KEITH RICHARDS - The Great Drugs Bust of 1967

This morning I read in my paper that Keith Richards is to write a children’s book about his relationship with his grandfather Theodore August Dupree who introduced young Keith to music. “I’ve just become a grandfather for the fifth time so I know what I’m talking about,” the great man is quoted as saying.

         So, today, we’ll go back in time to when becoming a grandfather was the last thing on Keith’s mind. Here’s the first of two extracts from Butterfly On The Wheel: The Great Rolling Stones Drugs Bust by Simon Wells, published by Omnibus in 2011, a blow-by-blow account of what really happened on the night police raided Keith’s home, Redlands, at West Wittering in Sussex and how the Establishment – police, tabloid press and local judiciary – conspired in a futile attempt to end the career of The Rolling Stones.

         We join Keith and his house guests on Sunday February 12, 1967. Among those present are Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, the gallery owner Robert Fraser, the interior designer Christopher Gibbs and the mysterious David Shneiderman who provided Keith’s guests with an assortment of drugs. They have spent a pleasant afternoon on the beach and are now relaxing in Keith’s living room, listening to Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde loud on the stereo and ‘coming down’ from the effects of California Sunshine acid taken earlier in the day. Little do they know that the News Of The World has tipped off the police about their activities…

At 8:05 pm, what appeared to those inside to be the face of a middle-aged woman pressed itself against the sole window whose curtains weren’t drawn. Schneiderman was the first to spot her and he alerted Richards who, believing it to be an intrepid fan, wasn’t unduly bothered, only slightly irritated by the intrusion. An unfortunate by-product of his local celebrity was the occasional unsolicited drop-in by over eager admirers, not least because word on the fan network was that Keith was fairly receptive to such visits though they rarely, if ever, occurred after nightfall.

         What bemused Keith more was that the face at the window appeared to be more of a “little old lady” than a teenage fan. Hoping that by ignoring her she would go away, everyone did just that but after a few minutes she began tapping on the glass. Again she was ignored.

         Five minutes later a thunderous banging on the front door left no one in any doubt that this wasn’t a fan after an autograph. As a wave of unease cut through the atmosphere, a languidly stoned Fraser dismissed the loud knocking with a curt and haughty retort. “Don’t bother,” he billowed. “Gentlemen ring up first. Must be tradesmen.” Faithfull too, offered a wonderfully child-like response. “If we don’t make any noise,” she whispered, “if we’re all really quiet, they’ll go away.” It certainly seems that those inside remained fairly unmoved by what was occurring outside. As the observer at the window would later declare, “There was no panic or anything like that.”

         Eventually Schneiderman turned to Richards and offered to see who it was. Without replying, Richards took on the mantle of householder and walked over, unlocked the door and found himself confronted by the stout figure of Chief Inspector Gordon Dineley of the West Sussex Constabulary. In his large white overcoat and braided cap, he cut an imposing presence in the darkness. At Dineley’s side was Detective Sergeant Stanley Cudmore, the detective who’d first taken the call from the News Of The World. Given the five-minute time lapse in responding, the Chief Inspector had considered forcing down the door to gain entry.

         While it was pitch black outside, the squad of 18 police would have been an incredulous sight for Richards’ dazzled senses. Indeed, in his disoriented state he had some difficulty in figuring out what was happening. He’d later reflect that they appeared to him to be more like a troupe of goblins from The Hobbit than anything as mundane as police officers.

         As realisation slowly replaced bewilderment, Dineley engaged Richards with the preliminaries to the raid. “Are you the occupier and owner of the premises?” he asked.

         Slightly bemused by the officious request, Keith replied with a chuckle: “Well, I live here.”

         Holding up a sheet of white A4 paper, Dineley explained the reason for his and his colleagues’ presence. “I am Police Chief Inspector Dineley of the West Sussex Constabulary, and I have a warrant to search these premises and the persons in them, under the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1965.”

         Handing Richards the warrant, Dineley then invited him to read its contents. This Keith did, attempting to decode the legal text headed with a decal of the crown. Embedded in the warrant was the unequivocal line declaring that the police were “to enter, if needs be by force, the premises of the said Keith Richards”. In addition to the legal requirements were the names of the police personnel primed to cross Redlands’ threshold.  Following his reading of the 30-line document, Richards acquiescently responded to Dineley, saying: “All right, I have read it.”

         With that, Dineley and his team moved into the house. Rumoured to have been mentioned that night, but not confirmed in police documents, Richards allegedly said to his house guests: “Look, there’s lots of little ladies and gentlemen outside. They’re coming in. They have this funny piece of paper, all sorts of legal rubbish.” The police constables were dressed in traditional uniform, while detectives wore plain clothes. The “old lady” seen earlier at the window was, in fact, Detective Constable Evelyn Florence Fuller, drawn from Bognor Regis police station for the night. “As I entered the house,” she later recalled. “I noticed an unusual smell. It was not the smell of burning wood. It was similar to that of incense.” Detective Constable Thomas Davies too, would take note of “a very strong, sweet, smell” inside the house. Leading the team into the Redlands’ drawing room, Dineley repeated to the occupants what he’d said to Richards earlier, that the property was to be searched for drugs.

         Close behind Dineley was Cudmore. He too caught a “rather strong, sweet smell” on entering the premises and, later, in all the other rooms of the property. He recalled in detail the scene, especially the deportment of Jagger and Faithfull. “Jagger and a woman were sitting on a couch some distance away from the fire,” Cudmore later noted. “This woman had wrapped round her a light coloured fur skin rug which from time to time she let fall, showing her nude body. Sitting on her left was Jagger, and I was of the opinion that he was wearing makeup.”

         The police jostling for space with Redlands’ nine residents made for a fairly crowded scene. While drawers, cupboards and various receptacles were being searched, a state of confusion fell over those present. “No one was expected that night,” recalled Gibbs. “Then all of a sudden, these people in blue came flooding in. It was a rather dream-like experience.”

         Adding to this strange drama fast unfolding, the record player was still blaring out from the two huge speakers. With conversation above the sound system virtually impossible, Dineley asked Richards to turn it off. “No,” replied the defiant musician. “We won’t turn it off, but we’ll turn it down.” The muted television set remained on.

         Leaving sufficient personnel to cover the downstairs sweep of the house, D.C. Fuller and Sergeant John Challen began a search of the upstairs rooms. Fuller’s exploration led her first to the room that Jagger was sharing with Faithfull. Aware that the details of her search might be scrutinised in court, Fuller’s inventory was extraordinarily detailed. “There were pink ostrich feathers lying on the bed,” she’d later report. “On a chair in the bedroom were items of clothing; a pair of black velvet trousers, a white bra, a white lace Edwardian blouse, a black cloth half coat, a black sombrero-type hat and a pair of mauve-coloured ladies boots, one of which was lying on the bed, the other on the floor. I also noticed a large chest of drawers on the top of which were a number of books on witchcraft; one book was called Games To Play.” Fuller also noted that on the floor was a large holdall which contained “two or three dagger-type weapons”.

         While Fuller was making an inventory of Mick and Marianne’s possessions, Challen searched Richards’ bedroom. Finding a “pudding basin containing three cigarette ends” by the bed, he extracted the contents and placed them in a plastic bag. Once finished inspecting Keith’s bedroom, he joined Fuller in Marianne and Mick’s room. With Fuller noting the fine detail, Challen examined the pockets of the clothes in the room. Inside Jagger’s green velvet jacket he found four white tablets in a clear plastic phial in the left-inside pocket, the amphetamine pills from the couple’s Italian holiday which had remained in Jagger’s jacket ever since. 

MOONIE, OLIVER REED And The Girl In The Cake

Another extract from Dear Boy.

         It is the beginning of 1976, and Keith is living in Los Angeles, in a three-bedroom house in Sherman Oaks, largely because the mansions of Beverly Hills and Bel Air are no longer affordable to him. He is not a happy man.  

A man of extremes, the Keith Moon at ‘home’ in the Valley – confused, insecure, insomniac, struggling with alcoholism, impatient for the next Who tour, dreaming of an acting career while doing nothing of note to pursue it – felt compelled to make up for it when on public display. The occasion that February when Oliver Reed threw a secret fortieth birthday party for his older brother (and right-hand man) David at the Beverly Wilshire became one of Keith’s most exhaustive and explosive ‘performances’.

         It can be told factually or anecdotally. As with so much that happened around Keith, everyone has a slightly different recollection. Best perhaps, to leave it to the memory of the raconteur actor who arranged the occasion.

         “I invited some people that I knew,” says Reed. (Annette [Walter-Lax – Keith’s girlfriend] recalls it as one of the few events they attended where the Hollywood crowd outweighed the music industry.) “And Keith asked if he could invite Ringo and people like that. I'd always heard about these girls jumping out of cakes, but I'd never seen one. So I got this girl who volunteered to jump out of the cake and introduced her to my brother beforehand at the cocktail party, and there was Keith rolling his eyes, he couldn't wait. We sat the girl next to David, everything went fine, and I got a sign from the man and went into the kitchen, and Moon was up like a rat out of a drainpipe, and the girl undressed and went into the cake. And the chefs helped ice her in.

         “We went back and sat down. This huge great cake with 40 candles on it was dragged down, and then boom! Up came the girl out of the cake, with her boobies hanging out of the top tier: 'Surprise surprise!' And with that Keith picked up a bun or a bread roll and threw it at the girl. And with that the man that I used to travel with, his wife picked up a bread roll and threw it at her husband, and then the husband threw one at somebody else and then they all started throwing bread rolls about the place. Moonie then got up and started grabbing all the tablecloths – the pink ones that I'd ordered to go with the pink crockery – and dragged them off the tables. All the crockery went up in the air. He then went and jumped on the table and got these pink chairs and started smashing the chandeliers, and I just dived at him and dragged him across... I dragged him into the kitchens... He had gone completely berserk.”

         It had happened in a flash – mere mischief mutating into Moon mayhem, a party ruined, a room destroyed, damage to be paid for, apologies to be made. Oliver Reed had never witnessed anything like it. And for all that he loved his friend and, according to many of those who knew them both, was a bad influence who brought out the worst in Keith, the behaviour shocked him. He could only put it down to drugs. It wasn’t the kind of sudden madness that a few cocktails would bring on.

         There was more to it than that. “He'd cut himself. He'd cut his hand. So I held it above his head while they called the ambulance. He was on the floor and someone was keeping his head down and his mouth shut. And then the ambulance fellows came in, gave him a jab, calmed him down and took him to hospital. After which I went back upstairs. The people had screamed and run out because of Moon sprouting blood everywhere and the whole thing was in chaos, the waiters were going crazy, and bodyguards were punching people out... And Ringo was sitting at the table, just shaking his head like he'd seen it all before.”

         The bill for replacement of chandeliers, new carpets, crockery and so on ran into tens of thousands of dollars, footed by an Oliver Reed who never dreamed of asking his friend to pay up. “And I’ve never been allowed in [the Wilshire] since.”

MOONIE AUDITIONS FOR THE BEACHCOMBERS - An Extract from Dear Boy

By way of a change this week and next I will be posting extracts from Omnibus Press books that I have commissioned and edited over the years, opening with the one of which I am most proud, Tony Fletcher’s Dear Boy, his biography of Keith Moon, which has become one of our best-ever selling titles. In America this book is titled Moon: The Life & Death of a Rock Legend.

         It is December 1962 and The Beachcomers, a popular local group in North West London, have placed an advert in the Harrow & Wembley Observer for a new drummer. Prospective candidates are to convene with their kits at the Conservative Hall on Lowlands Road, by Harrow-on-the Hill station, for auditions. Keith Moon, all of 16 and keen as mustard, has answered the ad.

Clyde Burns and the Beachcombers, their roots going back to the skiffle boom, were members of the lost generation of semi-professional cover bands, faithfully replicating the hits of the day without giving thought to what might make the hits of tomorrow. So polished at this craft were they that they were often billed as ‘Shadows of the Shadows,’ which for most bands in the very early Sixties was the ultimate compliment. After all, what were the Escorts [Keith’s previous band – CC], or any of the other hundreds of other youth club bands across the country, aspiring to be, if not shadows of the shadows? Who else was there to take after in the musical dark ages? And if you couldn’t be the originator, why not be the best imitation in town?

         The Beachcombers were popular, too. They hadn’t made any records, but then few bands did. And though they didn’t attract publicity like Screaming Lord Sutch, they didn’t offend people either. The Beachcombers got bookings at many an army base, drill hall, pub, ballroom and community centre and what mattered was that they were always asked back. They were true semi-pros. Lead guitarist Norman Mitchener and bassist Tony Brind, who grew up on the same street in Stanmore, and rhythm guitarist John Schollar, from Preston Hill, were all apprentice draughtsmen just out of their teens. Vocalist Ron Chenery (aka Clyde Burns) came from South Harrow, was a couple of years older than the others and worked as a service engineer. These were good jobs that they all intended holding on to, but though they were only part-timers at the music game, they were fiercely dedicated ones. To this end they had recently ousted drummer Alan Roberts, who like so many of his generation had started out on a converted washboard during the skiffle craze only to be found lacking once he progressed to a full drum kit.

         The Beachcombers performed a few shows with Cliff Bennett’s former drummer Ricky Winters, and would gladly have kept him, but Winters had quit the Rebel Rousers to get married and no way was his wife giving him back up to rock'n'roll so quickly. That was the problem with this game: it was wonderful while it lasted, and you played it for as long as you could, but ultimately your employer or your girlfriend got you in a corner you couldn’t back out of, and you felt obliged to give up the music and ‘settle down’. Too few people ever made it at rock'n'roll to risk sacrificing your good relationship or a steady job.

         So the Beachcombers placed an ad in the local paper and that cold December night the four phantom shadows, along with their friend and occasional van driver Roger Nichols, went to the Conservative Hall hoping there was someone else in the neighbourhood who wanted the job and was good enough to do it.

          Judging by the turn-out – a half-dozen young men all with their own kits – it looked as though their luck would be in. Trouble was, this little boy had turned up as well, his father acting as chaperone. How embarrassing.

         – I’ve come for the audition, the boy said with great excitement at the first opportunity.

         – You’re too young, replied the Beachcombers more or less in unison. Come back in a few years, one of them taunted.

         The Beachcombers set up inside the hall with the first drummer they liked the look of, who put up his kit opposite the band so as to see them play, follow their chord patterns and watch their movements: being shadows of the shadows meant perfecting the choreographed walks as well as the music. But when it came to drumming, he just didn’t have the style that the Beachcombers knew they were good enough to demand. They told him they’d be in touch and went back out to the hallway. The other drummers were still there. So was the little boy.

         – Come on, he said. Let me have a go. I’m good.

         – We thought we told you, came the reply. You’re too young. You wouldn’t be allowed in most the places we play.

         They called in another drummer instead. And it was the same thing – set up opposite the Beachcombers, watched them closely, didn’t have what it took. And still the little boy was waiting outside.

         – We’ve come all this way, the least you can do is try him out, said the boy’s father, pulling rank.

         The Beachcombers switched tactics.

         – He’s not old enough to drive, someone now pointed out. You need transport to be in a working band.

         – That’s alright, said the father. I’ll drive him. I’ll drive you all.

          But that wasn’t what they meant. All the Beachcombers came from happy, stable families; they loved their parents dearly and invited them to the more prestigious local shows. But they didn’t need someone’s dad driving them around. They were adults; Ron had even done National Service. This was a men’s band.

         And so it went. The next drummer, no good. Nor the next. By this time, the little boy with his unquenchable enthusiasm and refusal to take no for an answer had them intrigued. After all, the Beachcombers said to each other, it’s not like we’ve found our replacement yet. We might as well give him a try. At least he won’t think his journey’s been wasted. And you have to admit, he’s persistent.

         The last drummer completed his unsatisfactory audition and still the boy was out there, hopeful.

         – Come on then, they finally said, aware that they sounded like they were humoring him (and how else could you sound when you were semi-pro and a little boy wanted to join your band?). Show us what you’ve got.

         Keith was inside and setting up his drums so fast it was as though they came pre-erected. The Beachcombers were impressed by that, and by the quality of the kit too: a professional quality pearl blue Premier. But what really piqued their curiosity was the way Keith set up his drums not opposite the band, as if he were auditioning, but behind them, as if he already belonged. The kid had balls, that was for sure. Now to see if he could play with them. They suggested a rock'n'roll standard, something they thought a 16 year old might know, and counted out the intro. The kid came in on the beat...

         “... Like a bomb going off behind us,” as John Schollar remembered the moment with distinct clarity half a lifetime later. “We couldn’t believe so much noise was coming from this little nipper behind these drums.”

         “There were no nerves,” recalled Tony Brind equally vividly. “We said, 'How about Chuck Berry, Elvis,’ whatever, and he said, 'Oh yeah, I know that,' and off he'd go, completely confident. No fluffing it.”

         “He was good, he was loud,” was Norman Mitchener’s memory. “He had something in his playing. His snare work was heavy and it was drivey.”

         “And we thought he was the best of the lot,” said Ron Chenery.

         The Beachcombers threw a couple more songs at the boy, including the new Shadows single ‘Dance On!’ which they would be required to play next time out if they were to maintain their reputation as penumbra imitations. Keith performed it perfectly.

         “The next thing I remember is we were all around Norman's, having coffee with a new drummer,” says John Schollar. “His dad said, 'What about the drums?' and we said, 'Don't worry, we'll take him home.'”

THE NEW YORK DOLLS AT SELFRIDGES

Back in 1973 The New York Dolls came to London and played in Biba's, the fashionable department store on Kensington High Street. During the afternoon of the gig Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane, Dolls guitarist and bassist respectively, went strolling around the store and, as was their want, nicked some gear or, at least, switched some price tags. Unfortunately the store security saw them and they were promptly arrested and marched into the office of Barbara Hulanicki, the divine founder of the store. "They were two bedraggled looking creatures... reluctantly we had to let them go," she later wrote. 

         All of this came to mind on the evening of March 10, 2006, when I went to see The New York Dolls, or what remains of them, playing in a large area of the basement of Selfridges department store on Oxford Street. It was called the Ultra Lounge and it was very dark and noisy and smoky, and throughout the evening beautiful models in off-the-shoulder short black dresses with long legs and six-inch heels plied me with champagne as I shouted above the din, trying to make small talk with old friends from the music press.
         The event was to mark the opening of a punk fashion week, though quite why the Dolls had been flown over at huge expense from New York for one free gig escaped me completely. For starters they weren’t really punks, more 60% glam, 35% Rolling Stones clones with the remaining 5% punk – but only in attitude, not musically. Far better surely, to have had some genuine English punks up there signing about nihilism than these excitable New Yorkers looking for a kiss.
         It was strictly invitation only and the invites themselves – big yellow pieces of plastic with cut out letters – indicated that this was a swish do. It was only thanks to the intervention of my old pal Bob Gruen, the NY-based photographer, that I got an invite from the snooty PR lady at Selfridges, who was initially unwilling to part with one in my direction as I was neither an influential taste-maker nor a photogenic celebrity. She told me that entry was limited to 200, so unlike most freebies it wasn’t overcrowded. In the event I was probably one of a tiny minority there who’d actually seen the Dolls in their heyday, in the early Seventies, when all of them were alive – well, not the first drummer admittedly, but she wasn’t to know that. Bob’s iconic pictures of punks in CBGBs and elsewhere adorned one wall of the Ultra Lounge, and were on sale at fabulous prices. On another wall were life-size pictures of punk girls in ‘interesting’ Agent Provocateur lingerie. What with the models sashaying provocatively around the room, it was a very sexy evening.
         Until the Dolls appeared the DJ played punk and reggae for two hours, and I circulated with a rarely empty champagne flute chatting to a surprisingly large number of people I knew or was introduced to. One of the latter, curiously enough, was the journalist who was conducting an interview with John Entwistle at the exact moment Pete Townshend phoned to tell him that Keith Moon had died the previous night. We swapped Who stories. My old mate Glen Matlock was there too – long ago I published his book, I Was A Teenage Sex Pistol – and Keith Allen, the actor and former hedonist, whom I played alongside in the Rough Trade XI cricket team back in the eighties and whose daughter has since become more famous than him. (I remember Lily as a toddler playing at the edge of cricket pitches.)
         It would have been around midnight when the Dolls finally tottered on to the small stage in their high heels and finery but they played so excruciatingly loud that I was hard pressed to identify anything other than the opening number, ‘Personality Crisis’, a song that was played endlessly at Max's Kansas City, the arty bar and venue in Union Square where I used to hang out in NY before Ashley's opened. Thereafter the Dolls turned up and up and, in a room with a relatively low ceiling which was never intended for live music anyway, the sound degenerated into a great wash of noise that repelled all but those with no concern for their eardrums. I don’t think my ears have been assaulted in such a way since I stood on John’s side of the stage for Who shows back in the Seventies. As ever, David Jo pranced around like Mick Jagger, colliding into Sylvain – the only other living and breathing original Doll – and sharing his mike. Also on stage were an additional guitarist, a bassist and drummer, all of whom looked like they could be David Jo’s prodigal sons but they were all up to the task and despite the volume the Dolls didn’t disappoint.
         Between songs one of the models lingering tantalisingly close to me leaned over to ask the name of the band. “The New York Dolls,” I shouted into her perfectly-shaped ear. “Where are they from?” she shouted in mine, thus reinforcing the long held view that beauty and brains are mutually exclusive.
         My ears were still ringing when I climbed into bed, and it’s the first time that had happened for as long as I can remember. Also, incidentally, there were no reports of any of the Dolls helping themselves to unpaidfor goods.

JOHN AT ASHLEY'S - New York, 1975

In 1975 in New York I spent many a night at Ashley’s Bar & Restaurant on 5^th Avenue and 13^th Street which was run by my pal Ashley Pandel, who’d had a music biz PR company called The Image Group and who before that worked for Shep Gordon, Alice Cooper’s manager. In the mid-70s, Ashley’s was THE music industry hang-out in NY, its regular customers including Alice, Lou Reed, members of Kiss (unmasked) and every visiting Brit rocker in town for a few days. Ash ran the joint with his brother Carl (who turned me on to the genius of Edward Hopper’s art) and third partner Ed, there was a restaurant and bar downstairs and a members-only club upstairs. I spent many happy hours there – the food was great and the waitresses were gorgeous too.

           One night I was there I went upstairs to find (and excuse the name dropping) John Lennon with his friend Peter Boyle, the actor, and Boyle’s companion Lorraine Alterman, whom I knew well as she wrote for Rolling Stone and also contributed occasionally to Melody Maker. John invited me to join their table and was on good form, cracking jokes and graciously signing autographs for anyone who asked. At one point in the evening he turned to me and said: “Have you noticed it’s always men with moustaches and beards that ask me for my autograph?” I said I hadn’t but that I’d watch out in future and, sure enough, it seemed he was right. Only men with moustaches and beards asked John for his autograph. “It was always the same,” he said. “Me and George got the guys with beards wanting to know the meaning of life, while Paul and Ringo got the girls!”

             Inevitably, perhaps, a short while later a girl came to ask John for his autograph. Much to our amusement, though doubtless to her amazement, John grabbed her around the waist and sat her down on his knee. ”Where are you now McCartney?” he shouted. “I’ve got a girl at last.”

             It was a long night. I recall John and I discussing reggae music and the emergence of Bob Marley as a world superstar. John insisted that The Beatles had recorded reggae music long before ‘Obla Di Obla Da’ on the White album, citing the solo in ‘I Call Your Name’ on the Long Tall Sally EP as an example. When I listened to it later I realised he was dead right.

             We closed the place and, because John took a fancy to a waitress who’d been serving us, stayed for an after-hours drink which turned into several. The waitress joined us, as did my friend Ashley. Peter Boyle did some wonderful impersonations, including absolutely stunning portrayals of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino in The Godfather. We even persuaded John to sing a Beatles song – unaccompanied – and he chose ‘You Can’t Do That’. Eventually we all left together in John’s silver limousine and headed for the waitress’ apartment in Greenwich Village. While John remained closeted with her in the bedroom the rest of us helped ourselves to her coffee and gradually filtered away. It was 6 am when I left, daylight outside, and John was still there.

SHAKIN' ALL OVER

I saw The Pirates a few years ago on a Saturday night at the Ace Café on the North Circular near Wembley. The Ace is still a bikers' hangout, and that night I wore my oldest black leather jacket, a white t-shirt and blue jeans, drank too much beer and can’t remember how I got home.
         The Pirates, with the late Johnny Kidd (aka Fred Heath), were a key band in the lost world of pre-Beatles British rock'n'roll, a world that is endlessly fascinating to me and also encompassed Lord Sutch & The Savages, The Outlaws, The Crusaders, Heinz & The Tornados, Cliff Bennet & The Rebel Rousers, producer Joe Meek and a few others, but did not include those 'rockers' who became family entertainers, like Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and Adam Faith.

         Like the pre-fame Beatles and their contemporaries up in Liverpool, these groups kept the rock’n’roll flame burning while all around them British record labels fobbed us fans off with tosh. From that world there graduated three guitarists who would find great fame and fortune in later years, Jimmy Page, Ritchie Blackmore and the magnificent Albert Lee, and a few others (including Chas & Dave), all of whose adventures are documented in my mate Pete Frame's fabulous book The Restless Generation and his Rock Family Trees of the pre-1963 era. Writes Pete: “These are the pre-Beatles voyagers who criss-crossed Britain in draughty Dormobiles overladen with people and equipment, playing rock'n'roll for whatever rewards they could get.”
         They're all heroes in my opinion and I've had the privilege of meeting a few of them, including quite recently drummer Clem Cattini, the legendary drummer of the Tornados who played on ‘Telstar’ and who, in 1960 and for the first half of ’61, played with Johnny Kidd & The Pirates.

         Johnny Kidd, of course, wrote and with The Pirates recorded the magnificent ‘Shakin’ All Over’ which reached number one in June 1960 and ought to have brought about a realisation among record company A&R staff that that this was the kind of record that people liked. Alas, it didn’t and it took three more years for this to happen. Many years ago in my guide to the music of The Who I wrote: “With the possible exception of ‘Move It’, ‘Dynamite’ and ‘It’ll Be Me’ – the only decent records Cliff Richard has ever released – ‘Shaking All Over’ is the sole pre-Beatles UK rock’n’roll song of any serious merit, and also the best. With its startling guitar riff, heavy bass line, minor key and lyrics that really do shake and rock, ‘Shakin’ All Over’ sounds exactly like it could have been written by one of the great American Fifties rock songwriters, maybe even Eddie Cochran or Leiber & Stoller. Instead it was written by the leader of The Pirates, one of the first truly ballsy rock’n’roll bands in Britain. Contemporaries of The Detours (as The Who were then known), it was The Pirates, with their singer, guitar, bass and drums line-up, who convinced Roger Daltrey that he should abandon his own guitar, fire The Detours’ singer and occupy centre stage himself. That left Pete as their sole guitarist and he took no little notice of Pirates’ guitarist Mick Green whenever the two bands shared a bill, which was often."
         It was great to see The Pirates still out there rocking away that night at the Ace Café and I take my hat off to them. All together now:

Quivers down my backbone
I got the shakes down my knee bone
Yeah the tremors in my thigh bone
Shakin’ all over

THE LAST MAD SURGE OF YOUTH by Mark Hodkinson (Pomona Books)

Still in book reviewing mode…

         Novels set in the rock world tend to be pot boilers in the downmarket Jackie Collins mould wherein our hero is a one-dimensional stereotype profligate cocaine-hoovering shagger who gets his comeuppance when the money runs out and his nose drops off, yet is redeemed at the last minute by the love of a good woman and/or religion, and about as satisfying as half a pint of lemonade shandy. Serious novelists don’t touch rock for fear of getting stuck in the cliché mire, and I can’t blame them, but this book by Mark Hodkinson is an exception. I reviewed it for the Rocks Back Pages blog when it first came out in 2009. BTW, Mark has written for Omnibus Press, most notably his biography of Marianne Faithfull which both of us have good reason to believe the lady herself refers to when writing her own books, not that she’d ever admit to it of course.

In this taut, pacey and authentic rite-of-passage novel, Mark Hodkinson offers an inside look at the unsentimental realities of being in a band, the injustices and the indignities, at the same time recounting the contrasting lives of the one who made it and is hanging on grimly, and his childhood best friend and former band colleague who didn’t. That their lives become intertwined again many years later provides the climax to the book and a twist in its tail.

         Barrett is a rock star, or at least was, once the kingpin of a band called Killing Stars who seem not unlike the Clash; punky, idealistic, political, intent at first on not selling out but inevitably coerced into doing so, at least in part, by the machine. He’s now a forty-something alcoholic and whimsically unpredictable, still revered by many, living reluctantly on his past, releasing new albums that don’t sell, and his latest marriage is failing. Carey was a founder member of the band, quitting just before they were signed, unsure of his role and musical ability. He’s now a newspaper reporter on the local paper where he and Barrett grew up, a dismal, unnamed northern town that suffered brutally under Thatcherism. His hopes of becoming a novelist are still alive but fading fast.

         What Barrett and Carey have in common are depressing housing estate childhoods, a lack of formal education despite their obvious artistic gifts and an undimmed belief in the heroic struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie. They both loathe tradition, conformity, Top Of The Pops, clubs called Bojangles, anything that smacks of selling out for commercial gain. Where they differ is in ambition. Barrett smoulders with resentment at anything and everyone and this gives him the sense of purpose that takes Killing Stars, with varying personnel, from the backrooms of pubs to arenas, though the period when the group enjoy fame and fortune is left to our imagination, no doubt to avoid cliché. He’s clever too, writes enigmatic lyrics and gives good interviews, and like many of his ilk is an incorrigible womaniser. Carey lacks this drive and is just about content with his lot, occasionally envious of his old friend, especially when he reads about him in NME, but he’s still a thinker and a reader and in his own quiet, diligent and dignified way hasn’t quite given up on his dreams.

         The structure of the book, a few paragraphs or a page or two about one, then the same about the other, makes for a fast-paced read, especially in the first half when the rise of Killing Stars during the ’80s with Carey in its ranks, authentically told by an author who clearly knows his way around about the music industry, its pitfall and scams, is set against Barrett’s edgy behaviour as a rapidly unravelling dipso twenty years later. Though there is no discernable interval, in the second half, when Carey is drawn back to Barrett through an opportunity to become his biographer, the pace slackens off as the dialogue between them dwells more on how circumstance has shaped their lives and outlook. It’s the same with real rock biographies – it’s far more fun reading about how they made it than what happened afterwards.

         There are some comical set pieces, including a Barrett TV interview that goes horribly wrong a la Pistols-Grundy, and some finely drawn minor characters like the band’s and Barrett’s managers, an NME writer and the editor of the local newspaper. The female characters, chief among them Barrett’s long suffering wife and the key woman in Carey’s life, are less convincing. Had Hodkinson been a writer of Ian McEwan’s ingenuity, he’d have fashioned an ambiguous ending in the manner of Atonement wherein The Last Mad Surge Of Youth might (or might not) be the biography that Carey had been commissioned to write. As it is the ending is one of those where you wish you spotted the clues earlier but didn’t, and the book is all the better for that.

         I’m pretty sure that everyone who takes more than a passing interest in the music press and understands the realities of art verses commerce in rock will enjoy this novel as it ticks all the relevant boxes. Highly recommended.

PLEASE PLEASE EXPLAIN!

A footnote to yesterday’s post…

Reading Tune In I was struck by some uncanny similarities in the evolution of The Beatles and The Who.

          Both groups were formed by rebellious, street-wise teenagers who loved rock and roll and could to sing it brilliantly, and at the outset both these founding members recruited fellow schoolboys who had neither the will, ambition or talent to stay in the game. In both cases these boys were kicked out one by one and gradually replaced by superior musicians. One group was called The Quarrymen and the other The Detours.

          The leader of The Quarrymen, name of John, chose as his first able-bodied recruit another guitarist whose talent he admired, name of Paul, who turned out to be a superb bass player. The leader of The Detours, name of Roger, spotted a bass player, another John, and invited him to join his group and he too turned out to be superb on bass. Once comfortably installed in The Quarrymen, Paul recommended to his leader John a skilled guitarist, name of George, and John sanctioned his arrival, thus cementing a core trio of front men guitarists. Similarly ensconced in his new group, the other John also recommended a good guitarist, name of Pete, to his leader Roger who also sanctioned his enrolment, thus also cementing a similar core trio of front men.

          The John/Paul/George group had a drummer called Pete with whom they weren’t really happy because he didn’t fit their psychological profile and he lasted for about two years until they found the right one. The Roger/John/Pete group had a similar drummer problem with a chap called Doug for about the same length of time. The John/Paul/George group found the right drummer, Ringo, from among the many other groups in their locale, as did the Roger/John/Pete group when Keith showed up. In both cases the new drummers were very experienced, well acquainted with their new employers and, indeed, having recognised their superior skills had set their sights on joining them.

          Both groups paid serious dues before the right drummers arrived, one in Liverpool and Hamburg and the other in West London. Both groups built up a local fan base before they recorded, in both cases through their industriousness and growing confidence as stage performers. Both groups recorded flop singles under a different name for labels that would drop them immediately afterwards (The Beat Boys’ ‘My Bonnie’ for Polydor and The High Numbers’ ‘I’m The Face’ for Fontana). The appearance of the right drummers put the final piece in the puzzle for both groups, lighting the blue touch paper and sending them on their way big time. Finally, the leaders of both groups married young, before they became famous, and both groups had gay managers who, at the outset, were hopelessly inexperienced in the ways of the music business.

          Along the way, of course, The Quarrymen became The Beatles and The Detours The Who and their paths would diverge wildly when things got moving. The songwriting situation devoloped very differently in both groups and in one of the groups the leader abandoned his guitar to sing without it - but I reckon there are sufficient similarities in the evolution of both groups for this post to at least make a bit of sense! 

TUNE IN - An Overview

I finally finished reading the de luxe edition of Tune In at the weekend. Here's my final summary: 

Opposite the title page of my copy of The Beatles At Abbey Road is the above inscription which its author, Mark Lewisohn, wrote at the book’s launch party in 1988 held, appropriately enough, in Studio Two where the group recorded almost all of their music. This was Mark’s second Beatles book after the almost-as-impressive Live, and when I read it I realised that not only had he become the world’s leading authority on The Beatles but that he’d been recognised as such by the group, or at least Paul McCartney, Apple Records and those at EMI charged with overseeing the distribution of their music. Such recognition was the only possible explanation for the unlimited access he’d had to the Aladdin’s cave that is The Beatles’ Abbey Road archive.

         Mark subsequently compiled his two books and additional research into The Complete Beatles Chronicles, a large format diary-style chronology that remains the standard reference book on the group’s career. In the meantime he was employed as a researcher by Apple on the Anthology series and to write liner notes on Beatles reissues, all of which added to his impregnable status as the world’s leading Beatles historian.

         Like most observers who take an interest in such matters I first became aware of Mark when I read about him in Philip Norman’s Beatles biography Shout, the first book to seriously peel away the layers of secrecy and deference that seemed to surround the group. Norman acknowledged Mark as a point of reference long before the ‘Beatle world’ at large became aware of him, and to say Mark has realised the promise that Norman recognised in him is to seriously understate the case.

         Nevertheless I felt that Mark had since become an ‘insider’ and

this, I mused, was a double–edged sword. ‘Official’ recognition often comes at a price, usually the need to compromise when it comes to revealing matters that the subjects might prefer remain under wraps, controversial issues like inter-group disputes, behaviour that involves sex, drugs and alcohol, financial chicanery, all the things that people want to read about but which are all too often swept under the carpet in the need to present a positive image to the public.

          Similarly, I’d imagined that Mark’s obvious devotion to The Beatles, his evident love of their music, would render him unwilling to write a book that was 100% objective; that his mission – as in his previous books – was to present facts, diligently researched and always 100% accurate but facts pure and simple, without comment or critical analysis. In short he could never write about The Beatles as a detached observer.

         Well, how wrong I was. Switching from Beatles fact-finder to Beatles biographer seems to have reinvigorated the skills I noted in Funny Peculiar, Mark’s disquieting biography of the comedian Benny Hill which spared few blushes when it came to revealing Hill’s less likeable traits. Tune In, the first volume of Mark’s All These Years trilogy, presents The Beatles in the same way, with all their dirty washing hanging out to dry, all their unseemly behaviour, their vanities and drinking and promiscuity, on view in hitherto unimaginable detail. This is not to say that Mark's book dwells on scandal, nor that it muck-rakes unduly or seeks to expose The Beatles as dislikeable or disreputable in any way; no, this is simply precisely what happened as it happened, researched through over 250 interviews and heaven only knows how many letters, documents and newspaper clippings. Tittle-tattle is dismissed, accepted myths demolished, all leads investigated, and the natural authority of Mark’s writing conveys without question that THIS IS THE TRUTH, good and bad, take it or leave it.

         There are insights too numerous to mention, not least a number of bizarre coincidences, as well as the facts you would expect alongside many new ones, and all are laid to rest in ways that suggest Mark has researched his subject so forensically as to render all previous Beatle biographies redundant at a stroke. To recap: John was a force of nature, the indisputable leader of the group, capricious and extreme each and every way, callous one minute, compassionate the next, totally unpredictable, incorrigibly loutish and definitely dangerous to know; Paul was earnest, occasionally vain and scheming, and unusually ambitious, determined to be a pop star with or without the group; George was watchful and shrewd and Ringo was the ultimate survivor, a hero who took all that life could throw at him and hurled it right back; John and, most especially, Paul were naturally gifted, their talents inherited from Irish forebears, but George had to work at it which he did with extraordinary diligence; all four Beatles were unreservedly dedicated to American rock from the moment they first heard it, students and connoisseurs par excellence, probably more knowledgeable of the genre than anyone else in all of Europe; all four necked pretty much everything they were offered and were promiscuous on a level that, for the era, defies belief, terminally incapable of being faithful to their regular partners, a state of affairs that will no doubt escalate as opportunities increase along with their fame; Pete Best was never a Beatle because he was never in a Beatle mind-set; JP&G stuck together like glue, developing a shared sense of unity that simply refused to be extinguished, a resolve that brooked no opposition, be it parental, financial or practical. They somehow knew they were going to be ‘The Beatles’ and the way Mark tells their story you know this was meant to be.

         Although not a literary stylist in the manner of a practised novelist, Mark has a pleasing, easy-going style so that despite its length the book rarely sags. His portrayal of the deprivation endured in post-war Liverpool is particularly eye-opening, and in the extensive acknowledgements I was charmed by his evocation of fifties Liverpool observed from Lime Street Station as he imagines the Beatle parents going about their daily business. He also has a whimsical tendency to include the odd Beatle lyric within the text, almost as if by accident but that’s surely not the case. He explains in some detail the sources of the group’s early repertoire and it is a surprise to learn that contrary to widespread belief John and Paul did not write ‘hundreds’ of songs before they became famous and, indeed, wrote very little either individually or together between 1960 and 1962. The genesis of those Lennon and McCartney originals that did emerge is covered in great detail (I especially enjoyed reading about the evolution of ‘I Saw Her Standing There’) which suggests later volumes will be equally perceptive in this regard. Ringo’s life story is told in parallel with those of John, Paul and George until they merge in the summer of 1962, and both Brian Epstein and George Martin receive similar treatment and detail. Those episodes in the story that Mark feels are of paramount importance – J&P meeting at the Woolton Church Fete and the death of Stuart Sutcliffe – are given chapters of their own, much shorter than most, and the huge wealth of footnotes and endnotes is never less than fascinating.

        Finally, in writing a biography as substantial as Tune In Mark has conferred upon The Beatles the same status as any great historical figures, be they statesmen, scientists, writers, entertainers, sportsmen, religious figures or royalty. In this regard Tune In positions The Beatles alongside Churchill, Darwin, Shakespeare, Chaplin, Mohammed Ali and any pope or king and queen you care to mention. Quite right too – their influence is as great and the pleasure they gave far outweighs all of them put together.        

         Mark Lewisohn’s destiny in life seems to have been to write this book, the definitive book, the only one that is truly worthy of its subject. Bring on Book Two. 

POP QUIZ - Dead Or Alive?

Because the questions are more likely to be about One Direction or Justin Beiber (about whom I know absolutely nothing) than The Who, I tend to shy away from pop quizzes when they crop up in my neighbourhood social life these days. Those few local friends who know a bit about my background tend to assume that it’ll be a big bonus having me on a pop quiz team, only to find out that I’m really hopeless answering questions on what passes for 21^st century ‘pop’ culture, boy and girl bands, TV talent show winners and those I tend to regard now as children’s entertainers.

So it gives me great pleasure to recall the occasion some years ago when I attended the annual Albury Sports Club dinner, held in a gigantic marquee on Albury Heath where my son Sam used to play his football, for it was here that my prodigious knowledge of rock won me a magnum of champagne which I shared with all the other mums and dads of the boys who played for Albury Eagles Under-14 side.

The competition took the form of ‘dead or alive’ questions. About 300 people in this marquee took part, and stood up at their tables. Names of rock stars were then read out through the PA. If the rock star was alive you put your hands on your head, if he or she was dead you put them on your bum. If you got it wrong you sat down. This was easy-peasy for me and at first I told the others around my table how to answer. Five minutes into the game and everyone on our table had realised that for some strange reason Sam’s dad got it right every time. We were all standing at our table while all around us people were sitting down. So Kate, the coach’s wife, told me not to tell everyone the answers, and so those at our table began to sit down, eventually all bar me.

And so it went on until only two of us were left standing in the entire room, me and another chap on another table. As finalists we were invited on to the dance floor where more names were read out (amongst them Moonie – well, I ask you!) and we kept getting them right again and again until the DJ just decided it was a dead heat and gave us a magnum each.

When I got back to our table everyone wanted to know how come I knew all this, so I explained, and for the rest of the night these friends with whom I cheered on our boys from the touchline every Saturday morning quizzed me about the rock biz. They hadn’t a clue about my past because it’s not something you talk about during football games. Now they all knew. Yes, I did meet John Lennon. Yes, I did go on tour with Led Zeppelin (one of the dads turned out to a bit of a Zep fan). Yes, I did know Keith Moon.

The champagne gave me a mega-headache next morning but for once – and only once – my rock knowledge proved useful after all.