Adventures of a Waterboy

by Mike Scott

  In fact all the managers I approached turned me down. I’d just had an album that stiffed and any bigshot with a grasp of arithmetic could see there wasn’t money to be made unless Still Burning went seriously sky-high. Even if it did I was known to be a difficult, driven customer who didn’t like making videos, argued about single formats and, for all anyone knew, would up sticks after the next tour and vanish to a commune or the rustic fringes of Ireland. After a long series of courteous refusals and unreturned phone calls – music biz refusals are almost always unreturned phone calls – I accepted defeat.

  Finding a live band was easier. A combination of auditions and chance encounters produced three new confederates: a wily keyboard player called James Hallawell, a Keltneresque drummer called Jeremy Stacey, and a young Dublin guitarist, Gavin Ralston, the rock’n’rolling nephew of my old trad mucker Seamus Begley. Moonlighting on bass was Liverpudlian singer Ian McNabb. I’d met Ian in the eighties at a posh Liverpool hotel after a Waterboys show. He turned up with Mac from the Bunnymen, we had a rollicking three-way argument about politics and world peace, almost came to blows, and I never heard from either of them again till McNabb phoned me out of the blue in Findhorn in 1994. To my surprise he asked me to come and do a couple of Waterboys songs with him at the Glastonbury Festival – the appearance that turned out to be my bracing reintroduction to the British rock public.

  This new ensemble was a happy band of compatible personalities and, as happens in happy bands, everyone soon had a nickname. McNabb was ‘Boots’; James, who had a penchant for impersonating English movie gangsters, was ‘Razors’; Gavin was ‘Fingers’ on account of his speedy guitar playing; and I, not unreasonably, was ‘Tonsils’. Only Jeremy had a nickname he didn’t much care for. McNabb, ribbing him unfairly for being a bread-head (a player motivated by money, not music) suggested Jeremy stick a credit-card machine on his bass drum and swipe my card every time he played a cymbal crash, a suggestion which lumbered the unfortunate drummer with the name ‘Swipe’.

  A fortnight before Still Burning was released we played our debut shows – my first electric band concerts in an unbelievable seven years – at a grimy London rock club called the Garage. This was the brainwave of my then-agent Paul Boswell, who figured the best way to regenerate some rock cred was to play in a khazi. But the shows coincided with a monstrous pre-millennial heat wave and for five broiling nights band and audience sweltered in a maelstrom of furnace-like temperatures.

  The day before the first gig the group went to Johnstons on the King’s Road to buy stage clothes. I gave each musician a budget of £500 and for an hour we plundered the shop like a bunch of kids, finally emerging with our sartorial booty. But instead of looking like a gang with a unified style, which I’d forgotten takes months or years of hanging out together to achieve, when we took the stage at the Garage the following night we were like The Five Ages Of Rock. Razors was a fifties zoot-suited thug; Fingers, with pointed sideburns and broad-shouldered pin-stripe jacket, looked like a refugee from a 1981 Ultravox video; Boots sported the maroon two-tone suit of a spivvy Berwick Street mod; Swipe was a Seattle grungemeister with goatee and camouflage jacket; and in my velvet flares and ruffled Regency shirt I was a cross between a cabaret singer and one of The Kinks circa 1967.

  By the end of the show these disparate visual identities had devolved into a single heat-smelted human mass, jackets, shirts and cool attitudes long discarded. Except for Boots McNabb. For as the last chord of our closing number, ‘Building The City Of Light’, ripped through the fetid air of the Garage, Boots was still inscrutably sharp in his two-tone suit, the sweat-drenched jacket of which he refused to remove despite the supernatural heat. But in the naked light of the dressing room the cost of Boots’ dedication to style was revealed. ‘Bloody hell!’ he exclaimed in horror, pointing at his legs. We all looked. The turn-ups of his pants hovered a full inch above his exposed ankles. Surely they hadn’t been like that when he bought them? Then he stuck his fists out and his jacket cuffs were a third of the way up his arm, revealing several inches of soaked skin above the wrists. Suddenly the penny dropped and everyone burst out laughing. The suit had shrunk on him while he’d been sweating in it!

  Shrivelled suits apart, Boswell’s ploy was a success. Tickets sold out fast, reviews were encouraging, and things were even stirring for me at radio. ‘Love Anyway’ was Record Of The Week on two Radio One shows on consecutive weeks, an almost unheard-of feat. And the single sounded great on air. I’d pulled off the trick of making a record about my spiritual experiences that, unlike the acoustic ‘Bring ’Em All In’, slotted into the contemporary landscape. ‘Love Anyway’ didn’t sound out of place next to singles by Oasis or The Verve, with whose ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, then rioting up the charts, it shared a fat drum sound and a luminous string section. It looked, just looked, like we might actually have the hit everyone was predicting.

  The reckoning that would determine our fate was the ‘midweek chart’ position of the week of release. It worked like this: records came out on a Monday and the final weeklong chart, the one the public cares about, was based on all the sales from then to the following Sunday. But a tally of Monday’s sales alone was announced within the music business on Tuesday lunchtime and called the ‘midweek chart’. And because an act’s diehard fans typically bought records on the day of release, this midweek chart tended to show newly issued singles in a higher position than their eventual placing in the real chart five days later. A strong position in the midweek was deemed essential to ensure a healthy showing in the subsequent real chart, but a bad position meant failure, and in such a case the record company would give up. For ‘Love Anyway’ to be a hit we needed a midweek position comfortably in the top thirty, preferably high in the top twenty. I was halfway through a long day of interviews in a Brussels hotel when the call came. Our midweek position was seventy-five.

  That a record’s destiny could be determined by such a paltry accounting of fate as its first day’s sales was crazy but true. In the chart golden age of the fifties, sixties and early seventies, records were released into a world where anything could happen. A single might meander for weeks in lowly regions of the charts before catching on with DJs or the public. Then it would creep its way upwards and, if the winds were fair and the tune was good, become a hit. Its passage might take eight, nine weeks, sometimes more, and this ascent was an authentic log of a song’s conquest of the public’s affections. But over the years the charts had become so manipulated, so gamed by the music industry, that they were stretched out of all shape and logic. In their time, twelve-inch singles, coloured vinyl, picture discs, hyping scams and the dreaded multiple formats had each made their contributions to the ruin of the system, progressively distorting the chart, little by little, in favour of gimmicked or aggressively-marketed product until the distortions had become the system. Now a single’s fate was determined largely by the ingenuity and muscle of its marketing and by the size and dedication, or gullibility, of the act’s fan-base, and its lifespan comprised the six torturous pre-release weeks of ‘plugging’ at radio, an insane system whereby the public could hear the record for an age but not buy it. By the time a single actually came out, its orbit was almost over – even huge selling records dropped in their second week of release. The charts, once a barometer of the listening tastes of the nation, had become a sham.

  I was part of this insanity too; I’d allowed Chrysalis to game the system by surrendering to their demand for formats. And now ‘Love Anyway’ was kaput, despite having been issued in two matching-sleeved CDs with four different ‘exclusive’ B-sides, plus, God help us, a limited-edition cassette single – a manifestly useless item in the late nineties. Despite all its radio play the song hadn’t caught on with the public. As soon as the damning midweek chart was announced, everyone involved accepted the record wouldn’t be a hit, including me. And because Chrysalis viewed ‘Love Anyway’ as the sole potential hit on the album, from this point onwards they treated Stil
l Burning as a lost cause. Yet the whole cycle of touring, travelling and promotion still lay ahead. Fulfilling such a schedule once the bottom has fallen out of a campaign is an experience most recording artists have gone through at some time or another: a dogged, keep-smiling-through-the-wreckage trudge, and I geared up psychologically for it now.

  The saving grace was the music, which flowed as always, for my new band was playing focussed, tough shows and never giving a hoot about such things as chart positions. We played a short tour of Scandinavia during which we found both our musical muscle (best gig: a barnstormer in Stavanger) and our band esprit (funniest moment: McNabb’s impression of a terrible Nordic Eurovision song on the tour bus without his realising the Norwegian EMI rep was sitting in front of him). The only blip was the firing of the luckless Jeremy Stacey, on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, when I got wind he was planning to defect to the reformed Echo & The Bunnymen. His replacement was a pile-driving Glaswegian skin-basher called Geoff Dugmore, and thus reconstituted we worked till the end of the year, touring Britain, Europe and Japan.

  For a singer/guitarist, Ian McNabb was an unexpectedly good bass player. He and Dugmore developed a visceral swagger that drove the music like a threshing machine, and their empathy extended offstage, Dugmore becoming the foil for McNabb’s non-stop comedic horseplay. Ian’s speciality was a deadpan impression of Rolf Harris singing Prince’s ‘Sign ‘O’ The Times’, wobble-board sounds and all, which he’d break into at artfully chosen moments, destroying everyone within a twenty-foot radius.

  Fingers was funny too, though not always intentionally. A handsome, extremely tall Irishman, possibly of giant stock, he used wonderfully meaningless Father Dougal-esque phrases such as ‘in fairness, now’, and his moment-to-moment consciousness bubbled from an inexhaustible store of speedy enthusiasm and boyish good nature. He also wore pomade in his hair and on stage in Wolverhampton he got it on his hands and thus onto the neck of his guitar, which made playing difficult. During ‘Rare, Precious And Gone’, a song with a three-second break of silence at the end of a verse, Fingers calculated he had time to grab a towel off his amp, wipe down the guitar neck, and still hit the first chord of the next verse on cue. His prognostications were correct, but he forgot to turn his volume down, and the three-second break was filled by an unholy skittering sound as Fingers frantically rubbed the towel up and down the neck.

  It was a bit like being in one of my teenage bands, only with better gear. During the boogie shuffle ‘Blues Is My Business’, Boots and I did Chuck Berry duckwalks from opposite ends of the stage. In Japan we all bought half-size guitars with fuzzy built-in speakers that enabled us to jam loudly wherever we liked. But fun times and a good band wasn’t all I’d signed up for, and between concerts I had plenty time to think about what had happened since my return to London. My commercial standing was at an all-time low and at the end of the campaign I’d be dropped by the record company for the first time in my career, of that I was sure. The last vestiges of the aura that had surrounded me and The Waterboys for ten or twelve years were gone like so much smoke and vapour. I was nowhere, man.

  I’d turned my Findhorn experiences into songs and forged ’em onto records, figuring there was a world out there of people hungry for the things I’d found. But either there wasn’t, or I’d failed to do it in a way that reached them. Or perhaps my timing was wrong and in this cockeyed era people only wanted entertainment, not some fucker philosophising or questing. Or maybe the tunes simply weren’t good enough. Whatever, I’d offered up my wares and the buffs weren’t buying. There was a kind of grief involved. I felt scoured and empty, insubstantial, as if I wasn’t fully in the world anymore. After Findhorn the mainstream world didn’t appear quite real to me, and I wondered now if I didn’t seem quite real to it. The community and its blue northern skies hung on the horizon of my mind like a towering backdrop, a life I could step back into in a heartbeat. Should I retreat there and immerse myself again in the mystery school?

  But no. In December, two days after the last show of the tour, Janette and I were married in Chelsea Registry Office, and that Christmas my heart and my wife told me to stay in the game, that there was some drama yet to play out. And I still had an eye on the glimmer of a new recording home. After a London show in October Alan McGee had said, ‘It’s inevi’able ye’ll come tae Creation, man.’ I was eager to join my benefactor there and counted down the weeks till the expiry of my Chrysalis contract.

  The great day arrived in March 1998. The confirmation of my release from Chrysalis came through and I sat down to call McGee. I hadn’t heard from Alan in a couple of months, which was kind of odd, but I figured he must be busy and we’d had spells of not being in touch before. I dialled his office. His secretary answered and said he wasn’t available so I left a message: ‘Would Alan call me please. Mike Scott. He knows the number.’ After a few days I hadn’t heard anything so I called again and got the same answer. I left another message. A few days later I called a third time. McGee picked up the phone. ‘Alan, I’m free from Chrysalis!’ I told him, and there was an awkward silence, four or five seconds which told me all I needed to know.

  Not signing to Alan meant the end of our creative relationship, though not, in time, of our friendship. Meanwhile, with no more touring, the band dissolved. Boots returned to the ’Pool and Fingers to Dublin, Razors and Dugmore to the life of the London session musician. I would work with them all again, but for the moment and for as far as I could see I was on my own. Unable to afford the house on Lansdowne Road anymore, Janette and I rented a semi-detached on a suburban street in Kew, on the western edges of London, and I began to begin all over again.

  Chapter 18: A Man With A Fiddle And A Dog At Number 12a

  The taxi drives down the main street of Sligo and I look out the window scouring the pavements for a glimpse of Steve Wickham. I haven’t seen Steve since he moved here a few years ago but I’ve heard he’s been kicked out by his second wife, might even be sleeping rough, and I’ve come here on something of a mercy mission. But there’s no sign of my old friend on the streets, so I stop the taxi at the best place to begin a search for a fiddler: the town’s music pub, a colourful hole in the wall called Shoot The Crows. The pub has just opened, and there’s an intoxicating smell of beer and old wood. Shafts of sun fall through the window and the ghost of a breeze blows from an open door somewhere at the back. A young barman pops up from under the counter and I can tell by his double take that he recognises me. ‘Do you know where I’ll find Steve Wickham?’ I ask, and he replies, ‘Oh, he’s staying out in Rathbraughan. He’ll be glad to see you, I can tell you that.’ There’s an understated edge to his voice which confirms my information that Steve’s in some kind of trouble. A few more questions establish that Rathbraughan is a modern housing estate at the butt-end of town but the barman doesn’t have an address for my friend or even a street name. All I can do is go and knock on doors.

  I get back in the taxi and five minutes later, after a slalom through the higgledy-piggledy streets of Sligo’s Northside, the cabbie drops me off at the entrance to a depressed estate. I stand on the roadside and register the scene: identical terraced houses in every direction, bleak December fields in the semi-distance. I’m wondering where to start when I see a woman coming out of a house. ‘Excuse me,’ I say, ‘do you know where Steve Wickham the fiddle player lives?’ She looks back at me and in a no-nonsense country accent says, ‘Well now, I’ve heard there’s a man with a fiddle and a dog at number 12a’ and points up the street. I walk in the direction indicated and after fifty yards I find number 12a, a shabby house with an unkempt garden. I stand on the pavement trying to imagine my friend in this unlikely place, then stride up the path and knock on the door. Through the frosted glass I make out the dark shape of a man approaching and the door opens to divulge a dodgy-looking bloke with a thick beard and suspicious deep-sunk eyes. I’m thinking it might be the wrong house when to my amazement I notice the bloke’s wearing Steve’s old s
tage waistcoat, a once-fabulous black, red and gold embroidered garment worn at a hundred shows from Hammersmith to Hollywood, now faded and torn, hanging dolefully from this guy’s slightly hunched cadaverous frame. My mind grasps for explanations. Maybe Steve’s so broke he’s had to sell his old stage gear; maybe this weirdo’s done some deal with Steve, giving him room and board in return for getting to wear his clothes. All this flits through my mind in one surreal slow-motion second before the scrambled picture comes suddenly, shockingly into focus and I realise the stranger is Steve.

  What had happened to The Fellow Who Fiddles? When he left The Waterboys in August 1990, Steve hitched up with some old Dublin mates in a country & western band called The Texas Kellys, playing show band-type gigs up and down Ireland. This was a mystery to me and to a lot of other people too. I’d expected Steve to walk into another top band or form his own; a psychedelic folk-rave combo, perhaps, or a neo-trad ensemble pushing the boundaries of Celtic music. But no, he dropped down several divisions of the rock’n’roll league to join a semi-pro band of Dublin journeymen going nowhere. Had the black night of the soul that followed the breakup of his marriage scuppered Steve’s image of himself as a musical force? Or did he just not want the pressure anymore?

  Steve stuck with The Texas Kellys for a couple of years and played on their only record, an EP called Stay All Night. The cover showed the band wearing cowboy hats and sitting on the edge of what looked like a slagheap, with Steve spaced off a little way to the side as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether he was in the band or out. The Kellys played well but their world was a far cry from the professional one Steve had inhabited with The Waterboys. Their modus operandi was to drive five or six hours to the gig, pick up a couple of girls in the audience and persuade them to let the band crash on their floor. If this gambit didn’t work, their roadie would drive the band back to Dublin through the night, struggling to stay awake, a crash only a moment’s slumber away.