76-08-31
Tuesday 31st. August 1976. to Wednesday 8th. September. 1976.
Personal account of events
Including gigs at:
The speakeasy
The Fulham Greyhound.
Basildon.
Dingwalls.
By Jeffrey the Barak, The Steve Brown Band.
It is ten to six in the morning and I am wondering why I set my alarm clock to ring so early. I have a whole hour before my taxi comes to whisk me away from home for six days of living like a true rock star musician in 1976.
I walk around my bedroom and bathroom digging my toes into the thick brown long pile woolen carpet, washing, deodorizing and packing my suitcase as I go.
I am downstairs in the kitchen with well over half an hour to spare. I only have coffee although I am hungry; breakfast is good on trains.
The first Steve Brown Band concert is on Wednesday night but I am going from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to London a day early because last week I had planned a holiday in London and it didn’t happen.
The taxi is here. I put the case on the back seat and climb into the front, not bothering to wear the seat belt because in taxis they are always very dirty and stiff from people not bothering to wear them.
“Central Station?” asks the driver.
“Yes please.” I reply. Well, that makes two words I have spoken today. I’m doing alright.
He pulls away and my neck almost breaks as my head shoots backwards over the back of the front seat from the force of the acceleration. I turn to see the driver but he makes a right turn and my face immediately becomes pressed against the window in the door. Within a minute we are on the deserted A1, heading downtown. I regain my breath as we take the Newcastle South slip-road. He shoots straight onto Pilgrim Street roundabout and fits nicely into a gap between the only two cars on it. The driver behind begins to sound his horn & flash his lights so our cab jumps a red light near the high level bridge.
“Lost him” says the driver and my nose on the windscreen and the suitcase in the back of my neck tell me I’m at Newcastle Central Station. I tip the driver, thanking him for the entertainment, buy a rail ticket to Kings Cross and enter the station.
I had planned to meet two traveling companions at the station and I can see one now. Ray Jackson recognizes me because we met last week when he played on, and helped produce a single made by a friend of mine, Inder. We have tea on the platform and wait for Barry McKay who only just makes it in time for the train.
After a big breakfast I sit down with Ray and Bourg. Barry has bought them a coffee each, in fact a double coffee because he thinks the paper cups, look half empty when they contain a single. He places his double coffee on the table and brings down his briefcase from the luggage rack. As he opens his case, his double coffee is knocked over by the lid and it gets Ray who is sitting opposite him. Ray leaps up with steam pouring off his legs.
“How man, Barry, he exclaims, gaining the attention of most of the carriage, “You only just missed me balls.”
Barry is crippled with hysterical laughter. He promises to buy Ray some new jeans in London and resumes his hysterics. Ray is genuinely angry so he goes to the bar and sits with Jack the Lad’s singer and violinist.
The Steve Brown Band is now three years old and for at least two and a half years we have been trying to obtain a recording contract. To be honest, it’s only since March nineteen seventy six that we have been good enough. There have been some high spots such as enormous concerts, a television appearance and many radio features. We have also come close to being signed up once or twice but now I am uneasy and not at all confident we’re ever going to get one. If nothing solid happens after these four gigs in London, some serious thinking will have to be done about the future of the band.
I am saying goodbye to Barry & Ray at King’s Cross. They are going to the B.B/C/. Ray is being interviewed on Radio One’s Newsbeat about his new single. As I decend into the Underground, I realise that my suitcase is very heavy indeed.
After today, we are all staying in a hotel but its only Tuesday so I’m staying with family friends, Sylvia and Al Berman, in Golders Green. Sylvia is on the phone as I enter through the garage. I’m not being rude, the doorbell doesn’t work and the exterior decorators told me to go in. After I am introduced to Rieko, the au pair girl from Tokyo, I eat lunch.
During the afternoon I go shopping with Sylvia to Brent Cross Shopping Centre. We are approaching a roundabout in her new purple Triumph Stag. On the roundabout is a fast moving Land rover, we are on collision course.
“Wooaargh!” I exclaim, and we stop.
On the way from Brent Cross to Golders Green High Street I am driving and we feel safer. After an extremely strange ice cream at a 32 Flavours shop, we head for the fruit shop. I am approaching a junction with the high street and there is a woman crossing the road in front of me. She looks familiar, in fact she is Barbara Hayes, music publisher of the Steve Brown Band.
“Barbara!” She approaches the car. “Are you coming to the gigs?” Suddenly she realises who is talking to her.
“Tomorrow and Saturday, I’ll buy you all a meal tomorrow night.” What a co-incidence, I don’t live in London but the one time I am driving a Stag in Golders Green 1 bump into the publisher, this must be good for my image.
Back at the house, Lawrence Koss, Sylvia’s son arrives. Amongst other things he tells me that if the band became London-based he could probably get us into an agency providing about five gigs a week. I tell him that the band could not become London-based because among other things, Charles the pianist is a newly married physiotherapist with a new house and Steve has a wife & two sons. He says we’re not going to find progress easy if we don’t move to London. I tell him I know that, but its impossible.
Shelley, a girl I have known for almost seven years has come over from her flat in Hampstead and we go shopping in Brent Cross.
Back at the house, Shelley has gone and Lawrence’s wife, Lynne is here. On the television is a news feature about the riots and crime at the reggae carnival in Notting Hill Gate. The event organizer is being interviewed and he is talking about the good relationships between the police and the blacks. In his hand is an enormous cigarette which I think probably contains marijuana.
Before dinner I have a shave and somehow manage to afflict my face with numerous cuts. This dinner is superb. Al’s stories about his holiday are very funny. I feel extremely welcome and I also feel that Newcastle is a long way from London and there is no music outside London. This is the attitude of the record companies.
Wednesday 1st. September.
It’s early and I don’t have to be at the Speakeasy until three o’clock this afternoon. I’ve had my breakfast and Sylvia is giving me a lift around the corner to Brent Cross Underground station. I decided to go to Kensington High St. and here I do some casual shopping. Sitting on a broad window ledge outside a bank is a barefooted Mexican with a black sombrero hat and the correct moustache. He is looking at me with an expression that seems to say “What are you doing here, looking like that?” This man is obviously mad. He is drinking tequila and I am eating a tub of English toffee ice cream with hot fudge sauce. He makes me feels so trange that I half expect to see Kensington High Street full of bandits.
The van and the care are well on their way to London by the time I’m back in Golders Green, eating lunch with Ricko. We are talking about the fundamental social differences between life in Tokyo and life in London. Her occasional difficulties in composing English sentences makes us laugh and when her friends phone her and she talks in Japanese, her self consciousness makes her giggle.
I phone for a taxi to the Speakeasy in Maragaret Street near Oxford Circus. Rieko is meeting her friend at Oxford Circus so she is going to come with me. The taxi is an hour late but we eventually get underway and I say goodbye to Rieko at Oxford Circus.
As I stumble round the corner into Margaret Street with my very heavy suitcase, I see Steve: our singer and guitarist, J.J.; our sound engineer and roadie, and Dave; our truck driver and number one member of the, ha ha, “road crew”.
I go downstairs into the Speakeasy which I see to be very small and full of fixed tables and seats. The club has its own P.A. system and we decide to change it.
Jim, our manager has arrived with saxophonist Gowan and bass guitarist John. John isn’t well, he didn’t sleep at all last night and vomited over his bed. Everyone else seems alright, I’m in a great mood and we set the gear up, do a sound check and then I take a few photographs. Nobody knows where Charles is. He’s been on holiday with his wife, Pat, and he should have been here two hours ago.
We leave the truck outside the Speakeasy and go in taxis to Remy’s Hotel, Eversholt Street, London where we are going to stay until Saturday. Charles and Pat will be staying with Charle’s cousin Keith elsewhere in London. I am sharing a room with Gowan, on one side is J.J. and Dave’s room and on the other side is John and Steve’s room. On the floor below is Jimmy, who is in a single room because he snores and on a past occasion he kept Steve and Dave up all night and warped the bedroom walls.
I unpack most of my enormous suitcase and put all I need for tonight into a couple of Polythene carrier bags. Now I am going with Gowan to have a meal. We take a taxi to Oxford Circus and run through the light rain into an American hamburger joint where we indulge in a large meal which I photograph. I think of yesterday when Barbara Hayes said she would get us dinner but really I can’t see her feeding eight hungry Geordies so I eat heartily.
Gowan and I go back over to the Speakeasy and find Charles there at last with his wife and cousin. Apparently he was here before us, but he had forgotten his mains lead and gone home for it. We were to play three sets tonight, one at nine, one at twelve and one at half past two in the morning; Over twelve hours work in all and for only thirty five pounds between eight, two hundred and eight miles from home.
Before the first set, some friends of mine come in but as they go for a meal in another part of the club, we start to play to an almost empty room. Wednesday is not supposed to be a good night at the Speakeasy.
During the first interval, Barbara Hayes takes everyone for a meal. We are in the same place where Gowan and I had dinner earlier. Somehow Gowan goes through another meal but bearing in mind that I’ve still got two sets to play, I only eat an omelette. Everyone is eating huge sundaes and desserts and Jim, who is sitting opposite me has got a big waffle with maple sauce and three pints of whipped cream.
The Speakeasy is totally empty now and for some reason we are playing superbly. Jim, J.J. and Dave are really getting into it, so are the waitresses. I’m sure that if there was an audience here, we’d be going down well.
In the second interval there is nothing to do so we do nothing. I talk to a guy called Keith who used to watch the band in Newcastle during 1974. Gowan and I are in the Speakeasy restaurant drinking coffee which is forty pence per cup. On the next table are Lynne and Jinni. Lynne is from Newcastle and she comes to almost every London gig we do. A drunk guy is giving her friend Jinni a silver bracelet for no apparent reason.
We are playing the final number in the third set. There is nobody here to listen to us and the temperature is ridiculously high. I’m into the drum solo on Clique-Non-Clique which is being played too slow but quite well. Charlie is off his piano stool, dancing at the front of the stage.
“Everybody sing along, Aba Bo-ay, Zamba Yay!”
There’s no one there Charles.
We finish, it is silent, we pack up and load the truck. Charlie goes and the rest of us go back to the hotel. After showers we are in bed. It is after five o’clock in the morning. Tonight we play the Greyhound!
Thursday 2nd September
I’m awake but its only half past nine. I’ve only had about three hours sleep but its too noisy because mail traffic has been going in and out of Euston Station, which is over the road, all night.
Very strange noises are emitting from Gowan’s bed. Gradually the sounds form into words and the words form into accurate reproductions of sketches by Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Cheech and Chong. Now I can’t go back to sleep because my laughter has woken me up. The traffic noise is interrupted occasionally and at random by a big bang which is the station goods door being closed. Gowan kneels on his bed, sticks his head out of the window and commands in an immaculate English accent, “Stop it”. It doesn’t work.
After breakfast I decide to go with Gowan to Shaftesburg Avenue. He is going to sell his old Grazzi Tenor Sax to a music shop because now he’s got a brand new Selmer Mark VII tenor alongside his soprano and baritone. He thinks he’ll get about twenty pounds for the old one.
“Yeah, that’ll be alright.” He says as the shop offer him sixty pounds for it. Gowan is in a good mood now. I talk him out of buying a portable television with the money and we return to the hotel.
Charlie comes in his hired car and everyone goes up to the Greyhound in Fulham Palace Rd.
It’s cold and there’s no one to let us into the pub. I take some photographs outside and we go into a Wimpy for food.
The stage is a bit too small, smaller than last night’s even, but we build a bit on the end with case and beer crates. Right along the front of the stage are Steve Brown Band stickers which John and Pat have stuck on.
The place is pretty empty but we’re getting used to it by now! Lynne and Jinni are here again but no one is that bothered. Before we play, a coach-load of people come in but as we go on stage I see they’ve all gone.
The set is average to good with some great high spots. D.J.M. are in the audience somewhere.
We pack the gear away, load the truck, eat kebabs and Kentucky Fried Chicken, put air in Jimmy’s flat tyre and truck on down to the hotel.
At the hotel, I have a shower then go to the room. Gowan and John are there and we talk about the gigs so far and about what is to come.
I take a photograph, Gowan falls asleep, John goes to his room and I turn in. Tonight I’ll sleep through any noise.
Friday 3rd. September.
I wake up to find that Gowan has been running around the room trying to find my ringing alarm clock which didn’t wake me.
The first thing I do after breakfast is go to the launderette with my huge piles of dirty clothes and towels. Luckily, all I wear on stage are a pair of denim shorts, wrist-sweat bands and baseball boots so that cuts down on dirty tee-shirts, socks and jeans. In the launderette I decide to write this account of the period in London.
At the hotel, John and I discuss the first two gigs and talk about what is to come. We all go over to Basildon in the van, Jim’s Volvo and Charles’ hunter and on arrival at the double Six we unload and set up.
The stage is tiny and my thirteen piece drum kit is not too popular. John and Gowan play American Pool and I take some photographs. At five past three, everyone goes over to southland which is about twelve miles away. I am in the Volvo with Jim, Gowan and John. On arrival we find the smaller of the two fairgrounds and armed with my camera I head for the roller coaster from which I photograph the other down below.
Next we take a few laps of the go cart circuit. The carts are ridiculously slow and its not much of a race. We move past the arcades and enter the large fairground called the Kursaal. First stop is the electric cars on the oval track. Here I manage to choose the fastest car and overtaking the others is no problem so they team up and form a “Get Barak” squadron.
Ahead on the circuit is gowan, driving slowly around the bend on the outside, waiting for me, and the others are following me. This time my extra speed enables me to slip through but when I catch them up again they hit me on the side towards the rear and I am sideways across the track. John’s car is coming straight for me, broadside, when the ride ends and he stops before touching me.
The next ride is real, small motor cycles on an oval gravel track and everyone is excited. Gowan and John have both owned motor bikes in the past and Jim can ride but it is my first time on two wheels. Gowan, the expert starts off on a tiny Suzuki and I follow, shakily on something similar. After rounding the first bend I see Gowan, a former ace of a 120 m.p.h. Ducati road racer, lying on the ground with the little bike on top of him. However, he is able to continue.
Jim is lapping everybody on a scrambler style Italian job with bigger wheels and his big round beer belly rest delightfully on the petrol tank.
John, who in past years has owned two bikes and written them both off in road accidents, is on a slower machine and can’t really keep up. Just as I think I’m getting the hang of it I hit the outside fence and come off.
We have dinner in a crummy café where the waitress is having a family argument and then had back to the car. John buys a plastic Spiderman mask on the way.
In the car I photograph the back of Gowan’s head with the mask on it, complete with a cigarette in it’s mouth. I also photograph John wearing it with glasses then I amuse the motorists following us by looking at them with the mask on.
At the Double Six, Basildon there is a large crowd in relation to the size of the room. We change in the “cellar’ room and Jogn, who is moaning all the time, arrives on stage uptight and angry.
The set starts, we play very well but there is an atmosphere which tells us we are not really in London.
John is pulling agonised faces and sounding rough. I’m worried, hot and knackered. Steve keeps turning round and smiling nicely at me and this helps me keep my head together. Even Gowan and Charlie are smiling at me; I smile back. I smile at Dave and J.J. at the mixing desk. I smile at the crowd. I smile at John when he looks at me for cues. He doesn’t know why. He borrows my face towel and spits in it. Then he throws my harmonica at the wall and it breaks.
During the loading of the van, Steve lies on the floor and simulates being kicked in which makes me laugh. Someone steals a fire extinguisher for use on stage tomorrow night.
When we arrive back in London through the East end, we eat kebabs and drink coffee. Back at the hotel for the last night I shower and pack, then go to sleep.
Saturday 4th. September
Today I am up early and I am packed and ready to leave the hotel. After breakfast with Gowan, Shelly, and her boyfriend Nigel come and pick me up. Nigel gets out the car at Top Gear, the music shop in Denmark Street where he works and Shelley and I spend the day shopping in London.
In the morning we hit Kings Road then after lunch at “Gatsby’s” on Gordon Street near Oxford Street we go up to Sylvia’s in Golders Green and then hit Dingwalls where I am to play tonight.
Apart from Charles I am the last one to arrive but there is no one to let us into the club yet so I check out Dingwalls market and walk round Camden Lock. Eventually we are allowed in and we set the gear up. Celeste, the support band, have hired a P.A. and after making arrangements with the P.A. hire man, who is very funny guy, we both use a mixture of both P.A.s. The sound is excellent in the sound check.
Up in the restaurant section of Dingwalls, I am eating a charcoal grilled sirloin steak and drinking a couple of tequila sunrises. I am talking to the English violinist of Celest who tells me that this is only their second gig and that two of the other three are from New Zealand and the third is Australian.
I look up and see Rieko come in so I go over to say hello. She is with a friend, a guy called Kaiti who can’t speak English very well.
I pop over to the dressing room, which smells like a burning field in Thailand. There’s so much grass in there, its almost a lawn. Celeste are changing into their extrovert stage gear as I find my way out through the dense, expensive smoke.
During Celeste’s very heavy set I talk to Rieko, who is having fun, Barbara Hayes, who has just come in, and Fiona Winburn, a girl from Newcastle who has appeared with her flatmate and a couple of blokes. Celeste’s hired soundman makes funny faces and good wise cracks during their set.
At eleven forty, I adjust the drums, get a drink, say goodbye to Rieko, strip off and play to a packed house at midnight.
Steve must be drunk. His announcements are slurred and he’s swearing quite a lot. Most of the audience on the dance floor in front of the stage are smoking dope. Somebody is handing Steve what looks like a joint and, oh no! he’s smoking it. This is ridiculous because Steve strongly disapproves of marijuana. He puts it on his amp beside me and now I see it’s only a Senior Service; still, he doesn’t even smoke straights normally so he must be pissed.
Superoadie, Dave appears on stage with a cup for Steve and one for John. It’s not black coffee it’s lager. The music is a little bit loose, I am glad I am sober and straight and able to keep the timing right.
We are nearly finished and the Audience is dancing hard. Clique-non-Clique, the stage is covered in audience participation which is good except that I am totally obscured from view during the big drum feature.
In the middle of the drum solo I look up to see Rieko dancing on stage, she’s probably been there for ages but I didn’t notice. She leaves the stage at the end and that’s the last time I see her.
This time at Dingwalls there is no screaming encore but that could be accounted for by the roaches all over the floor.
It is very hot, both in the club and backstage so I take the kit down and lay everything out ready for packing in the cases then I go outside for some air.
I go back in at two o’clock. The club is closed now but there are still some people inside. John is playing a harmonica in D and a drunk Geordie comes onto the stage, takes the harp, dips it in beer then starts a long blues solo.
Most of the gear is in the truck, Jim gives each of us seven pounds, Pat makes us all a coffee and I arrange to meet Charlie at Remy’s hotel, the next day.
J.J. and Dave leave in the truck, Jim, John, Gowan and Steve go in the Volvo and then my taxi comes. I get to Shelley’s Hampstead flat at 3.20a.m., her boyfriend, Nigel, lets me in and I go to sleep.
Sunday 5th. September.
4 a.m. Truck breaks down : Balance shaft Bearings.
J.J. and Dave arrive Newcastle Central Station 8pm.
Van stays at a garage in Castle Donington (off MI)
7 a.m. Volvo reaches Newcastle – no problems.
9 a.m. I getup in Hampstead.
3 p.m. Charlie and I leave. (and Pat)
8 p.m. Charlie and I arrive in Newcastle after only one breakdown.
Tuesday 7th. September.
Dave and I go in my van to rescue truck. Home without truck, 2am. Wed.
Wednesday 8th. September 1976:Truck arrives in Newcastle 2 p.m. Courtesy R.A.C.
For the rest of September the truck is off the road and Jeffrey’s small transit is used.
Wed. 8th. Sept: “Phew!”
