An Interview with the French Press, a while back. A (Very Minor) RockStar in the Bastide.

I recently re-found the notes I had been sent, typed up, by a French journalist who had interviewed me for his paper and wanted to make sure there were no factual errors. I have translated what he sent me with some corrections.
Q:  Where are you from? Where did you grow up?
A:  I grew up in South East London, post code SE25. We lived in three different places but they all fell in that post code which was really the eastern limits of Croydon, a big suburban part of London.
Q:  And what did your parents do?
A:  My dad came back from the war and, like millions of other men, needed to find a job. The London Police Force were looking for candidates fo he joined and became a street policeman. That was good because he had a job, got a police flat, had a reasonable income which meant he could get married and have children (me and two and a half years later, my sister). My mum had been a nurse but, due to poor health which she had all her life, had become a part-time secretary for an insurance company. Soon after we were both born, dad left the police and became a London City Missionary, trying to bring to the Lord the poor sinners living in London's slums.
Q:  Did you have music lessons when you were young?
A:  Oh, yes. I started at the Mathers School of Music when I was 4 and continued until I felt I could say NO which was when I was 15. I then started lessons agin when I was training to become a teacher at Exeter University when I was 22. My instrument was the piano and I was considered to be pretty good but not as good as my sister who got a scholarship to Dartington Hall to study harpsichord when she was 16. then a scholarship to the Royal School of Music and then was offered a job teaching there.
Q:  Who were your favourite bands when you were young?
A:   Well, my dad refused to have a TV in the house till I was about 14 so, to compensate I think, my mum bought us a Dansette record player which gave us hours of pleasure. She bought us an album of American military music which was a big turn off, but soon, through presents and careful saving of pocket money I bought my first three singles by, hold it, Russ Conway (piano maestro), Frank Ifield and Adam Faith. Then the Beatles arrived, all clean and suited and my mum bought us one of their first albums. With the arrival of the Rolling Stones, I really preferred them but the first album I bought was 5,4,3,2,1 by Manfred Mann. Then at 15 I really got into the idea of being a mod and loved Motown music alongside the Spencer Davis Group and the Small Faces who were really my fashion idols.

Me at IOW Festival 1969

Q:  Where did you go when you left home?
A:  Well, we had moved to Sidmouth in Devon when I was 13 which was a great change and rather good at first but then became rather boring. So, I left home when I finished school after getting 3 moderate A levels (equivalent to the Bac in France) when I was nearly 19 (1967) and moved back up to London to go and study for a degree in business studies, one of the first sandwich courses where you spent half of each year studying and the other half working in a business. Mine was Courages, a big London brewery by Tower Bridge.
Q:  So you were in London when flower power and hippies arrived. How did that affect you?
A:  Well gradually. Firstly, I was a regular at the Marquee Club in Soho and saw lots of up and coming bands there including early Hendrix and The Nice. Then I went to a couple of festivals, got introduced to Cannabis, went to the IOW Festival in 69, was growing my hair long, moved to Chelsea World's End next door to a big LSD dealer and slowly forgot my studies.
Q:  And when did you start playing in groups?
A:  We started a group based on the Small Faces when I was at school but it never got far. Then we had a group with some young friends in Penge and, during our period of hippydom in Chelsea, a friend persuaded me to audition for a group called Sam Gopal I think. I went along and Lemmy was also there auditioning to play rhythm guitar. I got the job and Lemmy didn't but I couldn't afford the Hammond organ they wanted so nothing came of it.
Q:  And your first proper group?
A:  That was a few years later. I had left London and moved to Bristol with my French girlfriend. We got married and she got pregnant, an acid baby, so like lots of Hippies, we headed for the countryside, North Devon, and I started to train to become a teacher, mainly cos I had read that if you were a teacher you didn't have to send your children to school. We got to know a lot of fellow freaks including musicians. We met often at Barum Market, an alternative shop and cafe run by Chris Kausman and his partner Mary Sims: their son Dan is now a well-known drum'n bass DJ, DJ Die.

Reg Meuross doing his thing.

And it was with Chris and a mate of his, Reg Meuross, that we started the band Ark. Reg is a successful singer-songwriter and on the list of Brit musicians who played the most gigs in 2016.
The band grew and grew with at one point Colin Mitchell on lead guitar, Harvey Bainbridge and Martin Griffin, later of Hawkwind, on bass and drums, Alistair Merry on percussion, Harry Williamson, son of the writer of Tarka the Otter, on guitar and vocals and the lovely Lois as our dancer.
Q. Were you successful?
A.  In a small way. We built up a good local following, recorded a couple of tracks, appeared on TV once and ended up supporting Gong and Hawkwind on tour.
Q.  Now; they were successful and you played with them I believe?
A.  Yes. Firstly, along with Harvey and Martin, I played in a Hawkwind offshoot called Sonic Assassins, still fondly remembered, in 77. Then I toured the USA with Hawkwind in 78.
Q.  So, you became a rock star?

Me playing with Ark.

A.  In a small way, yes. We played to quite big crowds, had a lot of fans, many of the Hell's Angels variety, and visited the accompanying worlds of drugs and groupies plus getting into concerts for free. Plus, meeting other bands on the road such as Van Halen, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and best of all, David Bowie, who took us out for a meal to apologise for having poached my predecessor, Simon House. We certainly led a bit of a rock star life.
Q.  But you didn't continue and moved to France I believe?
A.  Yes. I had gone a bit over the top during the tour and took a few months to get back to normal. I'd missed my kids and didn't like some of the things that went on and decided it was a good time to keep to an idea I had shared with my wife from the start, to bring up our kids multi-cultural. We bought a cheap van, fitted it out as a low-grade camper and with our two boys, dog and cat and my musical gear in the back, set off around France visiting some friends old and new.
Q.  And you settled in the south-east I believe. What did you do there?
A.  Yes, we lived always in the north Vaucluse, 5 years just outside Richerenches and then 6 years near Vaison la Romain. I played in loads of different bands through this period but also had a day job too. Firstly, at the farm we were smallholders, growing vegetables and some fruit plus poultry. And I sold our products in local markets. To make up money in winter I also did buidling work and became really fit. Then I discovered teaching English and ended up with my own language services business.
Q.  Now, tell us about the music side.

Off to France.

A.  Well, I started a few bands of my own as I developed my song writing and vocals, very alternative rock, but difficult to find gigs in France at that time. With a friend, Peter, we formed a band called Legend, mainly playing our versions of The Beatles, Stones, Animals, Kinks and a couple of our own songs. We got quite a lot of gigs and recorded a single for play on the local radio stations. Then, in order to earn money, I joined a rock band that had become a Dance Band called Stradivarius, in order to earn money too. In France, every town and village has fetes where they get dance bands to play, old favourites early on and the latest hits later. We played 4.5 hours a night with a good meal and drinks thrown in and I earnt as much a night as I had earnt with Hawkwind in a week! It was good fun and really improved my keyboard playing but no opportunities for playing your own tunes.
Q.  And I seem to remember you met another famous rock star at this time?

The fabulous Stradivarius!

A.  Yes, Topper Heddon, who had been the drummer of The Clash during their best period. I had a half Scottish friend who owned a night club out in the country, a favoured place for late night grooving because they were one of the rare clubs who didn't play hits all night. People came from miles away. It was a nice place to be and he received bands who wanted a good rehearsal place where they could live. All he charged them was to play a set at 1 in the morning the two nights of the week he opened. Well Topper was rehearsing there and I got to meet him and we hit it off. Also in the band was Henry McCallough who played at the first Woodstock with Jo Cocker and then played in Paul McCartney's Wings. Next thing I was playing in his band at the club and he was in a local studio playing drums on a couple of my songs. Then, whilst in London, Topper got arrested for a drugs offence and sent to prison for a few months....the end of that project.
Q.  Then you returned to the UK. What happened musically?
A.  Yes, I had had some financial problems and I moved back to Devon, eventually joined by my wife and youngest son....my eldest stayed behind with his girlfriend in Marseille. We moved to the New Forest in 1990 and I worked again with disturbed young people. At first the only music was joining in with a local rock and blues band when I could. I had got a decent keyboard workstation and started writing songs again or, at least, tunes. Then, at a pub out in the Forest, eventually owned by the bassist of Dire Straits, I met a couple of punk-types who played in a band called The Cropdusters which was a punky folk band come out of the rave scene. We got on well and they suggested I come to one of their rehearsals. That was fun but a bit strange, a bit out of my comfort zone. They had a

My room for composing.

whizz of a violinist and they played rather like The Levellers. It was agreed I would only play on certain of the more rave-like songs but they liked a tune I had written and programmed in my workstation and started their set with that. And I played some great gigs with them to big crowds with mad crowd surfers and a hard-core following. And in some good venues like the Underground in
Camden, the Mean Fidler in Kilburn, the club owned by the Savoy Blues band in the Midlands, a huge old church in Salisbury, a 700 people sell-out and us letting more people in through our dressing room. All good fun. But they had tours to do abroad and too many gigs for a deputy-headteacher in a residential special school! The end of that. Then we moved back to Devon where I had been offered the Headship of a similar school, where I had started back in the early 70's. And then there were 9 years where music was on the backboiler except for a bit of composing, due to the pressures of my day job, first in Devon then in Bristol. And then I had a tumour that put me totally out of action for nearly 18 months.

Richard Nowell in the mastering studio.

Q.  So how did Lastwind come about?
A.   I was recovering from the removal of the tumour and couldn't do much but, with the help of my sons, I had a web site where I put up the music I was creating. Out of this came two things. Firstly, a friend, Richard Nowell, who happened to have a small record label in Bristol where I was living, wanted to record some of my music and had found someone, Sonic, a Bristol DJ/MC, to provide the vocals. Doing this I met several musicians which gave me good feelings about getting a band together. And then, out of the blue, Dave Brock, the leader of Hawkwind, phoned me out of the blue and asked me if I would like to be the support act on some of the gigs of their autumn tour with my band. Great but I didn't even have a band at that moment. But I had a tour to do so I would have to find one. And I did. And the tour was great!!!

You can find the story of LASTWIND elsewhere in this blog.

My Musical Career (see accompanying MIXCLOUD set).

I first got the idea of playing in a band when I was at school. I had had piano lessons since I was 4, obviously with a classical bent but, starting with Russ Conway, I had started playing along to the singles we got and played on the family Dansette. When I was in the Lower 6^th and we could stay in at break in the music room, with a few like-minded guys, we would bang out our versions of Spencer Davis Group and the Small Faces which would attract girls, our secondary objective. Then when a student in London in the late sixties, a friend persuaded me to go to an audition with a group called Sam Gopal. A fellow auditionee was the late and much lamented Lemmy Kilminster. He didn’t get the job of rhythm guitarist but I did get the job as keyboard player : I didn’t take it as I couldn’t afford to buy a Hammond B3 organ.

ARK playing live.

My real music career started with the band ARK,  North Devon band formed in the early 70’s by Chris Kausman (electric guitar and vocals), Reg Meuross (acoustic guitar and vocals) and myself. Then we added Harvey Bainbridge on bass, Colin Mitchell on lead guitar, Alistair Merry on percussion, his girlfriend Lois as dancer and, after various trials, Martin Griffin on drums. Jeff Hocking was our sound engineer and Steve Smith our roadie.

This blog post is to go alongside my MIXCLOUD selection, Music Mainly Recorded in My Holidays Over the Last Forty Years. And the first track is LIVING IN COMFORT, written by Chris Kausman and recorded by Jeff Hocking in his cramped Appleford studio. We played mainly covers of Bob Dylan and old blues songs like Parchment Farm but did play a few of our own songs written by Chris or Reg.

Harvey, Martin and Me meeting for the first time in thirty years

WE ended up supporting HAWKWIND on a short tour and then, a year later, DAVE BROCK CAME UP WITH THE IDEA OF HIM AND BOB CULVERT forming a band called SONIC ASSASSINS using me, Harvey and Martin from Ark. We had a couple of rehearsals, got together some old favourites and two new songs, Free Fall and Death Trap and arranged to play a Christmas show in Barnstaple. Just before the concert, Bob got cold feet and was only persuaded to take part right at the last minute. The place was sold out and we played continuously until we had run out of material to a great reception. During the show the band started an improvised pattern which Bob thought was going to be the song Masters of the Universe but he then improvised too and this became the cult favourite Over The Top.

The MixCloud selection has this song plus, beforehand, two Hawkwind classics, Angel of Death and Magnu, all recorded live at this concert.

Apparently we then played a second gig in Wales and then I was asked by Dave to join Hawkwind for their American tour. Whilst on this tour Dave and I did several radio interviews in which it was suggested that Hawkwind was going to morph into Sonic Assassins. However, when we got home, I had decided it wasn’t for me and that with my French wife and two children, cat and dog, I was going to move to France and Hawkwind was out of my life.

We lived in France, in the south-east, from 1978 to 1990 and during that time I played and recorded with loads of bands, some my own. Legend, Exiles, Exit, Stradivarius, and Twice As Nice among others. I equally played with the Topper Headon Band alongside the recently sadly departed Henry McCullough and we recorded a couple of my songs.

Playing with LEGEND in France 1980

I moved back to the UK, first to East Devon and then to the New Forest, in 1990. I was teaching by day and playing music at weekends with a local RnB band whose name escapes me and then joined the CROPDUSTERS, Hampshire’s version of Sussex’s LEVELLERS. We played some good gigs including the MEAN FIDDLER at New Year. It was good fun but although they asked me to, I couldn’t afford to give up my well-paid day job: I was by now Deputy-Head in a residential special needs school.

I ended up being Head Teacher and then got offered the post of Head Teacher at a school I had worked at before back in the days of ARK. That job became really full on and I was hardly at home and had no time for playing music and my wife decided to move back to France. It was when we packed up the large house we had been living in, putting most of our stuff in storage, that a trunk containing all my music tapes and other souveniers went missing. Hence the big gap in my music recordings.

Along with a new partner, I was in Bristol from 1999, running a large project for young people with severe behavioural problems. No time for music really except being asked by Rick Nowell and his small record company, Feel The Quality, to record some of my music with vocals written and sung by local Bristol DJ, Sonic. We did this along with some quality musicians including Roni Size’s drummer, Rob.

Sonic, a poet and vocalist, Bristol fashion.

The next track on MixCloud is Bristol Situation one of the songs we recorded followed by a demo Sonic and I recorded at my house, called Just Out of Reach. Both these songs are very Bristolian in style and substance.

My work was very demanding and tiring and in 2005 I was obliged to stop working due to health problems which turned out to be cancer and eventually in February 2006 I had a large tumour removed from muscles in my back next to my spine. During my recovery and with support from my sons I started to write songs again and place them on a website where they were spotted by Dave Brock of Hawkwind. He phoned me up and asked me if I had a band which could support them on tour. I lied and said yes and so LASTWIND was formed. In fact, in 2003 Jalal Nurinda of seminal New York hiphop band, the LAST POETS, had started working for me and we started working on tunes for his projected album. And I have him to thank for the name, Last from Last Poets and Wind from Hawkwind. He went to France and wasn’t allowed back into the UK so that was the end of that collaboration.

The original drummer and bassist of LASTWIND suddenly wanted to be paid a lot more than I could afford so in the end I programmed the drums and bass and we hit the road just me and the excellent French guitarist OBNY. We got a good reception supporting HAWKWIND but at the end of the tour he had to return to France.

Lastwind supporting Hawkwind 2006

The next two tracks on MIXCLOUD are live recordings from this tour, Paris-Marseille which I sung in French and our show stopping final song, Monster Trucks.

Although we did a couple more LASTWIND gigs with a different line-up, I was getting fed up with playing just that sort of music and started writing, playing and recording a series of very different songs under the name DOWNTIME. I just put these out on SoundCloud and SoundClick, an American site, where they got a good reception and I was in their charts for quite a while even with a track in their top 3 (out of several thousand).

The next three songs on the MIXCLOUD selection are from this period, although a couple of them I started working on just before starting Lastwind. Then I have included the main song from music I did for a film called Light at some time in that decade.

POLYMORPH performing live in Bristol.

I was now working as Centre Manager at a Language School in Bristol and one of the teachers was a talented writer called Johnny Trousers. He knew I had recording possibilities and asked me about recording one of his songs. Soon we had an album’s worth and put it out under the name of POLYMORPH and even played a couple of gigs in Bristol. And in the Mixcloud sequence the next two songs are from this short lived group.

Lastwind version 2 on tour, March 2013

An old acquaintance, Frenchy Golder, director of Flicknife Records then asked me about putting out a Lastwind album and then touring it. I said yes cos I was by now retired and living in Devon looking after my mum and had the time and was rather bored. I recorded the whole album alone, helped by a few guitarists, in particular Jerry Richards of Hawklords. Then, old friend Latch, back in Bristol, said he could find the members for a 5 piece band and he did, they re-recorded the album, RETURN OF THE SONIC ASSASSINS, ready for it to be manufactured and toured. This we did in atrocious weather in March 2013. They were not happy days and I decided that was the end of recording straight ahead rock and touring. There are three songs from this venture on the MIXCLOUD sequence but they are my demos versions all with lead guitar by Jerry Richards : Daytrippers, When and Autoroute.

When my mum passed on a the end of 2013, I was free and had a little bit of money she had left me so I bought a big American camper van and headed for France. I had various tunes hanging around ready recorded except vocals which I had never used because they didn’t fit into the Lastwind mould. And I was continuing to write. I wanted them to become songs but I didn’t feel like writing lyrics or singing anymore. I bumped into someone on the internet who liked what I sent him and was interested in writing lyrics and singing.

Kenneth Higgins and Me in Bangkok.

Only problem was, Kenneth Higgins lived in Bangkok.

We met up when I travelled out to Asia in the winter of 2014/15. We got on, agreed on which songs and so NAGAS was born and a first album came out in early summer 2015, COME TOGETHER and the next 4 tracks on Mixcloud are from this album. We had to change the name to NAGAS2 because there was already a group in France with the same name. I had plenty more songs to keep Ken busy and end of May 2016 we brought out a second album called KARMA VORTEX. The next four songs on MixCloud are from this album.

The final track on Mixcloud is just me, under my own name and is probably the direction I will be going in next: instrumental music with few if any lyrics, music which gives a particular ambience, sometimes for dancing, sometimes for chilling, sometimes for reflecting. But who knows. Music keeps flowing out of me and is central to my life for however much longer it continues.

Peace and On.