I had long been a fan of the Bonzo-Dog Doo-Dah Band when I met Neil Innes in a men’s boutique in Carnaby Street in the late sixties. Seeing a thin bloke with long hair wearing round shades and a cowboy hat across the store, I thought I was seeing my own reflection in one of the many mirrors – and so, it turned out, did he. His song ‘I’m an Urban Spaceman’ had just entered the charts, as had ‘Lily the Pink’ and we were to meet often over the coming months in television studios where we discovered that each group shared the other’s Dadaesque sense of humour. So much so that the Scaffold plus Andy Roberts decided to team up with two of the Bonzos and do some shows together, and over the following months we played to packed houses at the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, Manchester’s Free Trade Hall and the Dome in Brighton. This fusion of two anarchic groups we called Grimms (Gorman, Roberts, Innes, McGough, McGear, Stanshall) and it appealed to various managements who had no problem in signing us up to a record label. In 1973 we released two albums for Island, GRIMMS and Rockin’ Duck, which you’re unlikely to own, which is a pity because the sleeve of the latter is contained in a snazzy cardboard duck, which when removed can be worn on the head to amaze and delight your friends. The original line-up had been given added poetic zest with the inclusion of Brian Patten and Adrian Henri, augmented by various musicians as required, most notably Zoot Money, Ollie Halsall and, on one occasion, Keith Moon, who came on stage towards the end of our show at Kingston Poly and took over from our regular drummer. He was wearing a Viking helmet at the time, which was fairly apt because he raped and pillaged the drums. Coming off to wild applause after kicking over the cymbals and stabbing the snare-drum, he put an arm round a sobbing Mike Giles and said, ‘Don’t worry, mate, it’s only money.’
Money, however, was not a commodity we saw much of. Following a fit of benign Communism at the outset, it had been decided to split all monies equally, and as some shows involved up to a dozen people on stage, plus sound engineers, lighting technicians, roadies, feng shui specialists and chiropractors, we were working for the love of it. Also, although on some nights the show was magical, Grimms was no fairy tale, and perhaps a more fitting title might have been ACANI (All Chiefs And No Indians). And some were warring chiefs and when they had taken of the firewater bad things happened. Like at Glasgow University when Brian was centre stage reading his love poems in that distinctive, boy-lost, melancholic voice, and had to contend with empty lager cans lobbed at him from the wings. The lobber was Viv Stanshall, a ginger Gandalf on mescalin and Special Brew, who couldn’t understand why Brian was upset: ‘Don’t worry, dear boy, it’s only poetry.’
Like on the coach returning from Manchester Poly late one Saturday night in November 1973, when the Liverpool poet and the Beatle brother finally came to blows. Whereas Brian had flourished within the Grimms set-up, gaining confidence as a performer and coming up with theatrical ideas that were incorporated within the show, Mike had lost his way. No longer the lead vocalist, his only creative input were songs that the musicians didn’t care for, and with his expensive stage suits and penchant for staying in four-star hotels while the rest of us stayed in B&Bs, he became an increasingly isolated figure. When he got off the coach that night and hitched a taxi back to Heswall, Mike had decided, ‘I would cease my flirtation with showbiz therewith. Brian poet sent me a lovely apology by post, but my mind was made up. I had stopped being an entertainer.’
Viv had also climbed off, or rather, had been helped off, after the first tour. Although audiences loved him, there could be no denying the morbid fascination they felt as his reputation for being a wild man and a drinker grew with each performance. Will he forget the words? Will the microphone he’s swinging hit Neil on the back of the head? Will he fall off stage? Will the next can he throws at Brian be on target?
He was bright as tartan custard
Loved the greasepaint and the roar
He shimmied along a tightrope
The safety-net nailed to the floor.
We all loved him, too, but he was such an eccentric, an innocent with an artistic ego that made it impossible for him to co-operate with others, and as co-operation was the whole ethos of Grimms, inevitably he sought another tightrope along which to shimmy.
But how we missed him being first in line with his tray at the motorway café. From the depths of whose deranged mind the idea had arisen I’m not sure, but it became the custom after the gig for the coach to call in at a motorway café, usually around two in the morning, where we each had to create and eat the most disgusting combination of food. Haddock and peas covered in custard proved popular, as did quiche and cornflakes. My fairly meek platter of apple pie and bacon was surprisingly tasty, the sweetness of the former offsetting the saltiness to pleasing effect. Other toothsome suppers eaten and enjoyed were raspberry jelly with poached egg and Liquorice Allsorts, and bakewell tart with beans and deep-fried onions. The most surreal part of the event was always the matter-of-factness shown by the girl at the till. Looking up from Viv’s tray, which included a plate piled high with lamb chops and Black Forest gâteau covered with prawn curry, and pointing to a cup of tea with two sausages standing up in it, she asked coolly, ‘Is that tea or coffee, luv?’
Adrian Henri, following his initial enthusiasm for the project, began to sense that there was one poet too many in the group, and one night after a gig at the South Pole, as we huddled together for warmth, nursing our mugs of cocoa, he stood up and, opening the flap in the side of the tent, announced, ‘I am just going outside and may be some time,’ then disappeared into that godforsaken plateau of ice where the howling blizzard engulfed him. The tighter, fitter, slimmed-down version of the group now had commercial potential, but we’d already burned our boats as well as the fingers of our first two managers, and, because our albums had sold in their tens rather than in their thousands, Island Records had thrown in the towel. One management company, however, believed that there was money to be made and signed us up to their record label, Oak. I think it was the name that attracted us, ancient, sturdy and reliable, and they were right, there was money to be made, but if it grew on trees, we didn’t get any.