My first delegated task from Dick was to take the Slits out to do some press interviews in Paris ( his passport was out of date !), where I got a better chance to meet them all. They were very independent, a bit scathing of having someone go with them and apart from the basic logistics of getting to and from places and timekeeping they pretty much got on with it without me. I had lots of banter from both Ari and Viv on the journey, around how they didn’t have any crossover philosophic alliance with
hippies ( nothing after the ‘beat generation’ at least) but the urgency of their argument and the heritage they drew on made me dubious, Ari, if born 10 years previously would have likely been living in Gwernogle and using Hughes' geodesic dome as a performance stage .
They were delightfully refreshing, if disappointed in their ability to shock or frighten. They did a much better job of that with the pubescent French boys in the audience and mainstream journalists that turned out to interview them. I remember having to get up at 4 am the next week to go up with Dick to shoot the Typical Girls video with Don Letts on a bandstand in a London Park, special permits in hand. The faces of the passing early morning walkers and commuters are fabulous.
We went to some promo shows for the Gang of Four, showcase, London venues. They were regulars at the Leinster Square flat, as were various members of the Pop Group, when they came up from Bristol. nocturnal visitors included many on the fringes of both the Bristol and Leeds alternative music scene. Glaxo's , Delta 5 to name but a few. We were heavily caught up in the movements of the day, 'Rock against Racism' and the 'Anti Nazi league' .
Nico.
I picked Nico up as arranged and took her out on the
Banshees tour, she was as dark and deep voiced as I had imagined. My
expectation was that she would be welcomed by Siouxsie and the band and that they would have some kind of deference and give her a great experience in The UK punk scene.
I was surprised that she had separate cheap accommodation, no sound check and
no rider, not even sandwiches in the dressing room. To start with I really
enjoyed her company, she would always start the day with a Beer ( "Burb, bring
me some beer…" ) and be pretty self contained.
The shows however were a nightmare, the assembled
“identikit” Siouxsie punks were not prone to having a new experience and Nico
would get loud abuse, thrown beer cans and 'gobbing'. I’d clean her stage clothes
with her every evening and leave her to shower the human detritus off. It was
all I could do to placate her after each performance and by the third gig the
refrain had turned to "Burb, I need some heroin…" I hadn’t realised that she was
in one of her heroin dependent periods and had brought enough ( she thought) to get through
the tour. The added tension had depleted her supply and it was now apparently my job to top it up for her.
At the Hammersmith Odeon , I had to go onstage in the middle
of the show and cut lumps of chewing gum out of her hair, so she could see to
play .
In Bristol I managed to get friends (on the periphery of the Pop
Groups “mates”) to go and get her some ‘smack’ to get through the next few
days. I’m eternally grateful to them (not their usual activity) and we got
through to the end of the dates with a combination of ( "Burb, get me some beer" and "this Heroine is rubbish…" ) . When she was stable, she was fun to be with
although she had this tendency to talk a bit scathingly about all the wonderful
talented people she’d worked with, claiming they stole her work and wouldn’t
have got anywhere without her, quite feasible I suppose but it was an over laboured point. The individual tales of her early days and the
people around her in the 60’s was worth putting up with the other stuff for.
I was relieved when we got back to London. I was assurd she got on a program and stayed clean
for a long time after. On the other side of it all Dave Woods and Spizz , became good friends and will crop up now and again later.
John Cale (1)
The Pop Group were really keen to get a great producer for
their album, this would be on Radar and have a real chance of major
distribution and cross over . Like Siouxsie they were steeped in music
of all genres and held bands like The Velvet Underground in huge esteem. His
work producing the early Stooges and later Patti Smith and other new bands,
made him a real contender and Radar flew him in to meet the band and discuss
the songs. I was tasked with picking him up spending an evening and settling
him into the Portobello hotel where he’d have a couple of days to get over the
jet lag before going down to Bristol to meet them.
I knew the area and was looking forward to showing him
around. When I collected him at the airport he looked terrible, his skin was
almost yellow, clammy and sweating, his nose was running and dried snot had
left marks on his lips, his eyes were almost closed. I got him to the hotel, he
didn’t want to eat and just sat on the payphone with his address book for about
an hour.
Eventually he sat down and had a beer, saying he had a
girlfriend arriving in a minute and she would stay with him till he went down
to Bristol. About midnight, a tall thin girl who I shan’t name,
arrived with an overnight bag. I recognised her from lots of backstage areas,
coke dealer to the stars. I wasn’t at Ridge Farm when he met the band, but I’m
reliably informed he was in a state when he arrived, the band spent ten minutes
trying to decipher his rambling bluster and decided to try for a producer
elsewhere.
I’m disappointed with telling these tales, both these people
were/are great artists, true originals and their periods of obsessive drug use
doesn’t deny or lessen that. I did strike up a relationship with John's ex partner and manager Jane, which helped the Mo-Dettes to feature on one of his later solo albums, he seemed to do best when he was
working…. More of that later.
I had a meeting in the office on my return with Val, Henry
and JJ from the Electric Chairs. They had teamed up with New Yorker Wayne County,
who was living in London and
was signed for three albums and three singles with Safari
Records. Wayne had fallen out with her manager when they finished the second
album and they were now without management
. They didn’t much like the material and the (what they described as 'sickly') Eddie and Sheena single.
They were keen to make sure that the album and subsequent singles were more in
the vein of more progressive, Eno/Bowie/ talking Heads/ Pere Ubu rather that pastiche rock
cabaret and asked if I'd take on 'Wayne County and the Electric Chairs' for the
duration of the Safari contract, with the complexities that Wayne’s transition
to ‘Jayne’ were going to involve. Henry also wanted some help to try and get
The Copeland family to give him his royalties ( and credit) for performing recording (and probably co
writing) the first Police single which had elevated them to apparent stardom.
They
also wanted someone who understood their ethos and lifestyle, I spent an
afternoon at the squat where they were all living, may have eaten some unusual
brownies.I thought it over, I'd seen the band perform with Wayne at Dingwall's
and on agreement with Wayne that it would be the whole band I would represent and that I wouldn’t
end up as personal manager to her alone, I decided to take it on.
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