So, there we were, Simon King and me, driving out of San Francisco and looking for Route One, the road that follows the Californian Coast down to LA and beyond. I did the same drive about a dozen years later with my wife, on a business trip of a totally different nature, industrial espionage..but that's a different story. Simon preferred if I drove and so did I: I've always loved driving, particularly on new roads to new destinations. We found a good rock station on the car radio, chatted and got to know each other a bit better and decided to head for Carmel, a small town on the coast famous for having Clint Eastwood as mayor for a few years.
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| The beach at Carmel. |
We pulled over at a truck stop for a burger and stopped a couple of times just to look at the mammoth waves breaking on the cliffs and all the sea birds swooping and meowing as they fished the plentiful ocean. And as evening began to fall, we hit the small, rustic town and crawled along the Main Street looking for something, somewhere where we might be able to get a free bed for the night. We heard the sounds of a rock band playing live and parked up in front of a big bar with tables inside and out and quite a big crowd of young hippy-looking people. Just perfect except for one thing. Simon was trying to keep away from smack and I was meant to be helping on this one. I did what needed to be done, got out, went up to some heads sitting drinking beers and said hi to them. They might have thought I was a bit weird at first, and probably put it down to me being British, but I explained we were members of a British band who'd just finished touring the States and were driving around trying to avoid smack before we flew back home. They gave me big smiles and told me that this was dope country. Nobody did hard drugs out here but if we wanted some good smoke.....
I gave Simon the thumbs up and he joined us and we had made some new friends, perhaps a little disappointed when they heard which band we were with, only one of them thought he had heard of us. We moved inside when the air got too cool and could smell pot being smoked quite openly. We moved to a big table near the band and were joined by a couple of girls and the word obviously
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| A view of Carmel rusticity |
got around and we were being bought drinks, dinner and were given a nice big bag of local greenery. The band, like most American bands, were very professional and had more gear than Hawkwind even though they were only a small town covers band, playing the songs of local favourites, the Eagles, Poco, CSNandY and so on. They finished playing at midnight and everyone started leaving.
Now several people had offered us beds for the night but we went with the two girls only to discover that one of them had a man (and two young children) at home. You win some, you lose some. But, the bed wasn't the cleanest and I got the feeling later that this was where I picked up something a bit nasty.
The next day, after some hours more of incredible ocean views as we went past the famous Big Sur and later saw the infamous Hearst Castle up high on a hill, we reached the outskirts of LA, Santa Monica to be precise. Both of us wanted to make phone calls so we pulled over into a service station to fill up the tank, buy some cold drinks and make our calls. Simon called Simon House first to arrange to meet up with him. I wondered if this might not be dangerous on the smack issue but Simon told me that it was the white marching powder (coke) that was the drug of choice with all the Bowie band. The other Simon was expecting us at his bungalow attached the the Beverley Hills Hilton.
Cool. Then I phoned Jill and she said she would meet me outside the hotel at about eleven that night and that I could sleep at her place. Everything organised.
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| THE MAN HIMSELF, SIMON KING |
We followed our noses to Beverley Hills, stopped at a drive-in and had tacos and some other Mexican stuff, then found the hotel by asking and what a place it was!! We got in without question when we said we were friends of the Bowie band, mainly because of our rock band look and our English accents, and were directed to one of a series of big bungalows dotted around the park-like grounds. I parked up and we knocked on the door and a deep voice asked who it was. When we announced ourselves the voice said,"Who the heck are you boys?" and when we replied that we were from Simon's old band, the voice let us in and gave us a big toothy smile."Oh, you be from that Space Rock band Hawk-something, aint that the truth!!" he said,"You sure look like that sort of thing, just like our Simon there."
So suddenly, there we were in this roomy lounge with most of the Bowie band sitting around on armchairs surrounding a wide coffee table with the biggest pile of coke I have ever seen in my life, a hundred times bigger. There was George Murray (bass player), Dennis Davis (drums, who had answered the door), Adrian Belew (guitarist) and another white guy who was never introduced and never said a word. They were talking about how they had got some of the sounds from the album into the live show and the difficulties involved. I particularly remember Dennis explaining how he had managed to get the reversed cymbal sound on stage, complete with whoops from George: these two Afro-Americans were certainly full of joy and exuberance, possibly helped by the coke which they suggested we got stuck into. After a bit, someone told us that Simon was in one of the bedrooms with his chick and that we could disturb them at our pleasure. After a bit, he did appear, wrapped in a sheet, and gave us both tickets for tomorrow night's show at the Inglewood Forum, a huge indoor stadium, tickets marked 'Special Guests'. He also suggested I go in and see his lady, telling me she'd been looking forward to seeing me again. This was taking me into new territory so I didn't say anything, pretending not to have heard, asking Adrian how the tour was going as a diversion.
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| DENNIS DAVIS, Bowie's drummer |
He then suddenly said he had to go and when he went out this girl came in with a very expensive camera and started taking photos till Dennis grabbed it off her and asked her who had invited her to do that. That situation then got out of hand as the camera was passed round and we all took photos of her, suggesting that the photos could be sexier if she stripped off. The girl was getting quite flustered and I thought I wanted to get out of there. I asked Simon what he was doing and he said he was going to crash there and we agreed to meet at the show tomorrow night.
I drove out the entrance, spotted Jill and she directed me to her place out in the valley where she cooked me a lovely supper and we spent a very friendly and comfortable night.
TO BE CONTINUED............Bowie gig, more partying and getting half burnt.
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