friend whose apartment in a converted hospital resembles the cluttered stockroom behind a store that sells acoustic musical instruments. They’re on the walls, on stands and lined up in cases in his spare room, and come 7pm on Sunday night my pal Frank and his pal Phil packed up what they could, a guitar, mandolin, concertina, violin and a bodhran, the native drum of the ancient Celts that looks a bit like a huge tambourine and when played with a tipper, a short double-ended drumstick, sounds like a floor tom. Thus armed, off we went into the foggy night, two right turns and into the Convivial Rabbit where Melanie, Frank’s sister, acting as hostess for the evening, opened proceedings by sweetly singing ‘There But For Fortune’, a song by that arch American anti-war protester Phil Ochs, in whose apartment in Los Angeles I spent three enjoyable months in 1973. When Frank made this known to the assembled company my cover was blown, and I was obliged to explain myself, sort of. “Yes, I was once a music writer,” I confessed. “Still am, I suppose.”

        Bob Carter, a skilled finger style guitarist, was up next, picking away on an amplified classical guitar, John Williams style, and, as became evident as the evening drew on, he was the most skilled instrumentalist in the room, a pro in fact. Most weren’t but might have been had they been dealt the right cards, especially an oldish fellow who played excellent guitar and gave us an original song called ‘Convalescent Blues’, a tale of woe that laments soldiers lost in conflicts both old and recent. Frank on guitar and Phil on violin offered up ‘A Pair Of Brown Eyes, the Pogues song, and ‘Mary And The Soldier’, a traditional song that dates back to 18th Century Ireland, more recently popularised by Paul Brady. 

        And so the evening progressed, with just about everyone, regardless of their skill set, encouraged to serve up something or other, occasionally unaccompanied, acapella, though one or two instrumentalists quickly sussed the singer’s key and joined in with gentle fills or an appropriate chord. By the end of these songs as many as half a dozen might have joined in, often on a quickly absorbed chorus, and a white-haired, well-fed chap with a mandolin was particular inspired in this regard. A lady recited poetry and another lady, who wore a white poppy, sang ‘Army Dreamers’ by Kate Bush, accompanied, a bit haltingly, by Frank on guitar. Someone sang ‘The Grand Old Duke Of York’, prompting a few sly remarks about the current Duke of York and all and sundry to join in – they were neither up nor down – on its rousing chorus. A husband and wife team harmonised beautifully together on two melancholy songs in keeping with the theme of the night though, in contrast, there were a few jigs on accordions, one Scottish air and a Brazilian piece by Bob the maestro. A lady of mature years next to Melanie chimed in with ‘I Didn’t Raise My Son To Be A Soldier’, an American anti-war song. A young man with a crew cut played guitar on a song that sounded to me a bit like Nick Drake, and when Frank and Phil performed ‘Brothers In Arms’, the Dire Straits song, I decided I had to make some sort of contribution to the evening. It seemed churlish not to. Melanie conceded the floor to me. 

        “The greatest disappointment of life was the realisation at the age of 10 that I couldn’t song for toffee,” I told everyone. “In the covers band I played in as a teenager the others wouldn’t let me near a microphone, not even when we closed our shows with ‘Twist And Shout’.” This raised a few laughs. “So, instead of inflicting my singing voice on you all, I’ll recite the words to a song I love that I think also works as a poem. It’s called ‘Hello In There’ and it’s by John Prine.” A few heads nodded in recognition and off I went…. “We had an apartment in the city...”. When I reached those sad lines in the first verse that chimed with the theme of the night – “We lost Davey in the Korean War, still don’t know what for, doesn’t matter anymore” – I paused for effect, and when I’d finished – “Just say hello” – the room didn’t exactly erupt, but there was a grateful round of applause. I'd done my bit, and hadn’t embarrassed myself.

        It was a minor contribution, and many more substantial efforts followed, too many to list here. At the close Bob on his classical guitar sang a song called ‘Labrador’s Ears’, about losing your favourite pet, which had nothing to do with the alternative Remembrance Day theme but everything to do with sadness, and being as how we had lost our Labrador Shiloh not five years past (https://justbackdated.blogspot.com/2019/01/shiloh-2006-2019.html) I grew a bit misty eyed and ordered a glass of red wine to toast all my friends who’ve passed as a way to finish my evening at the Convivial Rabbit.

        Music, in all its variations, is a wonderful thing. 

(The picture at the top of this post was taken by Frank during a break in the music. 

Your man from Just backdated can be seen at the back.)

WE ALL SHINE ON – John, Yoko & Me by Elliot Mintz

“They were paradoxes, John and Yoko, filled to the brim with internal contradictions. On the one hand they could be incredibly sensitive, honest, provocative, caring, creative, generous and wise. On the other they could be self-centred, desperate, vain, petty and annoying. In John’s case, also shockingly cruel, even to Yoko.”

        So writes Elliot Mintz, spokesman for the Lennons both before and after John’s brutal murder, who certainly has a tale to tell and it is to his great credit that he has waited so long to tell it. A radio broadcaster by trade, his introduction to the Lennon’s came in 1971 after he interviewed Yoko about her LP Fly. Sympathetic attitudes towards Yoko being thin on the ground in those days, she was charmed by Mintz’s support and they stayed in touch, or at least she continued to phone him to chat, often late at night, for reasons he at first found difficult to understand. 

        Several months went by before she put John on the phone, ostensibly to interview him on air too, and much the same thing happened. Indeed, he and John spoke so regularly that Mintz had a second phone installed in his LA home for calls from the Lennons, with a blinking red light to warn him one of them was on the line. When they finally met in person a friendship developed and Mintz became privy to their bizarre lifestyle, not as a paid employee but as a reliable, discreet ally, a sounding board with whom they might discuss anything under the sun, a resource upon whom they could occasionally rely in emergencies and someone who would turn a blind eye to indiscretions. He filled this role with tact and distinction and the tone of his book suggests it remains the most fulfilling relationship of his life.

        Mintz’s services were definitely required. “John was functionally a child when it came to taking care of himself,” he writes. “He never learned to do his own grocery shopping, never paid a utility bill or mailed a package or involved himself in any of the myriad mundane tasks the rest of us spend so much of our daily lives mired in. He was clueless about the most basic elements of human commerce, like money and how to buy stuff with it.”

        The book spans the 1970s, the final decade of John’s life, and for the most part describes encounters between Mintz and the Lennons, most of which shed light on their occasionally perplexing beliefs and lifestyle. These reminiscences are clearly selective, chosen for their weirdness, which enlivens the book no end, but we are led to believe that many more encounters took place about which Mintz does not write, possibly because they were not as interesting, or possibly because he’s saving them for a sequel. Moreover, it’s a shame his tape machine wasn’t hooked up to the Lennon hot line, as we also learn that “hundreds” of phone calls occurred between him and the Lennons, just as they exchanged “hundreds” of letter and postcards*, a handful of which are included as illustrations in the book. Dialogue is therefore assumed, but it rings true, Mintz having learned to translate John’s idiosyncratic speak patterns, part funny, part Scouse, part endearingly Lennonesque. He always referred to Yoko as Mother. 

        Much of what Mintz writes about John chimes with my own beliefs or what I have read elsewhere. He was a klutz when it came to practical matters, and a terrible driver. He spent lengthy periods of time alone, often watching TV, mostly in their expansive apartments in the Dakota on New York’s Westside. He was fiercely protective of The Beatles’ legacy and disliked any comparisons that suggested they were influenced by others, especially Bob Dylan. He was a fan of numerology, as practised by Yoko, and food fads designed to reduce weight or otherwise enhance his health. Also, like the other three, he was not above playing the Beatle card to ease his passage through life. 

        Surprisingly, Mintz wasn’t at the judicial hearing in 1975 when John was awarded his green card, which enabled him to travel freely, but he did accompany the Lennons to Japan in 1977, a delightful trip for everyone involved, and became a sort of temporary third parent to John’s sons Julian and Sean when child minding was required. He was also present when, one Christmas (the year is unstated), Paul McCartney turned up at the Dakota where conversation between him and John was strangely stilted. It goes without saying that he was devastated by the events of December 8, 1980, and flew immediately to New York to offer himself as a pillar for Yoko to lean on. Aside from a few swipes at certain individuals who sought to capitalise on John’s death, the book contains very little about the years that followed. 

        We All Shine On is not a long book – I read it in two four hour sittings – its 300 pages are typeset sparsely with generous leading and there are plenty of unused pages throughout. It is illustrated with photos at the start of each of its four parts, has 16-page plate section and a useful index. 

_____

*Hunter Davies’ book The Lennon Letters, published in 2012, is an illustrated, annotated collection of over 200 letters that John wrote to all and sundry, authorised by Yoko, but it contains not a single one to Elliot Mintz, nor is Mintz mentioned in its index. In the light of the “hundreds” of letters Mintz claims to have received from John, I thought this was curious but Hunter enlightened me. “I never saw any letter [Mintz] says he received,” he informs me. “Yoko provided none alas, just her blessing and an intro and [she] allowed me to use her copyright on all John’s writings. For which she got 50 percent of all proceeds, without providing any letters. She said she was keeping what she had.”

CROWDED HOUSE – Brighton Centre, October 12, 2024

The evolving satellite that is Crowded House beamed down into Brighton on Saturday night, parking two luxury coaches and a pair of giant trucks at the rear of the town’s big seafront venue and entertaining a packed, mostly standing, audience to two hours and, by my count, 26 songs, two of which seemed like impromptu jams. The bulk of the setlist, however, was a deftly chosen selection of five tracks from their new album Gravity Stairs, the remainder a delightful excursion through their past, a deep well of wonder wherein lie heaps of crowd favourites going all the way back to Split Enz. 

        There is something gorgeously uplifting about a Crowded House show: how their songs of yearning are delivered with the utmost sincerity yet, at the same time, how they banter amongst themselves, occasionally bickering or taking the mickey; how they encourage crowd participation of a higher standard that at most gigs, at least last night; and, perhaps most of all, how they react with one another, looking like they’re having so much fun while playing and singing flawlessly. It’s infectious. They’re a great pop band, always have been, and no mistake.

        This latest edition of CH numbers eight, with Neil Finn front and centre, the principal singer and writer, without whom CH would not exist. He’s looking a tad older these days, his head of bushy hair now grey, his sports jacket an antidote to fashion, and he’s content nowadays to leave the lion’s share of the tricky guitar work, the solos and fills, to his son Liam who stands on his right and rises reliably to the role. For most of the set Neil plays acoustic, 6- and 12-strings, and permits himself only the odd solo on electric, and his singing voice, that yearning tenor, shows no signs of deterioration through age. 

        On the other side of the stage there’s bass player Nick Seymour, white Fender Precision worn low, lurking around in baggy check trousers and playing deft lines high and low of his four strings. Nick is also showing signs of age but, as bass players go, he has a higher profile than most, as befitting his long service alongside Neil, and he likes to go walkabout on stage, striding purposefully behind Neil to the other side of Liam and back, letting us all know that he enjoys his job and is as crucial to the CH ambience as all the Finns, now numbering three with Neil’s younger son, Elroy, on drums behind his dad. 

        On keyboards at the back is Mitchell Froom, distinguished producer of records by CH and many others. Determinedly anti-fashion, with a receding hairline and wearing what looks like discount-store spectacles, his appearance suggests a harried state-school geography teacher, and he maintains the lowest profile of anyone while offering the organ wash and piano flourishes that underpin so many of CH’s best songs. To his left, after Elroy, we have another percussionist, Paul Taylor, who takes over the main kit when Elroy plays occasional guitar, and, perhaps surprisingly, two Greek musicians, Tryfon Baitsis on acoustic guitar and Elias Dendias playing a frequently prominent bouzouki which sounds a bit like a mandolin. Most, if not all, of these musicians sing, offering up a choir of unusual depth and scope. 

        Crowded House, all eight of them, arrived in the dark carrying lanterns, puzzling everyone, and when the lights came up we beheld a stage decorated with frond-like tentacles, some arcing over the musicians, all of which made the stage look a bit like an undersea painting. They hit the right note immediately: ‘Weather With You’, one of their best-known songs and one most bands might choose to save for their encore. It set the tone for the evening. They were here to please and for the first half hour there were no introductions, no messing about, as they slid through ‘Teenage Summer’, from the new album, ‘World Where You Live’, ‘Something So Strong, ‘Fall At Your Feet’ and another new one, ‘Oh Hi’. The old favourites were greeted like friends arriving at a house party. 

        There was characteristic CH banter before ‘To The Island’, from their 2021 album Dreamers Are Waiting, with Nick claiming for no particular reason that his bass lines were what most fans came to CH shows to hear, with Neil disagreeing, and it continued after ‘Black And White Boys’ when a roadie brought on a small piano for Neil to play and sing another new song, ‘Black Water, White Circle’. This involved a warm-hearted appreciation for his crew, which, if I remember rightly, contrasted sharply with the last CH show I saw when he and a roadie got into a furious – but probably staged – argument about his guitar being out of tune. Neil continued to play the small piano for ‘Whispers And Moans’, ‘Either Side Of The World, from Intriguer, and a lovely, warm-hearted ‘Message To My Girl’, the starry-eyed late-period Split Enz song. 

        By now CH’s professionalism, fluency and easy-on-the-ears songs had won over an already sympathetic crowd and they followed up with two more gilt-edged winners: ‘Fingers Of Love’ and ‘Private Universe’, the latter offering Elroy a chance to excel on his kit and the whole band to stretch out on an extended coda. In concert, CH are a meatier proposition than on record, and though no one grandstands in the manner of instrumentalists who solo endlessly, the depth of their individual skills was as evident as it was understated. 

        When the ovation died down, Neil introduced the two Greek musicians who entertained us with some traditional dance music, the kind of thing that often accompanies the smashing of plates in restaurants that serve taramasalata and souvlaki, washed down with Retsina. This served as a prelude to ‘When You Come’ which, pardon the pun, reached a shattering climax, and brought to mind CH’s fondness for songs with loosely erotic undertones, three of which – ‘Whispers And Moans’, ‘Fingers Of Love’ and this one – they chose to play tonight. I wouldn’t have minded hearing the fourth in this sub-genre, ‘Into Temptation’, which is suggestive of adultery, but it was not to be.

Finn brothers Liam (left) and Elroy, with Mitchell Froom in the background. 

        ‘Thirsty’, another new one, featured the three Finns, father and sons, in a line on guitars at the front, Neil and Elroy on acoustic and Liam on Telecaster, whereupon Elroy reassumed the kit and CH delighted everyone with ‘Four Seasons In One Day’, a mass singalong, then moved into the closing stretch with ‘Pineapple Head’, ‘The Howl’, from Gravity Stairs, a fast and furious ‘Locked Out’, the superb ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, their first hit, which I mistakenly assumed was the show closer, and the equally splendid ‘Distant Sun’. 

        There was a break before the encores: ‘It’s Only Natural’ – preceded by an impromptu groove, ‘Saturday Night In Brighton’, made up on the spot by Liam – followed by ‘Some Greater Plan (For Claire)’, the loveliest song on the new album, and a concluding ‘Better Be Home Soon’, inspiring yet more singing from the appreciative audience. Neil was the last to leave the stage, gracefully acknowledging the applause and had the lights not come up I’m pretty sure the crowd would have welcomed plenty more from his private musical universe. 

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON – The Wild American

It is as a great songwriter that Kris Kristofferson will be best remembered but for me his death recalled the time his lawyers attempted to stop a biography of him that I had commissioned for Omnibus Press. 

        It was 2008. Stephen Miller had already written a very good Johnny Cash book for Omnibus which I commissioned about a year before Cash died in 2003. The book came out shortly afterwards, which led to accusations that it was written hurriedly to capitalise on this. The accusers clearly had no grasp of the realities of the time it takes to write and publish a 150,000+ word book. Stephen, a retired solicitor, would also write a well-received biography of Dolly Parton and a book about the Million Dollar Quartet – Elvis, Jerry Lee, Cash and Carl Perkins. 

        But back to Kris Kristofferson. Stephen Miller approached me with the proposal and I went for it. When he delivered his book, our sales department announced its publication date on Amazon, standard practice these days, where it was seen by Kristofferson’s lawyers who lost no time in writing to us demanding that we abandon the book for fear of reprisals. Their letter included a harsh warning about the perils of libelling their client. We decided to ignore them but at the same time I was advised by our legal department that our book should be read for libel and any breaches of copyright.

        It’s no secret that Kris Kristofferson did not live a saintly life. Like many in his line of work he was promiscuous, took drugs and liked a drink. This sort of behaviour was detailed in the book that Stephen Miller delivered but our libel lawyers, who always erred on the side of caution, advised us to remove all references to Kristofferson’s wayward tendencies. I argued that they were well known, that Kristofferson had spoken candidly about these aspects of his life in interviews and that to ignore them was to misrepresent the man. I even found a TV interview on YouTube in which Kristofferson spoke freely about his bad habits. In the end we came to some sort of compromise and the references to his womanising, drug use and boozing were watered down.

        The book, titled The Wild American, came out. We heard nothing from Kristofferson’s lawyers. About six months later it was announced that Kristofferson was writing his own book about his life and would not shy away from writing about personal issues that he later came to regret, the inference being his torrid love life, drugs and the bottle. “Ho hum,” I thought. “Looks like another ‘My Drug Hell’.” The real reason why his lawyers threatened me, of course, was because our book would compete with Kristofferson’s own, and they wanted a clear field, or – at the very least – his own book to be published before ours. 

        I don’t even know now whether or not Kristofferson’s own book was ever published. I can’t find it on Amazon, which suggests it never happened or has gone out of print. But not long after we learned about it I recall asking our lawyer a hypothetical question: “If we had published our book as it stood, without watering down the material about his womanising, drugs and alcohol, and Kristofferson’s lawyers had sued us for libel and won – and then he’d published his own book including all the same sordid details, what would have happened?”

        Our lawyer told me that if he – Kristofferson – had been awarded damages he’d have had to give whatever the sum was back to us, plus costs. 

        Of course, I have no way of knowing whether or not Kris Kristofferson even knew about what was going on behind the scenes with regard to our book. I suspect he didn’t and that his lawyers were operating on behalf of Kristofferson’s advisors without his knowledge. Still, it was interesting to learn that celebrities who try to stop publishers from putting out ‘unauthorised’ books by threatening libel proceedings over hedonistic behaviour can come a cropper when they write their own memoirs that sensationally admit their own debauched tendencies.

        None of which takes away from the fact that Kris Kristofferson, the composer of ‘Me And Bobby McGee’, ‘For The Good Times’, ‘Help Me Make It Through The Night’ and many more, was a great songwriter.

CROWDED HOUSE – GRAVITY STAIRS

Not content with sounding a bit like The Beatles, the cover of the new Crowded House album, Gravity Stairs, looks a bit like the cover of Revolver and, what’s more, it opens with a bit of studio weirdness, a bit like ‘Taxman’, before settling down into familiar Crowded House territory that is sustained throughout the entire record; a change, then, from many of the tracks on the last two CH albums that sounded to me as if Neil Finn was groping around looking for something beyond the perfect pop style he’d perfected for the group he’s led since 1986. I’m glad he’s back where he belongs and looking forward to seeing him and the latest edition of CH in Brighton next month, a review of which will appear on Just Backdated in due course.

In the meantime, we have Gravity Stairs, recorded by Finn with long serving bass player Nick Seymour, also responsible for graphics, ergo the Revolver look, Finn’s sons Liam, on guitar and vocals, and Elroy, on drums, along with Mitchell Froom, producer of four CH albums, who now plays keyboards with the group. Tim Finn, Neil’s brother, adds occasional backing vocals, and the blend of the brother’s voices here and there is probably responsible for the new record sounding as pleasing to these ears as 2007’s Time On Earth, the last CH album I really liked, and that bit more enjoyable than the two that followed it, Intriguer (2010) and Dreamers Are Waiting (2021).

Crowded House still sound a bit like The Beatles, which is no bad thing of course. This stems not just from the vocal harmonies which can, at times, appear inspired by the second side of Abbey Road, but how Nick Seymour’s lyrical bass lines underpin many of the songs on Gravity Stairs in ways that echo Paul McCartney’s sense of melodicism and occasional flights of unexpected fancy. The overall emphasis on song writing is a CH trait that goes back to their first hit ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’, still their best known-song, which may or may not be infuriating for Neil Finn.

After the studio trickery, the new record opens with ‘Magic Piano’, a wistful song brimming with optimism, its inscrutable lyrics giving the album its title and setting the scene for songs that for the most part seem to float on the breeze, tranquil, unhurried, considered, this latest alignment of CH comfortable in its own skin but not afraid to add a touch of weirdness here and there to spice the pie. 

        ‘Life’s Imitation’, which follows, is a tad quicker, driven by a rhythmic acoustic guitar, its lyrics similarly enigmatic, its title appearing on my computer as ‘Teenage Summer’, a repeated phrase among words that seem like an apology for absence. ‘The Howl’, the first single from the album, written by Liam Finn, takes its cue from past CH endeavours, underlined by one of those sparkling guitar figures that inhabit so many CH songs, before it slips further into familiar territory on a soaraway chorus featuring high harmonies. ‘All That I Can Ever Own’ sees Neil musing on his past on an anthemic ballad in the same vein as ‘How Will You Go’ from Woodface, while ‘Oh Hi’, not a million miles away from Bowie’s ‘Everyone Says Hi’ on Heathen, boasts another catchy chorus. The midpoint is reached by trilling mandolins that lead into ‘Some Greater Plan (For Claire)’, a gorgeous, luscious ballad, a love song, the slowest song on the album, quite lovely, and to these ears the album’s key track. It’s certainly superior to the three that follow, neither of which reach the standard set thus far. Indeed, ‘Blurry Grass’ by Elroy and his dad, sounds like an outtake. Happily, Gravity Stairs is redeemed by the two closing songs, ‘Thirsty’ and ‘Night Song’. The former features female voices quite prominently – there are hints of them elsewhere on the record, some belonging to Finn’s wife Sharon – which I believe is first for Crowded House. After a bit of weirdness ‘Night Song’ opens dreamily but gathers pace to bring the album to an eccentric conclusion. 

        Anyone seeking more CH gems like ‘Weather With You’, ‘Distant Sun’ or ‘It’s Only Natural’ might not find it amongst these songs but I’m not bothered. Gravity Stairs is beautifully produced pop record by a group led by a craftsman.