Sick On You Read online

  Finally, mercifully for all concerned, it’s time for the last number. We decide to hit ’em hard then slink off into the night. Two minutes, twenty seconds of Chuck’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” should do nicely.

  One black-leathered stage-slag, neither sweet nor little nor sixteen, glowering under a brittle blonde hair-sprayed hive, waves an empty beer mug in my direction. “Oi, oi, poofter! You in the fuckin’ frock. Yeah, you. You fuckin’ call us ‘chicks’ one more time and we’ll fuckin’ glass ya.”

  As Tim rips into the opening of “Sweet Little Sixteen,” my rejoinder is lager-slurred and delivered through a grin. “Sure thing, baby. Go lean up against that wall. It’s plastered too.”

  I’m not allowed to enjoy the hilarity of my Henny Youngman riposte for more than a millisecond, due to the pint glass whizzing past my face and smashing just behind Yosemite’s drum kit.

  And after that? Well, after that it’s a fascinating blur really. Glasses smashing, scary womenoids climbing onstage, microphone stands kicked over, punches, kicks. My hair gets pulled by the clutching fistful, I am punched and scratched. The kimono, which I nicked from Carole’s wardrobe, is in shreds, and all this courtesy of a strange breed of wild-eyed drunken skag who, judging by their choice of shrieked insult, seem convinced that I am a homosexual.

  Not for the first time it’s Roger who comes to the rescue. He yanks me out of the scrum and shoves me down the back steps. A couple of the other lads show up and together they stuff me in the back of the van, right up against the front seats. Two cabinets are bounced down the steps, pushed in after me, and, bravely, I choose to stay hidden behind them. More equipment is thrown in. I keep my head down, listening to the shouting and shrieking getting louder outside, wincing at each pound on the side of the van.

  Tim, with all his blessed Lord Sutch clout, is standing at the back of the van, arms crossed, negotiating and lying like mad. He tells them I’m not here, nobody knows where I am, I’m back in the hall, I ran off down the road, I’m at the pub around the corner, good riddance to bad rubbish.

  And it works. Gradually, over the course of fifteen or twenty minutes, things calm down. Seems like hours, though, to Sir Prancelot, cowering in his torn kimono behind a fortress of amplifiers in the van.

  Finally, we are all piled into the Humber. Tim palms it into gear, hits the gas, and, thank the god of one-night stands, we’re headed down the highway. There is no room in the back of the van. In the panic nothing was packed right. Cymbals were thrown in still on their stands, guitar cables are dangling from amps, black spaghetti cables and wires are everywhere, a hi-hat foot pedal digging in someone’s back, gear stacked to the roof, musicians jammed in wherever they can fit. But we’re out of there. All that’s missing from this frenetic exit is a banjo soundtrack.

  Gradually, as the miles and minutes roll by, hearts stop pounding and things calm down until each musician is left alone with his thoughts, staring out the window at the outskirts of the metropolis rising up around us.

  A huge red neon sign advertising a brand of bitter spells out “TAKE COURAGE” on the London skyline. I will. This is it. History lessons and rock ’n’ roll archeology are over. This is not what I set out to do and this stops tonight.

  It’s nearly three in the morning when we pull into Paddington and roll up to 17 London Street. Stein disentangles himself from the cables wrapped around his boots and climbs out through the back doors into the drizzly, gray street. The derelict is tucked in for the night, bowler hat poking out under his cardboard blanket on the doorstep of Ladbrokes. I get out of the van to have a word with Stein. I take off my torn kimono, ball it up, and throw it into a bin. I’ve got scratches on my face and chest, raccoon eyes, and mascara streaks down my cheeks.

  “I’m coming to see you tomorrow.”

  Stein nods. “I know.”

  * * *

  Next day, Stein and I have a summit in London Street. It’s time to take over. Time to slip into another gear:

  Boot out Tim.

  Boot out Yosemite.

  Absolutely no more greaser “rock ’n’ roll.”

  Get a new name.

  Stein has to shave off that mustache.

  Afterward, on the way to Paddington station, I notice the derelict leaning on a lamppost, perusing The Times, resplendent in a torn kimono.

  II

  Stein and I spend days together scheming, building this thing in our heads. The sound we hear in our joint 45-rpm cerebral cortex is a guitar with six Vietnamese razor-wire strings played by a great-looking madman whipped on by a rhythm section playing at blitzkrieg speed behind a mouthy vocal screeching the gospel.

  We hole up in his bedsit with a guitar and a couple of cans of lager, and edit “Southern Belles,” “The Boys in Blue,” “Son of the Wizard,” and “Melinda Lee.”

  But the months drag by. Nobody wants us, nobody books us; rehearsals are a sulky drag. The revolution, though, is under way.

  By June 22, 1972, Tim is gone and Yosemite’s days are numbered. They are numbered “2.” He and his mustache are shown the door. They leave together, muttering at the injustice and swearing revenge.

  Roger informs us that we’ve been offered a gig at Stanmore Town Hall on July 1, eight whole days away. A tenner each. Drummer panic breaks out. We put an ad in, where else, the Melody Maker.

  DRUMMER WANTED

  Young, slim

  Must look, act & think like a star

  No beards, no chrome-domes, no fatties

  723-0759 (after 5 pm)

  Thursday, ad in Melody Maker. Friday, auditions in the church hall. Saturday, play the gig. It’s all about the planning.

  * * *

  Answering the phone is not for the faint of heart. It entails a flat-out sprint upon hearing the first ring, down three stairs and along ten yards of rickety, uneven hallway, snag-ends of worn carpet snatching at your shoes, in order to beat the overweight, but surprisingly fleet, Portuguese lady in Flat 2 to the receiver. It seems London is, all of a sudden, bursting at the seams with young, good-looking drummers.

  Again, the phone rings. Another drummer, of course. Oh no, he’s from Canada. That blasts ack-ack into his fuselage for a start. He jabbers away about Led Zep and Cream, and I’d like to tell him he’s blowing the interview but I can’t get a syllable in sideways. This guy can talk. He chatters away like Groucho Marx on helium and I tune out. I’m just about to hang up when I hear him say, “at the 100 Club with Memphis Slim.”

  “Hey, wait. What did you say?”

  He screeches to a desert-dust halt like the Looney Tunes’ Road Runner. “What’s that? Oh, Memphis Slim? Yeah, one night down at the 100 Club he was playing and his drummer didn’t show up, so he asked, ‘Can anybody play drums?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ Got up and helped him out.”

  Well, I couldn’t tell the difference between Memphis Slim and Chattanooga Chubby and, as previously mentioned, I’m not interested in the blues and wouldn’t cross a goat trail to see any Memphis, Muddy, Howlin’, Blind, Lightning, Wee, Asthmatic, or any of the rest, but a certain amount of respect nonetheless must be accorded. And, by extension, same goes for anyone, even a drummer, who has accompanied one of these relics onstage.

  So this drummer, incessant chirp and all, is given the benefit of the doubt along with directions to the church hall in Stanmore.

  * * *

  Friday afternoon in the church hall, all of twenty-eight hours before the gig. I’m sitting on the floor beside my microphone stand, trying for the second or third time to get into Nausea by Sartre. This bilge has got vanity press written all over it.

  We’ve scheduled the drummers to arrive at twenty-minute intervals but, being drummers, their timing is off and nine arrive at once. They all look hopeless, not a shred of style. Roger and Stein do the cordials and the choreography, saying hello, lining them up. They each get a couple of songs. Seven go by; this is grim. L
est we forget, we have a gig tomorrow.

  Up next is a Brummie, head-shop threads, army-surplus face, that accent. He gets to give “Johnny B. Goode” a shot and it is as bad as I’d feared. Stops pop up where they shouldn’t and the tempo is all over the place. It ends and I call out “Next.”

  Brummie looks up like a particularly dull beagle, head to one side. “What’s next?”

  “Him there,” I say, pointing to the next drummer in line.

  “What the fuck?” He stands up, drumsticks gripped like weapons.

  Roger intervenes with minimum verbals and maximum leather jacket. I head to the kitchen while it blows over. Stein joins me. We’ve got a sink full of cold water bobbing with cans of Long Life lager.

  “It’s bad,” says Stein, popping a top. “Think one of them will do, just for tomorrow?”

  “Not a chance. Listen.”

  Roger and Mal are running another drummer through his paces and it is dire. I open the door a crack and take a peek. Apparently, Che Guevara’s dad is on drums, wearing that stupid T-shirt of his son’s that you see everywhere. I close the door and turn to Stein. “We’re doomed, mate.”

  No sooner is it closed than the door smacks into my back and in pushes this guy: skinny, thick black shoulder-length hair, and a pale, animated face somewhere between Mad magazine and cherub.

  “Hi. Sorry, didn’t mean to bop you. Hey, is that beer? Can I have one?” And before we can say, “Get stuffed,” he steps to the sink and plucks a Long Life out of the water. Head thrown back, the pointiest Adam’s apple I’ve ever seen bobbing up and down—blissfully, rudely unselfconscious. This has to be the Memphis Slim guy.

  He is wearing the tightest jeans I’ve seen on anyone not bubbling with estrogen, along with a black tank top, black plimsolls, a pair of Ludwig drumsticks sticking out of his back pocket, and an annoyingly cheery grin. He’s next up on the hot seat. Five minutes and one song later, Lou Sparks is in the band. And he has joined a band with a new name. When Stein arrived at the auditions he took me to one side. “I’ve got it,” he said, very conspiratorial.

  “Yeah, well don’t give it to me.”

  “A name for the band.”

  “Do tell,” I said, not expecting much.

  He smiled and leaned in closer. “The Queen.”

  “The Queen?”

  “The Queen.”

  I try it out now: “The Queen.”

  “Imagine the headlines in the NME and Melody Maker,” says Stein. “‘The Queen in Riot at Hammersmith Odeon,’ ‘The Queen Pukes on Arrival at Heathrow,’ ‘The Queen in Scuffle with Fluff Freeman on Top of the Pops.’ Can you imagine?”

  I can imagine. In fact, I’m imagining like crazy. I like it. We run it by Roger. His enthusiasm doesn’t quite match ours, but he agrees too.

  So that’s it. We are the Queen.

  And we’ve got a gig in twenty-four hours.

  III

  We’ve been set up and soundchecked since the afternoon and, insanely enough, we feel ready for this gig. This drummer, Lou Sparks, has given the band a jolt. His manic energy and humor, not to mention his playing, have given us the belief that, even with no rehearsal, we might actually pull this off, which is good because we’ve got no choice and the place is packed.

  It’s an early start, though, 7 p.m., and the organizer, a lovely lady in a blue wide-brimmed hat with a veil hanging down the front and feathers protruding therefrom, for some reason asks if we can start the show with a couple of acoustic songs.

  Short notice, but no sweat. Stein and I grab acoustic guitars, sit on a couple of stools center stage like refugees from Woodstock, and dish up the first public performance ever of “The Boys in Blue,” which goes down a treat, and “Wild Horses” by the Stones, which doesn’t. In retrospect, “Wild Horses” is a thuddingly boring song when not being done by the Stones. Still, you live and wince.

  Then, jacked up, under-rehearsed, and newly christened the Queen, we come on for our world premiere and, without over-egging the soufflé, we kill ’em. We play until 1 a.m., and even though half the time we don’t know what we’re doing it doesn’t seem to matter. Even though every hour, on the hour, we repeat songs we’ve already done, they love it. We’ve rebuilt the engine, cranked up the tempo, volume, and attitude, and it works.

  Lou looks and plays great, like he’s been part of the band forever.

  A woman of indeterminate vintage has been gyrating at the front of the stage since the first note of the second set, and she keeps giving me alluring looks borrowed for the evening from a Pola Negri film. At around midnight she takes the belt off her dress and starts whipping the floor almost to the beat. An excessive response, perhaps, and not entirely befitting the social status implied by her eye-popping jewelry, but there you have it. She’s dancing dead in front of my microphone, and on the backswing of one ferocious flog the buckle slices the back of my hand, drawing blood. Yeow!

  After the last song she wraps my hand in a silk scarf. She mentions that she is the ex-wife of Roger Moore. Who would lie about that? Good gig, though. Stein and I and Roger and now Lou just might have something going.

  * * *

  Back in Watford, I’m getting on Carole’s nerves. It’s a mystery to me. After all, I’m not exactly underfoot. I sleep until three in the afternoon then drink coffee and read the paper until Brillo gets home from work. Then the two of us watch TV—cartoons, Blue Peter, whatever—and have a laugh, then we pop down to the pub for a pint.

  She has somehow got it into her head that I am a lazy waste of space leading her husband astray. Sometimes I can’t even take an hour-long bath without detecting a distinct chill in the air and a certain heavy heel-to-floor ratio when she walks around. Plus, there’s the kimono situation. She’s tearing the house apart looking for the damn thing, last seen in shreds on a Times-reading derelict in Paddington.

  Under pressure from Carole to hit the road, I answer an ad in the local rag and find a room in a house in Bushey, right next door to Watford: 32 Cross Road, £17.50 a month. I’ve got nineteen quid to my name and I pay a month in advance. I leave Bradshaw Road the same way I entered Bradshaw Road, a cardboard suitcase in my hand and a faintly baffled expression on my face.

  Cross Road is a quiet, leafy street—the word “bucolic” springs to mind. The joint is occupied by three guys, two of which, Angus and Ewen, are students. I don’t know if I mentioned this, but I can’t stand students. Students are nothing more than hippies with pens. But it’s the third chap, Dick, whom I can’t take my eyes off. Where have I seen him before? He stares out through Coke-bottle specs and is tall, rail thin, and bald as a boiled egg. Well, bald except for a frankly pointless straggly fringe wrapped monk-like around his lower skull from ear to shining ear. How do I know this guy?

  They take me down to their local, the Rifle Volunteer, for a pint. We walk in and, bloody hell, they’ve all got their own private pewter tankards up on a shelf behind the bar.

  It’s a good English pub, though. Oak beams, red velvet seats, smoke-yellowed paint, ridiculous pattern amid the stains on the carpet, the works. But I sense a definite thuggish element among the denizens. Blokes like extras from Straw Dogs hunched over their personal tankards, eyes shifting back and forth, hod-carrier knuckles poking out of the frayed sleeves of donkey jackets.

  My eyes are shifting too, back and forth, checking out the surprising sprinkling of quite attractive girls; real girls with real lives, as it turns out: teachers, nurses, secretaries, soon-to-be lawyers in the making. Names come and go: Susan, Christine, Briar, Ada, Jen.

  After four pints and no food my interior noggin is swirling and twirling. Off to my left I see lamplight gleaming off Dick’s shiny, hairless pate. That does it. It hits me. Mystery solved. I remember where I’ve seen him before. There is an eight-foot-high, black-and-white poster of him at every Tube stop in London. The poster is divided in two: on the left side
is Dick, forlorn, lonely, a bald man; on the right is a new Dick in hipster threads, flashing a toothy smile, confident, cool, a swingin’ Dick, as it were. And why? The transformation is due to one immutable fact. Perched atop the second Dick’s skull is a luxuriant, shoulder-length thatch of hair—hair that any Pink Floyd roadie would be proud to sport and shampoo once a month.

  He’s a toupee model. And here he is, my new housemate.

  It’s only September but already there is a chill lurking around my toes in the mornings, and I’m constantly famished beyond belief. Everyone else in the house leaves in the morning to go to work or to protest in front of the American Embassy or whatever it is these types do. In their absence I ransack the cupboards and the fridge. It’s Mother Hubbard time. Find a match, light the stove, put on the kettle. Nick a tea bag. In a tin I find a quarter of a bag of crusted sugar that I take to the living room and eat with a spoon while waiting for the water to boil.

  Roger brings word that something has happened to our church hall in Stanmore. Well, nothing has happened to the actual church hall, it is more to do with our status there, which appears to have been downgraded; we can no longer rehearse there. It is mysterious and smacks of intrigue, vengeance, and ghosts of guitarists past.

  Meanwhile, Stein comes into close personal contact with a fiver, so the two of us limbo under the turnstiles and make our way to Wardour Street, and from there, inevitably, we wander to the portals of the Marquee. Standing in the bar section we nurse our pints, sneering at the band through the glass partition and generally bemoaning our fate.

  But fate is a funny thing. One minute you are brimful of bile, awash in dark thoughts and contemplating the doing of foul deeds, and the next you could be in baggy shorts of a tropical flower pattern hanging ten on the crest of a gigantic wave of optimism, at one with the world and contemplating a modest but heartfelt donation to some African scam charity.