It wasn’t just the mystic of religion that I was drawn to. I discovered Captain Beefheart And The Magic Band at Bristol and went to see him play at the Colston Hall. I loved the mysterious names that his musicians had: Zoot Horn Rollo, The Mascara Snake, Winged-Eel Fingerling and Rockette Morton. Before the band played the gig, the bassist Rockette Morton came out in front of the curtain dressed in a large white Stetson, a paint-splashed white suit, with a Fender Precision bass. He bowed to the audience and then proceeded to play his arse off for about five minutes. He then bowed again and walked off stage. From that moment I was hooked.
A few other gigs spring to mind during my time at Bristol. One was staged at The Victoria Rooms in Clifton and featured Pink Floyd, supported by Kevin Ayers And The Whole World. Kevin had just left Soft Machine – what a great band they were. A singing drummer, Robert Wyatt, with Mike Ratledge on keyboards, and Kevin Ayers on bass. Their first album is phenomenal and a complete classic. David Bedford started the evening by performing Terry Reilly’s ‘A Rainbow In Curved Air’ on acoustic piano. There were a lot of joints being smoked and the whole atmosphere was really groovy, man. The Stones came to play at the Colston Hall to promote their live album Get Yer Ya Yas Out, which had a strange picture of Charlie Watts on the cover, walking down a road carrying a bass drum. The tickets were to go on sale at the Colston Hall the morning of the gig at 9a.m., and many people, including me, resolved to sleep out the night before under the arches around the corner from the venue. There must have been about two hundred of us in our sleeping bags and, inevitably, a party developed. I woke up the next morning and looked around to find myself the only person left under the arches. I had overslept and completely missed out on the ticket queue. Fortunately, I managed to scrounge a ticket anyway. My old friend from school, Richard Thompson, came to the Colston Hall with Fairport Convention, supporting T. Rex. They were really good and went down a storm. I remember thinking at the time, ‘Hasn’t Richard done well for himself!’
I would sometimes hitch up to London for the weekend and once on the way back to Bristol I got a lift in a Range Rover. The driver looked pretty cool and told me he was a roadie for Led Zeppelin, on his way to a meeting with the band in Maidenhead. I was very impressed and thanked him for the lift.
During the second year at Bristol, I met Keith Floyd and played in his chain of restaurants. He had started by opening a bistro and had rapidly expanded to five or six, which regularly needed live acoustic music. By this time I had a repertoire of about a hundred songs that I could play, from Beatles through Hendrix to Dylan. If I heard a song I liked, I would work out an arrangement on acoustic guitar. I had regular gigs at several restaurants in Bristol, and this extra income supplemented my grant – plus, I would always get a meal thrown in. One day Keith opened a new place and asked me to play at the opening party. I agreed and was busy strumming away when who should waltz down the stairs but my professor, arm in arm with his secretary! We both realized the potential of this encounter and decided to ignore each other for the rest of the evening.
At one of my regular restaurant gigs, I also served customers and would sit on some stairs and play a little when I wasn’t busy waiting on tables. One evening I was just about to put my guitar away for the night when a businessman, who had his moll in tow, asked me to play some more. I was knackered that night and couldn’t be arsed, so I apologized and said it wasn’t possible. He then took this as an invitation to try to bribe me to play some more. He offered me twenty quid, but I explained that it wasn’t a case of the money. He went to fifty and then a hundred, but I didn’t give in. By now it was a case of my pride, and his losing face in front of his moll. I didn’t give in and he wasn’t very pleased. I don’t think he ever came to the restaurant again.
I can remember playing at a restaurant in Hampstead in London, and my friend’s sister (whom I had a crush on) coming in with John Madden, the film director-to-be, her boyfriend at the time. He was very supportive and they both applauded a lot. He ended up marrying her.
During the second summer vacation, I went to Amsterdam with Boris and had my first experience of busking, outside The American Hotel. I started hesitantly and was just getting into my stride when an organ grinder – complete with monkey – pulled up in front of me and drowned me out. Not knowing what to do, I packed my guitar and started to leave. To my amazement, about half a dozen people who had been listening to me play ran after me and started pressing money into my hand. I then met up with some friends from Bristol and we all headed for Greece. Whenever I was running out of money, my friends would wait while I busked in a town and gathered more funds. I even stopped off in Lucerne in Switzerland and told a radio station I’d just released a record in England and persuaded them to book me for a session. I have since met the producer of that show, who assures me that he suspected I was pulling a fast one but ran with it.
CUT TO: LUND, SOUTHERN SWEDEN, 1972
I am shaking like a leaf. There is a works’ evening for the hospital where I’m studying for my PhD and I have agreed to play a number after dinner before the disco starts. My legs are like jelly both on and off the stage, but my boss and everybody I know are really encouraging me. I start to get the feeling that this is where I belong …
CHAPTER THREE Let me tell you about Sweden
Ask most people what their impression of Sweden is and they’ll usually tell you it’s full of beautiful, sex-mad, blonde girls dying to roll around with anyone in the freezing snow after dashing out from a sauna on the edge of a lake … which is fine until you actually go there.
I first went to Sweden when I was offered a job in a laboratory at the University of Lund Hospital. I had stayed on at William Ellis after ‘A’ levels to apply for Cambridge University but had failed miserably. I accepted my place at Bristol University but beforehand got a job in the spring at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London in the Haematology Department, doing menial laboratory work. One day the doctor I was working with asked me what plans I had for the forthcoming summer. I knew it would be a good idea to do a bit of travelling before starting the first year of my degree, but I hadn’t seriously thought about it until he’d asked me. He suggested that I might consider Sweden, as he had contacts there. His laboratory was in almost daily contact with a Dr Kai Lindstrand in Lund, as their work shared the same field. On recommendation from St Bart’s, Dr Lindstrand was prepared to offer me lab work there for a few months if I was interested.
Was I interested in going to Sweden? Yes, please!
I readily agreed and headed over there. I stayed three months during the summer and had my first sexual experience (with a nurse, more later). So three years later when it came time to think about what to do after my degree at Bristol, it didn’t take me long to realize that, short of going back to London, which seemed to be what everybody else was going to do (boring) the options weren’t that many. In order to delay any serious decisions about what to do with my life, I hit upon the brilliant idea of heading back up to Sweden. But what was I going to do up there? I know, I’ll do a PhD! I rang Dr Lindstrand, my old boss at the hospital, and told him about my idea. ‘Great!’ he said, ‘Call me when you get your results in.’
A slight problem presented itself. I had only mustered a third-class honours degree and didn’t stand a chance of being given a research grant in the UK. I bumped into my professor from Bristol in a pub shortly afterwards and he told me that I’d lacked ‘diligence and discipline’. I rang Dr Lindstrand back in Lund.
‘Have you got your results?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but I only got a third,’ I replied.
He probed, ‘But you passed?’
‘Yes …’ I hesitated.
‘Well, that’s great news! When can you come and start?’
In England, Oxford and Cambridge are considered the oldest educational institutions. In Sweden, Lund and Uppsala are thought of