The roof’s there, so Jake Riviera hits it – the Stiff supremo, who marches into rock legend as the highly-combustible manager of Elvis Costello, now giving a typically fearful ear-bashing to some unfortunate underling.
“No,” Jake is shouting, a noise like a chainsaw howling through teak, “it won’t be too late, not if you do it now. It will be too late if you don’t get off the phone and on the fucking case. Good. Let’s start shaking. Speak to you later. Groovy.”
It’s 10:30, on an overcast Tuesday morning, and it’s turning into another typical day in the life of 32 Alexander Street. I’ve been nagging Jake for weeks about spending a day here for a story I want to write for Melody Maker. For just as long, Jake’s been stalling. Last night, however, he’d called me, told me if I still wanted to write the story to be at Stiff this morning, early.
“If you’re not here by nine,” he yells at me, “we’ll start without you.”
What’s become clear as the morning goes on is that whatever Jake’s been plotting is going to involve CBS – who’s annual international sales conference is being held this week in London, at the Hilton Hotel – and Elvis Costello, who’s just arrived at Alexander Street, with his guitar, a Vox practise amp and the recently-formed Attractions, who will later tonight be making their London debut at Dingwalls in Camden Lock. The Attractions soon head for the pub next door.
“Get some cabs, somebody,” Jake is now screaming. “We need wheels, and we need them now.”
The cabs arrive. Jake bundles Costello into the street, storms the line of taxis, yanking open doors, pushing people inside. He races into the pub, re-emerging with The Attractions and a bottle of cider. The Attractions take off in a transit, followed by a cab with Elvis in the back, clutching his guitar and practise amp, the cab’s boot door flapping open. Jake tears after it, screaming, slams the boot shut as the cab takes the corner of Alexander Street, accelerating into Sunderland Terrace and onto the Porchester Road. This is what the final minutes of life on Earth will be like, I remember thinking. There will be this same sense of sheer panic and inarticulate frenzy, and Jake Riviera swigging cider from a bottle and shouting at everyone at the top of his voice.
Anyway, the rest of us now pile into a taxi with Jake and speed off in the direction of the Hilton.
Costello had famously been turned down by every major record company before signing to Stiff, who’d happily given him a home. Jake had quickly recognised, however, that if Elvis was going to make the kind of international commercial impact he was capable of, sooner rather than later he was going to have to get him signed to one of the labels that had previously rejected him. CBS, for instance. The most immediate way Jake can think of to bring Elvis to the attention of the label’s powerbrokers is to have him busk outside their convention, so that when they break for lunch or a little afternoon shopping, they’ll be confronted by Costello, armed with a guitar, a horn-rimmed angry musical ambush. The bastards had ignored him before. Jake would dare them to ignore him now.
Elvis straps the Vox practise amp over his shoulder, plugs in his Fender Jazzmaster, assumes the determined stance of a man you wouldn’t want to fuck with. The Stiff crowd have formed a loose circle around him. There’s a moment’s hesitation, then he’s thrashing away at his guitar, playing “Welcome to the Working Week” astonishingly loud.
“Go to it,” Jakes yells, by way of unnecessary encouragement, adrenalin pumping, eyes shining like flares. “That’s my boy!”
Elvis is now hollering “Waiting for the End of The World”, with as much attention to the tune as he can decently afford in the circumstances. A gaggle of Japanese tourists stops to watch, weighed down with cameras and souvenirs, puzzled beyond description. They applaud politely as Costello finishes “Waiting for fhe End of The World” and launches straight into “Less Than Zero”. A group of CBS conventioneers wanders out of the Hilton, clutching little paper tuck bags that bear the legend: “A BIG FAT THANK YOU FROM TED NUGENT”. They stand there, gaping at Costello. Jake is swigging cider and cackling gleefully. The crowd begins to swell as more tourists and convention guests pile onto the pavement.
“All right. Who’s in charge here?”
This is a security officer from the Hilton, unpleasantly aggressive.
“Who’s in charge?” Jake screams in his face. “Who’s in CHARGE? NO ONE’S IN CHARGE! It’s a free fucking country and we can do what we like. Who are YOU anyway? From the hotel? You must be American. Did you know that some parts of America go back to 1934? Well? Did you? You’re an American, aren’t you? Uh?”
The fellow reels back, stunned.
“I – I’m not American,” he splutters. “I’m from Hampshire.”
By the time Elvis roars into “Mystery Dance”, it looks like most of the CBS convention is on the street outside the Hilton. Here, for instance, is Matthew King Kaufman, head of San Francisco’s Berserkley label, home of The Modern Lovers, and over there Herb Cohen, Frank Zappa’s manager. Even Walter Yetnikoff, president of the entire CBS empire, has been drawn into the action. Everyone’s clapping along quite merrily. Then the law arrives.
A spotty-faced young copper clears his throat nervously and tells Jake that Elvis will have to move along.
“WHY?” Jakes snarls, in his element.
“Because he’s. . . er. . . busking,” the PC says, floundering.
“He’s not BUSKING, man,” Jake retaliates, terrifying in his excitement. “He’s just SINGING IN THE STREET! You can’t stop people SINGING IN THE STREET!!!”
“Get down Elvis!” Matthew King Kaufman calls to Costello.
The copper’s now on his field radio, calling for reinforcements, a crowd of punk rockers, he’s telling someone, is rioting outside the Hilton. Within minutes, three squad cars and a police van are screeching to a halt on Park Lane and a full inspector is marching up to Jake, demanding the dispersal of this unruly mob.
Jake’s having none of it. “These people are ENJOYING themselves, man,” he shouts. “Look at them! They’re clapping. They’re singing...”
The inspector is unmoved and advances on Costello.
“Move along, son,” he says.
Costello takes a step to his left and continues singing. He’s lost somewhere in the murky depths of “Miracle Man”.
“RIGHT!” the inspector snaps, unamused by Costello’s flippancy. “You’re nicked.”
With a splendidly melodramatic flourish, the inspector grabs Elvis by the collar and frog-marches him to the waiting police van, Costello’s feet barely touching the ground as he’s hauled along. The crowd, disappointed, begins to boo the police.
“COLSON!” Jake roars, calling to PR Glen Colson, another maverick member of the Stiff team who’s quickly off in pursuit of the police van, which by now is turning into Hyde Park Corner with Elvis in the back.
“They’ll probably take him to Vine Street nick,” Jake calls after Colson. “Whatever you do, spring him,” Jake adds. “He’s got a sound check at four.”
It’s now maybe 20 minutes later and the crash you just heard is Jake bursting into the Stiff office, hot foot from the Hilton, an entire posse of us galloping after him. Within what seems like seconds, Jake is on two phones at once, talking to David Gentle, Stiff’s solicitor, on one and to Glen Colson, calling from Vine Street with the police charges against Elvis, on the other.
“David? Jake. Look, the police have nicked Elvis. I’ve got Glen Colson at Vine Street. He says they’ve booked him for unlawful obstruction. Can you spring him? You CAN! Great. Colson? Gentle thinks we’ll get him off with a fine. He doesn’t think they’ll keep him in overnight. As soon as they let him out, bring him straight back here. Have you got that? Good. Just don’t start winding anyone up, Colson, got it? Groovy. See you later.”
Riviera puts down the phones, takes a breather.
“Fuck me,” he says then. “I think I probably need a drink.”
So probably do we all, at which point we head for the pub next door, where Nick Lowe is at the bar with the legendary Dr Feelgood, whose new album Nick is supposed to be producing. The Feelgoods look like they’re settling in for the afternoon.
“They’ve already been here for hours,” Nick complains to Jake. “I can’t shift them.”
“It’s your own fault,” Jake growls. “The pub’s the last place you should have brought them. You’ll never get them out before closing time. You know what they’re like.”
“What am I going to do?” Nick moans.
“Be firm,” Jake advises him sagely, ordering a pint of cider.
Feelgood’s vocalist Lee Brilleaux, meanwhile, is at the bar discussing the procreative activities of jellyfish with Kosmo Vinyl, the Stiff roadie who goes on to become a kind of public cheerleader for first Ian Dury and then The Clash.
“No, Kos, you’re wrong,” Lee is telling Kosmo, surprisingly up to speed about the sexual activities of marine coelenterates. “Jellyfish don’t fuck. They sort of split up. Like worms. Fascinating, really.”
“Another drink, Lee?” Kosmo asks.
“Why not?” Lee grins. “We’re only supposed to be recording an album, after all.”
There’s a dull thud as Nick Lowe’s head hits the bar.
Some time later, the Feelgoods have been dragged out of the pub, The Attractions are on their way to Dingwalls and Jake is back in the Stiff office shouting at people. Ian Dury drops by with a test pressing of his new single, a song he tells me is called “Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll.” He sings me a bit. I tell him it sounds great, and it does. And now here’s fabled former Led Zep and T Rex PR, BP Fallon.
How are you, Beep? “I’m effervescent, man,” he says, disappearing.
Costello arrives with Colson. He’s got a court appearance in the morning, where he expects to be fined £5. The police, he reports, had been surprisingly courteous.
“They only picked you up for busking,” Jake smirks. “I didn’t think they’d hang you up by the thumbs.”
Costello wants copies of his album, My Aim is True, which has just come out after a potentially damaging delay caused by a tiff between Stiff and their distributor, Island Records.
“If they want the record,” Jake insists, “they can pay for it like everyone else.”
Costello’s show that night at Dingwalls is sensational. He plays most of My Aim Is True, and nearly all of its follow-up, This Year’s Model – giving public airings for the first time to “Lipstick Vogue”, “Lip Service”, “Radio Radio”, “Night Rally” and “Watching the Detectives”, The Attractions playing with a white-knuckle intensity that’s astonishing.
The audience pushes forward, clamouring for more. But it’s already all over. The Attractions are leaving the stage and Costello is shouting angrily into the microphone, clearly furious. He’s berating the crowd at the back of the club, where they have been eating, drinking and talking throughout his set. He threatens never to play Dingwalls again, and then quits the stage in a huff and a flurry of expletives.
Jake, meanwhile, is at the bar. He’s angry, too. The target of his immediate wrath is John Knowles, who works for Island. Knowles is known to his friends as “Knocker”. Jake is about to find out why.
The dispute mentioned earlier that had delayed the release of My Aim Is True had inflicted severe financial pressure on Stiff, and Jake is now taking out his frustration on Knowles, or “Knocker” as we should properly call him. Jake’s sort of frothing at the mouth, screaming in Knocker’s face, poking him in the chest. Knocker looks like a man who will be pushed only so far. Jake is taking him to the limit.
I’m standing there with Glen Colson and Matthew King Kaufman. I don’t see Knocker throw the first punch. Neither does Jake. Knocker has moved with a destructive panache that seems well-practised. He flattens Jake with a cross to the chin that would have dropped a mule and catches the hapless Riviera with another brain-scrambling wallop as he heads for the deck.
Former Pink Fairy guitarist Larry Wallis and Stiff general manager Paul Conroy pile on top of Knocker, preventing him from inflicting any more damage on Riviera, who’s been sent sprawling in a tangle of disconnected limbs. With incredible presence of mind, Matthew King Kaufman attempts to cause a diversion by unzipping his flies and pissing on the bar.
Colson and I bend over Jake, who’s still horizontal. Jake’s mouth is puffing up, his lip is split and there’s a gash on his nose. The side of his face is already badly swollen and one eye is shut. He looks like he’s been hit with a house brick.
He tries to speak, his voice a ghastly croak.
“Is... my... nose... did he break my nose?” he asks, obviously in some distress.
“No, no. Your nose is fine,” Colson reassures him cheerfully. “But I think he’s knocked out most of your teeth.”
Jake groans, closes his eyes. For the first time all day, words seem to fail him.