Touring with Hawkwind. Part 3. More Fun in New York and Getting a Head Start as we Move On.

After our experience of being the only white boys in the subway, I always kept sympathy for lone blacks I'd see walking around in England. It was a shock to the system all right. That night some of us were whisked away by taxi to go see Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead playing in a theatre somewhere. I was a bit of a fan and it was interesting seeing this more traditional take on 'acid' music.  We had a carefree attitude and were smoking joints quite openly which led to a talk from Jeff Dexter laying it on the line that, OK, it was cool in NYC but we were going places where one joint could lead to a 20 years mandatory jail sentence.
When we got into a taxi to go back to the hotel, a couple of the lads were obviously up to something and I've got a feeling it was the same Jeff who led the way. I could here a hissing sound and then someone pointed to the floor where there was a gas canister which was nitrous oxide, or laughing gas. Within minutes we were all laughing like idiots, including the taxi driver and it was a very funny trip back to the City Squire.
The next day was more serious as we were to start our 4 day residency at The Bottom Line which was one of the venues to play in New York, a show-case gig. It put on acts that could fill much larger places. For example, a few days after us, Lou Reed had a residency. Now, I wasn't playing because it was a very important gig and Simon House was still with us. Jeff Dexter said I could help the roadies but Dave backed me up that I was a musician and not part of the crew. So, I had 4 easy nights watching the band and trying to notice things about what I should be playing.
Now, I was already out of money so was glad to be bought drinks by people who had been informed I was part of the band (mainly by me). Watching the band play, the funniest thing was Bob Calvert who, when he wasn't actually singing, sat on a chair to one side of the stage reading a newspaper, as if he wasn't interested at all which didn't go down at all with Dave. Otherwise the band seemed quite tight and I thought we would miss the violin playing of Simon House when he left, particularly on a couple of songs.

Milwaukee (in summer).

I got invited to a few parties by girls I chatted to but didn't take up the offers as I didn't feel brave enough to go off to places around this huge city by myself. I was told that Paul Simon was at one of the gigs but I didn't see him: too busy perfecting my chatting up skills.
After the last night, Dave said to me,"Get up early tomorrow and we will take an early flight to Milwaukee then you will be able to grab one of the three single rooms." I was getting fed up of sharing with Denis so I readily agreed and so there we were, at some unearthly hour, on our way to the airport. The flight wasn't that long and we arrived in a petrified Wisconsin, where all the trees were covered in frozen frost and snow covered all surfaces a few inches deep.
On arrival at the Holiday Inn, our main hotel of choice during the tour, sure enough I got a single room and I never discovered who was pissed off to find themselves sharing. I think we had a free day because, again, using Dave's knowledge from previous visits, we went out to a strange set of gardens inside domes where each dome had the vegetation of a particular climate. It was really weird sitting on a bench in a tropical forest watching the snow fall outside. That night he also took me to a weird night club where you had to slide down a shute to get in and where ghosts and horror was the style and the music was very heavy.

Milwaukee Dome gardens.

The next day, several other bands checked in who were also playing in the city : The Tubes, Montrose and Van Halen. I spent a bit of time with Van Halen who were all tiny people but very full of themselves and this was before they became famous and successful. They all looked immaculate in that style which a couple of years later became the uniform for US hard rock bands, as if they wanted to copy Led Zeppellin but more so.  They gave me all area access tickets to their gigs but unfortunately I was too busy.

VAN HALEN, God's gift to rock (they said)

That night I finally pulled. A lass from a local rock radio station who drove me to the station to do an interview live which I did (and I forgot to mention Sonic Assassins which Dave said was a missed opportunity). She drove me back to the hotel and came up to my unshared room where we had some fun.

Photo of DAVE BROCK performing.

Then it was the night of my first gig. Simon was going to play violin and me the keyboards which was cool. The dressing room was at the front end of the Electric Ballroom which meant we had to walk through the big crowd to get to the stage. It was a good gig and the crowd loved us and I felt happy getting most the sounds I wanted out of the new keyboard, particularly with the help of the pedals, echo, phaser, flanger and chorus. When we finished and walked back through the crowd it was amazing getting chicks handing me bits of paper with phone numbers on and asking where we were staying.
Back at the hotel it was party time in the bar and everyone was getting mashed. I ended up in my room with this gorgeous black chick who was wearing a black beret which she didn't want to remove even when stark naked. When she was on top of me, I couldn't stop myself removing it and discovered she had her head completely shaven which she was embarrased about but I found highly sexy. She was a real discovery and put me on the path to more black women (ending up with my partner Liz 20 years later). It was over breakfast that she got out a notebook ad asked me to spell my name. I asked why and she said she kept a record of all the band members she had slept with. She wouldn't show me the book but told me that the name before mine was Elvis Costello. I offered to take her home in one of our hired cars but she just laughed and said that white boys didn't last long in her neighbourhood.
I'd really enjoyed Milwaukee and was sorry to leave it for a 5 hour drive to Chicago where we were going to be playing next, and without Simon. And as we drove across a white landscape I wondered what was going to happen next.

To Be CONTINUED. Chicago, Minneapolis, Scary truckstops, Blizzards and the Highway Patrol.