My Best Gigs of the Seventies.

With the 70's came adulthood, marriage to my French girlfriend having moved to Bristol, then a further move to North Devon, teacher training, teaching in a school for maladjusted boys and two children. But amongst all this there were some good festivals and concerts, three of my favourites being during the seventies.
When we lived in Bristol, for a lot of the time we were both working and saving to go to India, a trip that never happened. So we didn't go out that much, most of our entertainment being acid taking at home. But amongst the few concerts we saw was a great one.

5. FREE at the Colston Hall, Bristol, 1971.

Andy Fraser who started his career with John Mayall when he was 15 and sadly died in 2015 aged 62.

I had already met Andy Fraser, the fantastic bass player of the band about 18 months beforehand when I roadied for Alexis Korner at a gig at Bristol University and where he was accompanied on bass by Andy. It was this gig that made me decide to move to Bristol as it seemed to have a cool population and a shortage of one thing I could supply, namely acid. All through that gig when I was standing around with nothing to do, I kept getting approached by people asking if I had any so I thought, good way of financing a move to the west and out of huge London.
Anyhow, we bought tickets down the front and a bit to the right of the stage and I was totally gob-smacked by the power of the quartet; there was the strength of Paul's vocals, the pounding of Simon's drums, the driving riffs of Kossoff's guitar, all underpinned by the rock'steady bass of Andy. He was without doubt the bass player who first got my attention and made me realise the importance of this instrument in a band: just listen to the break in Alright Now, their huge hit. Equally, after this concert, the future of the 4 piece rock band was carved into my mind, making a place for others like Led Zeppellin to follow.

Then, once in Devon, in the wilds and with young babies, most of my nights out were to play with the band Ark. But I did get to see a few concerts and the standout one was when I was away on a course about Behaviour Modification at London University.

THIN LIZZY on stage in the 70's.

6.  THIN LIZZY at the Marquee Club, London 1977.
I had read about this gig in the music press and was determined to see Lizzy who had impressed me on the radio and on the Old Grey Whistle Test. I missed an important workshop and slipped out down the Tottenham Court Road and into Soho and my old haunt from the 60's. And was I glad I did!! This band were not yet international stars but were gathering a huge following and were a quartet having recently been joined by the very long-haired American, Scott Gorham.
I got myself positioned near the front centre so I could be battered by the sound and study how it was being created. I loved Phil Lynott's vocals, his vocal tone, his phrasing and his lyrics and how he sung like that and played a steady groove of a bass line at the same time was beyond me. It was so different but then he was black and you didn't see many black people in rock bands back then. The songs were all good, short on their records but longer on stage, letting the guitars rip. And they were beginning to develop part of their hallmark sound, the twin lead guitars in harmony which really worked and got the crowd going. A wonderful evening which removed all thoughts of teaching from my mind.
It was soon after this that I stopped teaching having played with Sonic Assassins and been asked to join Hawkwind for their 78 tour of the USA. (See elsewhere in my blogs.) And it was during this tour that I saw favourite gig number 7.

Daivd Bowie on stage in 1978.

7.  DAVID BOWIE, The Forum, Los Angeles, 1978.
As you will know if you've read my blog about the Hawkwind tour, I got to meet David Bowie when he invited the band for a meal to apologise for having nicked Simon House thus giving me a job. Then a couple of weeks later, Simon King and I spent an enjoyable evening with members of the band in their hotel suite during which we were given tickets to go to the huge arena where they were playing in LA. Our seats were pretty good, near the stage but just off to the left and with a perfect view of proceedings.
The first thing that struck me was the stage lighting, something that was gaining its place as a necessary feature of rock concerts. It was just white on black with not a drop of colour, the first time I had seen lighting used in such an unusual way. The sound was excellent, particularly considering the awkward shape of the arena, and the band were perfect with the black trio of Denis, George and Carlos on bass, drums and rythmn guitar providing the bedrock. Adrian Belew was getting some amazing sounds out of his guitar, Simon's violin was spot on and the keyboards were magnificent. But what made the show so good was Bowie himself, his voice, his showmanship and the songs themselves, whether they were the anti-pop variety from Low or stunning anthems like Heroes, definitely the best song they did.
This was a different world from straightforward rock I was used to and the enthusisatic crowd showed I was not alone in recognising that we had watched and heard something quite special.

The next post will be 4 more of my top concerts, all set in the 80's and all in France where I spent that decade.

Touring with Hawkwind. Post 9. SPACE ROCK and SPACE CADETS and Davy Jones!!

All band members were told to be at the Rainbow for a special event: we were all invited to dinner with David Bowie!! Wow, I said and Wow again. I was a huge fan of Mr Jones so this was going to be an occasion and a half. We were all there on time for a change, sat around and waiting. Dave said that Dave was doing this by way of an apology for having nicked Simon House to play violin with his touring band and that I had better sit fairly close to him because he would want to meet the person who had filled the missing place in Hawkwind. The great man turned up just a few minutes late accompanied by Simon and two massive body guards who kept close by.

DAVID BOWIE 78 STYLE

They keep any outsiders away from our group and Mexican food was ordered all round. After introductions, tour stories were exchanged a bit and then David asked me how the tour was going. I felt I should keep the conversation going by saying I thought we were born in the same hospital. 'Ah, Stony Park, Bromley," he replied. "I was going to be born there but finally my mum had me at home. But Peter was born there, Peter Frampton. So, you're a Bromley lad are you?" "More Beckenham," I replied," I came to your Folk Club at the Three Tuns a couple of times". " Ah the good old days," he laughed. Conversation over.

Of course, the most surprising thing about him was his size: he is quite a tiny man, about the same height as Johnny Lydon, a bit shorter than Lemmy, the same height as Eddy Van Halen who I'd met back in Milwaukee. And he seemed a bit shy all things considered. Then suddenly he was off with hand shakes all round: I caught up with his party a couple of weeks later, another story to come. Our status in the Rainbow definitely went up a notch after that meal. Bowie was the biggest star to eat there that month and we were his guests!! Even the Hispanic gang guarding the cars heard and gave us more respect.

On our first visit to The Starwood for our first sound check they had the big side doors open and we could see what a barn of a place it was, holding 800 max. Some salesmen turned up and gave Dave and Adrian wi-fi connections between there guitars and amps, the first time we had seen such things. They tried them out but didn't buy anything. The tour was already well over budget and there were already rumours that our per diems would be cut before the end. I was already struggling financially but help was at hand. 

I hung out with Adrian and Simon mostly and they had already warned me about Space Cadets, a particular band of girls to be found in California who were quite well off and were living well off the planet earth, and I met a few that afternoon who were offering me everything, drugs, food, drinks, more drugs. One girl gave me a few pills and said this will brighten up your day and, showing off really, I necked them immediately and the rest of the tour was never the same again.

To this day I'm not sure what they were: ten years later I would have said a mixture of speed and ecstasy. Whatever they were, I was flying.

I remember very little of the first night there, we played three or four nights, I can't remember. What I do remember is watching all of Nic Guilder's set the first night and thinking they were bloody good and later watching Detective for about two tunes and deciding they were rubbish, too prog rock. There were loads of bodies around the dressing rooms, lots of drinking going on and I returned to my hotel room with a gang of about half a dozen space cadets, including one bloke who just kept rolling splits and who had brought a ghetto blaster with him which played space rock or similar non-stop. The various girls were all over me but there was one in charge, quite a beautiful, full-figured blond called Jill. She gave me a BJ and told me she would look after me while I was in LA and if I came back. And she did. She gave me money, bought all the presents for me to take home to my wife and boys, made sure I ate something everyday and checked what drugs I was taking. From what I gathered, she'd been around the block a few times and provided a similar service for quite a few British musicians over the last few years.

But two of the other space cadets, both with long hair in plaits, one black hair, one brown, both slim and small-breasted, were always around and slipping me different pills without Jill seeing and they seemed to get stronger all the time, the girls and the pills. As the pill-taking increased, my appetite decreased until the only meal I was even attempting was breakfast. But Jill would make sure I at least drunk a carrot juice at lunchtime.

MAHOGONEY RUSH

There were other drugs around. I know Simon was taking smack on a daily basis and there was usually some coke around. I wasn't into smack at all but quite liked coke but refused to buy it, it was too expensive for me. I could only afford freebies. And of course, there were other bands in the hotel which we would sometimes get into things with. Mahogany Rush were staying just down the hall and although some of their crew were very friendly, we didn't see much of the three band members more than saying hi in the lift. But one afternoon, when the space cadet crew were in my room, we ran out of rolling papers and the nearest place to buy some was a car ride away. So I said I knew where I could get some and wandered down the hall to Mahogany Rush's guitarist's room and knocked on the door. The door was answered after a few seconds by two naked nubile girls, think that Zeppelin cover or the Blind Faith cover. I mean these girls were young, 13, 14 at most. A voice from the bed told them to give me what I wanted, they did, smiled at me and then closed the door again.

The Buddy Miles band was also in the hotel and those guys were very cool, always gave you the nod but never spoke, were often in the bar but in a huddle round a corner table. But this was back then when in general white and black worlds were very different and there was little mixing or contact. What I did gather was that both these bands were not on tour: they were living in the hotel whilst working on an album, recording in one of LA's many top studios.

The Blockheads were touring like us though, using the hotel as a base for a few gigs they had in South California. And we did have some fun with them, mainly late at night, mainly when drunk. The height of our madness was a 'gunfight' using Chinese rockets, along our corridor until someone from the hotel management came up and asked us to stop, not because of the fireworks per se but because there were complaints about the noise we were making. But we were just continuing the long tradition of British bands behaving badly in this hotel, previous incumbents including The Who, Led

LED ZEPPELIN WITH SPACE CADETS AT THE RAINBOW

Zeppelin and The Stones, all of whom ran up bills of damage and destruction well above ours. On arrival Jeff Dexter had told us to keep damage to a strict minimum as we were already over-budget!!

Many years later, in LA on business with my wife, we stayed in a hotel about 100 yards distant from the Hyatt: I decided that the Hyatt was a risk as it was renown for bands staying there, so chose a quiet looking smaller place. Very soon we realised we had made a mistake as we had loud guitar music from one room just down the corridor, people, including females in very little clothing, moving between two or three neighbouring rooms, leaving the doors open and having loud conversations from room to room and then, to cap it all, rhythmic thumping on one of our walls as someone was getting into some very energetic sex. I went to the front desk to see if we could move and the manager said," Oh, I thought you all were in the rock business from your look, so I put you on the 'rock' side. I can move you to the other side if you'd prefer." So, I guess it's not just the Hyatt that is infested with rock bands misbehaving.

On the last night at the Starwood, I got into some trouble with some guys from the other support band after our set. We had been drinking heavily and it was a hot night so we were standing on the landing of the external fire escape, well up above the venue's car park.

THE RIOT HOUSE

There was an 'O' shaped  hole in the middle of a wall opposite and we decided to have a competition to see who could throw an empty beer bottle through that hole. Well, we never made it through the hole but we did land a lot of beer bottles, smashing as they landed in the car park. And this was met by furious shouting by a guy down there. Jill, who was there as well said, "Oh shit, it's a biker gang who run this car park." And she had the presence of mind to run down to the next landing where there was a pulley which allowed one to pull up the last half-storey of the fire escape, stopping the guy from coming up to get at us. He was mouthing up all sorts of threats and made it clear he'd clocked us and would get us when we attempted to leave as he swung a nasty looking crowbar around. I was too out of it to realise the danger but Jill organised the crew to hide me and smuggle me out as the biker and his cronies looked into every face to see if it was me.

A fitting end to LA. The Santa Monica gig was cancelled and we had to be up early for the drive up to San Francisco (Dave and Bob flew up.)

And a very nice drive it was. Good to see some countryside after 5 days in the city.

TO BE CONTINUED. Peace and love in the hippest city of the tour.

The Trouble With Memories.

The trouble with memories is that there are really 3 kinds. There are those little scenarios which you can picture, which you can remember in a visceral way, your feelings alongside the pictures. Then, there are those things which you can't really remember but that you know about because you have been told about them by others, for example your parents. These tend to give your memories a basis and a time line into which you can fit your own personal memories. And finally, there are those embellishments, added by yourself or others, which make the memories more worthwhile, or special, or simply exaggerations like those of the Marseille fishermen. Sorting out which are which becomes increasingly difficult as time passes and the bank of memories grows and one's actual capacity to remember weakens.

The last tram to run in Croydon arrives in Thornton Heath where we lived : my dad took me on this tram as a 'reward' for going to hospital.

I'll give some examples. My earliest visual memory is of lying in a bed, half awake, as two large figures appear out of a mist and approach with something quite large in their hands which I gradually recognise to be some sort of steam engine, in fact, a steam roller. I later learnt from my parents that I was actually in the Mayday Road Hospital, Croydon, and had just been circumcised, an operation that my parents felt was necessary, being as they were fundamental evangelical Christians, those who took a literal view of the Bible as the Word of God, to be followed as closely as one could. An embellishment, which may or may not be true, is that I reacted badly to the anaesthetic and had to be put in an oxygen tent which was a frightening experience for both me and them. I can't remember this myself, I was only 3 at the time, and my mother couldn't even remember me being circumcised when I talked about it to her in her later life. But I was: I have the physical proof.

By Photographer: Photobra|Adam Bielawski

Here’s a more recent and more complex example. In 1978, during Hawkwind’s tour of the USA, of which much more later, we had dinner with David Bowie in the famous Rainbow Rooms. I think he had come by way of an apology for pinching Simon House from Hawkwind to play violin in his live band for his ‘Heroes’ tour. I had replaced Simon and through that connection had got free, excellent tickets to see Bowie’s show in LA’s huge basketball stadium. All I have said up till now I know is the truth and is totally verifiable. I have always said that, at that dinner, I was sat close to David Bowie and that when he looked at me, all I could find to say was, “We were born in the same hospital, Stone Park in Beckenham”. To which he replied, “Really, and so was Peter Frampton. Small world, ain’t it.’ End of conversation. Now, this was towards the end of our tour and I was pretty wasted.

Partying night after night had had its effect. When I look back at this incident I find myself
asking whether this conversation took place, whether Bowie was even born in that hospital? Were these later embellishments? I try to sort out what my memory really contains, what was added later, the fact from the fiction. And if my life depended on it, all I could definitely say was that we had this dinner, Bowie was there – I can picture how small he seemed, particularly next to his massive bodyguard – and I was there.