21

IN WHICH… I RECALL CONCRETE MEMORIES OF LOCAL GIGS

I have a vague memory of seeing a couple of pop package shows at Harrow’s Granada Cinema in the mid-1960s, but the first groups I saw close up were probably the local bands Smoke (not the ‘My Friend Jack’ chaps) and Axe. I was mates with one or two of the performers. This was at the Harrow Commune in Rayners Lane, which was also where my fledgling rock career began and ended on the same night, with a debut by Concrete Mosaic that was also the farewell performance.

Mosaic was launched by my great chum Martin Wilson – once with Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band – when there was a delay in proceedings at the Commune. Possibly energised by the vibe in the room and the substances wafting through the air, he decided to provide some entertainment of his own by creating music from anything which came conveniently to hand. Inviting me to join him we banged spoons, battered crockery, thumped furniture, and sang an improvised melody unhindered by anything as conventional as instruments. Martin, a traditional blues-man at heart, and master of the mouth-harp, hypnotically chanted his own original lyric as I harmonised:

‘Blood spurts freely in seven different shades of red…’

I’ll momentarily spare you the rest of the lyrics. We were given a standing ovation – there were no seats, as I remember – and we decided we’d never be able to match our debut, so we immediately announced our retirement. But there was a reunion of sorts when Martin, who worked in the darkroom of the newspaper where I was a rookie reporter, invited young snapper Phil to make us a trio. We posed at a photo shoot and were featured in the paper as the local band to watch. We began talking vaguely about taking time out to get our heads together in the country before starting work on our first album. We’re still working on it.

To the point that I recently persuaded Martin to rewrite the next lines of our greatest hit, ‘Blood Spurts’. In order to concentrate properly on the exercise he retired to the smallest room in his house, emerging some while later with a piece of paper in his hand, on which was written:

‘BLOOD SPURTS FREELY INTO SEVEN DIFFERENT SHADES OF RED…

CASCADING DOWN THE FACE OF LIFE AS THE HEAVENS PART,

THE INNER SANITY OF YOUR MIND BEGINS TO STRAIN

TILL AT LAST IT EXPLODES AND EVAPORATES IN THE NEW DAWN.’

Martin’s wife, Jackie, sent me the lyrics, along with her own exclusive review of them:

‘WHAT A LOAD OF SHITE!’

By the way, Martin’s stint with Captain Beefheart’s band lasted some ten minutes. Martin had arrived at a local venue, Harrow’s Tithe Barn, where the good, if very odd, Captain was to promote his latest LP, Safe as Milk. As he queued to gain entry the group arrived. Making their way in, long-haired, muso-looking Martin was quizzed by the venue owner: ‘Are you with the band, man?’ Martin told him he was. ‘I then spent an awkward few minutes with the Captain, and, if I remember correctly, Magic Band members Ry Cooder and Winged Eel Fingerling, even accompanying the Captain, not on my mouth organ, but to the gents where we occupied adjacent stalls. I have little accurate recall of our subsequent conversation, but no contract to join the band was forthcoming.’

All of this was happening around the point at which I realised that I preferred hearing other people making music, and accepted that I had no ability whatsoever in that field other than being able to operate a record player.

These were days, though, when it was easier both to afford and get tickets for bands, particularly if you were working for the local paper and could offer publicity in return for free entry. Using this cunning plan I became pally with the guys running the Farx Club (they also ran another Farx in Potters Bar) in a small pub basement in Southall and there I saw many bands playing the type of music I love to this day:

*Audience, who just should not have appealed to me, because of their jazzy tinge and sax content, but their meaty, involving songs won me over.

*Blossom Toes, and their genuine, quirky psychedelia which turned dark on ‘Peace Loving Man’.

*The Groundhogs, with Tony (T.S.) McPhee, so dedicated a blues enthusiast that producer Mike Vernon persuaded him to add the initials to his name to emphasise his affinity with authentic American blues-men. They weren’t his own initials, but stood for Tough Shit. However, in 1970 the Groundhogs suddenly embraced piledriving heavy rock on their classic LP, Thank Christ for the Bomb.

*High Tide – so loud I remember the building shaking, and who had thrillingly included an amplified, screeching violin in their line-up on debut album Sea Shanties. Only in November 1979 would I again experience so thunderous a threat to the wellbeing of my eardrums – when Sheila and I sat innocently in our Hammersmith Odeon front row seats waiting for AC/DC to entertain us. The charismatic but doomed Bon Scott and the Young boys almost literally blew us out of our seats. After two or three numbers the audio assault sent us scurrying back several rows, looking for another couple to change places with. As a result, we can still just about hear today. I doubt that the other pair can.

One of the most sought-after singles from the psychedelic era is ‘Boy Meets Girl’ by Paper Blitz Tissue from 1967, currently worth £500. I saw the band play live, back in what must have been late 1967 or early 1968. I cannot remember whether it was at the Starlite or the King’s Head – probably the former. I remember an impressive light-show.

The Starlite not only showcased top names like Cream, Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck, the Moody Blues, Small Faces, but also lesser lights I’d love to have seen but for the demands of homework during 1966 and 1967 – such groups as Open Mind, Human Instinct, Fleur de Lys, The Gods, Syn…

Despite being a rock and psych lover from very early on, I also learned to love reggae and disco as a form of self-preservation, if only, initially, to avoid getting my head kicked in. In November 1969, I was thinking that might be a real possibility. I’d been a little less than complimentary in my record review column – not to reggae, ska and rock steady, but to the skinheads who had adopted it. This resulted in a letter I received at work a couple of days after the ‘13-11-69’ dateline neatly written at the top of a lined sheet of paper containing the following message:

‘Mr Sharpe (note the absence of the traditional ‘Dear’ when writing to someone with whom you are not personally acquainted),

On reading your “Record Rendezvous” in this week’s Post I object strongly to your idea to combat reggae music. Nine out of ever (sic) ten people between the ages of 15-19 have cropped hair.

It’s people like yourself with your long blonde curls (last five words underlined in red, despite the fact that never in my life have I had such hair) that should be demolished, and that music, oh what’s it called! O! Yes progressive (more underlining in red), should find a dark corner and seat (sic) on it.

Yours

Skinhead.

PS (all of the rest of the letter was underlined in red)

LOOK OUT FOR A MARK ONE GUIDED PROGRESSIVE DESTROYER MISSILE. HA! HA! AND GROW UP!’

The evidence of my affection for this music is there to this day, hidden within plain sight, in my singles’ record collection. There, amongst the bulk of rock and psych, are lurking a good few ska and rock steady discs which proved to be lifesavers. You’d also spot unforgettable and very popular soul tracks by Eddie Floyd, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett; lesser known floor fillers by Cliff Nobles And Co (‘The Horse’), Peggy Scott & Jo Benson (‘Lover’s Holiday’) and Rex Garvin & The Mighty Cravers (‘Sock It To ’Em, JB’); plus, of course, maximum Motown. These are records you couldn’t persuade me to part with for substantial financial amounts; they are too much an integral part of me and my past. I didn’t boast about owning these records then. They didn’t earn me any Brownie points amongst the psych cognoscenti and blues-rock boys, but they helped keep me alive when quizzed by the local hardnuts who could seem friendly one minute, before appearing behind you waving a bottle at your head if they’d decided you’d somehow offended their code of honour.

The most important discotheque to us was the King’s Head Hotel, on historic Harrow-on-the-Hill, home of the world famous Harrow School, which educated and sent out into the world both Winston Churchill and John McCririck, neither of whom, to my knowledge, was ever spotted at the ‘King’s’ disco, attached to the side of that hostelry. The pub claimed to date back to the 1500s, and Henry VIII was said to have been either a visitor or even the owner. Churchill, no disco dancer, was, though, rumoured to have been a regular in the infamous ‘men only’ bar.

Apart from buying so many of the records which DJ Bruce would spin to get his regulars dancing, I also have a flashback to the disco nights of the late 1960s and early 1970s at the King’s every time I hear Steam’s early 1970 Top Ten hit, ‘Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye’. This was playing loudly in my friend Dave Furlong’s car, in which I was a back seat passenger, as he endeavoured to park it close to DJ Bruce’s rather sportier pride and joy, a high-performance Sunbeam Tiger, only to miscalculate and drive backwards into the front of this valuable vehicle.

This incident acquired a certain amount of notoriety when I wrote about it in my record review column in the local paper…