THE JOHN TALLON JONES MUSIC SITE

                                  THE DOGS BOLLOCKS    (A LONDON FAIRYTALE)

                             Chapter one

  

 

Friday afternoon in Willy’s parlour, and I can hear him moving about upstairs. It’s the most exciting thing that’s happened all day.…………………………… There’s the flush,.............Big round of applause for that………………………Underpants up…………….Happening or what!   ............................. one step, two steps, three?…………….Now wait a minute?????? Something’s wrong up there…………………….. there’s a three………. Four……………………………….. and five today…………………Six………………….seven?................ The bugger  must really be wrecked. Sigh of  relief; there’s the bathroom door opening; washed his bloody hands? No way man………….

Christ! I’m living up the bumhole of life here, and spend most of my non giro days  listening to this crap.  It’s four thirty, and the street lights and permanently drawn  polyester curtains have once again combined  to turn twilight  the colour of piss. London sucks, and so does this room. Experience tells me it’s not a good room, especially if your tripping, which regretfully  I’m not.

 The smell of Tabac, bad breath, sex and shit stained hands vaporise into the room followed closely by Willy, and as if she’s smelt him, Sasha pops her head around the kitchen door, death ray stares the room, turns the big light on and disappears. Willy’s still got his  eyes closed as he shuffles himself across the shagged pile in his semen stained boxers with a  duvet  draped over his shoulders. A good night or what? He just about makes it to his chair, crunches himself into the foetal position and waves like the frigging  Queen Mother toward the record player.

‘Stick Stanley on,’

My arse!  Stick it on yourself  dickhead.

 ‘Which side Will?’ I hate myself.

 He picks up the cheapo Fender Precision copy, waits for the record to drop and begins playing along. Willy knows Stanley Clarke better than Stanley Clarke  knows Stanley Clarke. ‘I need to practice man,’ he says in that sly Willy type way of his which really means he doesn’t

‘Fuck the practice Will, you don’t need it.’ I  stare at his face for the smug smile he always gets when somebody sucks up to him. There it is now, the faked look of embarrassment; Willy feeds off  praise, like a baby feeds off it’s mam’s tits; he’s been mainlining on the stuff for years off arse wipes like me.

He was playing a minor diminished scale run now with Stanley, his shitty hands a frigging blur moving up and down the fret board slapping the ancient strings. He was a big headed bugger and  I would have been well impressed if it hadn’t been my cheapo copy he was playing. His non cheapo Rosewood Fender Fretless, with an action you’d kill your sister for was up stairs in it’s case: I hoped he wouldn’t bust a string, because I didn’t have any money for a new  set. I didn’t even have money for a plectrum.

 He stopped playing, reached for his baccy tin and green Rizla’s on the coffee table, pulled a plastic bag from under the duvet like a bloody magician’s apprentice and began to roll a joint with grass. The size of the bag he was holding was  worth more than the guitar. I drooled like a dog as he  sprinkled the green into the brown.

He was a good looking bastard, as most half casts were. His Dad was black, and his mum something else. He was big to, with huge hands and feet, but underneath soft as a brush. People often mistook his quietness for menace, but in fact he was usually too wrecked to string enough words together to make proper sentences. He was sort of proud of his African roots, though in a wank Willy like way, he bent between  self pity, and anger; about what? Who knows or cares; it was just a Willy thing.

Sasha, came in with a mug of milky something in her hand, and a number six stuck to her bottom lip, she didn’t look happy with Will.(nothing new there.) Sasha’s a frigging class A mentalist; I guess you’d have to be to put up with Will.  She wore a caftan, to hide her fat black arse, and boozers gut

 ‘Piss off for a minute Dai,’ she said, slamming the mug onto the bass, and spilling some onto the spliff

 I squirmed inside at the disrespect, but pissed off as fast as I  could. Survival  in this house depended on knowing when to piss off.  I could feel Willy’s eyes burning into my pissing off back, wishing he could do the same.  If this was the price for getting your end away you could stick it up your hole. Closest I’d got to sex since I’d hit London was wanking off to the sound of Willy and Sasha screwing in the next room. Come to think of it, I got as much grief off Sasha as he did, though all I got was a stiffy. As I fumbled my way up the stairs to my room, I ‘d only reached halfway before Sasha  went off on one and broke what sounded like Willy’s West Ham coffee mug against something hard; Now I did feel sorry for the guy; he really loved that mug..

I went into my room, put on Wishbone Ash side two,(Side one is shit except for Blind Eye) jumped track one and dropped the needle on to Phoenix for the Wa Wa intro, lay on the bed and waited for Willy to join me. He walked in minutes later, and sat on the floor as if nothing had happened. He gave me a what’s this white trash music Willy type look, and I  pissed myself laughing when I saw the Nescafe stains on his  T-shirt. He smelt freeze dry roasted, but still with an underlying odour of shit.

‘We’ve got a gig tonight man,’ he said nursing the side of his jaw.   ‘should be well good.’ He waited for me to ask him about it.

‘What’s so good Will?’

‘It’s down Sara’s gaff.’

Nuff said!

Willy the twat of few words, started arolling  waiting for my next question. He knew what it was going to be, but  always made me ask it.

‘Any chance of me coming Will? I could give you a hand with the gear.’ I  tried not to sound too keen, cause Willy didn’t like doing  favours, he preferred you to grovel.

I waited……………………….

Still waiting………………………..

Getting anxious now………………………………

Come on you black cunt……………………….

‘Ok, sound ’ he said lighting the spliff, and getting up. ‘Get ready man, I’m off in five minutes, you can give us a hand setting up.’

What he really meant was that I could cart all his stuff in, while he sat on his arse, got wrecked and tapped off.  The deal as deals went was a bummer but was OK by me;  a night out was a night out, and if it was at Sara’s, it would be full of beer, drugs and a loads of fanny. I got dressed quickly before he had a chance to forget he’d asked me. Willy’s mind is so addled with drugs he had about a two second recall. I Couldn’t be arsed washing  so I sneaked into his bedroom, blitzed  myself with his aftershave, and treated myself to a sniff of  Sasha’s knickers from the dirty laundry basket to get me in the mood.

Willy was waiting by the door when I got downstairs and handed me his guitar case. He sniffed the air, but didn’t push it. I smelt  like a tarts armpit,  but he smelt and  looked like a Tosser. White sheepskin, white Cuban heels, white flared jeans, white jacket, white open neck shirt  featuring pubic chest hair, and large black cross.  Tasty or what?  Yeh right…

I popped my head round the living room door to say ta ta to Sasha. She was doing the ironing, and watching Love Thy Neighbour, on the  television.  If she saw me she didn’t let on, so I decided to leave it, and closed the door as quietly as I could.

It wasn’t far to Sara’s place, but we stopped off at the  Green Man in the High Street, to make sure all the heavy stuff had been carried in by the rest of the band before we got there. Willy parked the Shagged out Tranny on double yellows in front of the door, and turned on the hazard warning light.(only one was working)  Inside was full of Greasers, weekend Hippies, and School kids. In the corner a band was setting up, trying to find a space to fit their gear and arguing with Howell  the landlord about moving some tables. The air inside had been magically sucked out at opening time and replaced with fanny sweat and patouli; Lou Reed’s walk on the wild side was playing on the juke box. We had a pint of Snake Bite each, and stood by the bar trying to look cool. Willy was well not happy.

‘She’s gone too far this time man. Too far………….the bitch.’

I went into arse lick mode. ‘Why don’t you get rid Will?’ I Already knew his answer, and I was buggered if I was going  to listen to it, concentrating instead on the arse of a big blond biker girl, and imagining it sitting on my face………………………….mmmm……..  My turn to say something. ‘Your right man, I don’t know how you stick it.’ Blah, blah frigging blah…….

I first Willy when I was living like a rat, in a squat in Vauxhall. He was coming round to the house most nights, to screw one of the tarts who lived there. I used to buy a bit of blow off him, and we’d talk  bass guitar. Then out of the blue, he asked me if I needed a room, and that he’d got a spare one in his house, that was better than the shit hole I was living in. We did a deal over the Housing Benefit, and he promised to give me some of it back. Willy changed his mind about giving me any money back, when it was too late for me to do anything. That’s the kinda guy he is. A cunt.  But I’ve got a plan: while he’s out shagging, I’m in his house, smoking his blow, ( I  found his stash months ago) and trying to get my end away with Sasha. It’s not that I fancy her much; it’s the principle, and besides, he treats her like shit, so in my book she’s fair game.

Sara lived in one of those big toff’s houses up Wimbledon Common; the sort I used to rob with me mate Steve when I first arrived here from Prestatyn. She was all over Will from the moment we arrived, lucky bastard.  They were practically shagging each other in the hall, Will  was loving the attention. Sara was old enough to be me Ma, but Ma  didn’t look like this. Maybe it was because she was a Yank; she was like something off the movies; like that tart in Police Woman. Angie something or other….Anyway, I  couldn’t take my eyes off her arse, (I’m an arse kinda guy) that is until Willy gave me a nod towards the front door, meaning for me to get the gear in. For the next half hour, I was struggling up and down that hall with his gear.  The rest of the lads were already inside setting up. I got a bonus ball though;  when I nearly dropped the mixer desk. Sara caught it just in time, and helped me carry it through the hall, flashing her enormous  tits on the way, and pressing them up against me as we put it down on a coffee table. What  a prick teaser; fucking magic!.  She handed me a bottle of Budweiser, and walked off to expose bits of herself to the rest of the band.  I couldn’t help wondering if those teeth were her own, they looked too white to me, as if they’d been gloss painted and that suntan? she was almost as black as Willy. Me head went; I was  imagining that fanny (shaved I hoped) moving up and down on my outstretched tongue. Sara was enjoying it as much as I was, but just as I was about to do the biz!!!....................’.Dai………..Dai………….Dai……..’ 

 I turned around and saw Patti, Sara’s daughter. Fuck! I forgot she’d be here. She was shouting and waving for me to follow her into the garden. I tried to ignore her but she kept going,  waving her arms like a retard so I gave it up and put my beer down.  She was a giant of a gal, about my own age, an exact opposite of her mother.  Sara dressed to give you a stiffy, but Patti dressed to kick you in the balls. She was the  style Anti Christ of Wimbledon Common and wore a loose fitting black ripped T shirt and uncool straight black Levis, the sort that your Da  put on when he was painting the house or doing the gardening. She was almost totally bald, and what hair she did have stood up in little ginger tufts dotted randomly over her milk white head. She looked like a weeble; top this off with black horn rimmed Mr Magoo spectacles and a false rubber joke shop mouth with a brace on every tooth and you have Patti, a living nightmare. It was  typical of my luck, that  the only girl in London that I didn’t want to get my end away with, was available.  I followed her slowly outside trying to imagine what she looked like naked; no way man, no frigging way was I getting between those legs. At the far end of the garden I could see a light shining through a half open door. I followed her towards it.

‘Please remove your shoes,’ she said, adding ‘I’ve got a dust allergy.’

I didn’t want to take anything off in front of Patti but I went along with it cause I’m a soft cunt at heart and I followed her into the room.  In the centre, was a white grand piano, and scattered around the walls were acoustic and electric guitars, and tom-toms. It smelt of incense, ( I hate all that wanky student crap) but joy! could I detect a slight hint of  spunk? I wasn’t sure; there was a dear do looking stereo system, and control desk in the corner. I was well gob smacked, but Patti, hadn’t brought me here to show off. She wasn’t that type of a girl. To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure what sort of a girl Patti was and I didn’t want to hang round to find out.

She handed me a bass guitar, and dick head that I am I took it. She sat down at the piano, and began to play, humming a tune to herself over the chords. She looked over at me, and I clumsily tried to play along, struggling to find what key she was in, just relieved she didn’t want me to shag her. She was playing in an offbeat fashion, and I found her difficult to follow. She began to sing in a weird bird like voice, sort of a cross between Tiny Tim, and Joni Mitchell. I stopped playing; she’d lost me somewhere in the middle of the major sevenths, and minor something or other, but I listened; She was the biz; well out of my class, and  probable knew it, but she didn’t let on.  She changed style and mood suddenly, and began to play Be Bop A Lula. This was more like it for me. A straight twelve bar, uncool, but at least I could dick my way through it. It was in A to, my favourite and only key. Buddy Holly would have nutted her if he could hear the way she was singing it. Was she taking the piss? From the look on her face, I decided she wasn’t. It was pitiful. She gave the same treatment to Peggy Sue, and Shaking All over, but by this time I was buggered, and my fingers hurt. This was Rock and Roll meets Opera; too freaky for me. I stopped playing, and walked around the room looking for something to smoke.

‘It’s in a black box by the records,’ she sang in time to the music. She’d changed  again and was playing a boogie-woogie version of  Little Drummer boy. I joined in the chorus ‘a rumpapumppom’………….

I found her blow, and had a look through her record collection. Bag of shite or what?; Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Gene Vincent, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. This girl definitely needed educating. At last I found something with some credibility;  Iron Butterfly.

‘That one is mum’s,’ she said coming over and sitting down on the floor besides me. ‘She likes all that heavy shit, how about you? What turns you on?’

I shrugged and  continued rolling.

‘Sara and Willy were shagging in here last night ’ she said flatly. ‘ I got it on tape, you can listen if you want.’ Without waiting she reached over and pressed a button down.

‘………….Waz mamma gonna do to da pretty nigger boy?’

…………..Silence………………

‘I said waz iS mamma gonna do noW wid u nigger boy?’

‘fuck me mama fuck meeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah.’

‘Hot wax over his nipples,’ said Patti  ‘Listen to this bit, it’s really good.’ She wound it on.

‘wan mo niggger? Want to fuck wid da white woman?’

‘yes, yes, yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasfuccccccccckkkkinhell.’

‘There goes the candle up his arse,’ said Patti

‘Fuck me, ‘ said I. ‘was it lit?.’

‘It was,’ said Patti

‘aaaaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaa,’ said Willy

No wonder he was shuffling round the bathroom this afternoon. His arse must have been wasted.

The blow kicked in. This was good stuff, I’d only taken a toke.  Patti saw the look of shock on my face and smiled with pride. ‘It’s special that is, difficult to get hold of over here unless you know the right people.’

I stood up. ‘Is there a bog in here?’

She shook her head, and took the joint.

‘What’s happening?’

‘I need to piss.’

I walked as coolly as I could, to the distressed sound of Willy getting things shoved up his arse, out into the fresh air, and steadied myself on the wall. Inside the house, the band had started to play, the French windows were open, and the party had spilled out onto the lawn. I put my shoes  back on with difficulty, made my way into the house and found a bathroom. As I sat on the seat trying to piss. I could here London’s version of KC and the Sunshine band going through their set. I knew it off by heart. They were a great band to party to, but were never destined to be famous. I wanted to be famous. That was the only reason that I’d come down here, but before I arrived, I hadn’t realised how many other people felt the same as me. The town was swarming with me’s, mostly superior models.

The house was full of the usual wankers you got at one of Sara’s does. There were the normal smattering of students   in loons, ripped jeans and Afghans. Bearded intellectual Jesus look-alikes, long hairs, hippies, breast feeding mothers with kids dangling off them in harness’s, the occasional permed up professional footballer, and some minor league rock stars, who wore dark glasses so as not to be noticed, and got really pissed off when they weren’t. There were a lot of older people, that stood around in groups, talked very seriously to each other and danced like spastics.

I did what I always did at parties. Found the booze, and got pissed. I was on my way to the bathroom again, this time to spew my ring up, when Sara caught hold of my arm, and pushed some lad  dressed in blue denim in front of me.

‘There’s someone here that wants to talk to you Dai.’

‘Who?’

She shoved the boy closer to me almost knocking me over, and walked off.

‘You play bass?’ He said

‘Yeah’

‘Who are you into?’

I wasn’t in a fit state to answer that question honestly, so I blurted out the first thing that came into my head. ‘ Iron Butterfly.’

 ‘Cool. You any good?’

 I gave a non committal shrug. (fact is I’m a bag of shite)

‘Do you want to audition for a band?’

Who is this twat?.

‘We’ve sorta  got a deal, and we’re looking for a new bass player, Come dow……………. Aaw fuck…………’

I  spewed up over him and collapsed onto the floor. I felt hands grabbing hold of my arms and dragging my out into the garden. The last thing that I remember before loosing consciousness, was Patti’s white face looking down at me, and fingers (hers?) unzipping my trousers. She looked worse than I actually was, and that was some comfort, but I still felt like a prat.

I woke up in the back of Willy’s transit with my head wedged between an eighteen inch marshal  bass bin, and a four by twelve mid range. There was a H and H horn unit balanced on top that looked as if it was about to fall off and do me damage. I did a quick check.  I  had definitely shit myself.  Willy was driving like a lunatic, and it didn’t take much to know why. I hadn’t kept my side of the bargain. The poor sod must have got himself wrecked before realising  when it was too late, that I was more wrecked than he was. He’d have had to put his own gear away. That was the end of me going to gigs for a while. I was surprised that he’d agreed to take me home. Maybe the bastard was going to dump me somewhere. I closed my eyes, no; Willy wouldn’t have the guts or the energy to do something like that. He’d pay me back in a more devious way, I was sure.

As I later crawled up the stairs, and into my bedroom, I could hear Willy noisily putting chains and padlocks on all of the van’s doors. My job again. I hoped that the racket  he was making would wake up Jamal and Sasha; that would teach the twat a lesson. She was the only woman he had any respect for, if you could class fear the same as respect. I never could understand the hold that she had over him, it didn’t make sense, but at the end of the day it never kept me awake at night worrying. I took my trousers off, and was about to get into bed, when I noticed the writing just above my shitty Y-fronts. I pulled them down, and there in black lipstick was a telephone number. Above the number and slightly smudged I read, PLEASE  CALL ME. PATTI. The bitch had even drawn stars on my bollucks. I got into bed  and smiled to myself. That was one freaky chic; still………………… It was nice to be wanted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                    Chapter two

London life’s a hoot. One day your sitting in Willy’s front parlour seriously pissed off, the next your in your brother Joe’s boarded up squat in Brixton trying to get next toke on the last spliff before the strong cider and straws come out. Joe (that’s my brother) is in his deckchair practising his guitar, and Dee his fit girlfriend is hogging it trying to talk to me about  Joe’s musical direction. Tell you the truth the only direction I’m interested in is the direction the spliff ‘s about to take. She passes it to Joe.  Bugger!

 Non giro Saturdays are shite, so I go to me brother  flat and hang round. Joey’s the coolest dude I know, and the best lead guitarist in the world. He left Prestatyn on his eighteenth birthday and we all knew he was gonna make it big. Ok so we were all wrong, but that’s the way it is down here, it’s the wankers that make it. Wankers and arse bandits. The town’s full of them.

 Joe sold his AC30  to buy the coach ticket and Ma packed sandwiches and gave him the house thermos filled with Camp Coffee for the trip. That was six years ago. He’d left as a long haired denim hick, then within a week of arriving in London he met Dee and had been transformed. He returned home that Christmas with stars on his cheeks, silver knee length boots, and white hair. Ma and Da threw a wobbler. Uncle Arthur confirmed their worse fear.

‘He’s a bloody bum bandit, they’re all like that down there see. I wouldn’t be surprised Molly if he wasn’t smoking them drug things. you should nip it in the bud Alyd before he gives it to Dai and Gwen.’

London sounded cool. Pretty soon half of Prestatyn was dressed like Joe, but the next time we saw him we realised that it wasn’t cool anymore.  This time he was dressed in hemp shirt and bog standard wranglers. The white hair was now back to it’s natural shitty  brown. He brought me a copy of Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, wanked on about John Martyn’s finger style and did a  gig on his own at the Bistro, which was the hang out for most of the Prestatyn cool dude brigade. The idea of acoustic guitar, played through a Wem copycat echo unit blew us all away.  Joe became a local star that night, and I lost my identity. My class mates stopped calling me Dai, and I became known  simple as  Joe’s brother. People stared at us when we walked through Woolly’s; young tartlets would come up to us, and ask for his autograph.

 Uncle Arthur was still confused, blamed the London air, and bored the shit out of us about bringing back something called National Service. Aunty Molly warned mum of the dangers of me going the same way, and said Joe was a bad influence on me and my sister. Dad was certain that ‘this Dee person, or whatever her name is,’ was trying to trap his son, and tried to bring up the subject of contraception at every possibility. Why the daughter of a goldsmith, would try and trap the unemployed son of an unemployed colliery worker never seemed to enter his head. She was a southerner and that was enough. ‘They’re a strange breed that lot down there.’ he would tell mum, as we were eating our tea round the television, watching Coronation Street..

 Joe and Dee, lived above an ‘Open Till Late’ shop, near Brixton market. They didn’t have a bell, so you had to throw stones at the window to get their attention. This  was a real pain, especially when Joe was in the house alone with his headphones on, or when they were both wrecked. You got in through  the kitchen. The  living room was a shit hole which looked bigger than it actually was due to the lack of furniture. In fact, there was no furniture.  People sat on the floor when visiting my brother and his girlfriend. The only chair was a deckchair, usually occupied by the man himself; there were  two beanbags, and a big cushion with the stuffing coming out. The only other things in the room was a  stereo system, with large Warfdale speakers, and of course, Joe’s guitars. They were  on guitar stands down the length of one of the walls laughing at your discomfort. There was the original Ibanez Fender copy which he had arrived in London with, a powder blue heart shaped Fender Stratocaster, a Yamaha acoustic, and a Spanish classical.

Right now Joe was sitting predictable in the deck chair, listening to John McLaughlin, at volume, and I was trying to look down Dee’s Tank top.  I’d always fancied Dee, as did all Joe’s mates. She was tall, and thin, with long blond hair that fell to her backside. She had large green eyes, and spoke posh, although she  tried to sound common.  She’d been to university, but was as thick as pig shit about the real world. She was always trying to get an angle on where me and Joe came from. It wasn’t easy. Like explaining life on planet earth to an extraterrestrial. She had this stereotype  view of what growing up in  North Wales was like. To her it was  miners coming home from the pit face singing, and washing  in tin baths in front of the fire. Were everybody was called Taff, or Jones the butcher, and ate leeks for breakfast, dinner and tea. A town where all the women wore big black pointed hats and long dresses with white aprons, and the men walked round calling everybody ‘Boyo.’

I didn’t have the heart to destroy the image. In fact, I encouraged it, her version was much more interesting than the truth.

‘It must be refreshing to know all your neighbours, and to be able to leave the front door open when you go out.’

‘Yea, bloody fantastic.’

The truth was, Prestatyn, was full of retired Bookies, and Company directors in winter, and boring as hell, and invaded by Scousers in the summer, with battles on the beach between Mods and rockers on Bank holidays. It was more like bloody Dunkirk, than a Welsh seaside resort. 

I suppose at the end of the day, our world was as strange to her as hers was to us, but here in London we’re all pigs, in the same shit. Each of us in our own way looking for that ladder to the stars. Dee was convinced that she’d found hers in my brother. She recognised his potential, and was trying her best to utilise it. She was his Yoko Ono;  Lennon must have the same problems explaining Liverpool to her. That’s what you get when two worlds collide. Bloody confusion.

 

‘ Got a Gig Tomorrow,’ said Joe getting up from the deckchair, and docking the spliff.

I took advantage of the vacant deckchair and sat down.

Dee had been going on about the general lack of decent gigs, and the general state of the music industry, full of wanker A and R men, that wouldn’t recognise talent if it kicked them in the balls. Joe walked up and down the room, and every now and again did some push ups.

I nodded my head and agreed that London was not a cool place.

Joe was more concerned with the dope situation, which was grave. A sixteenth wasn’t going to last the weekend, I felt shit at not being able to buy some, and he looked pissed off. I tried to cheer him up, by telling him about the grass I’d tried the previous Friday. This made him worse, and I stood up to give him his chair back feeling shit.

‘What we need is a singer,’ continued Dee. ‘Somebody with a bit of charisma.’

‘what we need is some grass,’ whined Joe, straining to make his second push up.

I could smell a change of musical direction in the air. I recognised the signs. ‘Maybe you should advertise,’ I said. ‘Or move.’

Dee nodded, Joe wasn’t even listening to the conversation. He was making himself a one skinner. To him direction or lack of direction had never been an issue. The main thing was the music. Since he’d arrived in London he’d always left the finer details up to her. She arranged the rehearsals, hassled agents and landlords for gigs, thought up the band names and found the musicians. As the years went by I had noticed that he had retreated more and more into himself. Decision making had never been his greatest asset, whereas Dee was a natural. I put it down to her upbringing.

 She had led Joe through Glam rock, folk, acoustic rock, electric folk and even a brief period of soul, arriving at this years ‘project’ as she called it, in the belief it would be the next ‘big thing.’

Proteus, played a mixture of funk and rock, which Dee described as ‘progressive  Fusion.’ The nucleus of the band was Joe and a bass player and drummer, but every gig had a different line up, for ‘spontaneity’. Sometimes two or even three other guitarists, the occasional Fender Rhodes, or  brass section. There were no rehearsals, every gig was a jam, involving twenty minute guitar solos, twin harmony leads, and extensive drum and bass solos. There were no vocals. The drummer had  double bass drums, and a speech impediment, and the bass player sometimes played cello. Joe dressed up in levis, collarless shirt and waistcoat, and wore round National health spectacles with plain glass. His collection of pedals was impressive, he sometimes played guitar with a violin bow, or a little plastic hammer. Dee would sit on stage at his feet and meditate. Young boys in the audience would study his technique, and come up to him after to discuss string gauges, and amplification. All good stuff, but ultimately, a ladder leading nowhere. They were the poor mans Weather Report. Excellent musicians, but ultimately a boring bag of shit. You wouldn’t pay to see them twice, spontaneity was not enough in this town, to make it.

Dee and I tried to work out a suitable advert for a singer, while Joe listened to music and rolled joints. He produced a two litre bottle of cider, and we all drank it from the bottle using a straw to get extra pissed.

When Dee eventually stumbled off to bed, we got out the guitars. Joe played his acoustic, and I picked out bass lines on his Spanish. I told him about the audition I’d been offered, and he urged me to practice, then the conversation turned inevitable to home. We talked about mum and dad, Gwen, uncle Arthur, aunty Molly and friends. Every sentence began with, ‘do you remember the time…….’ Joe always became more talkative when Dee wasn’t around, which wasn’t very often. He became older brother again; the person that I used to idolise when I was growing up. It was like being back in Pen-y-Graig Terrace again. Just me and him, alone in our bedroom, with our dreams of stardom, and escape. Especially escape. Joe must have felt it too, because he suggested us both going home for Easter to see the old place.

 As I tried to get myself comfortable in the deckchair before passing out into a pissed up sleep, I knew that it would never happen. They were just empty words. I was worried for my brother, London seemed to have stagnated, then reversed his dreams. I had the strong suspicion, that he was missing Prestatyn. Maybe living here in obscurity  had began to get to him, and he was yearning for his roots. The big fish in a small pool syndrome; I didn’t know, maybe I was wildly wrong. It was probable the cider and dope talking.

I regained consciousness, reasonably early the next day. Dee and Joe were still in bed, and the flat smelt of stale cider, dope, and farts. I looked in on them before I left, but there was no sign of life. They were fast asleep on a grubby mattress on the floor, surrounded by musical equipment. There were two old fashioned butcher bicycles wedged up against a cheap twelve into two mixer desk.  Books and magazines, were stacked dangerously up the wall. In the corner was a pile of clothes, mostly belonging to Dee, covered up by an old Army blanket, another blanket served as a not very efficient curtain, due to the holes I felt illogically sorry for my brother, after all he had a girlfriend who loved him, and his own place. What had I got? I didn’t even want to think of an answer to that one; it was too depressing.

I didn’t bother looking for food or drink in the kitchen. The fridge was never turned on anyway, and was full of Joe’s pedals. Instead, I bought a bottle of milk, and a cheese pasty from the shop underneath. The old Indian bloke in a turban behind the counter, was used to me coming in, in various states of distress, and shook his head as he handed me my change.

‘Late night, and bloody pissed up again,’ he said.

I winked at him. ‘Yea mate, me as well’

I wanted to do something to cheer Joe up. I knew that he was going to be pretty pissed off at the prospect of gigging without herbal stimulus. I loved my brother like a brother, and decided on the ultimate sacrifice.  I took the bus and headed up to Wimbledon, to score some of that dynamite off Patti.

 

 

 

                                                                

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                  

                                                                     Chapter three.

The big house looked even bigger in the daylight. As  I walked up the gravel path, and passed the BMW and Renault 5, I wished I lived there. This was a place that mum would have approved of. Dad would have probable turned the garden into an allotment, and the garage into a pigeon loft.

I wasn’t worried about Patti not being home. She was like a vampire, and never went out in the light.

She opened the door, before I had chance to knock, as if she had been watching me come up the path. She looked worse in the light, and was wearing the same clothes as she always wore. Maybe she had a rack filled with ripped and rotten T shirts, and Levi’s. She looked  happy to see me.

 She took me into the kitchen, and made me a cup of tea.

‘Your mum’s not here then?’ I said.

‘No, she’s going to watch E L O tonight, and has gone shopping for something to wear.’

That was the small talk over. I wanted to score quickly and get out as soon as possible.

I moved the conversation, craftily  around to blow. 

‘Got any of that shit for sale?’

‘Fraid not,’

‘bollocks’

‘can give you a smoke though.’

I gave in.

 I took me shoes off at the garage door before she asked.  No holes this time but my feet were rancid.

Patti sat on the floor, and skinned up. She passed me the joint and I prepared for blast off. She made a move in the direction of the piano, and I had a flash back to Fridays party.

‘So what was so important, that you wanted to speak to me about?’

That did the trick, and she sat down again next to me.

‘I just was wondering if you fancied playing with me,’ she said.’

 ‘Is this the same stuff, you gave me before,’ I said changing the subject.

She shook her head. ‘No, I only keep that for special occasions. How about it? We could form a band.’

I served my best shot.  ‘ But I’m already almost in a band.’

She returned serve. ‘Since when?’

‘Since last Friday. Some dude asked me if I wanted to join his band. They’ve got a deal, and a two K rig.’

She hit a back spin to the base line. ‘Oh you mean Phil, the wanker you were sick over. He gave me this.’ She fumbled in her bag, handed me a piece of paper with a  telephone number on it, and added, ‘I wouldn’t bother with his band though, they’re not very good.’

Neither was I so it sounded promising.

‘ Might as well give it a try though,’ I countered.

‘Yes but you’re here now, and we’ve got all the instruments. Why not give it a go with me first, that’s if you’ve not got anything else to do. We could have a jam together.’

I lobbed the bitch in desperation. ‘I’m going to see my brother’s band tonight out in Bexley Heath, I should be going in a minute.’

‘Can I come? I could drive us over.’

I was being forced into an error. I said nothing.

‘I’ll bring some dope.’

‘The good stuff?’

She nodded her head.

 

We arrived at the gig, thankfully just after they had taken the gear in. It was a students union; I hated those places, full of wanky longhairs, that handed you leaflets about  bigger grants, and more places for foreigners. You had to drink beer from plastic glasses, and there was always some tosser trying to bend your ear about boring shit. If pressed I told them I was Irish: that scared the shit out of them, and they left me alone.

I was looking forward to seeing who was in the dressing room, for tonight’s spontaneity.

 Joe was sitting predictable on the only chair in the room, rubbing baby oil onto the fret board of his guitar to increase the speed of his solos, and talking to Sticks and Dave. Sticks was the drummer, and got his nickname, not for his playing, but for his joint hogging, which was a pisser. He’d smoke most of it, then say ‘sssorry, sssticky fffingers.’

Dave was the bass player. He was a sound guy, and had been in most of the bands that Joe and Dee had formed, and was Joe’s best mate in London; apart from me.

There was no sign of the Fender Rhodes, or any other guitarists tonight. The only other people in the room were Dee, who was laying out Joe’s shirt, waistcoat, and glasses, and Ken. He was older than the rest of us, played tenor sax, and taught political science at  North London Poly.

Patti skinned up, and Joe’s face brightened. He said ‘nice one’ and shook my hand.

I wasn’t quick enough to stop Patti handing the joint to Sticks to light up, and there was a pissed off silence, as the band and me watched him put a match under it. I should have warned them all about the strength of the grass, but I guess they would never have believed me; we’ve all heard that one before. Sticks was on his fourth drag, when Dave took it off him. He didn’t offer much of a fight, started to say ‘sssssorry sssst…….. and lapsed into silence.

As the joint went around the room, it had the same effect on everybody. Ken refused as always, and stood and watched like the dickhead he was, as if he’d got a stick up his arse, as Dee finished it off.

By this time with  the exception of Ken, everybody in the room was wrecked. Some more than others. Dee, and Patti were having a laughing fit, and Joe was pacing up and down the room doing breathing exercises. Sticks  was slumped on the floor. His face was the same colour as Patti’s. Dave and Ken were having an argument.

‘This is madness, ‘ said Ken, ‘where’s your sense of responsibility? It’s like working with a bunch of children.’

‘Up yours.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Up yours, you boring twat..’

‘There’s a time and a place for fun……’

‘Fuck off.’

‘What did you say?’ Ken looked to Dee for some support, she became serious for a moment then lost it.

It was grim trying to get on stage. Sticks didn’t make it, Ken was acting like a spoilt child, and had to be persuaded by Dee to play.

‘Ok then,’ he said ‘ but it’s the last time right.’

I had an idea to prop Sticks up on his stool with me holding him in position, hoping he would come round during the set. We jammed drumsticks into his hands and tried to drag him. We only managed to get him to the stairs, but they were to narrow to push the fat bastard up. So we left him lying there and stepped over him.

The gig wasn’t too bad really. A bit boring without the drums, but this was Proteus’s trademark. The audience would have had more fun in the dressing room watching us trying to prise Sticks eyes open, and slapping his face. But spontaneous it bloody was. I’d never seen Dee lying down at Joe’s feet before. Dave left the stage for ten minutes to be sick, and came back with a chair to sit down on. I suspected that the cello wouldn’t be making an appearance tonight. Joe carried on like a frigging robot, swapping licks with Ken, who still looked like he’d got a pole up his arse.

There was no encore, but that was nothing unusual; there again, there had not been any slow handclaps. With students you had to be mainstream pop, to get that treatment. The thing that got me, was the fact that they got the same response stoned and without a drummer, as they would have had with one, and the Fender Rhodes, and the other guitarists. So why did they bother? What was the point of it all?

Patti had stood on her own by the front of the stage during the set. She must have been the tallest person in the place. With her white face, semi shaved head, orange tuft hair, black lipstick, uncool clothes, and horn rimmed glasses, she stood out like a whore in a nunnery. There were spaces all around her, as if  people were scared they might catch something. She clapped  at the end of every spontaneous jam. She looked like she should have been home in bed with a thermometer stuck in her mouth, or in hospital.

   When the student had gone back to their bed sits, and halls of residency, leaving behind a sea of puke, spilt beer, and piss filled glasses;  the band set down the gear in silence, and took bits of it to the van. I tried my best to do as little as possible. Patti and Dee were the only ones talking, and were getting on swell. Too well. I saw them swap telephone numbers, and almost head butted Dee when she told me that she had invited Patti back to the flat.

We followed the yellow Sherpa van through the London suburbs, back to Brixton, and  lugged speakers and amps up the stairs and into Joe and Dee’s bedroom. Even Patti helped with the small stuff, then buggered off  with Dee to buy Kebabs from the Turkish takeaway round the corner.

Dee and Patti did most of the talking as we eat. I listened, but found it difficult to keep my eyes open; Joe’s were already closed. Then Patti produced some pink speed from her bag, along with a mirror, small silver tube, and a pen knife. I cut up four lines, and we all had a toot. What a girl; I was beginning to warm towards her in a curious sort of way; then she went and spoilt it all, by picking up the acoustic.

‘Do you play?’ said Dee.

                                 Oh fuck;

Patti began hitting the strings in a fast  reggae style.

Please don’t sin………..

 ‘Head full of pig shit greased back hair you think you’re a swinger but you’re too fucking square you only give me bullshit so I gave you the clap you sold me down the river you dirty fucking twat wanker wanker your just a little wanker. Wanker wanker your just a little wanker.’

 

 Joe had picked up the Spanish, and was throwing down a counter rhythm. Dee joined in on pen knife and silver tube.

‘Like a turd in a shit house or a whore on the game you wanted to be different but your just the fucking same like a boil that’s just been squeezed or a black head full of cancer the best way to describe you is a stupid little wanker. Wanker wanker you’re just a little wanker, wanker wanker you’re just a little wanker, wanker wanker you’re just a little wanker, wanker wanker you ‘re just a little wanker……..’

I found myself mouthing the chorus, along with the three of them. it wasn’t difficult to follow

‘Wanker, wanker your just a fuckin wanker.’

‘Wanker, wanker your just a fuckin wanker.’

 I searched for a harmony line, Joe for a guitar break, but we both gave up. That bird like warble was stronger than the three of ours put together. She meant every word she spat out, and there wasn’t room for a John McLaughlin lick, or Queen harmony.

The speed must have been as good as the grass, because it took us through till morning. We were treated to the complete catalogue of her stuff, delivered at speed and with bird like menace. Action Man, the Zombie Walk, which even had a dance to go with it, Cunts for Brains, and the unforgettable Jam Rag Army. As Patti drove me back to Wandsworth, on a wet Sunday lunchtime, I couldn’t get that one out of my head.

All in all, it hadn’t been a bad weekend, the jam in the flat had been a good bit of fun, and rounded it off nicely. Tomorrow I would start the serious business of practicing bass guitar, for my impending audition.

 

                                                 Chapter four

 

      I  phoned up Phil the wanker on Monday evening; he remembered me; I wasn’t surprised; how could you forget somebody who had emptied their guts over you? He strung bits of useful information about the band together, in no particular order.

‘I play keyboards, we’ve got two guitarists, like a cross between  Pink Floyd, Genesis, Supertramp and Wishbone Ash, but it’s difficult to explain over the phone. We do Bohemian Rhapsody live.’

I was impressed. Even Queen didn’t do that.

In return I told him about my fucked up Fretless fender Precision, but left out the fact, that I was shit at playing it. He told me, that the band was called Cruiser, and  that it was ‘spelt with a K man.’

 Inspired originality or what? I made suitable sounds over the phone  ‘Sounds good man, I can’t wait to meet the band.’  

The audition was on the following Sunday morning in a pub in Balham. I practiced until my fingers hurt, but I was still crap.   Willy  took me out for a pint and gave me earache about ‘looking cool,’

 ‘ That’s half the battle bud. Look good, and you get loads of fanny.’ He suggested dark glasses, and a medallion.

I started  practicing in front of the mirror to Back Street Crawler and  Alex Harvey. Willy sometimes stood behind me, shouting advice.

 ‘Legs straight, bass low against your groin man, noooooooo never look at da strings man, and don’t forget the pout I told ya aboot’

  Joe phoned up on a downer. He told me that he’d split the band up.  He cheered up a bit when I told him about the audition, and said ‘go for it Dai, it sounds good.’ He added, ‘Patti’s here, do you want to talk to her?’

I  said I’d catch him later, and put the phone down. Now what the hell, was Patti doing round at my brothers? I racked my brains for a reason, but was fucked if I knew. Probable hitting on Dee. They both came from the same background of all girl boarding schools, ponies, and family holidays somewhere posh.  I walked to meet Willy in the Bear, singing her classic;  ‘Wanker, Wanker, your just a fukin wanker’

 

 

Nobody noticed my arrival at the audition, the room was infested  with long hairs setting up equipment, and tuning guitars. There was a lot of ‘one two’s’ going down, and  random feedback. Phil the wanker was sitting behind a pile of keyboards, trying to get them to work, he looked confused, as if it was the first time he had taken them out of his bedroom. Noise levels were high, and they hadn’t started playing yet.

 I stood at the door, like a spare prick at an orgy my case less fender tucked under my arm, and my leather coat pocket stuffed with leads. I’d taken ages deciding what  to wear for such an occasion, and had  gone for the denim, as had the rest of the twats.  The room was awash with the jeans, T shirts and patouli brigade.

  A dude in dark glasses, and a suit, with gravy stains stain down the front of his shirt was talking to a young lad, who looked about  eleven, holding a guitar case. There were a pair of old faggots standing close.  

The suit, marked gravy stains, as the person I needed to talk to, so I walked over.

‘It’s always been his dream,’ interrupted the old faggot woman.

‘His dream,’   echoed the old faggot man.

The young faggot lad nodded.

Gravy stains looked pissed off.

‘Of course he takes after my side of the family.’  ‘ He’s got my musical ear, I like all the young stuff, I’ve always got Tony Blackburn on in the morning, when I’m doing the housework.’

Gravy stains saw me.

‘You here for the audition?’ he said, ignoring the woman’s ‘really,’ behind him, and leading me away to the other side of the room.

‘Nice bass, fretless isn’t it?’

 I nodded, and realised that the gravy stains weren’t gravy stains at all, but part of the shirts design.

He told me that his name was Richard and said, ‘you must be Phil’s friend.’

I agreed that I must be.

‘We’re a cross between………….’

‘Genesis and Wishbone Ash?’  I asked

‘Yeh, that’s right man.’ he was impressed with me, I could see.

So impressed he told me about the K in Cruiser, and added as if I was a retard; ‘That’s instead of the C

 I was tempted to ask if that was a capital or small K, but  didn’t want to seem too clever.            

Finally he asked me if I’d got a passport, and had I got a cigarette I could lend him? as he’d left his in the car.

I gave him two, in the hope that it would improve my chances, found myself a seat, and waited to be called.

There were only two other auditionees. The school boy had no chance, but the other guy looked the biz. As he stood on the stage, slapping and pulling his strings into tune, I realised that my chances of success were on a par with the old faggot woman.. Even the band looked nervous. The bastard was showing off, he knew he was the best musician in the room. I was in two minds whether to leave, the Faggot family did.

 Designer gravy stains came and sat down next to me, and bummed another fag, I decided to  bluff it.

The band finally kicked off with Thin Lizzy’s Rosealea.. Phil the wanker was barely visible behind his pile. It didn’t take much to guess who his hero was. Two long haired guitarists twin leaded there way through the song, bending their knees at every opportunity, and pulling faces like  they were constipated. It was like watching a competition to find out who could be the biggest prat; on that score, the singer won hands down. He sounded like a third rate Ian Gillam, with a vibrator up his bumhole: he ran around the stage like a prick. Natural  showman he wasn’t though the poor sod was trying. Occasionally he would walk up to one of the guitarists, throw back his long dyed blond hair, lean backwards, and pretend he was playing an imaginary guitar. Everybody up there tried to avoid eye contact with the little twat. The bass player looked confuses with a capital K, and I had the  impression that he found it as shite as I did

Designer gravy stains helped himself without asking, to another one of my cigarettes, leaned over and shouted into my ear, ‘they’re going places.’

‘yea, happening man;’ you fucking dickhead

And then it was my turn. As I  tuned up to Phil the wanker’s organ, I could see the other bass player talking to a smiling Richard, who wrote his telephone number down in a little book, shook his hand, and offered him one of my cigarettes

The drummer came over to me, shook my hand and said that his name was Ray. He showed me a piece of paper with some songs scribbled on, and I chose Deep Purple’s, Black Night. I knew that one vaguely ; it was one of the first songs I had ever attempted on the bass.  Maybe I had a chance after all.

We did the song like we all knew who had got the job. Even the singer had calmed down, occasionally leaning back from the mike, to play his imaginary guitar.

When I left the I had a strong feeling, that I hadn’t got the job. Perhaps it was the fact that nobody had spoken to me after we’d finished playing, or shook my hand, that gave me an inkling; but the real clincher was that Designer gravy stains hadn’t bothered to ask for my telephone number. To add insult to injury, the bastard had smoked all my fags.

I met Willy in the Bear for last orders, and he bought me pint, and gave me some blow to skin up with in the bogs. He looked pissed off.

‘What’s up Will.’ As if I give a toss

‘She’s gone too far this time, too fucking far the bitch.’

Fucking blah blah frigging  blah……………..

‘I don’t know why you don’t piss her off Will, Any chance of another beer?’

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                 

                                                                       Chapter five.

 When I was desperate,  I sometimes went over to Terry’s place in Vauxhall to drink his homebrew cider, which was wicked, and watch porn videos.

Terry  was an unemployed electrician, and  Crystal Palace boot boy; that loved bird watching, and hill walking. He was a racist and  Willy’s best friend.

Terry  was a fat bastard, with a large beer gut, that hung over his jeans, a head like a  red melon, receding hairline, small piggy blue eyes, and loads of tattoos.  He was a habitual sneak thief and could get you anything if you had the money. Any time any place, any opportunity. Even Willy and Sasha  kept an eye on him when he was in their house; nobody was safe when he got the urge. It was another one of his hobbies. On the plus side. If there was anything you wanted, and didn’t have the money to pay for it, Terry could get it for you cheap, ‘no questions asked.’ But today, I was here for a different reason.

Things at home had become bad between Willy and Sasha. One of his girl friends had a telephoned the house: that was something the bastard had forgot to tell me about  when he’d been slagging off Sash in the  pub, the previous Sunday.

‘He never learns son, that’s always been Willy’s problem. His dad was the same.’ Terry poured some more cider into my glass, and continued. ‘Marvin would tell his mum that he was nipping out for a packet of fags, and not come home again for a couple of weeks. She used to hide his shoes to keep him in the fucking house. His mum was, a stupid bitch; gullible. Thick as pig shit to swallow a line like that. Marvin didn’t even smoke.’

‘So what do I do Tell? I’m going fucking mad’

‘Come and live here if you want son, there’s plenty of room.’

I looked round the lounge; it was a shithole of a place. There were three old settees, with the springs poking through the cushions and loads of  armchairs all different colours and styles. The whole flat smelt of piss and shit. Even Joe’s place was a step up from this.

‘Yeah, thanks a lot mate, I’ll keep it in mind if it gets worse. How’s the Palace doing?’

Apart from bird watching, right wing politics, and beating up Asians, this was his favourite subject, and I poured myself another shot of apple hallucinogenic, and settled myself down to listen to life in division three, or was it two now? I couldn’t remember, and wasn’t really arsed. I hate fucking football. The only match I had ever been to had been with Terry. He had persuaded me, against my better judgement, and Willy’s advice, to go with him to watch Palace play an away match at Wrexham.

Maybe it was because I was Welsh, and he thought I was missing home, that he came up with the idea. ‘You can go and visit yer folks before the match if you like.’

That statement was on a par with my dad, telling Joe on one of his visits home, ‘Joan’s son is working down in London, have you bumped into him?’

I gave him the mixed infants geography lesson on North Wales, telling him that Prestatyn was on the coast, at least forty miles from Wrexham. That didn’t put him off, he convinced me that it would ‘be a fukin good laugh anyway.’ And I gave in.

I realised that I had made a big mistake, before we pulled out of Euston. Terry and his chums got into their pre match thuggery practice, by smashing the light bulbs in the carriage, and lobbing the mirrors out of the window.  Police with dogs got on the train at Crewe, and by the time we arrived in Wrexham I was shitting myself.

We walked through the town centre chanting ‘YOU WELSH BASTARDS, YOU WELSH BASTARDS.’ Some twat threw a brick through a TV rental shop window, and hell broke out. I saw Terry coming from the shop after nutting an old geezer, with a twelve inch portable under his arm. It took me ages to explain to him that even the Pigs in Wrexham weren’t stupid enough to believe that it was his, and that he’d brought it with him to get the half time scores. In the end he said that I was probable right, and lobbed it  through a police car window.

At the ground, Terry insisted on climbing over the wall with his mates to get in, even though he’d got a ticket. We stood on the terrace chanting ‘SHEEP SHAGGERS SHEEP SHAGGERS, ‘and invaded the pitch when Palace scored. We did it again for the second goal.

We left North Wales under police escort, and arrived back in London, feeling in good spirits.  Terry rounded the day off nicely, by kicking in an off licence window, and nicking two bottles of Blue Nun, and a Babycham card board cut out with the words ‘I’d love a Babycham.’ He put it on the wall of the flat, as a memento of a ‘fucking good day out.’

Terry finished  talking about the seasons ups and downs, and said, ‘fancy a game of chess?’ Another one of his hobbies and he was bloody good.

I  got home, after loosing three games, feeling wrecked, and  needing  a piss. Shasha met me at the door, in her dressing gown, and looked pissed off  that it was me.

‘ He’s packed his things and gone,’ she said

‘Are you sure?’ I asked, trying my best, not to sound too happy, but secretly hoping it was true.

‘He’s taken his bass.’

That was that then. He’d gone for sure.

‘He’s gone to live with his tart.’

I was going to say which one? But stopped myself. Instead, I put me arm around her. She didn’t pull away; things were looking up. ‘Why don’t I make us a nice cup of tea,’ I said leading her into the kitchen. ‘You can tell me all about it.’

Later on that night, as I watched her turn the lights off in the house and check the doors, I made my mind up to make a move. It was too good a chance to miss. She’d left the key in the door, so there was no chance of Willy getting back in, without one of us opening it. she never usually did this, and I was certain that it was her way of trying to seduce me.  I followed her upstairs, on to the landing, and into her bedroom. She didn’t say nothing. I watched her take her dressing gown off, close the curtains and get into bed. I slipped out of my jeans and T shirt, and got in with her; still nothing.

 I rolled over to face her, and put my hand on one of her tits.

‘Don’t do that Dai. That’s all he ever wanted me for.’ She took my hand away and held it. ‘why don’t we just talk.’

Fuck!

 My ‘what do you want to talk about?’ sounded shite to me, but she didn’t pick up on it.

‘Why don’t you tell me about, what it was like growing up in Wales,’ she said getting her self comfortable, closing her eyes, and waiting for me to start.

I can’t remember what I said exactly, but within minutes she was asleep, snoring softly, still holding my hand. I prised it away, got out of bed and turned the light off, and went back to my room. Life really was load of bollucks.

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               Chapter six

 

 With Willy gone every thing changed. Sasha  began ordering me around, and asking me where I was going and what I was going to do when I got there.  I started trying to creep out of the house, when she wasn’t around, but she had ears like a friggin radar antennae, and would catch me usually just as I was about to open the door.

‘Your not going out are you? It’s just that baby Jamal was wondering if you would read her a story. She really loves the way you read, says she won’t go to sleep unless you go in. It’ll only take a minute, then you can go.’

By the time baby fucking Jamal usually  fell asleep, I was either to tired, or it was too late to go anywhere. Sometimes I would fall asleep before her.

It had been three weeks since Willy’s disappearance, and I would have given my giro, for information on where the twat was. Even Terry didn’t have a clue, but said that he would turn up, whenever the tart he was shacked up with threw him out, or he got bored.

Bedtime was a bitch.. She would call  from the top of the stairs and say, ‘ you coming up then.’ and like a twat, I walked up the stairs and into her bed.  I’d given up any thoughts of a shag by the second night.  I’d tell her about life in Wales, until she fell asleep. After three weeks, I was running short of things to say, but she didn’t seem to mind, she probable wasn’t even listening.

   Then designer gravy stain phoned up out of the blue! I’d almost forgotten about him. It had been over a month since the audition, and I hadn’t been holding my breath for a phone call but blow me down, I’d got the fucking job.

And so it was, that the next day, that I set off for Balham, for my first rehearsal.  I made a mental note, to keep my Benson and Hedges in my pocket. I’d found out that Designer Gravy Stain’s name was Richard, and that the other bass player had left to join a jazz funk combo in Hackney.

When I arrived, I spotted Richard, getting out of the back of a white Mercedes van, carrying a bass bin. He was wearing the same suit, but had changed the designer gravy stain shirt for a T shirt, with Kruiser written on the front. He  shook my hand asked me if I was nervous and led me in to meet the others.  

The atmosphere was definitely less icy this time; all of the band shook my hand as well; well almost. The singer who was called Mark, and obviously thought of himself as the star of the band, nodded his head ever so slightly, to acknowledge my humble presence in the room, then went out of his way to ignore me. If he had been a woman, I would have sworn that he fancied me, and was playing hard to get. But I soon realised that the only person Mark fancied was himself. The drummer Ray, confirmed my theory, later downstairs in the pub during a break. ‘ Don’t mind Mark, he tries it on with all of us from time to time, it’s best to ignore him, he’s just a wanker.’

Ray was in his early thirties, with a face like a bag of spanners and crew cut. He wasn’t  like the others. Phil the wanker was suffering from Rick Wakeman syndrome, and had more keyboards and not enough fingers, or talent to play them properly, and the two guitarists Steve and Allan were too stoned to talk that much.

Cruiser with a K, had been together in one form or another for three years. They had started life, as Cruiser, with C; the K was Richard’s idea, as a change of direction. The only members left, of the original line up, were Mark the singer, and Phil the keyboard player. They did a combination of  covers  and ‘original’ material. I use the word original, in its loosest sense, because there was very little originality in anything that they did. Mark wrote all of the songs, which were mostly shite and about him being a ‘hard loving bad arsed hell raiser, born to die under a bad sign, and living in the shadows.’ Fine words for someone brought up in Basingstoke, and still living with his parents in Dulwich. Another theme which dominated Mark’s lyrics, was that he ‘was searching for something he could never find.’ I concluded that he must be referring to his fags, because like Richard, the twat never flashed them.

 From the start I  tried my best to ignore Mark, and concentrated on learning the set, but I soon realised that he was too big an arsehole to ignore.  He had an idea of what his songs should sound like, and wouldn’t listen to any argument. He was arrogant as fuck as well about it. I heard him say once, ‘I see the whole song in my head man when I’m writing it, even down to what the high-hats should be doing. In short, Mark was a kind of Joe Stalin, of rock music. He  sulked and threatened to leave and take his PA system and van, if anybody argued with him. 

I didn’t get into an argument with him until the second week of rehearsals, though I came close before. It finally happened when we were having a drink in the pub, and I  suggested that the middle section in one of his master pieces called ‘the Judgement Bell,’ sounded a bit like Thin Lizzy’s ‘Don’t Believe A Word.’ which just by coincidence was one of his favourite bands.

I thought he was going to throw his pint at me, especially when Steve, one of the guitarists said ‘Hey man, it’s got the same chords too.’

Mark was a sarcastic bastard. ‘maybe you should try and write a few songs, then you’ll see how hard it is .’

‘Maybe I will,’ I said, not to be outdone by the twat. ‘At least I’d think up a better subject than a fucking bell.’

Ray who always liked an argument chipped in with, ‘it’s not a fucking bell, it’s a  fucking judgement bell.’

‘So you’re telling me that you don’t like the song.’ Said Mark

‘He’s not saying that,’ said Richard.

‘Well yes, that’s just what I am saying, its crap.’

I think Mark would have thrown his pint over, if he hadn’t been unsure what my reaction would be. As it was he made a show of getting up, and walking out, leaving his half drunk pint on the table. There was a scramble between Alan and Steve to divide it evenly into their glasses. Richard followed him out.

I probable would have left Kruiser, after this  if it hadn’t been for Richard and Ray, and the fact that I didn’t want to tell Joe that I’d blown it.

As it was I stayed because of Richard’s promise of a pending European tour, and Rays advice on the politics of playing in bands. His philosophy was simple. ‘Go with the flow, take the piss out of everybody and everything, and don’t take it too seriously.’ Ray had been in a lot of bands, and had ‘seen it all before.’ He drumming  was in his blood and  I was sure he never really listened to the words, or give a toss about the melody. To Ray the only important thing was the beat; which had to be rock, the heavier the better. We got into the habit of having a few drinks after rehearsal, and playing pool. He put me wise about the ‘sort of a deal,’ that Phil had told me about when he first mentioned the band, at Sara’s party. They had come second, in a battle of the bands competition, and won half a days studio time to produce a demo, ‘which is shit.’ He added. He lent me a copy, and I had to agree with him, it was.

Over the next few months, my life got into a routine, something I hadn’t had since school. Wake up early in the morning; well about ten. Catch the bus to Balham, rehearse with the band, a few drinks, and a couple of games of pool with Ray, home and bed. We didn’t gig, because Richard wanted us to perfect the set on the continent, before unleashing us on London.  I began to question where all this was leading, and was almost ready to jack it in, when one morning Richard came in, made us all gather around him, and with a smug expression said,  ‘ I’ve got some great news.’

‘Oh yeah, what is it,’ we all said.

He took a piece of paper out of his pocket and waved it in the air. ‘this’ he said. ‘we’re off to Germany boys, it’s official. We leave next month.’

Steve and Alan said ‘cool’ Phil and Ray, shook his hand, and Mark muttered ‘about fucking time.’

Richard looked pleased with himself, I think he sensed that we were all beginning to doubt his ability to even get us a gig, in the pub we were rehearsing. He wasn’t going to let this opportunity go by without rubbing it in, but tried to act cool about the whole thing. ‘Next stop is the big one boys. CBS say they are interested, and I’ve had good vibes off Island. Did you get your passport yet Dai?’

To be honest I hadn’t, but I lied so as not to spoil the vibe. ‘Sorted Rick, great news, we all knew that you’d do it.’

That rehearsal, everybody put a little bit extra, into there performance. Even Richard performed. He was playing being a manager, and made telephone calls from the payphone in the hall, and walked round saying, ‘we’re going places,’ and occasionally punched the air, and said, ‘right on.’

Ray hit his drums harder, Steve and Alan bent their knees, shook their heads, and contorted their faces more. Phil, became more invisible behind his bank of keyboards, and Mark found his imaginary guitar, for the first time in weeks and gave it jip. He even walked over, leant back and did a fresh air solo, just for me. I felt that by him doing this, he had finally excepted me into the band. It was his way of making peace. He really was a prick!

        Willy (who had come back) took me to the pub to celebrate. He had toured Germany with a band in the sixties, and said it was a good place to get laid. I  knew that there was something up with him, by his facial expression.

‘What’s the matter Will?’

‘Nothing.’

I waited……………. drinking my cider……………

‘It’s just………..’

The twat was embarrassed about something. I took pity, and helped him out. ‘Problems with the band?’

He shook his head.

‘Money?’

‘No it’s not money Dai, it’s Sasha.’

‘What, she’s been nagging you about this time Will? You should fuc……………’

‘That’s just it Dai’ he interrupted. ‘ She’s not slagging me off, apart from that first day, she’s been great.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ I said

‘I think she’s seeing another man. I found a sock at the bottom of the bed that first night I came back. She’s been fucking someone else, and I’m going to kill the bastard.’

I almost choked on my drink. I had been wondering where that sock had got to. I tried to look innocent, and shook my head. ‘ I never saw anybody in the house while you were away Will. You must have made a mistake.’

‘You don’t know Sasha Dai, she can be a devious cow when she wants to be. If she wanted to take a man back to the house without you seeing him, she’d have found a way. That’s unless.’ He paused and looked at me.

I gave him my most angelic unblinking stare, but felt the tension between us. I tried to sound easy. ‘unless what Mate.’

‘Unless she told you not to tell me about it.’

‘Now come on, we’re mates Will, and Sasha knows it. I would be the last person she’d tell.’

‘So you think it’s true then?’

‘Fuck no Will, don’t be a cunt. If somebody had been coming around to the house, then, I would know.’

Willy thought for a moment. I could almost hear the wheels grinding in his head. ‘So how do you account for the fact that she’s not giving me shit anymore man.’

‘I don’t know Will. Maybe you should ask her.’

We left it at that. I didn’t know how long it would take him to work it out, or if he ever would. Willy seemed to discount me from the Equation of possible candidate for jumping into bed with Sasha. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or offended. It certainly never occurred to him that I had a shag in me. Judging by what actually happened between me and Sasha, he was probable right. I decided to throw the other sock away though, just in case he checked through my drawers.

 

 

 

 

                    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                               

 

                                Chapter seven

Richard  got  the landlord of the  pub were we had been rehearsing to give us a gig. It turned out to be a bag of shit but a step up from one of Joe’s efforts. Talking about the little cunt, neither him or Dee turned up to watch us. He telephoned and said that his new band where playing in Hammersmith the next night and they were rehearsing for it.  Willy and Terry came and never stopped taking the piss out of Mark, as did a group of pissed up old  slags out on a hen night.

 The pub was a drinking hole for the usual long hairs, head bangers, and sheepskin coat brigade. Willy was doing good business  passing off aspirins in twists of paper to wanky student types. The poor twats thought they were buying speed

 The hen party left in the middle of the first song of the second set and then Mark began playing his imaginary guitar  and running  round the place like a dick head. I wanted to nut him  when he did a slap bass solo in front of me and almost knocked me off the stage.

Best part of the show was in the middle of the last song.  I noticed foam coming from Steve’s mouth, and realised that things were not right when he leaned back, lost his balance, and crashed into his Marshal stack. He lay there on the floor, twitching in time to the music.  Ray stopped drumming, jumped out from behind his kit, and knelt down beside him. We all stopped playing, and what was left of the audience began to jeer. Mark shouted ‘Get it back together, get it back together.’

‘He’s having an epileptic fit, you wanker,’ said Ray calmly. ‘’for Christ sake, turn that bastard strobe off.’

The last time I ever saw Steve, was  strapped to a stretcher, with a red blanket over him, being loaded into an ambulance. Apparently, as Ray explained to us later, epilepsy can be brought on by exposure to a flashing light, and I suppose the strobe had been too much for his brain to take.

Richard offered me a lift home in his mini, and we stopped for Kebabs, and ate them in the car.

‘So what do we do now Rick? we’re in the shit aren’t we?’

‘The tour still goes ahead with or without another guitarist Dai.’

‘Twin lead breaks?’

‘Phil can do the other guitar on keyboards.’

Richard never had been into the technical side of the Rock industry, and I explained in as simple terms as possible, that Phil played chords, and couldn’t play solos while he had a hole in his arse.

‘Well he’s just going to have to learn, unless you know of a guitarist that’s good enough to slot into the set with little or no rehearsal.’

All of a sudden it hit me, as I was taking a bite out of my Kebab. ‘Maybe I do.’

Richard looked unconvinced. ‘who’s that then Ritchie Blackmore?’

‘Better than him, my brother Joe., and he’s got a gig tomorrow.’

 

 

 

When Richard picked me up to go to the gig, not only was he late, but he had Mark the Tosser with him. On the journey over I made it clear to both of them to let me do the talking. Richard said ‘ cool Dai don’t worry.’ But Mark was being a dickhead as usual.

‘What’s a matter man, we’re doing him a favour. How good is he anyway?’

‘The best,’ I said.

 ‘Well you would say that wouldn’t you.’

‘Fuck off tosser.’

The gig was in an upstairs room about the size of Sasha’s fanny in  the Green Man, in Hammersmith. Joe hated these type of gigs. He preferred shitty student unions.  

 There was the usual London type crowd, similar to our gig in Balham, though without the hen night party. The place was three quarters full, and filling up fast, as pissed up people came in from the downstairs bar. Mark looked bored, Richard  looked pissed off at having been left to buy the beer. He bummed a fag of me to make up for it.

 The band arrived on stage. Joe, Dave, and Sticks, or rather they should have been Joe, Dave, and Sticks because I didn’t recognise any of the buggers. Joe’s hair was different. He didn’t have any. He had a black ripped T shirt, and torn black jeans held together with safety pins, and a friggin safety pin  through his nose. Sticks, hair was cut short and spiky, and dyed yellow, and he was wearing a vicars collar and kilt. Dave had white face make up, black eye liner, and  clothes like Joe’s, with five or six studded leather belts, around his waist. They looked like freaks from Billy Smarts Circus; I moved back into the shadows so the cunts couldn’t see me. This wasn’t fucking Proteus.

‘what’s this shit?’ said Mark

‘Which one is your brother,’ asked Richard.

‘The one on the right,’ I said.

‘The fucking slaphead.’ I added under my breath.

There was some heavy feed back, and loud thuds, as they plugged their guitars in, and tuned up  on stage.

‘Not very professional,’ said Mark.

‘Fuck off shithead.’

‘At least they are trying to get in tune,’ said Richard

Some wankers in the  crowd began to shout abuse, and wolf whistle. I began to wish that I was somewhere else. Sasha’s bed, or reading a story to Jamal, back home in Prestatyn, or lying in the road after being hit by a truck.. Anywhere as long as it wasn’t here. And then just as I thought that it couldn’t get worse. It got worse.

Patti walked on stage wrapped herself around the mike stand like a snake, and just stared out at the crowd.

Shit! I  stepped further back, closer to the door.

She was dressed as she always dressed; badly. Even on the small stage she looked ill.

Richard laughed out loud ‘who the fuck’s that,’

‘Don’t you mean what the fuck’s that,’ snorted Mark.

The jeers and wolf whistles continued, somebody started to slow hand clap. Still the band didn’t do anything, Patti looked as if she was competing in a staring competition. She was definitely ahead on points.  She waited, and waited. The noise level in the room was getting out of hand. Some wide boy in the crowd shouted out ‘show us your tits you fucking freak.’ And she did.

She tore at her T shirt, and revealed one very large white tit, and shouted, ‘suck on this you boring hippie arse licker.’ Then she screamed like a demented bird and through the PA, the pitch and volume  almost burst my eardrum. Before anybody in the room could recover she shouted, ‘this songs dedicated you boring bastards, it’s called wankers.’

I knew this one. I reached the door, and got ready to leave.

The band started thrashing out at speed, the song that I’d first heard in Joe’s flat. ‘Heads full of pig shit long wank hair you think that your cool but you’re no fucking where wankers wankers you’re just a shower of wankers………….’

Through a PA system, at volume, that screeching bird like voice of hers moved to a new level. It tore at your brain, and turned it to scrambled egg. It even quietened Mark  This wasn’t a rock concert, it was mental illness.  Joe and Dave moved backwards and forward on the small stage like demented half wits. Patti was still wrapped around the mike stand moving her hands up and down it as if it were a man’s penis. I saw Dee. She was standing by the side of the stage jumping up and down  and flailing her arms. This was fucking crazy, but everybody in the room was watching. It was like seeing somebody pucking: not nice, but you just had to look.

And then a glass was thrown, and it smashed against Joe’s guitar spilling beer onto the stage. He didn’t stop playing, in fact he got faster; up and down, up and down the stage, sometimes jumping into the air, and moving his head from side to side, like  a clockwork doll. Patti gobbed  into the crowd, and jumped down  still singing the song. People moved back to get out of her way. She walked into the crowd still singing ‘wankers wankers you boring bunch of wankers.’

More things were thrown, Dave jumped off the stage to, and hit a kid, with his guitar as he was just about to throw a bottle. And then it started. Punches, bottles glasses, heads, the fucking lot. Patti head butted a long hair, and  Joe and Sticks were both bleeding.  Patti and Dave  got back up on stage finished the song, and immediately started playing another. I recognised this one too. It was the unforgettable ‘Jam Rag Army.’ I mouthed the words while I watched the fighting.

About two minutes into the never ending chorus, the Pigs arrived with the landlord. The plug was pulled and it was over.  The whole set couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes.  I looked at Richard and Mark, they both looked confused. I was expecting some sarcastic comment from Mark, but it never came.  It was Richard who spoke.

‘Let’s make a move eh.’

As I got into the car, I saw Mark wink at Richard.

‘You never told us what your brother’s band was called Dai’

I wasn’t in the mood for Marks sarcasm, so I saved him the trouble.‘ they’re called Crap, with a capital K, now will you bastards take me home.’  

 

 

 

 

 

                                                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                  Chapter eight.

I woke up, opened my eyes, and for a split second though I had died and gone to heaven. All I could see was blue sky above me, and all I could hear, was the sound of birds singing. It reminded me of North Wales. Maybe heaven had been designed by a Welsh architect. Then It all came back to me where I was. This wasn’t heaven, it was Munster in West Germany, and it was a hot Sunday afternoon.

A lot had happened to me in the year since we had left London.  My bass playing had improved. I had developed a suntan, grown a moustache  and knew how to order beer  and ask for sex in German. I had been to West Berlin, played a big open air rock concert in Duisburg, had my first fuck on foreign soil and …………..Oh yes,  had become the front man of the band..

The big rock concert had started shit and ended even shittier. We played in front of ten thousand people, in Duisburg football stadium, as support to Uriah Heap, and  realised just how shit a band we really  were. That is everybody realised except Mark who realised fuck all except that we were holding him back. Ray nutted him and Mark took his van and PA  system, left us in the penalty area of Duisburg football stadium, and drove back to London. We all put the V sign up to him as he drove away.

 

That night Richard was like a proper manager. He  paid for us to stay in  a Holiday Inn near the centre of  the town. We went out, got wrecked, ate falafels in an Israeli restaurant, then went back to the hotel room for a band meeting. Without a van we were in the shit; everybody was fucked off and wanted to go home.

Richard decided to have the band meeting on his own. ‘The way I see it guys, is that we’re better off staying over here. There’s more gigs here for better money.

Nobody could be arsed arguing except Ray.

‘What about a van,’ said Ray. ‘ how the fuck are we going to get to the gigs.’

Richard had thought of that. ‘I’m going to sell the mini.’

This time it was a murmur of appreciation that went round the room. It was a master stroke of management, and cheered everybody up, including me. Alan shook his hand, and even Phil woke up from his daydream and said, ‘nice one man.’

‘What about a singer man?’ said Ray.

Richard looked at me. ‘what about you Dai? Wanna give it a go?’

I was too pissed to say no. I nodded my head and puked up.

 

 

 

 So that was that. The following day, Richard exchanged his red mini for a white Volkswagen van, and we moved south to Munster. Why Munster?  I’m fucked if I know. I think Richard chose it because his favourite TV programme was The Munsters.  We spent three nights sleeping on the equipment, and playing ‘highest card wins’ to see who got the front seat in the van.. Finally Richard got us a dingy attic apartment near the British army camp, that was rat infested and smelt of German sausages. Richard himself found a flat in town saying that it was not good for management and the band to live together.

 We chucked out all, of Marks songs, and  started practicing simple twelve bar rock and roll covers.  

The town reminded me of something out of a  Dracula film, only without the castle. The most lively place to go at night, was a  Fanny bar called the ‘Silver Fountain.’ The owner of the place was a fat German Frau called Gilda, and we tried to chat her up into giving us a gig.   She took a right shine to Richard and   showed us both  a tattoo on her arm in the shape of a heart. Inside the heart, was the name Paul. ‘You English band from Liverpool?’ she asked.

I was about to say no, London, but Richard give me a dig in the back. ‘Yeah yeah yeah, that’s right we come from Liverpool.’

‘You know the Beatles. That Paul, he got a face like little boy, but broke my heart.’ She took a handkerchief out of her handbag, and dabbed her eyes.

‘Yeah yeah yeah’ said Richard, ‘everybody knows the Beatles in Liverpool, Paul lived next door to us when I was little’

‘You friend of Paul?’

‘Big mates,’ said Richard. ‘Course I know his brother better, I used to go round to play Monopoly, John and Ringo were always in our house.’

I  couldn’t believe it, she was swallowing the shit.

 ‘so you play Beatles song ya?’

‘Sure we play Beatles songs, we love them; doesn’t everybody?’

Richard’s bullshit  got us our first gig at the ‘Fountain’ the following Friday, and went down a storm, especially when we played the two Beatle numbers that Richard had made us learn. I got through the set without too much trouble, even though I still hadn’t got used to singing lead, and playing bass. Paul McCartney I wasn’t but the way that we went down, I might as well have been. The place was full of Squaddies, and German tarts with huge tits. That night  I found out that Squaddies hated two things. ‘The fucking Germans.’ And ‘The twatting Irish.’

I never found out what they thought about the Welsh, and didn’t particularly want to.  If  somebody asked where I was from I said ‘Liverpool.’ This nearly always got me into conversations about whether I was a Liverpool, or Everton fan. I told them ‘Tramere Rovers,’ and they usually changed the subject after that.

For our last number, we did Twist and Shout and Gilda got up, and danced with Richard. For an encore, we did it again, and then again. The whole place by this time was full of pissed up Squadies and Prossies dancing on the tables. It was fucking great. Everyone said that it had been, the best night at the Fountain since the regiment had arrived. Gilda gave us two crates of beer on top of our fee, and offered Richard a wank for half price. She gave us an indefinite block booking for every Friday, and Saturday night. Richard said that he’d try and get his mum, to find out  Paul’s new home telephone number in Liverpool in return.

Things went well after that night. We got loads of gigs in the Army  base. We played the Corporals mess, the officers mess, and the privates mess. We did birthday parties, weddings, and special occasions. There was always an excuse for a piss up, and we always provided the music.  We’d drive up to the main entrance, and the guards would wave us through.

 ‘Ok Dai, see you down the Fountain Saturday,’

‘No sweat.’

‘Have a good one lads.’

We could have been carrying armed terrorists in the back, but nobody ever checked, which was lucky for us, because we usually left the base loaded up with beer and fags. Yep, things were going great. I had money in my pocket and fanny on tap; fame? Who the fuck wanted it? Not me, we were doing good without it. England? Who gave a shit about what was going on. Then I got a letter from ma…………….

 

 

 

 

Joe had come to North Wales, with his ‘bloody group, and that girl of his, and showed up the family.’ She said that her and dad were embarrassed to go out after what had happened, and she enclosed a news paper clipping for me to read. The heading on top of the page read LOCAL BOY MAKES  BAD, and had a picture of my brother, and Patti,  giving the V sign, to whoever had taken the picture. Underneath the picture, it read,  Pat Thetic and Joe Doe two members of controversial  punk group The Messiahs. The article went on to say that

 Notorious London based group ‘The Messiahs’ one of the instigators, and leaders of the new ‘punk’ craze that is sweeping the country, failed to perform at The Stables night club in St Asaph, because police considered conditions unsafe. Hundreds of  disappointed teenagers ran riot through Rhyl in protest.

 The Salvation army had done an all night vigil outside the night club in protest, and  local people had signed a petition urging the council, to ban the concert. There was  a picture of the Band of the Salvation Army, outside the club, and an interview with somebody called the Reverend Idris Thomas, who complained about the use of the Lord’s name for ‘the Devil’s music.’

 Mum was more pissed off that Joe hadn’t gone to see them, even though ‘he was just down the road.’ Was he ashamed of them? what did I think? As a PS she said that dad blamed London. A couple of days later  I opened the door of the flat and there on the doorstep was Terry,  dressed in a Union Jack T-Shirt, karki shorts, and Dock Martins.

 ‘Alright son what’s happening, you look as if you’ve just shit yourself, aren’t you going to invite me in?’

Terry had come over to watch England play West Germany in a friendly in Dortmund, got pissed up then beaten up by the German police. He decided  to come and look us up to ‘round off the trip.’

Over a glass of beer he filled me in on  the news.

‘Willy’s left Sasha again. He’s living with some posh tart in Fulham, it wont last long though, you know what he’s like. Your brother’s doing well, don’t know how, that band of his is a bag of shite. That’s one weird lady he’s shacked up with..’

‘Nothing changed then Tell.’

‘Everything’s gone mad in London at the moment son .No offence to your brother, but if that’s music, then I’m a Spurs fan, your better off here Dai, it wouldn’t last long, you mark my words.’

That night he came down to the Fountain, to watch us play. We had come a long way since he had last seen us, with Willy, in the pub in Balham. The big change, had started at an open air festival, organised by Gilda. In the end Richard had agreed to do it for free, and had called a band meeting to break the news. ‘There’s going to be a lot of club and bar owners at the event, so it will be good publicity for the band.’

He added slyly ‘I’ve had a new idea about the direction.’

We sat with faces liked smacked arses listening. He wanted to go the whole Beatle route, and just do their songs, wear Beatle clothes, and get our hair cut like theirs. He’d already thought up a new name for the band. ‘Abbey Road.’

 ‘what’s wrong with staying as we are?’ Said Ray.

‘yeah fuck off Dick,’ said Phil.

 ‘I know that I can get us double what we get now. Just do it once, that’s all I’m asking, just once. If it doesn’t work, what have we lost?’

‘Our dignity?’ suggested Ray.

‘Do it For me lads?’

Silence.

‘I’ll take that as a yes then shall I ?’

 

And so it was, that we took to the stage, at the Munster Rock and Jazz Festival, dressed in collarless Beatle jackets, with stupid mop top haircuts. That is except for Ray, who refused to let anyone touch his hair, and in the end wore a wig.

From the minute we started playing ‘She Loves you,’ I knew that Richard had been right. There was about two thousand people of all ages at the festival, mostly German, and they went wild. The sight of so many Germans shaking their heads, getting down and doing the twist in the middle of a field, was friggin weird.. None of us could keep a straight face, but we knew we were onto a winner. Richard for whether reason had struck gold. We were cashing in on nostalgia. People who had seen the Beatles at their pop peak, could close their eyes when they listened to us, and remember. People who had missed the whole Beatle mania thing, could watch us, and imagine what it must have been like.

That first night, they wouldn’t let us off stage. We had to repeat numbers two or three time, we even had some young girls screaming.

After this the work came rolling in, not just in Munster either, we began to travel. We were working five nights a week. It could have been seven, but we were lazy bastards, and Richard had become selective. I bought a Hoffner bass like McCartney, and Phil began to carry less and less keyboards round with him, and started playing more rhythm guitar and singing with me down the same mike. With his hair cut and a fringe, he actually looked a bit like Lennon.

Everywhere we went we brought the house down, we had so much work, that we limited our gigs at the fountain to Friday night. Our set included all the well known Beatle hits; we even did a version of ‘The Long and Winding Road,’ to end the night.

Being the Beatles, took over our lives. When we put on the naf jackets, and combed forward our hair, we took on their identity. It was like both ourselves and the audience were on some big hallucinogenic night out. They edged us on, and we toyed with their emotions. Phil and I began to milk that emotion good style. We would sing into the same mike, and when ever we came to a YEAH, we both shook our heads, and as if on cue the audience would scream, and applaud. The young girls would gather in front of the stage, singing along in front of either Phil or me, and would hand us notes with their telephone number. After a while I noticed that there were more and more girls, standing in front of  Phil, and he was getting three times as many notes. I had to admit, that  sometimes I had looked at him on stage, and even I was taken in by his appearance. I was playing Paul, but Phil was becoming John Lennon.

Phil became the star and stud of the band, slowly at first but then it snowballed, and he took more and more of the attention.. As I watched him shake his head, wink at  girls in the audience, and occasionally go up to the mike and ask in his best scouse accent, ‘is everybody alright?’ I couldn’t help but remember the long haired Rick Wakeman wanna be I’d first met.

Terry picked up on it to, the first night that he watched us play. His verdict was a definite thumbs up. ‘that’s bloody brilliant son, top nosh. Your lead singer is the spit of John, is he new?’

I didn’t bother to tell him that I was actually, the official lead singer, because  I knew, that Terry was right. We had become Phil’s back up band, I’d been replaced under the natural law of Rock and Roll. In every band there’s only one star, and that was him.

Phil began buying Beatle albums, and suggested we start doing more adventurous numbers. We were led like sheep into a more Lennon orientated set. Out was McCartney’s ‘Long and winding Road,’ at the end of the night, and in was Lennon’s ‘Imagine.’ We did numbers off Abbey Road, Let it Be, and of course ‘Srgt Peppers.’ He became our musical director, because of his greater knowledge of the songs. He arranged them, and wrote out the chords for us to follow. Unlike Mark however, Phil was not a natural dictator, and  we all knew deep down that he was the real audience puller in the band, and that without him we really were fucked. We went along with him, and left him in complete control of working out the numbers for the set. Looking back, we should have seen that it was a risky thing to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                        Chapter nine

 

I never talked to many Germans but got friendly with a guy called Kurt. It sort of happened over a few pints down the Fountain, and we started hanging round together. He  was studying something ponsey  in university, so most of his friend’s were students. To be fair, they were ok for students. Whenever I was in the room, they would speak in English so as not to leave me out. We would sit in their bedrooms, drinking coffee, smoking home grown, and talking; or rather they did the talking, and I listened and got off my head. It was usually heavy political shit, that I knew nothing about. I wished that I had paid more attention in school, or had read a newspaper from time to time, because it was all over my head. Once one of his mates called Fritz, asked me ‘what are your views on Revolution?’ my reply that I didn’t think it was one of the better singles that the Beatles had done, confused him. He sat back on his chair for a moment, and then burst out laughing. ‘it’s an English humour ya?’ I wanted to say, ‘no mate, it’s an English ignorance,’ but  gave him a superior English smile instead. To be honest I knew fuck all about anything really and began to think that maybe  there was more to life, than being able to name all of the albums of the Rolling Stones, or the name of the drummer in Supertramp. Kurt’s friends were serious people, with serious opinions on the changes that they wanted to see in Germany. They talked about the Wall, and the possibilities of unification. I had to ask Elke, what unification was. They hated the Russians, and Kurt explained to me the reason why.

‘A lot of my friends families, escaped to the west when the Russians arrived. They left everything behind them. Do you know what that must have felt like?’

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t have a fucking clue what it must have felt like, but I took his word that it must have been a bum deal. Some of the stories that were told, were tragic. A girl called Gisela, told me that when the Russians had arrived in Berlin; some of them had never seen proper toilets before, and used them to wash potatoes. Her grandmother and grandfather, had escaped over the wall.  Others were shot whilst trying to escape, and the places were they had fallen, were marked by little red crosses, placed under the wall.

 Another subject that was very popular, was the Nazi war criminal Hess who was still in prison in Spandau. The unanimous opinion of my new German chums, was that he should be set free, and that the only reason that he wasn’t was because the Russians wouldn’t allow it, and the German Government saw him as a possible symbol for the Emerging right wing Neo Nazi party. Whoever they were.

On one occasion, whilst sitting in a café in the town centre, I happened to glance at the television, and saw Joe’s face staring back at me. He was walking through Carnaby street with Patti, looking like a right fucker. The programme then switched away, to general shots of bands playing in clubs round London. It was all in German, but I got the picture alright. All of the bands looked like Joe’s. They sang over tuneless riffs, played at lightning speed, Spat at the audience, who were dressed in similar fashion, and obligingly spat back, as they jumped up and down to the music. The programme moved to an interview dubbed in German with fucking Patti. I moved closer to the television, but could only catch the occasional English word, like ‘boring hippies, ‘wank music,’ and they’ve got nothing to say.  There were other interviews with other bands, and  shots of bands performing. In one particular sequence, there was a singer who looked vaguely familiar. He was tall with spiky black hair, and covered in safety pins and badges. He snarled at the kids jumping up and down like morons in front of him, and  occasionally spat in the air. I couldn’t for the life of me place him, though I was certain that I knew him. It was at the end of the program, when the credits were rolling, that it came to me. There was a ten second shot of him again, as the program faded out, but it was enough. He may have changed his look, and his appearance, but that fucking imaginary guitar was a give away.  It was Mark. Now I was really pissed off.

 

 

 

 

 

                              

                              Chapter ten

Things happen quickly in the rock and roll business. One Minute your in a great band making lots of cash. The next your lead singer kicks you in the balls and tells you he’s leaving………………..Because His new German girlfriend doesn’t like him shagging  other girls every night. Like a dickhead Phil gives it all up and moves out of the flat. It was big decision time, and Richard’s was to go back to London to find a new John Lennon. I decided to go with him, leaving Ray and Alan to look after the flat.

When I stepped off the ferry in Dover, it didn’t take me long to figure out  that something was wrong with my appearance.  My long hair, George Harrison moustache, flairs and afghan looked about as obsolete as the twin guitar solo. Where had all the hippies gone? I made my way to Terry’s gaff to find out. That night as I lay in his bed  trying to get to sleep my head was buzzing with what he’d told me.  London had moved on, and so had my friends. The Messiahs were now the kings of punk and touring America. Even  Willy had taken advantage of the ‘Wave.’ He was ‘temporally’ living with Terry until Sasha had ‘calmed down,’ about something he’d done. I was shocked at the way he looked.  Gone was the afro, white flared suit and Cuban heels. He was wearing Dock Martins bondage pants and a Cuban Army shirt. The band was now called Urban Jungle and pumping out heavy roots reggae. He played me a tape and I had to admit it was sound. Only Terry hadn’t changed. He was still a fat bastard, and still had an opinion about everything.

‘It’s all gonna end in tears son, you mark my words.’

But tears or no tears I still felt shit.  Even Will was making it, while I’d been impersonating Paul McCartney for krauts and Squaddies. I’d asked Terry about Joe.

‘Joe?’ Terry said the name as if the very sound was distasteful to him. ‘ He’s part  the biggest rip off since the  Monkeys. How they’re making money is beyond me, and that girls voice!’

‘So how big are they?’

‘Well Big son, they’re fucking everywhere. Joe invited  Me and Will to a gig. They were shit, but it was as if only me and him could see it. That fit girlfriend of his, asked us for a drink with them afterwards. Willy reckoned he was on, but I heard her tell him to piss off. He told me  it was because she was racialist. Couldn’t get it into his thick skull that it wasn’t black people in general that she didn’t like; it was just him.’

We had called it a night when Terry had passed out on the floor. I was buggered if I was going to carry him to the bedroom, so I left him lying there, and took his bed. The sheets were rancid, and smelt of bumholes.  It was like sleeping inside Terry’s body; the sound of him snoring and breaking wind didn’t set an atmosphere of tranquillity, but I was tired and eventually drifted off.

Three days later, I was in a red Mercedes van, travelling at speed down the Autobahn, towards Munster, with Richard who was driving, Gary, and a load of disco gear that rattled about in the back. The van was new; a present off Richards parents. Gary was new as well; Richard had discovered him and his sixties ‘theme disco’ at a pub in Greenwich, and reckoned he was just what the band needed to move us as he explained ‘to the next level.’ After a couple of hours with these guys, I began wishing I was back with  Terry and Willy’ I strongly suspected that there was something not quite right with Gary, as we were leaving  London and heading down the A1 to Dover. It wasn’t the fact that he was drinking heavily, or the fact that he brought out a chillum pipe, stuck a piece of dope in it and inhaled the bloody lot without offering it around. I think that I could also have lived with the fact that he made Richard stop at every other service station so that he could have a piss, and also buy bags of sweets, which he also ate without offering around. But the thing that was really  getting to me was the non stop bullshit that came out of his mouth. According to Gary’s version of pop and rock and roll history in the sixties and seventies, he had played a major part in the careers of some of the superstars that shaped the era. He had toured with Hendrix, and  had been forced to play rhythm guitar at a gig in Texas when his rhythm guitar player went down with food poisoning. I think Richard had given up listening to him before we had got on the ferry. All he would say was ‘the blokes a bloody good DJ. He’s going to double our money.’ Double our money or not, the twat didn’t know that Hendrix never used a rhythm guitarist. I was forced to argue about  this piece of shit.

‘Exactly,’ was his reply. ‘He changed his style after that night.’

How can you argue with that? The truth is you can’t, so I gave up and let the sea of old tosh flow over.. The more that I didn’t pick him up on something, the more confident he became. The lads were going to hate this joker.

Gary’s show business career had started at the age of eleven, when he had played The Artful Dodger in the west End production of Oliver Twist, and then along side Lulu in an English film epic called To Sir With Love.(I almost believed him about that one. Why would anyone lie about being in a film with Lulu.) He had also appeared in various films and television series, including Doctor Who, Emergency Ward ten, Crossroads, and played Elsie Tanners illegitimate son Steve in Coronation Street. As if this wasn’t enough, he played session guitar on the first T Rex single Ride a White Swan, replaced the guitarist in Hawkwind when they toured the USA, and was a good friend of John Lennon, and in fact was there when him and Paul McCartney wrote Imagine. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that Lennon had written Imagine after the Beatles had split up. And I just couldn’t be arsed to argue the fact that I didn’t think it was likely that he was the mysterious unseen bass player on some (though admittedly not all) of the tracks on LA Woman by the Doors. I could have pissed myself but stopped at the absurdity, that he had given Clapton the riff for Layla, one night when they were out on the town in New York with  Lou Reed, and Marlon Brando. But I had to stop him when he claimed to have started the career of Joe Doe, and given him the idea to start a punk band. Even Richard nearly run us off the road when he heard that one.

‘So what’s his real name?’ I said

‘Can’t tell you that Dai, it’s secret.’

‘Could it be Thomas?’

‘Like I said, I would be breaking a confidence if I told you, but I can say that no, it is definitely not Thomas.’

‘Dai is his brother,’ said Richard.

‘So that’s true then is it,’ said Gary, opening a can of Dutch Lager. ‘You’re Joe Doe’s brother?’

Both Richard and myself nodded. ‘I don’t remember hearing anything about you when he started the band……’

‘Exactly,’ said Gary. ‘See what I mean about top secret. He didn’t even tell his own brother. How is Joe? I haven’t seen him for ages.’

There was definitely something wrong inside his head. I tried to get some sleep otherwise I would have had to nut him.

When I woke up we were driving through  Munster, heading through the centre of town, past the Silver Fountain.  As we pulled up to the door of the flat, it started to rain. Everything seemed normal enough; The fact that nobody rushed out to greet us as we got out of the van and stretched our legs didn’t set alarm bells ringing, nor did the fact that a German lady answered the door to us. Nothing new in German girls spending time in the attic. The fact that she was in her forties we put it down to one of Ray’s tarts. No; I think what really did it for us, was when she told us that she didn’t know Alan or Ray and would call the police if we didn’t leave. She watched us through the window from behind a curtain as we walked back to the van, then opened the curtains picked up the phone and waved it at us. We took the hint, and drove off back into the centre of town.

It was six thirty on a wet Sunday evening in Munster. The Fountain was closed otherwise it would have been the first place to look for the lads, other than that the trail was cold. We drove around the city centre for a bit, then Richard reluctantly agreed to taking us back to his place. I say reluctantly, but it was not something that he said, more in the way that he said it. You don’t live close with somebody  for six months without noticing little peculiarities about them, and this was one of them. We had never been allowed inside Richards flat, and had always put it down to his obsession with privacy, but maybe it was something else? Nothing sprang instantly to mind, but nothing would have surprised me about any of the guys in the band, and that included Richard.

When we arrived at the flat, Gary insisted that we took in his disco gear, saying that it was worth more than the van. Richard lived on the second floor, and Gary very kindly supervised us up the stairs saying that the journey in the van had brought on an old back complaint, and that he was sorry that he couldn’t help. We were too tired to argue, and I piled up the last of the speakers on the landing out side the flat door whilst Richard struggled to find his key. In the end it turned out that he didn’t need it. I noticed that the door wasn’t in fact locked, but had been jammed shut with a piece of cardboard. I pushed it open with my back and turned round with one of Gary’s four by twelve’s in my arms to be greeted by the sight of Alan with one arm around some blond haired bint, with a fat joint in the other.

‘Boys, boys,’ shouted Alan and immediately got up to give me a hand with the speaker. ‘Ray, it’s the boys, they’ve got back.’

Ray came out of another door naked with a towel around his waist, and a girl whose face I vaguely remembered walked out behind him dressed in a bra, and panties. At this moment Richard entered the flat, his face purple with rage. Another head appeared from behind the back of the settee. I didn’t have time to see whether it was a man or a woman, because at the sight of Richard, the face disappeared again, but I saw a hand come around the corner of the settee, and take a half finished joint from out of the ashtray on the coffee table.

‘ what’s going on?’ Richard was looking at Ray, who he always assumed was the more sensible one.

It was Alan who answered. ‘I tried to tell you on the phone, but we lost your number. We got chucked out of the attic, and didn’t have any choice. We didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘How did you manage that?’ said Richard.

‘Somebody didn’t tell us that the contract was due for renewal, did you Richard?’

Richard eyed the floor.

‘That’s right,’ said Ray. ‘I think it might have been ok if we’d  known the landlord was coming around;  it would have given us time to tidy up a bit. As it was…….’

Ray left the sentence unfinished. He didn’t need to say anymore as we were all knew about some of the ‘alterations’ that we had made in the house.

‘It was the hedge that was the final straw. I think we might have got away with it, if he hadn’t seen that.’

Richard nodded. It had been a cold winter, and coal was expensive.

‘How did you get in?’ Richard sat down and looked around the room. More people were appearing as we were speaking. A tall red headed girl and blond haired boy came through a door which I supposed was the kitchen, because the girl had a bowl in her hand, and was stirring something. Another three people came through the third door in the room; this time two men and a  blond. They looked as if they had just got up.

Richards question hung in the air, with nobody having the guts to tell him. Finally it was Ray who plucked up the courage. ‘We smashed it in with a column speaker, oh and by the way, Gunter called around and was a bit upset that you hadn’t written.’

 Richards looked lost for words. If he was about to pass comment on the way they had entered the flat, or indeed the state of the flat at that moment we will never know. Gunter had a calming effect on him like downers, and he sat down with a cross between a grimace and a  smile, nodding his head, as if he was taking in the situation, and coming to terms with it. At that moment Gary entered the room, and introduced himself, mainly to the stunning blond. She didn’t speak English which I guess was just as well. Two minutes into the conversation and I picked up a smattering of words. ‘Roxy Music, just come back, world tour, difference in musical direction.’ The usual stuff. The blond just stood there nodding and looking at him. She was oblivious to what the twat was talking about, but was working on pure chemical attraction. I suppose if you didn’t know what he was saying, he looked pretty convincing. Maybe living abroad was going to suit Gary.

Some more people arrived, this time through the front door. A couple of girls from the Fountain, a squadie called Gazza from Liverpool, and Gilda, the landlady. She carried a miniature Yorkshire Terrier under one arm, and a bottle of spirits under the other. The sight of the new arrivals sparked an awakening again in Richard. ‘What the fuck’s going on guys?’

‘What else is there to do on a Sunday in Munster?’ said Ray,

Gary  picked up on the vibe in the room, and began to set up his disco gear in the corner.

‘Who the fuck’s that,’ said Ray

‘Oh him; that’s Gary, he’s going to be the new John. Lennon’

‘Say hello to Paul,’ said Gilda, pushing the dog under my nose.

‘Hi Paul,’  I hate dogs, especially little ones.

Gary had set up his gear in a surprisingly short time considering the amount of alcohol and drugs he’d taken.

‘One two, testttt, ahonetwoo, tsttttttt.’

I was impressed by his confidence. He pulled the blond over, took her hand,  led her behind the control consol, and made a play of showing her the buttons. The cunt had even set up lights, that pulsed to life as he put on the first record; Brown Sugar by the Stones, always one to get a party going. Gary was in control of the room now, and swung into his repertoire, with a slight American lilt to his voice.  He sounded like a cross between Kit Jenson, and Alan Freeman on a bad night.

‘Common you German bast……….’ He hesitated for a moment.

Get it right you nobhead I thought. We could have world war three on our hands.

‘Germans,’ he continued, flicking a switch that increases the decibels, and made the lights go faster.

‘I Wanna take yoo higher,’ he screamed into the mike. ‘Counting down to lift off poppeople.’ He flicked another switch, and a pre-recorded jingle over-rode the music for a couple of seconds. ‘GaRy  HeaRTBEEEET.’

I groaned inwardly.

 He was dancing with the blond at the back of the mixer desk, and singing along to the record. ‘Brown Sugaaaaaaaa; How come you Taste so good…. Brown sugaaaaaaaaaaa; just like a black girl should come on y’all clap your hands.WORK WITH ME PEOPLE.’

The stupid bastards began clapping their hand and singing along. It was surreal. More people arrived probable attracted by the music which was deafening. Gilda was dancing with Paul the dog, and moving his paws in time to the music. The person who had been lying behind the settee, got up and started to dance. She was so pissed that she fell onto the settee besides me, held out her hand and said in a deep voice ‘hi I’m Richard’s friend Gunter.’

 I needed a drink.

 I found my way into the kitchen, and saw that Richard had had the same idea. He was pouring himself a shot of Jim Bean, and poured one for me, offering it to without looking at my face. ‘It’s not what it seems Dai.’

‘Oh that,’ I said. ‘It’s cool Richard everybody to his own, that’s what I say.’

‘We’re just friends. Gunter has got a few problems.’

I  nodded. I could see that. ‘Has he…….’ I searched for the words, but Richard didn’t need any help.

‘Not yet; he’s waiting for the operation.’

I left it at that, and walked back into the main room, were the ‘party’ was in full swing. I felt a bit guilty at not being able to help Richard in his hour of need, but hey! After all I was from Prestatyn, and I couldn’t imagine one man bumming another, however tasty one of them looked.

 I saw Gary talking with Ray. The blond was sitting on his lap with her hands all over him, and he had left the disco on automatic, with one heap of shit following another. I went over, sat down on the floor next to them, and took the offered joint off Rays girlfriend who smiled, and for no reason I could think of, gave me a  French kiss.

Ray was shaking his head. ‘I tell you man, there was no guitarist in Emerson, Lake and Palmer. I saw the band play. There’s no way man, no way.’

‘Exactly. I didn’t say that I played with them,’ said Gary moving one of his hands a little bit further up the blonds dress. ‘What I said was that me and Keith, toyed with the idea of forming a super duet, using session men to tour.’

‘Bullshit.’ Said Ray.

‘Suit yourself man; I’m just telling you what happened, I don’t give a shit if you don’t believe me.’

‘Ok then,’ said Ray. ‘Why didn’t it happen?’

Gary laughed at this, and oddly so did the blond. ‘Keith still hadn’t decided whether to leave The Nice. I had commitments with a band you might have heard of. They were begging me not to leave, and I like a fool, signed a contract for another tour.’

I couldn’t wait for this one.

‘Who was the band?’

‘You’ve probable heard of Queen have you?’

‘Fuck off,’ said Ray getting up and then having second thoughts sitting down again.

Gary held out his hands in a gesture that said, would I lie to you. Ray was hooked, and began probing. Gary explained that on tour Queen couldn’t do all of the things that they did on the record, without hidden musicians who played, but were never seen. Gary had played rhythm, and lead in the live version of their hits, but was never acknowledged for his work. Ray looked confused, the blond looked bored, and I remained astounded by the man’s bullshit. Where was it going to end? He was playing silly buggers with the wrong geezer, when he fed that bullshit to Ray. I had a funny feeling something was going to happen, and I wasn’t let down. Ray got up, went into one of the bedrooms, came back with Alan’s guitar, handed it to Gary, and said. ‘Ok; lets see what you can do mouth.’

Gary dumped the blond into the seat vacated by Ray, picked up the guitar, looked at it and said, ‘no can do.’

‘What do you mean, no can do?’ Said Ray.

‘This is a right handed guitar man. I’m left handed. You need to re string it before I can use it.’ He handed it back to Ray.

‘Ok then you bastard, I’ll restring it, and then we’ll see what you can do.’

 Alan came over to see why Ray had brought his guitar out, and was beginning to de-tune it. He said that if Ray wanted to take strings off a guitar, and put them on upside down, just to prove that Gary couldn’t play. Then he could fuck off a find another guitar.

Gary looked pleased, and said ‘exactly; this is not the time or the place to go messing about with guitars.’ He got up went behind the mixer desk put on Heard it Through the Grapevine, and sang along with it. I had to admit, that he didn’t have such a bad voice. Ray looked pissed off, the dog had pissed over the settee, and now it was difficult to move for the amount of people in the room. Gary cranked up the music, somebody gave me a pill of some sort which made my head spin, and forced me to seek peace in one of the bedrooms.

Inside it was  dark. I stumbled around for the bed, found it, and lay on my back, trying to blank out my nausea. After a few minutes, the door opened and a shaft of light illuminated the room for a few seconds. Two people had entered, and they stood by the door talking. It was Richard and his friend Gunter.

‘I’m sorry that I didn’t write,’ said Richard. There was a pause, and the sound of a kiss.

‘I understand Richard. The thing not  easy.  I will stay the night ya?’

There was silence. Another kiss, laughter, or rather a girlie giggle.

‘Can I?’

More silence, and the sound of a zip.

‘Can I?’

A voice from somewhere else in the room said, ‘Will you make your fucking minds up, and shut the fuck up. I’m trying to get to sleep. Just at that moment Gary did a dedication.

‘This one folks is the late, great, and a very good friend of mine……..Mr Elvis, The King Presley. Thangyooverymuch.’

The strains of Can’t Help Falling in Love drifted into the room. I felt something on my trousers, moving up and down,  in time to the music. It was Greta’s dog Paul, he was shagging my leg. I was too wasted to shake him off. Outside all my friends both old and recent were dancing  to the disco of a man that couldn’t separate truth from fantasy; while I lay here, my mind distorted by drugs and alcohol, listening to Richard making love to a German transvestite, whilst being leg shagged by a Yorkshire Terrier.

It felt  good to be back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                    Chapter eleven

                              

                                 ‘We crossed the line.

Went through the fire.

Climbed up the mountain.

Entered the……………What rhymes with fire guys?’

‘Tyre,’ said Ray.

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ I said putting the pen down.

‘None of it makes sense if you ask me,’ said Ray crashing one of his symbols, and reaching for a beer.

‘Try to think Beatles,’ said Richard. ‘What would they have written during their Peppers album period.’

‘Mire?’ said Alan

We were definitely struggling. This was Richard’s idea. He wanted us to come up with some original material, so that he could go back to London and try to sell it. It was not as easy as it looked. We were coming up with bilge.

Gary arrived, and looked dog rough. Non of us thought by this time that he could play a guitar, and Richard said that if the worse came to the worse, we could just hang one round his neck, and he could pretend to be playing it. We still had Phil’s gear and it was there waiting on stage at the Fountain for Gary’s big audition. 

He set about changing the strings around to make it left handed, at full volume. The noise was brain destroying. He insisted also on a mike, and was pissed off with the one we gave him, saying it was shit. I ended up giving him mine. By this time the guy was sweating like a pig.. He wound the guitar strings  up while we just sat around. Ray hit his drums with one drumstick slowly, which was always a sign at rehearsals he was pissed off. Dave sat on a chair making a pretence of cleaning his strings, and Richard sat with his head in his hands.

‘It’s been along time guys,’ said Gary through a squeal of feedback off his mike.  ‘But I’m back.’ He played a chord: it didn’t sound like any known to me one to me.  Richard looked up and cringed, Ray gave his snare an extra hard tap, and Phil polished his Guitar with more quickly.

Gary hit another chord. ‘This ones in P.’ he laughed, and began winding up the E string until it was in tune with the rest. The feedback loop that he had created was beginning to cause problems with my ears. I was sure that liquid was coming out. I hoped that it wasn’t blood.

‘Your gonna have to help me out on this one guys,’ Gary screamed into the mike.

‘Piss off,’ said Ray getting down off his drums, and walking towards the door.

‘Wanker,’ said Richard, shaking his head.

‘This ones been written by a VERY dear friend of mine, sadly missed. The late great Jimiiiiiiiiiiiiii Hendaaaaarix cumon now yall help me.’

Gary did a guitar solo down the fingerboard with lightning speed and opened up with the chords of Purple Haze, moving into the riff, and singing the opening lines. ‘Purple Haze, was in my brain…………’

It was like listening to Hendrix. Even his movement on stage was like Hendrix. He pushed the guitar into his balls, looked across to me and said, ‘help me out now brother.’ And help him we did. Ray got back on his drums, I picked up the tune on bass, and Phil tried to fit in some rhythm guitar. Gary was loving it, he wasn’t playing Hendrix, in his head he was Hendrix. He picked out a lead riff with his teeth, played behind his back, and over his head, and got the feed back just right at the end, as he wailed ‘HELP ME, HELP ME.’

Before the feedback had died down Gary broke into Elvis’s You Aint Nothing But  Hound-dog, waited for us to pick up the tune, then put the guitar down grabbed hold of the mike and continued singing. He was brilliant, but extreme. He encouraged Richard to ‘clap your hand to the beat buddy’ And even wiped out a pair of dark glasses. He sounded like Elvis, he moved like Elvis, and I had to admit, even with blond hair, he had an Elvis look. I thought Richard was going to wet himself, and I could see the money symbols in his eyes. It didn’t take a genius to see the possibilities. We had been raking the money in before, but now! A sixties tribute night with the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley. We would clean up. We had replaced Phil, with a musical genius. Ok maybe he was a bullshitter, and a wanker, but now I wasn’t too sure. Maybe he had given Clapton the riff for Layla, and maybe he had done all the things that he claimed; it wasn’t important. What was important was that he was with us, and as long as we could stand his drinking, womanising, drug taking, arrogance, selfishness and non stop bullshit; we were going to be big on the circuit.

At that moment I thought that things had turned for the better, and that nothing could get in our way. Punk? You can stick it up your arse. In the words of the Beatle song; Give me moneeeee, who wanted fame? Certainly not me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                         

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                       

 

 

                                                                

 

                                                                 Chapter twelve

We began to tour the band, after about a fortnight’s rehearsals. We were still living in Richard’s flat, and even though we all made noises about finding a bigger place, I somehow knew it would never happen; besides the flat was big enough. Ray spent most of his time at his girlfriends, or out drinking with his contractor mates. When he did spend the night with us which was rare, he crashed out on the settee. There were two bedrooms. One was shared by Richard and Gunter, and I shared the other with Gary and Dave.

Gary had totally lost it. He started wearing tweeds, and a trilby with one of those fake fly’s in the rim; the sort that fishermen use. He had a half size picture of himself above his bed, and spent hours in the evening rolling joints for the next day. For breakfast he drank tequila sunrise’s with amphetamine’s, he drank beer with whisky chasers  throughout the day, and between all of this chain smoked black Russian cigarettes. Food very rarely crossed his lips, though he was fond of chocolate.

He brought loads of German fanny to the flat, which pissed off both me and Dave, because it meant that we had to sleep in the front room. We got back to playing highest card wins, to see who got the settee. Neither of us got it, if by chance Ray was staying the night. He was too big to argue with.

Gary had a selection of tapes that he played at full volume sometimes through his disco gear which was nearly always (except when we were gigging) set up in the corner. It was strange electrical stuff which he had written himself. I didn’t know what was worse. Listening to this, or to the sound of him humping the German tarts that he’d picked up in the Fountain, till the early hours of the morning.

Richard and Gunter spent a lot of time in there bedroom, and when they were not screwing they were out shopping or doing husband and wife type things. You had to hand it to Gunter; if he had been a girl we would have all tried to pull it. Nobody was  sure what his nationality was, but he claimed to be Danish, and at other times admitted he was Dutch, but that Danish sounded more sexy.

Problems began on the gigging side with Gary after about the second month. Small at first. Would he arrive in time to go to the gig. Would he arrive at all? Would he be in a fit state to play? But  when he made it on stage he was the master: trouble was,  he couldn’t separate his stage act, from real life. We went through our Beatle medley with him playing John Lennon, and went down great but the real peak of the show, was his Jimi Hendrix, and Elvis Presley impersonation. Which went down even greater.

To be fair to the guy he never pushed it at first. There was no, ‘I think I should be doing more, and you lads less,’ sort of thing. It was more of a natural progression; the law of Rock and roll if you like. The audience just wouldn’t let him off once he got on. When we went back to a gig for the second time, you could see them willing the Beatles off the stage to make way for Hendrix, and  Elvis. Gone were the days of notes in the hands of Paul, and John. Now we didn’t have a look in. Gary got more than notes.   Women threw their bras and knickers on to the stage, and sometimes they would jump on stage themselves. There were loads of the buggers waiting back stage when we left, and they all wanted Gary. It was a real pisser. One night it was so bad, that he had to be smuggled out of a club in Dortmund. To tell you the truth  It was getting scary.

 Clubs began to get wise, and hired extra help just to protect Gary. Richard began charging more money, so why was it the rest of us felt shit? Well…………….  after six months of gigging, the Beatles had been reduced to a few numbers, before the main event. Gary began not even joining in on the Beatle numbers, but sitting in the back, waiting to come on.  Nobody seemed to give a shit that there was only three Beatles.

He began making demands. He found it difficult to get his clothes and stage makeup together on his own. Gunter was brought in as his assistant. He felt afraid of all of the women that went for him during and after the performance. Richard began to always ring up a venue before hand, to check out he security. Finally he wanted to do some of his own material at the end of the night, ‘as an encore at first, but when it goes well, maybe we could drop the Beatle bit and put it in the set.’ That was one that made us all want to kill the bastard, but by then nobody, not even Ray, had the guts to tell him were to stuff his idea.

We were six months into our sixties rock and pop theme tour, and had now been taken over by a megalomaniac drug addicted, alcoholic Elvis Presley  impersonator. I think even at that early stage, I knew like Terry did about The Messiahs that it was all going to end in tears.

 Things were changing inside Gary’s head. We began to notice small things. He took to smoking a Sherlock Holmes pipe, and added a black cloak lined with red satin to his tweed trilby, suit and crocodile winkle pickers.  He also got himself a permanent girlfriend called Hilda. She was a Yank and had met Gary by chance in the local art centre  were she was putting on one of her exhibitions. What  Gary was doing looking at Art, I will never know. He said he was seeking inspiration, and that just like John, he now felt that he had discovered his Yoko. We  all fancied the arse off Hilda, but she only had eyes for dickhead Gary. He encouraged her to wear tweeds and they began dressing the same.  She in turn encouraged him to carry a note book around with him, and write down any important thoughts that occurred  to him during the day, or even at night when he was in bed. Many times Dave and I would be woken at night as Gary flicked on his bedside table light, and wrote down some piece of crap that had popped into his mind whilst asleep. Life was becoming unbearable, and then it got worse.

One night after a gig in Hanover, he announced in the van going home, that he needed to stop gigging for a while, to ‘complete the project.’

‘what project is that then’ said Ray.

‘THE PROJECT man. It’s either this or I’m off.’

  This made us all shut the fuck up, and we travelled home in silence.

The next day he was gone, without a word of where he was going, or what he was going to do when he got there. He left after his usual breakfast, in Hilda’s big Ford Mustang convertible.

After a week he was back. It was a Monday evening and by chance we were all there. As he walked through the door with Hilda close behind, he didn’t waste time  but shouted ‘Band meeting ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for.’

They were both dressed in identical pin stripped suits, and carried brief cases. Gary had knee length  pin stripe shorts and a walking stick, which turned into a little seat when he pushed a button. He sat down, opened his brief case, and brought out an eighteen inch reel to reel tape.

 ‘This gentlemen and lady,’ he smiled at Günter. ‘ this is the future of the band.’

We were  confused.

‘The past week, I’ve been locked inside a recording studio in Munich, putting together this backing tape. With a few alterations to the set, and some cooperation from you guys, we can be ready to go for it big time.’

‘What alterations are you talking about,’ said Richard

‘What’s more important, why didn’t you let us in on the recording you twat,’ said Ray.

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen. One at a time please.’ Gary was enjoying this. ‘I played all the instrument in the studio myself, for obvious reasons.’

‘Oh yea, what are those then,’ said Ray

Gary raised his eyes, and shook his head. ‘Hilda’s gonna fill you in with the details. Over to you love.’

Hilda got up off her chair, and opened her briefcase. Band meetings had certainly come a long way from the piss ups we used to have.

 ‘You’re all aware that Gary,’ she turned and gave him a secret sort of smile. ‘Needs to express himself, rather than parody other stars. He feels that now is the time to break out and reveal his true identity. As an encore at first, and then when we all feel comfortable, extend to about half an hour. You don’t have to do anything, because all of the backing has been played by him, even the drums,’ she said giving Ray a motherly type smile.

‘Nobody uses backing tapes Gary,’ said Ray. ‘People pay to see a live band. We already said ok to you doing a few numbers, but with us.’

‘Backing tapes are a thing of the future People.’

‘And Gary is a man of the people.’ Said Hilda

 ‘ That’s right guys, why look back to the past. the Beatles, Jimi, Elvis; they were great, but they’re history.

‘Yeh, but the name of the band is Abbey Rd,’ said Ray.

‘We were coming to that,’ said Hilda. ‘We think that it’s time for a name change. When we fully integrate the new set, then maybe it’s time for a new name. we thought of Gary’s Lovepackage.’

Gary rubbed his groin at this, and winked at Günter.

‘Ok then guys, I will settle for The Lovepackage, if you think the other is too much.’

‘I think you’re too much, you twat,’ said Ray getting up, and walking to the door. ‘Fucking Lovepackage. You can count me out.’ He went through the door and slammed it behind him.

. ‘That’s settled then,’ said Gary. ‘Anyone got drugs, I’m gagging.’

 

 

 

Ray came round to the idea in the end, after much crawling, and talk of money, by Richard. We did our first gig at a club in Dortmund that following Saturday. Hilda had bought a  set of lights, and a snazzy looking consol, and said she would be using them just for Gary. The man himself  didn’t travel with us to the gig, but chose instead the comfort of Hilda’s Mustang. Not surprisingly they arrived before us, and he had already set up his gear when we got there. Hilda  was setting up little floor lights in a line in front of the microphone stand, and fiddling with speed controls of two strobes, in between puffs of her cigarette.

The club was large, with two storeys. Tables were arranged in a semi circle around a dance floor, above which were an impressive array of disco lights. The top storey, was a balcony that run right around the club, and was were the bar was situated. I remembered from last time that people would take their drinks and hang over the side, watching the band, and throwing things on stage. In our case it had been knickers, and scribbled notes to Gary, but I could imagine other objects more dangerous being thrown, if they didn’t like you. I hoped he knew what he was doing; for all our sakes.

The club was packed out. The Beatle set went down a storm, Hendrix a bigger storm, and Elvis blew the roof off. I remember thinking how can the man top this? He must have read my thoughts as we stood just off stage listening to the cries for more.

‘Just watch me!’ he said; and so we crept into the audience and did. Backing tapes? He was either ahead of his time, or out of his head, and now was the moment of truth.

The stage was in darkness. Out in the audience the smell  was bad. The place was like a sauna, and Peoples deodorant had stopped working. Underarm freshness had broken down, and gone on red alert. Bad breath and body odour mixed together with sex, cheap perfume, and stale German lager beer. The atmosphere was electric, I felt nervous for the man, but deep down I wanted him to fail, just to wipe the smile off Hilda’s face.

 And then he appeared: the floor lights came on crisscrossed in front of the mike stand, forming thin bars of colour. He looked as if he was in a prison cell. He had changed out of his Elvis gear and now wore a one piece pilots jump suit, complete with goggles on his forehead, and breathing mask which hung round his neck. The music kicked in. A pulsing drum beat, nothing else. He began performing a  sort  of robotic dance; I didn’t know whether to laugh, break down in tears, or call a doctor for the poor bastard.

‘Electrify me,

ah cummon

workkkkkkkk

uh hu hu

electrify me,

ah common

workkkkkk, let’s work it all out baby

uh hu hu.’

He looked white, but sounded black. The Germans didn’t know what to make of what was happening, and then keyboards and bass came in, and everybody did. The sound was magnificent. Hi-fi stereo. It reduced what we had been playing to garbage. How do you top the Beatles, Hendrix and Elvis? Easy. Get yourself a shit hot sound system to sing through, add an amazing light show, and you’re there brother, and brother he was there.

‘ya see I’m sick of this,

sick of that

tired and confused by all that crap MAN

I’m out of control I’m a dude with a mission,

Like a jigsaw puzzle with one piece missing.

Electrify me,

Ahh cumON

Workkkkkkkkkkkkkk. Clap your hands people.’

The strobes came on, Gary looked evil, and the Germans began clapping their hands, and singing along. People in the balcony were singing ‘electrify me,’ leaning over and clapping to the beat. Beer and spirits rained down on us; a glass smashed on the floor passing inches from my head. Gary just kept on dancing..

‘A man is born, he lives and dies,

he grows up fast anesthetised

demoralised, fragmentalised

unrealised asexualised.

Tired of the shit

He’s easily led

     Winds up in an alley with a bullet in his head.

Electrify me

Aaaaah cumonnn

Work it out ya’ll…………………..’

 

 

We gigged for about a month after that. Gary’s set slowly getting bigger, and Beatles numbers reduced to Get Back, Twist and Shout, and Come Together. We were all pissed off, but Ray was close to the edge. Gary didn’t seem to notice any problems

 It just washed over him. He started a new habit  of waking up in the middle of the night; switching his new amp on (he had bought a small ten watt just for this purpose) plug in his guitar, and play and sing any new idea for a song that had entered his head, into a portable tape recorder, that he now used instead of his notebook.

We all knew it was only a matter of time!

It happened on a Thursday night. We hadn’t been gigging, and Ray had got seriously pissed on strong Dutch lager, and Gordon’s gin; a dangerous mix. I was woken up in the early hours, by the sound of Gary playing his guitar, and singing at volume. I put the pillow over my head, to block him out, but it was no good. He kept stopping and starting, as if he was trying to get it right.

‘Fuck off Gary; give it a rest you arsehole.’ It was Ray’s voice, and he didn’t sound happy. He must have been too pissed to make it back to his girlfriends. The racket continued.

‘I wont tell you again dick face.’

Still he kept on playing.

‘Right you bastard…………………..’

There was the sound of a scuffle. The music stopped, and Ray shouted at the top of his voice, ‘I told you, you bastard, but you just wouldn’t stop would you?’ Then silence.

I heard the kitchen door opening, and then the sound of something being dragged across the wooden floor. There were iron steps, that led down into the garden. Dave was still asleep, unaware of what was going on. I got up, and pulled back the curtains of the bedroom window which overlooked the back garden. I could see Ray, dragging the lifeless body of Gary by his legs; his head bumping against the twenty or so steps, until they reached the bottom. My first thoughts were that Ray had killed him. if it hadn’t happened in the front room, then I was sure that the journey to the garden had surely finished the job.

 Richard had the same idea, because a light came on in the kitchen, he appeared at the door, and walked down to were Ray was standing over  Gary. I opened the window slightly, so that I could hear what they were saying. They were arguing, and Ray was pocking Richard’s chest saying ‘I warned him, but he just wouldn’t listen. He never listens, just talks shit……’

Richard was trying to calm Ray down, and see how bad Gary was. From the look on his face, I could see that he suspected the worst.

‘Go and fetch some water Ray. Let’s see if we can bring him round.’

Ray disappeared, and came back with a bucket of water, and a cloth. Richard pointed to put some water on Gary’s face, and Ray emptied the bucket over the sod.

‘I meant dab it on with a cloth you fucking moron,’ said Richard angrily.

Gary was on his feet instantly, screaming like a madman.

‘What  have you done to me? My face is on fire you bastard.’

‘Where did you get that bucket from Ray,’ shouted Richard in a panic.

‘The bathroom.’

‘That’s full of bleach; Günter was soaking some cleaning cloths.’ 

Now Ray began to panic; he went over to Gary who was dancing about in agony and said, ’I’m sorry man, I’m sorry.’

‘Fuck off, I need to go to………’ he didn’t finish the sentence. The poor sod must have been in excruciating pain. ‘Hospital,’ he cried. ‘Car……..Hilda…….car.’

 Ray helped him up the stairs and back into the house, with Richard following behind

‘Car keys man. Where are the bastard car keys.’ I could hear the sound of Gary sobbing.

‘Wont be long now pal,’ said Ray.

‘Fu………ccck…………….y………….ooooo…baaa  don’t pal meee’ Gary gave up on what he was trying to say, but I heard Ray say, ‘easy now, there’s no need for that.’

I think that Gary had either tried to hit him, or was using sign language. Finally, I heard the sound of the front door closing, and then in the distance, the  sound of the Mustangs engine as it fired up.

I got back into bed, and tried to get some sleep, but my brain insisted on talking. I must have eventually drifted off about four thirty, and woke up as dawn broke looking up at a grey Munster sky. I’d forgotten to close the curtains, and needed to piss badly. I looked at my alarm clock. It said six fifteen. I’d set it for eleven. I got up, and went into the living room. Gary was in there putting clothes into a holdall. He looked as if he had been crying, but then I remembered the bleach.

‘Up early,’ I said. ‘What’s happening?’

‘In the words of that great song Dai. I’m leaving, on a Jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.’ He held his hand up to stop me from interrupting his flow.

‘Oh Babe, I hate to go.’

 There was something different about the guy. I realised that it must be that he was sober. But there was something else. His accent was different. It wasn’t South London anymore, there was an American lilt to it, not phoney either. This was natural.

‘Who are you?’ I said.

‘Oim anyting ye want   me tu be kiddo. Call me Roy, Bernard, or Bruce. But don’t call me a cab, cause I’ll do that myself. I’m outa  here Dai.’

‘But what about us?’

‘Oh it’s us now is it. Listen pal, call me Dorothy. You lot are the tin man, the lion, and the scarecrow, but my real business is with my man the wizard. So I’m leaving you behind; moving up the yellow brick road, making sure that I avoid the wicked witch of the west.’

What could I say to that?  I watched in silence as he finished his packing, and walked to the door. Before he left, he turned round

‘Speaking of the wicked witch Dai. Tell Hilda that I’m borrowing the car, but that I’ll stash it in a car park when I get to the end of the rainbow, and write her name address and telephone number on the windscreen, so she’ll get it back. Tell her not to worry about money for petrol. I’ll put some in; that’s the least I can do.’ He gave me a military style salute, and was gone before I had time to think of a reply.

It was seven am, on a miserable, windswept and rainy Friday morning. The gas fire hissed, then went off, as the money ran out. Ray stirred on the settee, opened his eyes, then closed them again, as if he suddenly remembered were he was. The rest of the house slept on. I wondered what I was going to tell them when they woke up, and how they would react. Gary was gone, and we weren’t even back to square one. Work would be hard to find for a Beatles Trio. I had to admit,  this was a low point in my life.

 

 

                                                                 Chapter eighteen.

Even though we hated arsehole Gary; I think we all knew that him going was the end of the band. We searched for a new Beatle and in the end gave up and did a few gigs as a three piece. The writing was on the wall for the band, in big neon flashing letters. In the end, it was me that called it a day. I got  a letter off Ma. She told me that Joe had been kicked out of ‘that band he was in,’ and that he was back home in Prestatyn. I decided to go back myself.  I told the lads I needed a break. Nobody argued. Nobody even tried to tie me down to how much of a break I thought we needed. Deep inside, all of us knew, that it was the end of our particular road.

We decided to have a party, to celebrate our ‘holiday.’ It   We sat round the gas fire in the living room, drinking and smoking, until the early hours of the morning. Hardly a word passed between us.

The next morning before anyone was awake in the flat, I left. Guitar strapped over my shoulder, and holdall full of my worldly possessions, and the German equivalent of three hundred pounds in my pocket. I got a ride on the outskirts of town, for about a hundred miles off a German lorry driver, declining his offer of sex, in the back of his wagon. I got picked up by a Belgian couple, on their way home from visiting relatives, and arrived in Brussels early Saturday evening.

I booked myself into a hotel near the coach station, intending to go out on a bender, but got drunk in the hotel bar instead. The waitress, whose name I’ve forgotten, kept feeding me triples, when I had only ordered singles, and I ended up in her bed, too pissed to perform. I made up for it the next morning though, and left the hotel to catch the coach, feeling alive again. Those last few weeks in Munster had been depressing, as something ending always is. As the coach headed along the flat ugly Belgian landscape, towards Zeebrugge, and the ferry home, I looked out of the window, and felt a pang of excitement in the depth of my stomach. There is nothing quite like being alone, and not having to answer to anybody, with no particular plan, or place to go. Call it just a feeling, but  I knew that something good was going to happen.

It was midnight when I eventually boarded the ferry, with all the other foot passengers, who jostled and pushed in their attempts to be first in the queue when the restaurant opened. I browsed through the newsagents waiting for the rush to die down, not particularly wanting to read anything. A picture on the front cover of the New Musical Express (not my favourite read I must confess) caught my eye. It was Patti, only looking completely different than the last time I had seen her. It was the name not the face that caught my eye. She had long blond hair, a black evening dress which emphasised her tits, and was standing by a swimming pool with a glass of champagne In her hand. The headlines read. Patti Vitale.(ex Messiahs) Pop Goddess, or Punk Anti- Christ. Underneath it said, more pictures of Patti, and a full interview, as  Robin Bailey catches up with her in Singapore during her sell out world tour. The blond hair had to be a wig. Nobodies hair grows that quick; not even the anti-Christ of pop. I bought the magazine, and fought my way to the food.

I settled down at a table in the centre of the room so that I didn’t have to see the waves going up and down. I never had been a good sailor, and wasn’t one of these people that went and stood looking over the sides of the ship, or at the front trying to be the first to see the white cliffs. No; for me, it was simply a question of settling down somewhere in the middle of the ferry, and finding something to take my mind off the fact that we weren’t on dry land. Steak and kidney pie, chips, peas and gravy, two bottles of Stella, and a good read was just the thing I needed.

Inside the magazine, my suspicions about the wig were confirmed. There were pictures of Patti with long blond hair, short frizzy black hair, white hair, and even an afro. Who ever was doing her makeup was a mad man. She looked stunning, even in black and white. She posed in evening dress, short mini skirt, cat suit, and even a Basque. I had to admit, that was my favourite. I took a swig of beer, ate some pie, and read the interview.

 

I caught up with Patti Vitale, in her luxury hotel, in Singapore, where she was relaxing after her strenuous world tour. Reviews of her new album ‘The Dogs Bollocks’ in which she plays all the instruments herself, have been mixed. In America, where she has been christened the new Queen of soul. In the UK, cries of sell out and phoney have been heard all the way from Erics, to the punk clubs in London were she sensationally started her career. Genius or fraud, saint or sinner, Patti never seems to be out of the headlines these days, especially after her whirl wind romance, and subsequent marriage to Antonio Vitale, nicknamed Mr Porn by the Italian press due to his rather spicy career as a film producer, and mafia links with prostitution.

Q What do you say to the people in Britain, that label you a phoney?

I’d say listen to the album, it speaks for itself. Maybe I was a phoney before; but aren’t we all phoney’s to some extent. I am just flexing my talent, to see where it will take me.

Q Who has been your influences.

Well musically, there have been too many to mention, but on a broader level, I would have to say my brother Gary, and of course Antonio. He above all made me realise that I was a woman, and that I should express my sexuality, not only in my writing, but as a person.

Q does your husband’s past worry you?

Does your girlfriend’s? we have all got a past. I only think about the future.

Q What’s been the best thing to happen to you this year?

Well apart from getting married, then I would have to say, finishing the album. I’m now looking forward to finishing the tour, and going on holiday with Antonio.

Q Is it true that you have been asked to take part in a fashion show in Milan?

My manager did mention we had been approached, but I can’t comment until I know the details.

Q Finally; have you a message for Britain?

Only that punk died before I killed it. Don’t blame me for growing up. Open your eyes, and grow up yourselves.

 

On the next page, there was a picture of Patti, and a dark haired man sitting in the back of a white Rolls-Royce. It had obviously been taken at their wedding. The man had a pencil moustache, and looked like a used car salesman. Underneath was written; more from our intrepid reporter next week, as Robin Bailey goes down under, to discover more about the real Patti Vitale.

I supposed  that down under meant Australia. I felt sick, and needed to get my head down. Reading all that crap, had made me depressed. I found a corner seat, put my holdall on it as a pillow, lay down and put Patti’s picture over my face. She had come a long way  in a short time.  She was now wank material for a million American, and probable English schoolkidss. I included myself with them. Why had I been so blind. True she probable would have used me, and then cut me loose, like Joe and Dee, but at least I would be somewhere now. I thought of Joe back in Prestatyn. God knows where Dee was; for all I knew, she was part of the tour. That still was a mystery. I drifted into sleep, rocked by the waves, trying to blot out the people talking about their holiday in the Rhine valley, on the next table.

When I awoke, I didn’t know where I was for a moment. I listened to the sounds around me. There was a man; American I thought talking close by.

‘I can tell you now, it was a real bummer. Stardust and men from Mars. Why I ever shared the idea with the guy I’ll never know. The next thing I knew, he was doing it.’

‘I never read anything about it in the papers.’

‘Exactly. Money talks, money talks. But I’m not worried about it buddy. I’ve got lawyers working on it. The guy owes me a packet……..’

Gary! I pulled the magazine off my face, and got up. he was sitting on a table a few feet away, talking to a fair hair man with glasses. He was wearing  black leather trousers, white T-shirt, with a red bandana round his head, and smoking a cigarette. He looked like something out of Easy Rider. If he was surprised to see me, he didn’t  show it.

‘Catch you later buddy,’ he said,  and walked over to me. He offered me a cigarette from his packet. They were Dunhills. I shook my head, but he insisted. ‘Go on, take one. They’re special.’

I took one. The filter had been broken off. He held out his lighter, and I took a drag; it went right to my head.

‘Soaked in oil Dai. Apart from the smell, nobody would ever know. He got out a small canister, and sprayed the air. ‘Patuoli. Makes you smell like an old hippy, but you are one so it doesn’t matter.’ He laughed at his joke. ‘I suppose that you’re on a one way ticket to anywhere, just like me Dai.’

I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.

‘Band split up, without the electric vibe of my presence did it.’

Again, I wouldn’t have put it quite like that. ‘Piss off Gary.’

He became serious. ‘It was a question of people. The world would be a better place without them. They sort of fuck me off. Here have one of these.’ He offered me a small green tablet. ‘It’ll perk you up.’

I took it and it certainly did. We were getting into port, and I had lost the use of my legs. I wasn’t sure if it was the dope or the pill. Gary helped me to my feet, and helped me with my guitar and case. He helped me down the stairs towards the car deck. I tried to tell him that I was a foot passenger, but he wasn’t listening. He kept shouting, ‘move out of the way. There’s a man sick here, needs urgent medical attention.’ People let us pass. Mothers moved their children to one side, and held there faces against their legs.  I realised what they were looking at. Blood was coming from my nose. It was running down my chin, had formed a big red stain on the front of my shirt, and was filling up my mouth. I was sick. That speeded everything up. people began shouting to other people further down the stairs, to get out of our way. I think I fell down the last few steps, and landed on my bass. Gary picked me up, shoved me into a car, I must have passed out, because  the next thing that I knew, we were sitting in the bucket seats of an MG, listening to Hendrix’s version of All along the watchtower, driving at speed down the A1 to London.

‘I thought you said you didn’t have a drivers licence.’

‘Poetic licence Gary. Words for every occasion.’

I understood what he meant. It was a Gary type way of saying he’d been bullshiting us.

We took the M25, and turned off  at junction eleven, to take the A3 into London. It was only six am , and the traffic was sparse. It was too early to call on anybody I knew, so I excepted Gary’s offer, to crash at his place. He slowed down, as we came to an NCB car park, and swung the car up the ramp, drove it all the way to the top, then parked. We both got out, and Gary, scribbled something on a note, and put the keys on top of one of the front wheels. We walked to the nearest tube station, and headed for Chelsea. Call me sceptical, but I would never of believed that he lived in that particular part of town, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I wish I hadn’t.

After walking for forty minutes, we came to a block of two storey Flats, at the back of Stamford Bridge. He produced from his pocket, what I thought at first was a penknife. It was penknife size, but had a lot of  thin pieces of metal on it. he inserted one into the lock, and wiggled it around. I asked him if he was sure that he lived here. He ignored me and inserted another, twisted it and the door opened. I followed him inside, through the hall, and out into a small courtyard. He climbed onto a bin, reached up and pulled a ladder down that was attached to the wall.

‘Fire exit,’ he said. Go up to the first landing, and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

I watched him climb up the ladder, and walked back into the hall. I was in two minds to walk away, and go and see Terry, but I was tired, so I walked up the stairs. Gary greeted me at the top.

‘Sorry about that mate.’

‘Forgot your key?’

‘Yeh, something like that; come in, I hope the bitch left some food in the freezer, I’m starving.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                   Chapter nineteen.

I only intended to stay with Gary the one night, but circumstances dealt me a bum hand. After a fortnight I was still there, and running out of options fast on my future.

I went to Vauxhall the day after breaking in to the flat, to look for Terry. I thought that I’d gone to the wrong block of flats at first, but then realised that Terry must have changed the door. There was no one in, so I hung around for a bit deciding what to do. I went to the pub on the corner, had a few beers, then went back. As I arrived, the next door neighbour, an Indian woman called Rose, was putting the key in her lock, and struggling with a bag full of shopping. ‘You looking for Terry? Well you’re going to have a long wait, because he’s in prison.’

She didn’t know, or wouldn’t tell me any details of his arrest, and scurried inside her house. I heard the sound of several locks, and a chain being secured. That’s how the people were around this manor. Scared of their own shadows, afraid of talking to strangers, as there was a seventy five percent possibility that they were crooks.

I waited in the car park for a bit, then walked over to the Bear. Inside, there were the same old faces, nothing much ever changes for these lads. I never got chance to put my hand in my pocket, and when chucking out time came, I was full of beer, rum and blacks, and had learnt about what had become of Terry and Willy. It was a source of local amusement, even if I hadn’t wanted to know, they would have insisted on telling me. People Queued up to buy me drinks, each with his own (the real truth) version, of what had happened.

It all took place, a couple of nights after I went back to Germany. Some thugs had turned up at Terry’s in the early hours of the morning, smashed in the door, and beaten Willy to a pulp. Terry was left unscathed. One of the neighbours,( could it have been Rose?) had called the police, and an ambulance. Willy was rushed to hospital, but the police became very interested in the fifty or so new television sets, in Terry’s bedroom. Here the story became disjointed. Some said that the police couldn’t do anything, because there was no record of the theft of the TV’s. Another account was that Terry actually had the receipts for the set’s, and yet another adaptation was that they scaled the sentence down, in return for information against the people who had beaten him up, and that Terry was now shitting it in prison.  Now we come to the irony of the tale, which once again marks out Willy for the lovable utter bastard that he is. He might have got away with the televisions, but on searching the premises; they found Willy’s stash of dope, hidden underneath Terry’s bed, or rather lying at the side of Terry’s upturned bed(another version) in three Socks. Now Willy had the chance to cover his friend, and take the rap, but true to form, he denied any knowledge, and Terry got done for dealing. The good news, was that with good behaviour, he would be probable out by Christmas. The bad news for Willy, was that as soon as he gets out, the whisper around was that he was going to pay Willy a visit, and have more than a strong word with him.

Which brings us to what happened to Willy. He sustained broken ribs, nose and two broken legs. His jaw had to be wired up, and the thugs had used a knife on his face. They’d also given him a good kicking(if there is such a thing as a good kicking) and he was bruised from head to toe. Some of the lads reckoned that he needed plastic surgery, but as nobody had visited him from the pub whist he was in hospital, this was just a wild guess.

Where was he living now? The big surprise was that Sasha, had kicked out her lover, and taken him back. Willy didn’t get out at all these days, he was still confined to bed. Sasha’s bed, I couldn’t help but smile at this. It was what she had always dreamed about. A captive Willy, totally reliant on her, and unable to do or go anywhere without her help. I bet she was loving it. This would be a living hell for Willy; probable worse than being beaten up. There was a God after all.

Maybe I got carried away with that last statement, because if there really was a God; what was he doing for me? Nothing screamed the voices in my head, as I sat on the tube and made my way back to Chelsea. In that case, I would have to start doing things for myself, and make something happen. But what? That was the problem.

Living with Gary wasn’t so bad. Without the rest of the band, and the friction that would always occur when several people lived together, he was bearable. True, he was still odd, but this type of oddness I didn’t mind. The main problem was that you didn’t know what to expect. Any time of the day or night, whether I was asleep or awake, if Gary wanted to talk, or do something irritating, he would do it without a second thought. The flat was luxurious. Nice décor, sunken bath, Jacuzzi, and one of those bidet things to wash your feet. It was spotlessly clean, almost sterile when we arrived, but our presence had rather altered that particular vibe. Now their were dirty plates and cutlery in the sink, most surfaces were filthy and piled high with used takeaway cartons and empty beer cans. We were in desperate need of Günter. The only thing that stayed clean was the cooker and wall oven. Neither of us had the technical know how, to get them to work. I wondered who lived in a house like this? it was obviously a woman. A man could never exist in such a state of cleanliness. Well any man that I knew. Maybe there was a new breed of man that I didn’t know about. Gary insisted it belonged to a good friend of his called Eve or Steve or something or other. He almost got me believing him until I saw mail on the front door mat addressed to Stella Pritchard. Gary was adamant there must have been some slip-up at the post office. After two weeks there was a pile of letters postcards and bills, all addressed to the same person. When I pushed the point, he said that maybe he could have been mistaken, that Eve’s flat could be the one next door, and that in his considered opinion, it was time to leave. His exact words were ‘We’re out of here bud; where’s our next stop. It’s your turn to decide.’

I stupidly blurted out without thinking of the consequences, that I was thinking of visiting my brother in north Wales.

‘Good call  bud,’ was his reply. ‘but for this adventure, we require wheels, some money, and someone kind enough to drive us. We need to go and see Spike.’

I didn’t even try to argue. The man had this way about him. he was like a drug. Dangerous, but you just had to go with the flow. I was becoming Gary dependant; he had sucked me into his crazy world, and I was too tired and void of ideas of anything better to do.

Gary introduced me to Spike, in the pool room, of a pub called the Green Angel in Bethnal Green. It was a locals pub; the sort strangers to the area wandered into by mistake, then spent there time, trying not to look anyone in there in the eyes, and working out their odds of getting out in one piece. To say that Spike was a big man, would be like saying that Brazil was not a bad football team, or that the Gobi desert was quite hot at midday. The man was huge. He was the biggest thing on two legs that I had ever seen, and unlike Terry; I couldn’t see an inch of fat. It was all muscle. His arms bulged out of his lumberjack shirt as if he’d blown them up with compressed air, and his unfashionable jeans, were big enough for both me and Gary to get into at the same time. He was playing pool, and the cue looked like a toothpick. He shook my hand, very gently as if he was afraid himself that he might hurt mine. His fingers resembled giant black banana’s that had been stuck onto his hands. His head was shaved, and round like a watermelon, his face mean looking, his black skin, offset by unusual yellowy eyes. I wondered if his nickname  was snake eye, but decided probable not. Well not to his face anyway. Spike was a man of few words. In fact he was a man of no words. He nodded and gave me a rather sweet smile, and then listened to Gary intently. When we left the pub, I wasn’t sure what the deal was. Gary laughed at the confused expression on my face.

‘It’s all sorted man. We go back to the flat, collect our things, and meet him back here last orders. Don’t worry about Spike, he doesn’t say much, but he’s a sound guy. He’s had a lot of tragedy in his life.’

‘for instance?’

Gary laughed. ‘you’ll have to let him tell you.’

I couldn’t wait.

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                       

 

 

                                                                  Chapter twenty.

We started our journey to North Wales, at midnight. By Two in the morning, we were heading up the M1, in Spike’s white Ford Escort van. There were only two seats in the front, and Gary didn’t offer me the passenger one. I climbed into the back, and tried to make myself as comfortable as possible, by positioning the luggage, and my bass in a kind of makeshift seat. I started out sitting cross legged, then changed to stretched out with my head wedged between Gary and Spike. That didn’t work; I kept loosing my balance, every time we stopped, or Spike changed gear. In the end I lay, almost full stretch on my back, looking at the roof of the van. When I had left Wales, I had definitely not imagined my return would be so undignified.

 We stopped at the Watford Gap services for some food, cigarettes and skins. By the time we hit the M6 I was almost asleep, and so was Spike. Gary advised him to pull off the motorway, and we found a lay-by and stopped.

The lay by was separated from the road by trees, and there were one or two lorries, and a trailer parked up for the night. Gary produced a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a bag of chocolate bars, and we went outside for a picnic. We even found a picnic table situated in a small wood at the side of the road. It was one of those wooden trestle things with two benches attached. Spike had no chance of fitting in, so he sat on the table, and nearly turned it over. The early hours were cold. There was a slight ground mist, and I realised I was not dressed for the occasion. The liquor warmed me up though, and the stream of joints that Gary kept rolling dulled the senses. Spike didn’t drink or smoke, or talk. I wondered what his vices were. Women? Men? animals? I didn’t have the nerve to ask him, so I asked Gary.

‘Bird watching.’ Was his reply.

Did that count as a vice?

We slept as best we could. Spike had some blankets, that smelt of piss, and a sleeping bag that wouldn’t zip up. When we woke up, the lorries and the trailer were gone. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and there was a police car behind us.

 ‘Let me sort it out guys,’ said Gary, who was in the middle of rolling his first joint of the morning.’

He opened the passenger door, and got out. I caught the opening words of the police man walking towards him, before he shut the door.

‘Are you the driver of this car sir?’

Another officer, walked round to the front windscreen to check the tax disc. Spike smiled at him, and unwrapped a marathon bar.

After  a few minutes, Gary and the first policeman walked back to the car. As the door opened  and Gary got in, I heard the policeman say ‘but probable my daughter’s heard of you.’

‘Don’t forget now,’ Gary shouted back as he was closing the door. ‘Birmingham Empire, tonight. Just tell her to ring the ticket office, I never forget names.’ He closed the door. ‘Get the fuck out of here Spike.’ He looked back at me. ‘Don’t ask man, don’t fucking ask.’

We ran out of petrol near Telford, got lost in Shrewsbury, dropped acid tablets coming into Witchurch, and for some reason only known to Spike, ended up in the village of Farndon on the river Dee, by which point, we were just coming up on the acid. We spent a strange but pleasant afternoon, sitting by the river, throwing stones at the swans, drinking cans of Guiness, and smoking Tai sticks. Spike got out a telescope and wondered off up the river bank.

 But all good things must come to an end, and it was with regret and promises that we would return, that we got back into the van to continue our journey. As we sped up the A55, through the rolling hills of the Clwyd valley, terrible doubts entered my head. I was having second thoughts about coming home. As the pale autumn sun disappeared behind the mountains, the ensuing darkness gave the countryside we were now passing through an eerie quality. Gary must have been having the same problems to because he kept saying things like, ‘There’s too much emptiness here man. What happened to the houses? Where have all the people gone to? Hey man; doesn’t anybody go out after dark here?’

I assured him that it would get better, but his edginess was contagious. The van was like a space ship, the rolling North Wales mountains infinite space. Out here it seemed we were the only people left alive. Our descent towards the coast like re-entering the Earths atmosphere.

We reached the outskirts of Prestatyn at about nine in the evening. We were low on petrol, and morale, and I needed to piss badly. It was raining, and the streets were deserted. No cars or pedestrians. Gary shifted uneasily in his seat. ‘Who would live in a place like this?’

Spike let out a low whistle. We both looked at him, expecting some sort of comment to supplement it, but it never came. The whistle itself was the comment. The man was minimal with his use of English, but I was beginning to like his style.

We made our way past the caravan parks, tea rooms, amusement arcades, and gift shops, all of which were closed, and headed towards the promenade. Here, the only sign of life, were the empty fish and chip shops, waiting patiently for the pubs to expel their clientele, and getting ready to serve them warmed up chips, and yesterdays meat pasties. They competed against each other for the limited custom, offering two fish cakes for the price of one(for orders over a pound) and free home made gravy with jumbo sausage chips and peas. It brought back memories. Not happy ones. Just memories.

The address mum had given me, was a holiday flat,  just off the promenade. We parked the car and checked out the names on the intercom by the frosted glass front door. There was no sign of a Joe Thomas, so I tried flat 1 which was the only one without a name. A girls voice answered, and I asked if Joe Thomas lived their. There was a click of the door being opened and we walked in. Before we had chance to ring the bell of flat 1, which was situated on the ground floor, the door opened, and a young girl came out. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She was small with spiky punk hair, that was dyed jet black, and shaved up the sides. She was wearing black bondage trousers, and a black T-Shirt with a white skull on the front. Underneath the white face powder black eye shadow and lipstick, she must have had a pretty face, but it was hard to tell. If I had screwed up my eyes, in the half light of the hall, she could have been a smaller version of Patti. ‘He’s not here she said.’ Taking a step back, when she saw Spike.

Gary noticed her nervousness. ‘It’s alright honey, he’s only potentially dangerous.’

The girl smiled uneasily, and looked at me. ‘Your Dai, aren’t you? Joe’s brother.’

I nodded.

‘He’s down the Vic.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘You want to come in and wait?’

‘We’ll catch him there,’ I said  adding just to be safe. ‘He does live here then?’

‘Oh Yeh; we both do,’ she said with a hint of pride in her voice. ‘Catch you later then I suppose.’

‘Ok, catch you later.’

‘Looking forward to it,’ said Gary cheerfully.

She looked at Spike. He nodded, and gave her an enigmatic smile, which I think must have confused her. She watched us get into the car through a crack in the curtains. I suppose she was making sure that we were taking Spike with us. It hit me then, that we weren’t in the big metropolis anymore, but back in Hicksville. In a sense I belonged here, and blended in, even though I now classed home as London. But Spike and Gary were strangers in town, and were bound to attract attention. I saw trouble ahead, and needed to think of a plan fast.

Spike was hungry. He  stopped the car outside a fish and chip shop, and went in. He emerged five minutes later carrying three large packages. ‘How did he……….?’

‘Order the food without speaking,’ interrupted Gary. He thought about it for a minute, shrugged and said ‘beats me bud.’

The Victoria hotel, was only a short drive away from the chip shop. That’s a good thing about small towns; everything is close. We left Spike in the van finishing off his three steak pies, two pasties, three large chips and a beef burger. And walked into the pub. There were two doors in the hallway; one on the right, and one on the left. The sound of guitars came from the door on the left, so we chose that one. Stepping inside the lounge bar, was like stepping back in time for me. Faces from the past sprang  out at me from every corner of the room. Some faces that I had difficulty putting names to, others I didn’t particularly want to, and one that was the reason I had come back home for. Joe was sitting down on a small raised stage area doing what he did best. Playing guitar.

There was another guitarist on stage with him. An old fella, maybe in his fifties, with thinning fair hair, and glasses. They were playing Nick Drake’s Time has Told me, and the old bloke was singing it rather well. Joe from a distance anyway looked better than I’d seen him in years. He was wearing standard uniform for around these part; T-shirt and wranglers. His hair had grown back, and was almost covering his ears, and his face had lost the haunted look that he used to have in London. He saw me immediately that I walked in, as if he’d been waiting for me. A big smile appeared on his lips, and he mouthed, ‘what the fuck are you doing here?’

I raised my hand and walked over. They were only half way through the song, if my memory of it was correct. They had a tight little sound. They were both playing Fender acoustics. The old fella had a twelve string, with a nice looking Les Paul Custom, on a stand by his side. I waited for them to finish, and walked over. Unprofessional I know, but after all he was my brother, and this was only the Victoria Hotel, Prestatyn. ‘How long have you got,’ I asked, taking his outstretched hand.’

He pumped mine vigorously. ‘Another few numbers should see us, but why………?’

I put my finger to my lips. ’Do the pissing numbers will yeh. I’ll get the beers in.’

I’d misplaced Gary, then spotted him talking to two lads near the bar. The Parry brothers Gareth and Barry. Thick as pig shit hard as nails, and aggressive as fuck with little provocation. Why had he picked on those two particular knob heads to have a conversation with? As I walked over to them, my worse fears were confirmed. Barry, the older of the two, was leaning his head into Gary’s face. ‘Well I say you’re a fucking liar pal, and I don’t like liars see.’

‘Meet many then do you?’

‘What did you say mate?’

‘Liars,’ said Gary. ‘You said you didn’t like them, so I assume from that, you have met a lot in your time.’

Barry looked confused. ‘Are you trying to be funny mate?’

‘No bud, that was irony I was using there, but if you want me to be funny. What’s the difference between you, and a piece of shit?’

Even the joke was too intellectual for a Parry. He shoved a fist into Gary’s face. ‘Is this funny for you BUD,’ he mimicked Gary’s accent badly, and looked round at his mates with a smirk.

‘Do you want this? well do yeh?’ he continued waving his fist under Gary’s nose.

My mind was running scared now, but Gary looked cool. Too cool. He was either mad, or was a Kung Fu master, and hadn’t told me. ‘No I don’t want it, I’ve already eaten, but he might.’ He nodded his head backwards, and for a moment I thought he was counting on me to rescue him, as there was only me behind him. I was wrong. It all happened in a split second. A large figure brushed past me grabbed hold of Barry’s fist and from the expression on Barry’s face, began to squeeze it extremely hard. The other brother, though not directly involved in the conflict, was lifted high in to the air, by a huge arm; The colour rapidly draining from his face. Everybody in the place had gone silent, even Joe and his mate stopped playing. Tension levels in the room were high. Gary deflated them. ‘Ok Spike, that’s enough.’ He waited patiently as Spike released Barry’s hand, and gently lowered Gareth to the floor.

 ‘Gentlemen, this is a very good friend of mine called Spike. As we haven’t been formally introduced; I’m Gary, and you two are?’

The brothers weren’t keen on answering, but grudgingly gave Gary their names. I noticed that Barry’s face was streaked with tears of pain. They were going to loose a lot of credibility in town due to this incident. In small towns news travels fast, and in the type of company they kept, any sign of weakness, was pounced upon. There was always some kid that wanted to take your place at the top of the  heap . Even though it was a shit heap; it was the only heap that they knew. This wasn’t the law of the Jungle, it was the law of survival in Prestatyn.

‘Alright gentlemen, I think that’s concluded our business, for the moment at least,’ said Gary turning to Spike. ‘Do you need them for anything?’

Spike shook his head. ‘Ok, you can go.’

The Parry brothers looked relieved, and left the pub immediately. I wondered how long it would be before the wolves moved in on them. Weakness in there small world, was punished severely.

  People in the bar were still giving us a lot attention, especially Spike, so we found a corner seat and sat down. Gary went for the drinks, and shortly after, Joe joined us. I introduced him to Spike, who gave him a sociable smile, then Gary came back with the drinks. Joe got up instantly, and shook his hand more heartily than he’d shook mine earlier. ‘What the hell are you doing here Ritchie?’

‘I’m under another brand name these day’s Joseph, just call me Gary.’

Joe was puzzled by this, and I was bloody dumbstruck. ‘Do you two know each other?’ I said

‘This is Patti’s brother.’ said Joe

‘Half brother,’ corrected Gary. Same father, so technically, the same gene pool.’

‘Didn’t you know?’ said Joe.

I shook me head.

 ‘Without this fella, we probable would never have got the band off the ground. It was his idea. He thought that Punk  would be the next big thing. He even thought of the name.’

‘That is correct,’ said Gary sitting down. ‘If my memory serves me well Joseph, you wanted to call the band Strife. Very uncool, if you don’t mind me saying. It’s got no edge, doesn’t

break rules.’ He looked at me, and held up his hands. ‘Ok, so I can’t remember every detail of my life, so kill me why don’t you.’

Words failed me with Gary. There was definitely something amiss. I turned my attention to Joe. ‘So what happened with the band?’

Joe shrugged. ‘musical differences. That’s the official press release. There was a clash of opinions. We wanted to carry on the band, and she didn’t .’

‘What about Dee?’

‘Dee’s still in the States, as far as I know. Don’t ask me about what happened; I haven’t got a clue. She just left me, and that’s that. He looked at his empty beer glass. ‘I’ll get them in. shall I anybody ready?’

Later on that evening  I lay on the floor in the living room of Joe’s place trying to get to sleep, but it wouldn’t come. Mum would have put it down to being ‘over tired,’ whatever that means. Spike for reasons only known to himself, had chosen to sleep in the van, and Gary was lying on the broken down settee next to me. The room was illuminated by a street light that was situated just out side the window. I could see that his eyes were open, and like me he was examining the paint work on the ceiling. He confirmed this by answering ‘yes’ when I asked him if he was awake, adding ‘Either that, or  it was one hell of an acid tab I took earlier.’

‘So why so secretive about Patti?’ I asked.

  I saw the flame of his Zippo ignite a cigarette; always a sign that he was going to say something profound, so I waited. Finally he said, ‘That’s a difficult one to answer Dai. I suppose the official version is that you never asked.

‘And the truth?’

‘Truth is that you never asked.’

‘Come off it Gary, you knew that Joe was my brother, you knew that I was a friend of Patti’s, it was a natural thing to say something.’

He thought about it for a moment, blowing smoke rings. ‘There’s nothing Freudian about it my friend. If you want to dig for ulterior motives, you’re not going to find them. Like I said, Pat’s my half sister. We get on up to a point, so let’s leave it at that.’

So I did leave it at that. I turned over, and tried to get some sleep. It was difficult, but I was getting there. The floor smelt of dirt, and there was a draught coming from under the door, making a kind of whistling noise, which was not loud, but was becoming annoying.

‘She’s always had a problem, even when she was a kid.’ Gary’s voice made me jump, he wanted to get into deeply profound conversation, I wanted to get some sleep. It was typical of  his insensitivity. I didn’t say anything so as not to encourage him, but it didn’t work.

 ‘It comes from not knowing who her real father was. She was always a bit jealous of me cause I did. I don’t think Sara knew herself, so what could she say. Take your choice from him, him, and him. Pat learnt early that she could use this with Sara to get anything she wanted. You know the type of thing Dai, she played on her guilt, and the fact that I had a real dad. I taught her to play the guitar, and the piano, and the drums. She’s a good person at heart, but I don’t think she can relate to people. She uses them to get where she wants to be. She probable used your brother. She has this way of making you feel important. It’s only when she throws you away and moves onto someone else that you realise it was all an act, and that’s when you start to hate her. But don’t waste your breath being angry.  She’s like a cat; she doesn’t know she’s done wrong, it’s just the way she is.’

He sounded as if he was talking from experience. I  remembered how important she had made me feel when I first knew her. ‘Did you know she got married,’ I said.

‘No, but I don’t envy him whoever the poor bastard is.’ He lit another cigarette, and lay there staring at the ceiling.

‘So what’s the plan from here?’ I said. ‘What are we going to do now?’

‘Plan?’ Gary stumped his cigarette out. ‘There’s no fucking plan Dai. We need an inspirational road map bro. We need a direction. I believe it was my destiny to come here, and now that I am here, I need to find out why? By the way, I hope Joe’s got some connections on the drug front. Supplies are getting desperate, we need to stock up.’

 

                         Chapter twenty one.

I woke the next day, to find the settee empty, and Gary gone. I looked out of the flat window, and the white escort van was gone to. Neither Joe, or his girlfriend, whose name I learnt was Megan had heard him go, so I assumed that it must have been early. I was depressed. It was typical of the man’s manner. He came and went at will; just when you were getting used to his presence, he disappeared. So where did that leave me? I didn’t have a plan, or much money. Stay here, and I’d be queuing up with the Parry brothers to sign on. Terry was in prison, Willy was dangerous to be seen with, so London was not an option. I became more depressed.

Joe persuaded me to go and see mum and dad. It was not a visit that I relished, but  dragged myself along. On the way over, he signed the occasional autograph, and I noticed a lot of people stared at us, as we walked through the town centre. Maybe Prestatyn suited him more than me. He looked as if he enjoyed the attention, though it was mainly off young kids with serious hair problems, and acne.

‘So how did you meet Megan?’ I asked.

‘She’s a friend of Gwen.’

‘Known her long?’

‘Since I got back. She’s in a band,’ he said as if to justify his interest in her. ‘She plays the drums.’

‘Any good?’

‘She’s not bad, but the band’s shit.’

‘What’s the name?’

‘The Tampons,’ he said adding ‘they’re all girl.’

I guess they’d have to be with a name like that. I didn’t press the subject any further. We arrived home. The place seemed smaller, and more oppressive than I remembered. Mum fussed around us, and asked me a lot of questions, most of which I had to lie to. Dad said that he expected that we both had learnt our lesson  about the south, and hoped that we’d try and do something ‘Useful’ now that we had come to our senses. Mum gave us two Asda bags full of shopping as we left, and we promised to visit the following Sunday for dinner.

I was even more depressed now. In the afternoon, back in Joe’s place, the three of us watched a Norman Wisdom film, and then Megan made beans on toast, while Joe and I watched Magpie. As darkness closed in, we sat in the stark living room rolling joints, and drinking tea.

At midnight we ran out of dope, and Joe and Megan went  to bed. The thought of another night in that room, illuminated by the street light, with the wind whistling under the door filled  me with gloom. I hated Gary, and Spike. The bastards had trapped me; forced me into a corner with no options. I settled myself on the settee, and tried to sleep, but it wouldn’t come.

At about two am, I heard a screech of breaks, as a car pulled up outside the window at speed, and the sound of footsteps coming up the path. I waited for a moment, then the flat buzzer went. I rushed off the settee, opened the door of the house, and flung open the flat door. Gary and Spike walked in, carrying a large bag between them.

‘Were the fuck have you been,’ I said trying to disguise my happiness at their return.

‘We had business to attend to in Liverpool Dai,’ said Gary putting down the bag, which looked heavy. ‘Courtesy of the Turk.’ He handed me a package.

‘Who’s the Turk?’

‘Just open it and see.’

I didn’t need to open it to guess what was inside, because the smell of grass was strong. Joe came out of his room, and exchanged greetings with Gary. Spike shook his hand gently, and gave him a rather weary smile.

‘The Turk is the main man to deal with if you want good substances up here. He only deals in grams, and doesn’t do business personally with many people.’

‘So how come you’ve got drug connections up here?’

Gary touched his nose with his finger. ‘There’s something’s it’s better you don’t know Dai. Let’s leave it at that eh.’

So I did. He never ceased to amaze me. With Gary you started out thinking he was a jerk, then went through phases of loving and hating him, until in the end you realised that he himself couldn’t distinguish the difference between truth and lies. I honestly don’t think he had the capacity to hold a normal conversation, about normal everyday things, because in Gary’s world normality, and fantasy were one and the same.

While Joe was skinning up with the grass, Gary pulled over the bag that he had left in the middle of the floor, and unzipped it. He pulled out something long and circular, in a green cloth holder.

‘What the fuck’s that,’ I asked.

‘This is the gateway to our future Dai.’

‘Oh Yeh, what is it a bastard crystal ball? It’s a funny shape.’

‘It’s a tent, he said. ‘We’re in serious need of direction here boys. Not being funny Joe, and no disrespect, but that was diabolical last night; you’ve gotta ditch the dude with the glasses, you………’

‘So what’s a tent got to do with our future?’ I interrupted.

‘We need to go to the mountains Dai. We need to cleanse ourselves of what we were, and emerge new men. Like the American Indians, we need to seek out a high place to search our souls, to get in touch with the elements. Just like Jesus went up the mountain……’

‘Moses,’ I corrected him.

‘Whatever. Just like Joni Mitchell said ‘we’ve got to get ourselves back to the mountains.’

‘Garden,’

‘What?’

‘It was get ourselves back to the garden.’

‘Yeh, good song,’ said Joe, lighting up the joint, and taking a long toke.

‘You don’t even like the countryside Gary,’ I said.

‘You’re missing the point here Dai. That’s the whole reason for going up there. It’s the fear of the unknown, the danger. You become closer to your soul. We need inspiration, and the mountains are the only place we are going to find it.’

‘Well you can count me out,’ I said. ‘there’s no pissing way I am going up a mountain. I haven’t got I coat for a start.’

‘I’ll lend you one of mine,’ said Joe.

I glared at him. ‘We haven’t got a map, so we’d get lost, and die of exposure.’ I countered, in desperation.

Gary put his hand in the bag, and brought out a small book. He threw it at me. ‘That’s a tourist map giving loads of walks. We can’t go wrong.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘Go on,’ said Gary. ‘Trust me.’

I looked at Joe. He nodded, and said, ‘Yeah man, I can see where Gary’s coming from.’

I knew where he was coming from to. From up his own arse. I  wanted to say that I wouldn’t trust Gary walking round Kew gardens, and that the chances of us getting up a mountain, and returning back to sea level all in one piece were slim;  but found myself nodding in agreement, just to stop them going on. Joe slapped me on the back, and said ‘Nice one.’ Spike smiled appreciatively, and Gary told me that I wouldn’t regret it. I guess deep down in side I was confident that I wouldn’t need to regret it because it was just a passing phase. Passing phases with Gary were pretty regular and if the worse came to the worse I could always try to talk him out of it, or maybe he’d just forget.

‘That’s settled then,’ he said. ‘We leave at daybreak.’

 

 

Any doubts that I had about the validity of Gary’s intention to leave at daybreak were dispelled, when I was shaken awake by Spike a couple of hours later. Technically speaking it wasn’t daybreak, because outside was still dark, when we left the relative comfort of the flat, but I didn’t argue the point. I didn’t argue the fact either that it was Gary who was the last person to drag himself out of drug induced unconsciousness, or that the steady  rain and the particularly strong sea wind did not make a trip to the mountains something to savour.

At eight thirty we were well on our way down the A487 heading towards Snowdonia. Spirits in the van were surprisingly high, but drug induced, apart from mine that is. I hate nature, fresh air, open spaces without people, trees, vegetation and animals. Especially animals. Winged animals in particular give me the creeps. Maybe watching Alfred Hitchcock ‘The Birds,’ at an early age had an effect on me,  but beaks, feathers and claws set off some kind of subliminal signal in my head. Actually Gary was beginning to have the same effect. Something inside sent warning  messages that he was not to be trusted, and that he would drop us in the shit if given the opportunity. We were going up this pissing mountain not because we needed direction, but because he had convinced himself that he did. I didn’t doubt for one moment that if it hadn’t been his idea, he would have told whose ever it was to piss off. Anyway, whatever Gary expected to find up a mountain, I had already decided I didn’t want to get involved in it. The guy was to volatile, and I had  made my mind up to get back to Germany. As mum would have said, ‘better the devil you know,’ and even though Munster was not going to make me famous; it was steady work, with not bad money. If I was being honest with myself, I really had started to miss the place.

Gary indicated for Spike to turn into a car park. He turned round to me and Joe, and told us confidently that we had arrived. He checked his guide book again just to make sure. ‘this is it men. The Minffordd Path; and up there.’ he pointed vaguely in the direction of the mountain; ‘is Pen y Gadair. We camp there for the night.’

I groaned inwardly, as I got out of the back of the van.  The only good thing about all this was that the rain had now stopped, and there was occasional bursts of sunlight. I loath the smell of countryside. It’s a mixture of damp wood, rotting vegetation, and cow shit. There’s too much space, and not enough people to occupy it. Gary looked like a kid in a toy shop. He walked around the car park taking exaggerated deep breaths, and flapping his arms about like he was trying to scare something  away. I wondered how long it would be before he got bored, and wanted to go back. I was getting to know his character now rather well. Gary had the lowest boredom threshold of anybody I had ever met. I gave him a couple of hours, and hoped we would be back in Prestatyn by teatime.  We loaded ourselves up with the necessities for our attack on the summit; Spike had a huge backpack on his back, he could have fitted me inside. Actually that wasn’t a bad idea, it would be an easier trip inside a bag; warmer to. Gary handed me Joe’s Spanish guitar and I slung it over my shoulder, and set off. He had insisted that we take a guitar, and had originally wanted Joe’s Ovation. But there was no way that Joe was going to allow that. He took more care of his instruments than he did of himself.

‘It’s three miles to the summit,’ said Gary reading the guide book. ‘It says here that it should take us two and a half hours.’

That’s all I needed. No breakfast, a dope and beer hangover, and a long hike up a fucking mountain. I followed as Gary led the way through a gate at the end of the car park, and started up a steep footpath that led into a wood. He was still exaggerating his breathing, as if he had never tasted fresh air before. I noticed that he was carrying the least on his back.

 By the time we had got through the woods the path had become alarmingly steeper, and the party had spread out, each of us in various stages of fatigue. We had been walking for less than half an hour. Spike, who didn’t seem to suffer from tiredness, must have got bored with the pace and  was now   leading the assault, and at times disappeared out of sight. I walked, or rather crept along the path with Joe who was panting and chain smoking pre rolled joints. Gary was at the rear and hadn’t said anything since about the middle of the wood. His distress cheered me up a little bit, and I hoped the bastard was going to suffer more.

We reached a sort of marshy hollow, with a stream running through it, and  found Spike sitting on a stone wall waiting for us to catch up. He was eating a mars bar, and offered us the packet. We sat and eat in silence waiting for Gary. When he finally reached us, his face was red, and his breathing laboured. The bastard wasn’t waving his arms now! He  collapsed on the muddy grass not bothering to take his rucksack of, but lying back on it, and staring at the grey sky. I thought that he might be thinking of giving up, and going back down; but I was wrong. After about ten minutes of wheezing, he took out an acid tablet from his pocket, and examined it, turning it over in his fingers.

‘I don’t think you should be dropping  that up here man,’ I said.

He thought for a moment and said, ‘your right Dai. We need to act responsible. I’ll just take half.’

We climbed higher, and the views became scarier. At this altitude the air was misty, damp and cold. The mountain seemed to be sucking all of the warmth out of my body. My mind by this time was running wild. I had convinced myself that we were going to die unless we turned back. The climb was beginning to get to me. We had been walking for hours, and conversation was minimal due to lack of breath.. There was nothing else to do up here; just walk and think. My mind was playing tricks, and I  no longer controlled my legs.

 It rained for half an hour early afternoon, then we climbed through some mist, and  the sun came out, then it rained again. I guess to somebody else the whole thing would have been poetic, but to me it was shocking. Up here nature didn’t seem to have any rules;  the seasons changed hourly. The mountain was taking the piss out of us. I realised that I suffered from vertigo as we came over a ridge and looked down on a valley with a big black lake at the bottom. Gary informed us that this was Talyllyn lake, and that we had reached Craig Cau. He then  collapsed in a heap. I concluded by this, that either he had vertigo as well, or he had just come up on the acid. He said that he couldn’t go any further and that we would have to camp the night where we were.

Spike took over the job of putting up the two tents, while Gary, Joe and me sat down on the damp grass and watched. He erected them in a hollow, set back a little way from the edge of the cliff that we were sitting on. I was trying my best not to look down. Joe was having problems to. He hadn’t gone anywhere near the edge, and now kept his back to the drop. Spike was the only one that didn’t seem to be effected, in fact he looked suited to the environment. He looked like he had done this sort of thing before, and in less than half an hour had erected both tents, lit a small gas cooker and was opening tins of Tesco Irish stew and pouring them into a pan. It was getting dark by the time we eat. Conversation was still minimal; up here chit chat seemed disrespectful some how to natures groove. The clouds had disappeared and had left a black sky dotted here and there with stars, that exaggerated the isolation of the landscape. Joe called it ‘God’s cathedral’ Gary said ‘I feel in touch with the elements’ and Spike made a cup of Bovril . I called it a real pisser. It made me feel depressed. Five hours up a mountain and I missed civilisation. If anybody was looking for answers here, I hoped that they would find them soon, so we could get the hell out of it.

Gary produced a harmonica from his pocket, and began to blow some blues. The notes sounded heartbreaking and the wind carried them out over the cliff and down to the lake below. It would have scared the shit out of me if I had been up here on my own, as it was, I could lie back and marvel at the pain I was hearing. Gary was tearing his heart out in a blues minor scale, and it wasn’t long before Joe was doing the same on Spanish guitar. I rolled a joint, lay on my back, looked up at the stars and listened. I suppose you could have called it one of those magic vibes between friends. Set against the austere landscape under a night sky full of stars, high up in the Welsh mountains. It should have been a time to ponder ones innermost self in search of direction. The truth was however, that I was worried about getting back down the next morning, and my head was alive with  apprehension. We were dealing here with elements that were out of our control, and I seemed to be the only one that gave a toss. I’m a natural coward at heart, and my fears filled my head like weeds. They grew quickly in this environment, and strangled all the positives. The dope didn’t help either, it was making me paranoiac. I rolled another joint feeling it was  better to be more  paranoiac in this situation than straight. As I tried to light it under my clothes, an amazing thing happened; Spike started to sing the blues. I was so startled by this, that I forgot that I had a lighted match in my hand, and burnt a hole in my jumper. His voice was deep, booming and vibrating with emotion. It filled the mountain air with melancholy. If Spike was singing from experience, then he had surely seen some heavy shit.  I realised that he was American. Either that or he was putting on the accent to sound like Howling Wolf.

As I lay in the tent later on that evening, crushed between Joe and Gary I found it difficult to get to sleep. Discomfort levels were high, and the quiet ambience of the place was disturbing. I found myself longing for a car to go by; I wanted to hear a drunken conversation between strangers outside; but there was nothing, not even animal noises. The silence was giving me a tension headache. Spike began snoring in the other tent. After ten minutes it started to irritate me, and I began counting each grunt. I got to eighty seven, when Joe climbed over me mumbling something about needing to shit. He must have put his knee on Gary’s face because I heard him scream ‘fuck off Joe.’  There was a sound of the zip of the tent being opened, and then silence.

I was fully awake now. For a split second Gary’s lighter illuminated the inside of the tent, as he lit a cigarette. ‘You awake Dai?’

I confirmed that I was by lighting up myself. I hoped that he wasn’t going to start talking about forming a band, like he had done earlier on in the evening, after they had finished Jamming.

‘So why don’t you want to form a band with me Joe and Spike man? The vibe was there tonight man. It’s destiny man, it was meant to be.’

I tried to find the right words, to explain my feelings on the subject. ‘You’re an untrustworthy Twat Gary. It wouldn’t last a week, and besides I’m going back to Germany.’ It didn’t come out the way that I wanted, but I think he got the general idea. I tried to steer him away from the subject of getting a band together. ‘Did you know that Spike could sing like that?’

Gary pondered the question for a moment before answering. He took a drag of his cigarette, and blew a smoke ring. I noticed that he always did this ritual before saying something profound, and he didn’t let me down.

‘You ever heard of  Mi Lau Dai?’

I could honestly say that I hadn’t.

‘You ever heard of Vietnam then?’

That was easier, and I confirmed that I had.

‘Well in 1968, an American brigade called Charlie company went into the village of Mi Lau in Vietnam, Massacred over three hundred men, women and children, and burnt the place to the ground.

‘What’s that got to do with Spike singing,’ I said.

‘Spike was drafted into the US Marines, and spent three years as a front line soldier. He was one of the first Americans to enter the village after the atrocities. It effected him real bad. He was discharged on psychiatric grounds soon after. I met him in London in 72, he’s better now than he was then, but I guess after seeing something like that, there’s not much left to say . Singing the Blues is his way of getting rid of the pain. We should help him Dai. We should let everybody listen to what he’s got to say; it would be poetic.’

‘I’m not sure Gary. Maybe something like that is too personal, and should be left alone. What do you think Joe?’

He didn’t answer, and I suddenly realised that he had been outside crapping  for twenty minutes. Even he didn’t take that long. I climbed over Gary unzipped the tent and crawled outside. Immediately I realised what the  problem of Joe’s absence was. I couldn’t see my hand when I held it in front of my face, it was so misty. I walked a couple of feet  aware that there was a massive drop over a cliff nearby. I loved my brother, but had no intention of ending up in a big black lake swimming for my life. I realised as I was thinking these thoughts that I was being stupid. The fall would have killed me long before I hit the water. I turned around and couldn’t see the tent. I shouted Joe, and waited. There was no answer, but Gary and Spike both appeared behind me .I almost tripped over Spike; they were both on their hands and knees crawling.

‘Get down on your hands man,’ said Gary. ‘Feel your way back to the tent.’

 We found our way back to the tent, and I continued shouting my brothers name. He must have heard me; why didn’t he answer? My mind gave me several reasons, all bad.

‘He could have gone over the edge.’ Said Gary.

That was all I needed. ‘Thanks for that mate.’

‘Sorry man, but you’ve sometimes got to face things.’

Spike went back out to continue the search, but came back a few minutes later shaking his head.

‘That’s it Dai,’ said Gary. ‘If Spike can’t find him then nobody can. We’d better sit it out until the mist clears, or it gets light, Joe will be alright.’ He added under his breath, ‘probable.’

I wasn’t convinced. But realised that Gary was right about one thing. We had no chance of finding him with the mist as thick as it was.

At first light we packed up the camping gear, and searched the area around the tent. The mist had cleared but visibility was still pretty bad, and it had started to rain. Gary insisted that it was better for us to get to a telephone box and call out the rescue services, rather than continue stumbling around shouting Joe’s name. As we left Craig Cau, I had a horrible sick feeling in my stomach, that I would never see my brother again alive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                        Chapter Twenty two.

I opened my eyes, and remembered where I was. The bedroom was quiet, but in the distance I could hear somebody practicing the drums. That would be Joe’s girlfriend Megan. She had improved a lot since Gary asked her to join the band. I looked around the bedroom. It was sparsely furnished , but at least it was mine, and I didn’t have to share with anybody; well for the moment anyway. The walls of the room were whitewashed stone. There was a small window just in front of the bed. I could see that it had been snowing during the night. I looked at my watch, it was still early, only eleven o’clock. I had set my alarm for two. I pulled  up the quilt, and lay there content in the knowledge that I didn’t have anything to do today except rehearse with the band.

A lot of things had happened since crawling our way off  Snowden. For a start we had found Joe sitting at the bottom waiting for us. He explained that the mist had come down while he was shitting, and blocked his way back to the tent  Not wanting to go through it and risk going over the edge of the cliff, he had walked back down to the van, and spent the rest of the night propped up against it trying to get to sleep. ‘It was amazing,’ he said. ‘All around the tent a thick fog, and a few steps further it was a perfect evening. There was no way I was going to risk trying to find my way back.’

The rush of finding my brother alive was pounced upon by Gary, and by the time we had got back to Prestatyn he had persuaded me to join the new band. Joe didn’t need any persuading. He was as keen as Gary, and saw the jam as a sign that this was the right way forward.

With Gary’s enthusiasm pushing us on, events moved forward pretty fast. Joe rented the farmhouse in Trelogan were we now lived, using some of the money he had saved whilst he was with the Messiahs. The place was ideal. Big, secluded, cheap and already furnished. We used the living room as a rehearsal studio.

We auditioned a few local drummers, but they were all shit. Joe wanted to ring up Sticks in London, but I persuaded him to give Megan a try. She was perfect. Not too flash, willing to learn,  cooked all the meals, washed our clothes and cleaned the house. She suited my purpose especially; her being in the band, limited our style to nothing too flash.

I was wrong in doubting Gary’s reliability and commitment. I thought that he would get bored after a week; in fact he lasted almost a month, before realising that he had ‘misread the vibe of the mountain.’ He decided  that the way ahead was for him and Spike to make a pilgrimage back to Vietnam, ‘to lay Spike’s ghosts to rest.’ They left for London with plans to sell the van and buy a motor bike for the journey to Asia. With anybody else, I would have thought it was an excuse, but Gary I knew was being serious.

The boys  leaving caused us big problems. If it hadn’t been for Joe I think I would have left myself and gone back to Germany, but as it was, we carried on with rehearsals, and advertised for a lead singer. The best I could say about the result was that we got a lot of applicants. Sadly they were mostly male Patti wannabe’s. It’s funny how quickly punk had become a parody of itself. Two years ago if we had put an advert in the North Wales Leader, we would have been inundated with a hundred Ian Gillan or Robert plant stereotypes. The house would have been awash with flairs and crimped hair. As it was, this new wave of potential pop idols were as stereotyped as the old wave, only the vibe was less interesting; to me anyway. Maybe Dee was right about genuine stars being made in heaven. People like Joe and me would always be the backroom boys of the industry; it’s civil servants if you like. But we were never destined to be stars. We needed to find the right person, to lead the way, but that was easier said than done. Were was the originality? I wanted to be shocked like Patti had shocked me when I had first heard her sing. We needed to find creativity, but were lost in a wave  of mediocrity. In the back of my mind, I knew that North Wales wasn’t the right place to cast our net, and I was waiting for the right time to lay on Joe the idea of moving back to London. There was a personal reason for this as well; I was sick of the countryside, and needed to drink from the cup of  urban pollution. I needed to go back to the obscurity of living In the big city.

I gave Richard a call in Munster, out of desperation. I didn’t know what I was thinking about really, I never thought he could help. Gunter answered, and was friendly enough. Richard was working behind the bar at the Fountain, and wouldn’t be home until late. Ray had finally moved out and was living with his girlfriend and  working on a building site. Phil had gone back to London, so Richard and Günter were on their own.

News from London, arrived unexpectedly one Sunday morning  three weeks ago. Terry who had been released from prison, and having lost his council flat, came to visit. He’s still here now with no plans to leave. He updated the London news. Willy was still living with Sasha. He was out of bed, but confined to a wheel chair. Terry took great delight in telling us that Sasha wheeled him round the supermarkets every day, and had put a child lock gate on the front door to stop him going out without her, or trying to escape, as Terry put it. Apparently Willy had been making a good recovery, but had mysteriously fallen down the stairs, and now it was only a fifty per cent chance that he would ever walk again. Terry told us that story almost crying with laughter. It was hard to believe that Willy was his best friend.

And so here I was at the front end of a new day. If I had achieved anything since descending from Snowden it was to finally lay to rest the jealousy of my brother. For the first time in our lives we were in equal positions; both of us in the same shit. Our goals were the same goals our future obscure, and as good a guitarist as he is, he now relied on me and Megan, both lesser musicians to make it work. Later on in the afternoon, another batch of hopefuls would audition in front of us for the privilege of fronting the band. A band without direction, songs, management, gigs or name. They came because of Joe’s past triumphs, hoping that he could be their ladder to stardom. What these kids didn’t realise was that in this business it takes more than to have the ability to copy your idols. What you needed was the XYZ factor; the thing that placed you above the rest. You can’t learn the XYZ factor, and you can’t steal it off somebody else. Even if you have it, then on it’s own it’s not enough. Without luck, and determination, you are still destined to live your life in obscurity, like the rest of us; maybe obscurity is not so bad when your old, but youth culture needs standards to live up to, and icons to adore. We all live by the rules of  this changing culture, even if we don’t realise it, but only the chosen few ever make it to icon, and actually play a part in moulding it. We had held auditions for a week already, and I was becoming pessimistic that we would find such a unique animal in the village of Trelogan, which was further down the pop culture ecological chain than Prestatyn, but as my mother would say, ‘you never know what’s round the corner.’ Whatever was round the corner would have to wait at least another couple of hours. I have always hated the cold, and this was one of the few perks of the job for an unemployed would be Rock star. It was expected of you to stay in bed till at least dinner time. I wasn’t going to buck the rules and risk loosing credibility. I rolled over, pulled the covers over my head, and  closed my eyes. Yes;  if we were going to do anything with the band, we needed to find the right front man. We needed to create a direction rather than follow what was already happening, and this was the hardest part of the job. I fell asleep trying to predict what the next thing could be. Punk was dead, but what would replace it? We were standing on the starting line, should we follow the rest of the runners, or go off at a tangent, and risk ridicule and rejection. I wondered if Patti had almost given up on her image; if she had gone through the same thought process that I was going through. She was rejected as a freak, then raised to superstardom because of it………..

I was woken up by the sound of somebody knocking the door. I stumbled out of bed in my underpants, slipped on a T shirt and went down stairs. If was freezing cold, so I grabbed a blanket from off the setee pulled it round me, and opened the door. On the doorstep was an old geezer dressed in a business suit. He had a pencil moustache, black bushy sideboards and a crew cut. He looked like the man from the Pru.

‘I’ve come for the audition,’ he said, smiling and holding out his hand.

‘It’s gone mate,’ I said and shut the door in his face. I was still laughing to myself about his impertinence as I walked up the stairs, but something made me stop. What was it that I had just seen? It was not quite right, but my head wasn’t together enough to figure out what it was. He certainly was different to what we’d seen so far, and he’d brought out an emotion in me. True it was contempt, but I’d felt the same about Patti. I suddenly realised what is was about the guy that was giving off such a strange vibe. I rushed back down the stairs to the door and opened it. He was still standing there covered in snow. He was a woman. I should have realised before but I’d been half asleep. The eye shadow and blusher were dead give a ways. I  felt elated by my revulsion and contempt of this person. In this business first impressions count. It was a good sign. Stereotyped he wasn’t. I held out my hand, and smiled.

‘You’d better come in man? Do you write your own stuff?’

                         The end