Thursday 13 November 2014

With A Little Help From My Friends - Bruce Carey and the New Formula

The New Formula
With A Little Help From My Friends.
Bruce Carey

Bruce Carey believed he'd reached the end of the line. Twelve months earlier in 1966, his band The Formula had hit the buffers. Returning home early from a three month engagement in West Africa, rumours abounded as to the circumstances of the aborted tour but one thing was clear. They were all back on home soil, apart from the band's leader and sax player Kru Zakss. What happened between Kru and Mick Harper, Tommy Guthrie, Martin Fallon and Bruce Carey remained a mystery for over 40 years until it was revealed in the book It's Steel Rock And Roll To Me!
Bruce Carey
The bassist now living in Wiltshire recalls what happened next. 
"When we returned from Africa, Ricky Dodd replaced Kru Zakss and we had to change the name from The Formula to The New Formula because Kru owned the name. An American at Lakenheath USAF base lent us money to buy a cheap van and Derek Tompkins the Beck Studios electronics whiz made us new equipment to start up again. We played a lot of US bases and at one, Alex Jack of Ajax Entertainment was in attendance and was impressed enough to sign us. Though he had to buy us out from a contract with Chris Beresford who was the guy who fixed us the Africa deal. On the bases we used to go back to the barracks with the guys and listen to their collections, so we were right on time with the soul music that was happening in the hip clubs that we played in London, although the money wasn't very good it was great prestige. Record, TV, people etc. Alex fixed us up with a flat in North London which was our base. With his connections with the London scene Alex was able to book us into all the top clubs at the time. The Scotch of St. James's was our hang out. We used to go there on our nights off. The club was a popular meeting place for rock musicians situated at 13 Masons Yard, Westminster, London SW1. Paul McCartney frequently visited it, as did Rod Stewart, Eric Burdon, Ronnie Wood and bands like The Moody Blues and The Spencer Davis Group. The Bag of Nails was another favourite haunt. "

Rick Dodd replaced Kru Zakss
Bruce was born in Kettering. With his family he moved to Thrapston, then on to Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire before finally ending up in Corby when aged 15. "Because I was only in Corby for a few years, I don't really have a great affinity for it really. I feel Scunthorpe is more of my home town in a way, probably because I spent my formative years there, when I was growing up."
His music career began while working with Pete Malone in the steelworks. "Pete, myself and another guy who I've long forgotten, played a gig at a school, no drummer, it wasn't much, we hardly knew anything! I played a guitar which had been hanging about in our house; don't even know who it belonged to. I couldn't play it, just plonked away. A short while after the school gig Pete came round my house and told me he was starting a band and told me 'we need you as a bass player'. I didn't even know what a bass was! That was the beginning of The Strangers. The line up was me on bass, Pete on Rhythm guitar, Reggy Knowles on lead guitar, Billy Nicol on drums and Campbell Baxter on vocals. Our first show was in a Battle of the Bands contest at the Crows Nest." 
From those inauspicious beginnings Bruce progressed enough to become sought after and soon was teaming up with Kru Zakss and Mick Harper in The Cervezas who then became The Formula and went on to unimaginable success. Record deals, TV appearances, European tours and finally the infamous tour of West Africa in 1966. A story documented in the aforementioned 'Steel' book.

The music scene in the mid sixties was in a constant flux of change. The Merseybeat sound had been left behind along with rock and roll. Soul and Tamla Motown was the current flavour of the month and with Ray Davies of the Kinks and The Beatles writing more intellectual and complex songs and experimenting more and more in the studio with different sounds, the age of psychedelic and flower power was just around the corner. Also at the same time as the New Formula were striking out again, a young black guitarist from America was just setting the whole music scene in this country alight with his outrageous stage act and mind blowing guitar playing, a guy called Jimi Hendrix. Where did the New Formula fit in with all this? 

Bruce Carey; "During this time we were traveling the length and breadth of the country, were well known all over as we used to do BBC recordings, six songs at a time which went out in the afternoon radio shows on what was still called The Light Programme. On the bases, we went from doing four hour gigs to half hour floor shows (Cabaret). I couldn't believe it. It felt like a con, we didn't have an act or comedy, but we went down great and then started doing cabaret a week at a time in the northern clubs.We were still playing the London clubs. The Revolution, Bag O' Nails, the Cromwellian, the Playboy. One night Davy Jones from the Monkees was in the Scotch. Afterwards he was raving about us and talking about taking us to the States. Yeah Right! Never happened. The Q Club, Marquee, Blaises were other popular clubs. We played in a see-through Perspex box that the punters could walk and sit round the back, it was very exclusive, mostly nobility and film stars. At the Scotch of St James we played half hour on, half hour off for six hours a night. The singer from Los Bravos joined us on stage and sang their hit "Black is Black", which we did it in our set. Afterwards he asked if we would be his backing band. At the Playboy in Mayfair we weren't allowed to go into the club between sets. We were regarded as part of the staff I suppose! There was no mixing with the clientele. There was a canteen with continuous choices of hot food and bunny girls unzipped with it all hanging out for comfort. That was delightful as you can imagine. We all got off with one; I was dating a bunny girl whose parents were Lord and Lady Flowers, the Brewery people. One of the girls wasn't so hot though with all her gear off. She was a horror. When she undressed everything flopped out! A memorable gig was The 007 bar at the very top of the Hilton Hotel where we booked to play at The ITV Sports Personality Awards ceremony with presenter Dickie Davies."

Modesty prevents Bruce from revealing that Jimi Hendrix once borrowed his bass to play a number in a London Club. Guitarist Martin Fallon takes up the story; "It was at the Bag O' Nails. We played a couple of 45 min sets and there were loads of faces sitting there. During the second set Jimi Hendrix came up to stage and asked if could he sit in. Well, what would you say? I went to take my axe off but he asked could he go on bass. I looked at Bruce and said, "Bruce, Jimi wants to play your bass." Bruce didn't know what to say but he gave up his Fender and Jimi took it over (upside-down of course). The next thing I remember is that Chris Farlowe wanted to sit in and then Carl Douglas (Kung Fu Fighting) jumped up on stage. I can't remember what we played, it was just a bit of a jam but it was alright on the night." 

The New Formula was well established and television appearances followed on ITV's Tony Blackburn and Simon Dee Shows. They also appeared on German TV in their popular Beat Club show. A series oft shown on our BBC4 channel. Among their friends on the show were Chris Farlowe, The Herd, Dave Clark Five and the Troggs. Dave Lee Travis the DJ was also appearing. One up-and-coming group Bruce Carey remembers well was an outfit called Status Quo. "We shared a dressing room with Quo who had then just cut their first record. We thought they were rubbish! Childish, geeky. Show's you what we knew!"
Everything appeared to be going well but there was a shift change beginning in the music scene. The British Blues boom was now well established and bands were getting a harder edge to their sound. Another 'happening' was that of the 'Flower Power' craze which had evolved on the West Coast in San Francisco with psychedelic influenced outfits like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. Festivals were becoming the fashion for mass gatherings of Rock and Pop fans. Woburn in Bedfordshire had beaten Monterey, the Isle of Wight and Woodstock to the bell. In 1968, The New Formula was booked to play the second Woburn Festival, imaginatively called The Flower Festival of Britain. It was also to prove to be the turning point for the career of the band.

Bruce; "Woburn Abbey was, as you say in "Steel" All of us except Mick realised that we needed to change, to progress. We had an argument about our set list in which Mick insisted we started with PJ Proby's Maria. Great song but not exactly what the long haired flower dripping acid headed youth wanted! It didn't take long before the jeering started, followed by coke cans and rubbish being hurled at us on stage. That had never happened before - we always went down well. It was the start of Underground or Progressive music, soul music wasn't the coolest anymore. We had already started to listen to some of it, Family was our favorite band and we started to do more rock and underground stuff. This was the point when we wanted to change and Mick was getting left behind. Then we had a band supporting us with a guy called Eddie Ayres as the singer. He was moody on the mike, and looked a bit like Eno in the Roxy Music days. We asked him to join us to take over from Mick. It was a hard thing to do and I have to admit, we bottled out of telling Mick. Left it to Alex Jack to break the news. It was very uncomfortable.
With that, a name change was felt necessary again and we became Black Apple. Initially Eddie was a great asset, writing his own lyrics and it encouraged the rest of us to do the same. One problem was that we had to play the same venues, but we wanted to do new places that suited our new music. It wasn't the type of gigs that Alex Jack was in touch with. We had played the South of France a lot in previous years. It was always for two weeks at a time... The Papagayo, and the Voom Voom in St. Tropez...The Six Club, Biaritz... A club in Cassis...The Lydia, a beached boat at Le Barcares.
This time with Eddie we were booked at the Voom Voom but things were not right in the band. Eddie was turning out not to be cool and moody at all but quite the show-off Prima Donna. The new music wasn't going down well either, the punters just wanted to dance. At the Papagayo they ended our contract early." 
In the South of France they were to meet up with Carl Douglas again. This was a few years before his Kung Fu Fighting hit. Carl Douglas and the Big Stampede were in the Voom Voom at the same time as we were. Turned out to be great night with everybody on stage in one big jam. 
Bruce; "Mike D'Abo was also there. Mike had just joined Manfred Mann and he too got up to sing. The thing I remember though is Mike completely forgetting the words to a song we were playing and he was yelling at us, 'I've lost the words!, what are we playing again?' It was funny. 

The final countdown for the band was on the Lydia. On stage Eddie was twirling the mike and hit Martin in the teeth. That was it!  Martin said, I'm leaving the band and we were all so jaded by then that nobody tried to talk him out of it. That was the end! Martin later revealed he had never liked him or wanted him in the band in the first place."

Following the demise of the New Formula, Bruce Carey became manager of Curry's record shop in Tottenham Court Road before moving on to manage a record shop in Soho which eventually led him to running a 'classical' music shop in Covent Garden. "It wasn't my scene really and when I was offered a job by a friend in a diamond cutting business I ended up working for him for the next fourteen years. Meantime my wife Nikki became the PA for George Harrison and Van Morrison, operating out of offices in Covent Garden. I visited George's house at Friar Park in Henley on many occasions. He was a real lovely gentle man. Nikki worked for him for sixteen years up until 1990."
Today, Bruce and Nikki are still keeping their hands in. "It's a small jazz combo called Highlife. We play mainly small venues and pubs around the Trowbridge area where we live. Nikki is the bass player believe it or not, I play guitar and the sound is filled out with a sax player and piano." 
Martin Fallon has been living in Spain for a number of years and it was as recent as just a couple of years ago he was reunited with his old buddy Bruce through the internet. They remain in regular contact. As for Kru Zakss, Mick Harper and Rick Dodd, they sadly passed away. Tommy Guthrie is still in Corby and whatever happened to Eddie Ayres, who knows?












Wednesday 1 October 2014

When football used to be fun...White Hart Pain



White Hart Pain.

During the 1960s any Liverpool game in London was an essential trip for the Corby contingent of Reds fans, due to the fact that none of us could drive and it was an easy journey on the train. London was exciting in the 60s. Disembarking at St Pancras and heading for the West End was always the starting point from where further excursions were mulled over to fill in the intervening hours before the match. Popular was a drinking hole called the Western Bar in Leicester Square. A unique sawdust -on-the-floor saloon depicting the Wild West complete with Billy the Kid and Jesse James 'Wanted' posters on the walls. Ambling around Piccadilly, Carnaby Street, Soho after a couple of pints was intoxicating. There was a real buzz about these places. People walking around in the weirdest garb. Union Jack jackets, top hats, bizarre multi coloured jeans and shirts, boots of all designs. And that was only our lot!

The music emanating from the stores gave the perfect soundtrack. The Who's Substitute, the Kinks Dedicated Follower of Fashion, The Beatles Paperback Writer all immediately bring back to life those wondrous days of the 1960s. Heady and exciting times. And of course, we had nothing else to worry about! Mortgages, gas bills, water bills? They were something for your parents to worry about.

In the very early days, we’d often make our way to the Monument, near London Bridge. We had stumbled across a great little cafĂ© there serving the best sausage and chips anywhere. Fabulous and right next door was a pub to wash them down with a pint of John Bull. Opposite the pub was the Monument, Sir Christopher Wren’s column, with 311 steps, indicating the length of the Great Fire of London, 311 days. And this is where it started. A history lesson thrown into the trip as well. 


The capitol gave us easy access for Liverpool games, Arsenal, West Ham, Chelsea, Fulham, QPR... and Tottenham Hotspur. Most of the grounds were fairly easy to get to. Hopping on the Underground, maybe a couple of changes here and there, all fairly comfortable to work out. Except Tottenham Hotspur. How did you get to White Hart Lane from St Pancras? Originally it was a couple of stops on the Piccadilly Line, getting off at Manor House Tube Station, and then it was finding a bus to take you the rest of the journey. Later the Underground edged us a bit closer, to the Seven Sisters Road thanks to the completion of the Victoria Line extension in 1969. It was still a hike from there all the same. If we were feeling plush, we'd maybe get a taxi and share it with fellow Reds fans meandering along the streets. Which itself brought with it the occasional cause of embarrassment. Making out we were scousers, we'd decide beforehand where abouts in Liverpool we came from, if asked. It was all a bit of a laugh, putting on phony accents. And the cause for much ridicule off your mates! Rob Nicol, 'Nick', was the worst at this. Asked by a genuine scouser who had joined us in a cab, Nick drawled out 'Bir-ken-head'. And we all fell out of our seats laughing!

Spurs were a force back then with players of the calibre of Dave Mackay, Cliff Jones, Alan Gilzean and the incomparable Jimmy Greaves. One game sticks out in the memory bank from that period. Greaves took a corner right in front of all the Liverpool fans. Tommy Lawrence, affectionately known as the Flying Pig, took up position just in front of the far post with Chris Lawler behind him. Left back Gerry Byrne was stationed at the near post. Greaves sent the ball over, unbelievably, Byrne ducked, and the ball went right over his head and sailed into the net! The Reds fans were stunned, the Liverpool team were stunned. What happened there? “Someone shouted ‘Leave it’”, a scouser observed. And he was right. Gilzean the canny Scotsman was in the area – and he was now running back up the pitch laughing his head off. Gilzean was the culprit. Gerry had obviously thought Lawrence, Gilzean’s Scottish teammate, had shouted ‘leave it’. Bill Shankly was not amused. Next day Bill was reported to have told Gerry Byrne that there were men in Walton Jail for doing less!

Games between Spurs and Liverpool were always tight with often only one goal separating the teams. In 67’, the Reds managed a draw with a fabulous goal from Roger Hunt. Sir Roger, knighted by the Kop for his efforts in the 1966 World Cup, cut in from the right of the goalmouth, leaving the indomitable Dave Mackay on his backside before sliding the ball past Jennings to cancel out yet another Greaves goal. This was the day when our crew had finally thought we’d cracked it when chatting up some Sunderland girls outside St Pancras after the game. Being young lads, out for the day and on the lookout for some extra entertainment, we always fancied our chances at chatting up the girls. Though it’s fair to say we usually failed miserably. One time I crashed into a wall light in a compartment on the train to Nottingham when going to a Forest match. In our rush to enter the carriage to chat up two good looking girls, I tripped over my own feet and went headlong onto the seat, taking the light fitting with me! The glass shattered, the girls screamed, it was mayhem. 'Big Alan' Clarkson, our gentle giant of a pal couldn’t believe it. Big Al always had a fit of the giggles when one of us made balls up of things. “F***ing hell Clive, how do you manage it!” he'd cry. Needless to say, the girls weren’t impressed, and we shat ourselves in case the guard would throw us off the train. These were the early days of football hooliganism when train wrecking was regularly making the headlines. We made a sharp exit. Apologising for our antics!

Sunderland were playing at Fulham this particular day when we were at White Hart Lane. Outside the Euston Tavern, a delightful little pub opposite St Pancras was a group of girls dressed in the red and black of the Rokermen. Dick (Dighton), John 'Wilf' Wilson, Alan Murphy, Ralph Ralston, Rob Nicol and I made a beeline for them. Our chat up lines weren’t great but nevertheless we made an effort, only to find we couldn’t understand a word they were saying! 'What sort of accent is that?' They might as well have been Chinese! Our clumsy efforts were rewarded with them taking the piss out of us! All the same, Dick and Ralph paired off with two of the girls, ‘how did they do that?’ the rest of us asked. They crossed the road and went for a walk. To where I don’t think even they knew. It wasn’t far anyway. Next thing while the four of us were still trying to make some headway with the four remaining Sunderland girls, Dick and Ralph were spotted walking back, with Dick jumping up and down off a small wall alongside the Euston Road, with the girls looking totally bored and only barely half amused. When asked later how they had been getting on during this brief period of flirtation, Ralph told us Dick had started talking about cricket!! Which if for nothing else, gave us a great excuse for some serious piss taking out of our ‘willow’ loving friend.

Dick and myself paying a visit to see the PM Harold Wilson

The fad of the Skinhead came into fashion towards the end of the 60s, and football supporters were taking up the trend countrywide. Shaven headed, tattooed, heavy booted characters became a blight on the landscape. Hunting in gangs before and after the games, you had to have your wits about you to avoid confrontation. London was particularly well served by these yobs.

Four of us were strolling along the Seven Sisters Road one time in 1969. Nick, Wilf and I were joined on this trip by a workmate called Alf Stacey, a Kettering guy, with that distinctive Kettrin' lilt, 'awright m'duck' sort of thing. Not that he was a soft get. Alf was a bleedin' header!! Lovely guy who didn't give a fuck for anyone!

Minding our own business and chatting away, we were oblivious to a mob getting ever closer to us and chanting anti Liverpool songs. Seven Sisters was busy. Buses and taxis toyed with each other as they tried to maneuver amongst the traffic. The hubbub, hums and smell of exhaust fumes filled the air. In the background and steadily getting louder, was the song we all knew so well. The Everton favourite. 'Oh we hate Bill Shankly and we hate St John, but most of all, we hate Big Ron...' Hang on, who's singing that. Turning round we were stunned to see a group of around a dozen Tottenham fans, heading for us, and out for a scalp! They were doubtlessly wound up because finally Liverpool had broken their duck against their team, the Spurs. Well it was our duck actually. The first time we had seen Liverpool conquer our North London opponents on their own patch, 2-0. Emlyn Hughes and Chris Lawler were the scorers. Fantastic. We were in a great mood, but it wasn't to last much longer. A sudden thought of 'fuck me' and then Alf, the header, said the immortal words, 'come on then yer bastards'. Who brought this moron along, I thought to myself! It was time to show our heels. Alf stood there, beckoning these characters to him. Squat and big shouldered, a punched in unshaven face, Alf was no film star let's say. A Spurs fans rushed forward, this all happened in a matter of minutes, seconds even, and booted Alf right on his chin. Nick, Wilf and I fled across the road, dodging the traffic, expecting Alf to follow suit. Alf hadn't moved! We saw him shake his head, and then head butt the bloke. Then he turned and ran. The herd followed us, we were in big trouble. Stacey thought it was good fun! Though even he must have realised we were up against it, and his pals weren't too keen on hospital food. Refuge was found in a chip shop with a massive queue. We hid at the back until the dickheads passed on by.
The Flying Pig, Tommy Lawrence


Taking our Liverpool scarves and badges off, in the interest of health and safety, a couple of pints were in order before we made the rest of the trek back to West London. Hairy it had been. But we still won! 2-0. A great day!


Thursday 1 May 2014

1960 - Rock 'n' Roll Tales; the Beatles and Eddie Cochran Tours.


A revolution was stirring in Britain, a movement slowly gathering pace in the unlikely setting of Scotland that would snowball and turn the music and entertainment world on its' head. A hitherto unremarkable rock group in Liverpool set off for a short tour of the Scottish Highlands in May. The Beatles were setting their wheels in motion for world domination, even though they didn't know it. The week long tour of Scotland was arranged by their then current manager Allan Williams in co-ordination with London agent Larry Parnes.       
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Tommy Moore set off from Lime Street Station for Scotland to back Johnny Gentle ten days after being turned for down Billy Fury because Larry Parnes didn't want Sutcliffe in the line up. Parnes figured he was only in the group because he was a big pal of Lennon's. He couldn't play a note. BBC presenter Brian Mathew described them as 'a penniless backing band'.  The tour, a seven night hike around the outer regions, arranged by dance hall organiser and pig farmer Duncan MacKinnon, had them playing the well worn circuit of dance halls, church halls and converted cinemas. They met up with Gentle for the first time in Alloa where they had less than an hour to sort out a set for the gig at the Town Hall.                                                                                                                                                                                   Johnny; "I was used to this, I wasn't sure though, depending on the boys backing you, how or if they could fall in right away. They couldn't with my complete act so I said 'you know that one, and that one, what do you know that I might know?' We made up an act of half each other's repertoire. Elvis's I Need Your Love Tonight, Buddy Holly's It Doesn't Matter Anymore, Ricky Nelson's Poor Little Fool.  My act was only about six or seven songs. Then they played for about an hour after me, Chuck Berry's Rock And Roll Music and other big hits at the time. The crowd loved it, the girls loved it, only problem was, Duncan MacKinnon didn't like it! He saw the five lads from Liverpool in the gear that they had turned up in, playing on stage and looking like buskers."                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Brian Mathew; "MacKinnon, whose dance hall gear was usually and outsize overcoat and Wellington boots was outraged. He phoned Larry Parnes and told him the band would have to go. A compromise was reached and the band agreed to wear a sort of uniform. George had a black shirt in his bag and Parnes reluctantly agreed to buy the others a similar one, except fro Tommy Moore who he reasoned, because he was at the back playing the drums and virtually out of sight, didn't really need one. Why go to the unnecessary expense?" Next stop on the tour was Inverness where they were billed along with the Lindsay Ross and his Scottish Dance Band in a dual attraction at the Northern Meeting Ballroom. Ross entertaining the larger crowd downstairs while Gentle and the Beatles rocked away above. Fraserburgh, Keith and Nairn were also on the agenda, where their appearance was recalled by a young female fan on a BBC special in the nineties.                                                                                                                                                 "The music was exciting; they were all dressed in black which was different. Everyone else at the time seemed to be wearing a suit, a collar and tie. The ballroom wasn't very big, it was a cinema and they had taken out the first ten rows of seats. And that was the dancehall. The stage was up high and it was mobbed. We stood in front of Johnny Gentle who we thought was gorgeous. Then this lot came on. We didn't think anything of them until afterwards when they became famous. Then we said 'ach! We didn't even like them. We'd shared coke and tea and pie with them during the break.' We couldn't understand what they were saying - because they were from Liverpool. They were just sort of crazy. But nice boys. Young. Next day I was sitting on top of a sand dune with my friend when we spotted the boys on the beach. So we took a casual walk down towards them, trying to make out we were just passing by. John Lennon asked us where the nearest cafe was. We said we'd take them. It was about a quarter of a mile away which suited us! He spent his last shilling on two glasses of chilled orange, one for me." Supporting the group at the Regal Ballroom, Nairn was The Johnny Douglas Combo.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Douglas; "They arrived in an old Austin 16. They were so poor, at the end of the night, we used to get bed and breakfast, and they all slept in the van!" Silver Beetles manager Allan Williams; "The fee for the tour was something ridiculous. £75 between the five of them. Out of that they had to pay the train fare, had to live and they had to pay for their hotel accommodation. When they came back they were absolutely broke. They did a runner in one of the hotels and I got the bill! They just couldn't afford it. Tommy Moore, who was ten years older than the rest of them, quit when they got back to Liverpool. He'd had enough of Lennon in particular. But his girlfriend told him in no uncertain terms. 'You're not playing with those bloody Beetles again. Get a job!' He ended up working at the Garston Bottle works as a fork lift driver for years."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Moore's career very nearly had a premature end when the band was involved in a car accident on a Scottish country road.                                                                       Johnny Gentle;” The van plunged into another car. Tommy ended up on top of Lennon who was sitting beside him, asleep. They both ended up under the dashboard, Tommy had knocked both his front teeth out and had to go to hospital. Whilst lying in the hospital bed, Lennon kept telling him, 'get up, we're on stage tonight!' He made it, and sat at the back playing the drums with his teeth missing and a handkerchief on hand to keep dabbing the blood. No wonder he quit when they got home!" Gentle and the boys went their separate ways at the end of the week, but not before Johnny had given Parnes a glowing report on the band. "I'd phoned Larry a few times and told him he'd better get up to Scotland to sign these boys up. They were getting a far better response to what I was getting. They had so much belief in themselves. I think they knew that somehow they were going places. Larry Parnes said he just didn't have the time."    
The car accident must have gave them a reality check, coming just a month after the fatal crash in Wiltshire that involved rock 'n' roll icon Eddie Cochran, who's Twenty Flight Rock had been the key in Paul McCartney passing the John Lennon Quarrymen audition. The American star had been a late addition to the Gene Vincent headlining Larry Parnes tour that began in January. Homesick and deciding to take a short break mid tour, by returning home to the States, Cochran was killed when the taxi he was travelling in to London Airport from Bristol, along with his girlfriend, songwriter Sharon Sheeley and Vincent, crashed into a tree after a tyre blew out. The first many people heard about it was on the Light Programme's Jack DeManio breakfast show. The news stunned the rock world. Brian Bennett, drummer with the Wildcats who backed Eddie and Gene on the tour, though they weren't employed for the Bristol gig recalled; "I received a phone call from Norman Riley, Eddie's European manager. I was shattered. Eddie was a fantastic guy, taught me some rock 'n' roll drums, he was more than an adept player as well as guitarist. He'd told me he was looking forward to returning to Britain later in the year and I was really excited about working with him again. It was a terrible tragedy."
One of the first on the scene of the crash was police cadet Dave Harman, who later became famous as Dave Dee with his group Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. Dee; "I wasn't actually at it; we arrived after the crash had happened. We sussed that the incumbents of the car were musicians because there were guitars and gig things all over the road and in the car. We had to take everything back to the police station and I realised then that it was Eddie Cochran's Gretch guitar. I was a huge fan of both Eddie and Gene Vincent."
Cochran had been brought over on the suggestion of TV presenter Jack Good as the tour was going a bit slow. He immediately made a great impact. Vernon Girl Sheila Bruce; "I went to jelly when I saw him. He was a beautifully tanned blonde haired boy with a brown leather bomber jacket on, like the American air force, he looked fantastic. Gene Vincent was different. He frightened me; he was obviously a very sullen guy, a complex character and not one that anybody really got to know. He used to carry a gun. I was always worried about him."                                                                                                                                                                                        Hal Carter; "Gene Vincent used to carry a gun and a knife around with him, which he called Henry. He would say to people, 'Do you want to meet Henry?' and he would pull out his knife. He had a street-gang mentality and he terrorised the tour bus one night coming back from Ipswich. He ripped the bass player's suit and five of us jumped off at the lights in Romford, even though we lived in north London.
Joe Brown; "He was a bit of a loony, but I never saw him harm anybody. Great performer though. He was very funny; you never knew what he was going to do. He'd hit the chord of E, and gene would go 'Welll, and you'd see his eyes go blank! And you'd know he wasn't sure if he was going to sing Be Bop A Lula or The Road Is Rockin' - they all started the same!"                                                                                                                                                                                                                  The Wildcats, Marty's backing group, guitarist Big Jim Sullivan; "He came into the rehearsal room, opened his guitar case and got out his orange Gretch guitar and started playing some Chet Atkins stuff, then rock and roll, blues. We were all awe struck."
A press release hailed; 'An exciting teaming of two of America's leading young rock and roll stars has been achieved with the arrival in Britain of Eddie Cochran, who is scheduled to remain here for ten weeks. Cochran co stars with another U.S. Beat singer, Gene Vincent.' The tour also showcased British singer Vince Eager; "They were all one night stands, very rarely did we have a night off. We were hopping all over the place; it was one of Larry Parnes' typical tours. You could be in Plymouth one day, Glasgow the next day, then Southampton. To hell with the artists, they had to get on with it. We'd travel by coach, by train if the distance was too far. That was when we got more contact with Eddie and Gene as we'd go up to their car and get the guitars out. Eddie had a big influence on us."                                                                                                                                                   Guitarist Joe Brown; "They used to travel in the first class compartment; we were all stuffed in the back! The ticket collector would come round and sling us all back."                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Cochran and Vincent also made two appearances on Boy Meets Girl which was hosted by Marty Wilde who was recently married and getting ready to head off to America on honeymoon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Big Jim Sullivan:” I told Marty that we, the Wildcats, had a chance to work with Eddie and Gene, and asked if he'd mind if we did it. We ended up playing virtually the whole of the remainder of the tour, including a slot on radio's Saturday Club." As the tour progressed, Eddie and Gene both grew more and more homesick and started hitting the bottle.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Tour manager Hal Carter; "Gene used to drink all the time but Eddie, because he was homesick, he spent a fortune on phoning up his mum in America. He'd be on the phone for over an hour, two sometimes, on the hotel phone! And we never realised in those days that the hotel would charge you twice as much you would pay from a phone box. We had a situation at Leeds when Eddie was drunk as a Lord and we had to get him dressed, drive him to the theatre and take him into his dressing room. We gave him some black coffee, then laid him out on the floor and put a leather bag under his head for a pillow. He looked like he was dead on a slab! He was gone. We told the comedian to go on first and then we put the guitar round Eddie's neck, plugged it in to the amp, then when the mic came up through the floor on stage, we propped Eddie up against the mic for him to have something to hold on to so he wouldn't fall over!" The Leeds gig was also remembered for other reasons by Joe Brown;” Hal Carter used to organise the getaways after the gig, this night he was waiting with the car engine running, a big Humber it was, and he employed two guys to act as decoys to attract the fans in the opposite direction. For some reason the ploy failed and the fans spotted Gene and Eddie and raced after them. I climbed in the back alongside Eddie and Gene was in the front. Next thing, the fans have opened the door, screaming and yelling, Hal's revving the engine and all of a sudden, we're off. And Gene’s lost his pants! The kids had ripped them off! We were staying in a posh hotel in Leeds and we walked in with Gene in just his underpants, a leg iron and a dirty old tee-shirt!"
As the tour progressed, the Americans were getting more and more homesick, drinking more booze and Eddie in particular, confessed that he was missing his girlfriend, Sharon Sheeley, badly. It didn't help that the tour just happened to occur during the first anniversary of Cochran's old pal Buddy Holly's death, twelve months previously. Eddie even wrote a song for Buddy and his two partners in the plane crash, Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens. Titled Three Stars, it was a heart rendering tribute. Sinking more into the oblivion of Bourbon by the day, his depression still didn't lighten much when Sharon Sheeley came over from the States. Eddie decided to take a break and head home mid tour to see his family in Oklahoma at Easter. First though, was a gig tacked onto the end of the week at the Bristol Hippodrome. Actor Peter Bowles was present; "When the rock and roll stars came over here I used to go and see them whenever I could. I was appearing at the Old Vic when Eddie and Gene came over. I went to see the show which of course, turned out to be Eddie's last. When he came on, the stage was in complete darkness and the spotlight came on as the music started - but it was on his bum - he was wearing a pair of tight fitting red leather trousers, never seen before. And the spotlight was just on his bottom, gyrating. This was wicked. Sexy. The audience was screaming. The other thing I particularly remember about his performance was that at one point he said to the audience, 'I'm gonna do something I've never done before. I've never done this before and I'm gonna do it now. I'm a gonna do it for you. I'm gonna... I'm gonna...' And we all thought, my God, he's going to drop his trousers! And he said 'I'm a gonna..smile!' The audience went absolutely mad! Extraordinary!"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Transport to take Eddie, Gene and Sharon to the airport had been arranged for the following day but they decided to leave that night after the show. Hal Carter; "We'd been using the minicab all week and asked the driver what it'd cost to take them to Heathrow. He said he'd find out and get back to us but instead of going to his firm, he asked a friend of his to borrow him his car and came back and told us £25." The car set off with the three stars, Pat Tompkins the roadie and the driver. They reached the outskirts of Chippenham around midnight. The driver then took a wrong turning but quickly realised his mistake. Hal;” They’d tarmaced the road that day and it was all small pebble dusted. He's hit the brakes, and the back end has gone. The back end struck the kerb, the door's flown open, and Eddie's turned to protect Sharon and as he's put his arm across her he's gone forward and he's hit his head on the top of the car. Then he's caught the back of his head on the strut of the door as he's been thrown out onto the verge on the roadside." Dave Dee; "The driver and roadie were virtually unhurt but Eddie, Gene and Sharon were all lying on the grass injured. It was quite clear that Eddie was in a bad way. He and Sharon were taken away by ambulance. Eddie died next day." The news was received with great shock by friends and fans alike.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

The Echoes and the Flashers 1977

Causing a riot at Corby Stardust centre was a band modelled on the Sex Pistols; the Flashers were an outfit booked by Arthur Pitcher with support from John Grimley's band The Echoes to cash in on the craze. John; "Myself, Maureen and Jimmy Gourlay, John Dolby and Tommy Chapman were asked by Arthur if we would back this spoof band for a few numbers. We agreed and several rehearsals later they said they would go for it. All was well until the night. The Evening Telegraph had given the show a lot of advertising, more of a send up really, and when we turned up on the night at the club there were about 200 punk rockers outside the building that had been turned away. Now to say they were unhappy is an understatement. The E.T. had done SUCH a good job it was backfiring in Pitchers face. He didn't know what to do, he didn't think it would go that far...but it did. The media had gone over the top with the hype and the build up, and when the band started wrecking things and winding everybody up, Arthur really was in a flap! We did the gig and it was a laugh, if not a tadge frightening at an earlier stage."
The Flashers milked the publicity for all it was worth. The 'exclusive' in the press told; ‘the band, Gary Gutrot, Sergeant Sadistic, Geriatric Punk and the weird singer Punkular are making their debut in Corby later this month, they stopped off in the town at the weekend to see Arthur Pitcher the leisure centre manager who had booked them. Arthur made it clear that any obscenities and expletives on stage would result in a possible ban from appearing at the venue in the future; "I have written to the group’s manager and warned him that I will stop their act outright if they step too far out of line, should I consider any part of their act offensive, no bad language will be acceptable. They really are pretty disgusting specimens but I've heard their music is good and that's why we've booked them."
The feature concluded by stating; 'The group were travelling to London from Manchester where a number of shows were cancelled because of their behaviour and although they have an extensive British tour lined up for early next year it is believed many towns will follow suit and ban them.'
During their performance the Flashers smashed speakers, wrecked chairs and broke glasses - terrifying many of the audience into the bargain. Arthur Pitcher, aided by a barman was forced to haul them off before their act led to a riot. Arthur was far from amused; "They were disgusting. This act was extremely violent and I warn all other clubs against booking them. Corby is just not ready for this sort of thing."
For all the mayhem it engineered, the show was later exposed as a fake. It was in fact, four Corby lads with a strong sense of humour, complete with oozing blood capsules and sick bags. Bar manager Eric McKenna was Sgt Sadistic, Club manager Robert Halfyard was Geriatric Punk, Corby Town FC goalkeeper Peter Walters was Punkular and club doorman Kevin Barby was Gary Gutrot, out to raise money for the Evening Telegraph Christmas Appeal. The audience didn't know it was a set up but dipped into their pockets when the Flashers asked them to buy safety pins.