I think he was fined £400 and I never saw him again, but whatever was in that piece of dope had not gone away. My yearning was to transfer the theatre spinning through the cosmos of my brain into the very soul of an audience. But there was the problem of image. It was clear to me that I didn’t look the part. I also couldn’t bring myself to fall into the mire of the fake American rock ’n’ roller. Image in entertainment can be everything and nothing at the same time.
I had to be substantial. I had no choice, because judged on image I was a walk-on disaster. In case you think this judgement too harsh, there is a wealth of photographic evidence. Because the recording of ‘Dracula’ seemed to be in the right vein, we concocted a sort of pastiche Screaming Lord Sutch bargain-basement shock-horror band personality. Our lanky Australian wore a cape and a lot of eye shadow. Our bass player wore a rubber 80-year-old man mask and I wore green army long johns, boxing boots and a grandad shirt. The pièce de résistance was a gold lamé jockstrap. In case you think this may just have been a terrible accident during a game of blind man’s bluff in a charity shop, I had the gold jockstrap handmade.
Up in Hackney, East London, was a legal squat, basically a commune of three streets in a triangle. In the middle of it were all manner of vegan cafés and rainbow coalitions. There dwelt a lesbian seamstress who measured me up, somewhat unimpressed, and produced my sparkly willy-cover.
I had in mind Ian Anderson, he of the tramp overcoat and codpiece on Jethro Tull’s Aqualung. Although I didn’t sound like Ian Anderson vocally, I was a massive Jethro Tull fan, and of course Glenn Cornick, the founder of Wild Turkey, had been an original member.
I started to use my limited dramatic skills. A great deal of prancing went on in confined spaces during rehearsals, and twirling inanimate objects while standing on one leg.
Fast approaching was our first gig. The owner of the Rose and Crown took pity on us, I suspect because we spent a lot of money in his rehearsal room. There was one person in the audience and there is nothing quite so lonely as one man in a disco. He sat at a table in the middle of the dance floor, the blue flashing lights reflecting off the mirrored walls. No matter how many mirrors, it still didn’t look like a crowd.
More gigs followed, and our fame spread as far as Croydon. There, we suddenly came to the attention of an agent, who wanted to sign us. He made all the right noises but said all the wrong things.
He had red hair and a comb-over, and was an agent for rockabilly bands, fifties revival acts, Teddy-boy cover groups and any form of novelty to entertain awful people.
‘Brilliant, lads,’ he said. ‘Love it. Comedy heavy metal. Hilarious. Love the banter. Come up to the office and sign the contract.’
And then he was gone.
The office was on a damp-smelling first floor above a curry house in Finsbury Park, just around the corner from the tube and not too far from the Rainbow Theatre, a legendary rock venue (now sadly an evangelist church). That, of course, was where we really wanted to be, but this seemed better than nothing. We signed the contract. It said that we promised to do everything, and he promised to try to do something but with no guarantees.
‘Brilliant, lads. Fantastic, great, comedy heavy metal … bring the house down.’
We went away feeling strangely glum and unfulfilled.
After a few weeks of nothing in particular from this gentleman, we were offered a gig at an army base in Arbroath, Scotland. Research, plus a map, revealed the truth about economics espoused by Dickens: ‘When the petrol bill to drive from one end of the country exceeds the total fee available, result misery.’
Arbroath being notable for its smoked fish, I went down to the fishmongers and bought some boil-in-a-bag kippers to give us a taste of what might have been. Our agent protested: ‘Well, frankly lads, you’re blowing a great chance. Extremely disappointing.’
We consigned our agent with the Donald Trump comb-over to the bargain basement of history, and headed south-east, beyond even the mighty metropolis of Plumstead.
Gravesend is one of those town names, like Leatherhead or Maidenhead, which make Americans scratch their heads and wonder, Why? The why in this case was probably nautical and may have alluded to the end of the line for ships of the line. The Prince of Wales didn’t live there, but he certainly gave rise to a few pubs in his time, and Shots appeared one dull evening, setting up in front of the bar, with the gents’ toilet entrance just to one side of the non-existent stage.
Masks on, jockstrap firmly strapped and silver tambourine twirling away, we were enough to stop conversation at the bar, which is always a good start.
The big challenge came when patrons attempted to use the toilet facilities, and I decided to conduct a few improvised interviews with them as they stepped onto our territory. The more humiliating the better, and the landlord rebooked us.
Word got around about the prancing singer, the old geezer on the bass and the increasingly uncomfortable Tony Lee on black Gibson, black mascara, black lipstick and no work permit. As we returned to the scene of the crime weeks later the place was packed and then, after that, more packed. The landlord was delighted.
‘Love the banter,’ he’d say, ‘love it.’ And he would buy me lots of beer.
Summer of 1978 was, for me, stunning. I was free to roam the London streets with only dreams as my guide, and even then, the liberty to forget at will. I had resigned as entertainment officer, so I just pottered about the East End, getting a builder’s suntan.
Because of punk and its DIY attitude to records and record companies, everyone was in on the act now. Self-produced singles on vinyl were standard for rock bands too, but as Shots we were at a disadvantage. We didn’t have the cash to have one pressed. Tony, our Antipodean vampire, was showing signs of ultimatum fever. He was older, had actually earned money out of music and was in a reasonably tearing hurry to do so again.
Throughout my third and final year at university, we resumed our gigs in small pubs and clubs around London. We could have papered the walls of a small hamster cage with rejection slips for ‘Dracula’. The Prince of Wales was starting to get bored of us, and I think the feeling was mutual. There are only so many times you can try the same gags and the same songs before people begin to drift. One evening, however, we were out loading the van and I was standing, temporarily unused, when I was approached by three odd-looking individuals.
Paul Samson had a bowler hat, leather jacket and a moustache, plus shoulder-length hair in curls. He was not unlike a King Charles spaniel. Chris Aylmer was tall, had a mullet and seemed really quite mature. Barry Purkis had dyed red hair in ringlets, a Nazi-stormtrooper dress jacket, fluorescent earrings and bright-red trousers.
‘’Allo,’ started Paul. ‘We’re Samson. We’ve got a deal, an album and management, and we want a singer. Interested?’
‘Gary Holton, Heavy Metal Kids – that’s the sort of thing we’re after,’ chimed in Barry.
‘I can see the Ian Gillan influence,’ Chris intoned reflectively.
‘And Kiss, and the Residents. Mad shit,’ Barry added.
‘Mad,’ Chris muttered.
‘Yeah, mad,’ Paul chuckled.
‘Well, I am very flattered,’ I replied. ‘But I’ve got to finish my final exams in three weeks so I can’t do anything until I’ve got that over with. Is that okay?’
‘Yeah, alright. We’ll be in touch,’ Paul said, and he wrote down his phone number. I had become more and more preoccupied with exams, and for the six months before my finals had decided to catch up on the previous two-and-half-years of academic insufficiency.
With no wasted effort, I got a Desmond, a Tutu, or, more correctly, a second-class honours, lower division.
By the end of the exams I was starting to imagine that I was almost getting the hang of