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| Our tour poster, designed by my son Sam (Doseprod) |
In January 2005, I was feeling terrible. I had pains all round my chest area and felt I was heading for a second heart attack. My doctor knew I had a really stressful, all consuming job: I was director and senior manager of Unity Bristol, an organisation which provided residential care with education for some of the most disturbed young people in the UK, particularly those of an Afro-Caribbean background. We had 75 Jamaican staff out of a total of over one hundred and just dealing with those people was hard enough, without talking about our young 'clients' who lived in ordinary houses dotted around the 'ghettos' of the inner city. Anyhow, my doctor suggested I needed some time out and, knowing I had two sons living in the South of France, told me to go away and live with them for a few months. So I did.
However, my youngest who lived just outside Najac, had three very young children so it was not so peaceful there and when I moved on to my other son, who lived in Chateauneuf du Pape, they had just had a baby so same thing there. So, on a whim, I flew out to Dominica, the small island where my partner was from staying there for a couple of months of peace then flying home to bring my partner out there because nobody had seen her for 18 years.
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| Where I had my tumour removed on 14th Feb 2006 |
Meantime, Unity Bristol had gone down the tubes because no one had been doing the job I did every Friday, chasing money we were owed and the company called in some outside people to try and sort out the lack of cashflow, at that point being owed just over half a million pounds by various Social Services. All this stressed me out even more so I returned to France and one day, by the pool, my son said did I know that I had a huge lump on my back, and I didn't. He sent me to see his doctor who sent me for an X-ray and told me I had to have the lump removed. Stupidly, and mainly because my partner could not come to France without a visa I said I would go back to the UK to have it done. This was in August 2005 and I entered hospital to have it removed in February 2006, the time it took to have all the necessary appointments for scans and biopsies which led the specialists to say I had a large tumour in the muscles of my back next to my spine, hence all the pain. They removed it, apparently the size of a flattened tennis ball. I was out of hospital quite quickly but told to stay in bed and rest for quite a long time due to the way the internal muscles had been cut. Now I'm not one for enjoying being in bed day after day particularly as I didn't get many visitors except Liz, my partner and I would have been bored to tears but for the fact that my sons, particularly Sam, got me into writing new music and putting it up on my own web site. (Liz and I also watched every ball of the Test Match series against Australia where we brought the Ashes back home - laugh as you will non-Brits.
Then, one day, completely out of the blue, I got a phone call from Dave Brock. After a short chat, sort of catching up (we hadn't spoken for twenty something years) he said he had bumped into my web site, liked my music and did I have a band so that I could come on tour supporting Hawkwind in a couple of months or so's time. Well, I was very surprised, very pleased and said 'Yes' even though I didn't really have a band as such.
I had done a recording while I was waiting to go in hospital, 3 of my tunes, one with my lyrics and two
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Sonic, who recorded with me, went to school with Banksy
and told me I knew him under another name. |
with lyrics by Sonic, a Bristol DJ and MC. This was organised by the keen Richard Nowell and his Feel The Quality record label. The musicians for this had been a guy from the popular Bristol dub band, DUB FROM ATLANTIS (my memory for names is bad and getting worse) on bass, Latch Mangat (who played bass in the third version of Lastwind) on guitar, Laurence de Loes sang my lyrics (and was part of Lastwind version 2) and Rob, famously having toured the world with Roni Size, on drums.(He was also famously married to the daughter of John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame.)
I started with these people and Rob agreed to play drums and Latch, bass, and I was thinking of an excellent guitarist friend from France. I had enough songs ready for a forty minute set and we organised a first couple of rehearsals. So far so good.
Of course, Dave needed the name of the band for publicity purposes and I had one waiting around; Lastwind. About 4 years earlier I had been introduced to a Jalal Nurinda, a black American from New York who had been in the original rap group, the LAST POETS. I didn't know of them at the time but his significance was made clear to me when a group of us, including him, went to see PUBLIC ENEMY at a largish venue in Bristol. They got him up on stage and introduced him as the Godfather of Rap, quite something. Anyhow, he was preparing a new album and needed some music and
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| Jalal Nurinda |
samples and we started working together on several tracks in the bungalow in my garden in Bristol, my hideaway and studio, and, knowing I had played with Hawkwind, he came up with the name Lastwind from using the first and last parts of our previous two group's names. He went to France to visit a girlfriend and was refused permission to return to the USA because he had overstayed the time given on his visa. A TV company put on a concert for him years later, 2014 to be precise, where he was to perform live the original album. To give an idea of his importance to that genre a music, GEORGE CLINTON was among the musicians who turned up to play for him. I was invited but I was crossing the channel on my way to France the day it took place. Jalal is now living in a State-run old peoples' home in Atlanta.
TO BE CONTINUED : HOW TO PUT TOGETHER A BAND REALLY QUICKLY.
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