by Ian Hunter
To my knowledge I have never been disrespectful, rude or uncivil in any way to a man of any colour unless he's had a go at me first. I’m English - a visitor in America, and too young to be in any way to blame for any grudges these guys might have. Even if their grudges are justified, and I know many of them are, that is no excuse for a cab driver not giving a traveller a ride who is a visitor to his country. If he's a cabby, that’s his job, and I state here and now these guys were ignorant bastards who practised what they've always been against, every chance they got. Fuck ‘em, I’d rather walk next time around. I play fucking music, that's universal, it doesn't know barriers and if all the world were musicians, there would be less trouble. These twats aggravate the problem just as much as their equally ignorant white opposites, and I want no part of it!
I write this at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and the hotel is a Hilton. The first I've ever been in, and it’s too expensive. We’re here because the Holiday Inn will not take our travel agent’s credit. Come to that, it's just like a Holiday Inn, same lay-out, only better wallpaper and furniture. As I write, the newsreel tells of a new Boston strangler who strangles hitch-hiking co-eds, and now the attorney of the original killer (who is now serving a life sentence) is trying to get the case re-opened.
Buff’s in the next bed, and Stan's across the way with Dick. Dick, Ritchie and Phil got in an hour ago after a hazardous drive in the wagon. Pete lords it in his single room. He’s fluked a magnificent room with a bed twice the ordinary double size, a three-piece suite, tables etc.
Three lonely groupies hang around downstairs waiting for a chance to get up here, and my fingers get stiffer and stiffer clutching Buff’s biro. I’d better stop now before writer’s cramp becomes a reality. Trudy’s moaning on the phone because I didn't ring earlier (typical) and I think of Solveig and Saucer, and our little flat in Wembley. I wonder if Bill's fixed my Anglia. In a vain attempt to cease the piss-taking by certain Mustang owners in the group I'm getting it sprayed black and gold and having big tyres fitted. Tara for now.
Wednesday, 13 December 1972
3 p.m. on a freezing Wednesday afternoon and I open the curtain to a city which could easily find a home in mid Germany. Everything in various shades of grey. Smoke-belching chimneys in the distance; even the tiny walk through the park immediately below is turned grey by the dull snow. A dozen lit Christmas trees stand sentry around a small statue of a child. The cinema across the street is showing Lady Sings the Blues. Motor City is no longer Motown City, Berry Gordy having moved over to a sunny L.A. to pursue MoWest operations.
Mick thinks there may be a few pawned guitars owing to unemployment so we’re all ready to go when Stan says a bloke is coming from Cream magazine at 3. It's after that now, and he still is not here so Mick’s hanging on and if he doesn't get here by 3:30 we’ll go out anyway.
Lord Watts wanders in from his palatial suite demanding money with menaces off Stan. Phally sits on the bed im passively munching a bright shiny apple and refusing to do anything.
Well 3:30 comes and still no Ben from Creem so Mick, Pete and I climb in a cab and go to a shop called Sams that Mick fished out of the Yellow Pages.
Sams is your typical pawn shop - gaily painted front, cheap guitars in the windows, plus guns, rings (all types of jewellery) radios. T.V.s. generators, garden and engineering tools, huge tool boxes, massive spanners, hammers - up the top end the desk where you pawn is surrounded by mesh to hold off maniacs. In this shop a while ago 16 bullets were fired killing a policeman, a black and injuring others. Just before you reach the mesh, you turn right and up on a high shelf Fenders, Epiphones, Gibson's etc., all the best are there. The man that shows us the stuff is nice, but the mood changes as we haggle for low prices and they keep them too high. Neither side is reasonable and finally the owner says ‘Fuck off’.
‘Fuck off back to England.’
‘Er, we bought a Junior here last time.’
‘You offered $15 for that Silvertone?’
[Mick] ‘Yes.’
‘Fuck off back to England.’
We fucked off back to the cab instead and found another shop down a couple of blocks. The cabby says this place is worse. He gets his hair cut at the barber’s next door and his barber says this bloke's the biggest shark in Detroit. Two guitars in the window, a Kalamazoo and a Junior.
[Mick] ‘How much for the Junior?’
‘A hundred.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘If you mean business you can have a look.’
‘The back’s off the electrics.’
‘$80.’
‘I’ll take it.’
‘$83.50 with tax.’
Thus old jammy Ralpher netted a £200 guitar for about £33 plus he'll have to pay half again on the way back, customs duty, but that still only makes it £50 in all. I can see Sid Bishop’s little eyes gleaming in Top Gear, but Mick will probably keep it. Pete and I get a good deal too, a couple of acoustic Gibsons, the old type with no cutaways and F holes complete with Les Paul Junior pickup for $75 each. I wonder what Sid will think of these. (Well you know how it is Ian - we can't sell them, they'll hang there for ages - No really, they'll have to be dirt cheap. Bob will tell you isn't that right Bob‘? They‘ll hang there, right.) Old Batesly round at Orange is just the same. Money fiends, but they’re nice with it. I always promise myself if I get a guitar I don’t want I’ll sell it privately, but I never can get to do this - I always wind up arguing with Sid!
‘MOTT THE HOOPLE HIT DETROIT AND BROUGHT OUT EVERY FUNGOID IN TOWN THROUGH NO FAULT OF THEIR OWN. IT WAS ONE OF THE GREAT CONCERTS OF THE YEAR. EVEN THE AUDIENCE WAS GREAT, GREAT LINES.’ - L.B., Dec. '72.
So said Lester Bangs, the guy who gave us our all-time write up, the review in Fusion 1969 on the first Mott the Hoople album. You can think, ‘What the fuck, Ian got pissed and didn’t write about the Detroit gig,‘ but I left it to someone more experienced than myself. The room's full of people and I’m listening. The gig was good. I don’t want to bullshit, the gig was good - that’s it. . . .
Buff just came in with Karen and I’m too pissed to take the hint - sorry Buff. Out of the right corner of my eye I count 210 lights and on my left, a colour T.V. tells me Johnny Carson’s got it all together. So Budweisers sit on Buff’s bed undrunk, and I'm about to attempt the impossible - groovy baby - I’m drunk, forget it. . . . No that's not true.
In 1969 Mott, among a few others, brought Friars to its feet in Aylesbury and a. cult built up around Dave Stopps (Friars promoter), Pete Frame and the light show. An’ they were the days. Bowie thinks he started Friars but Friars was years before his time.
Dave Stopps was, and still is, a good promoter. Of course, like Bill Graham he gets his share of criticism from the locals. Capitalist bastard, etc., but I wonder if Dave got done for bankruptcy, would the underground help him out. I doubt it.
1968 and 69 were good years from the British Clubs. New bands like Yes, ELP, Broughton, Free and ourselves were asking reasonable prices and queues formed for miles outside Friars, Cook’s Ferry, Marquee, Croydon Greyhound, The Roundhouse, Fishmonger‘s Arms, waiting to see their particular favourites perform. The buzz was in the air, it was like the early West Coast scene and the kids were eager, happy and alive with anticipation. Mott were underground then. Why I’ll never know, we weren't into drugs but somehow the freaks (sane as sane) related to us. We were green as grass, not too good but enthusiastic and Guy Stevens, our aid and mentor drove us on into the happy madness of streetkids making good. It was fun. Nothing to lose. It's different now. We flashed around when it wasn’t groovy to flash. The press didn’t like us, but what the fuck - we were having a ball. The American press liked us but it was a fluke. We just didn't know what we were and what we had. We know now and spend the majority of our time trying to get back to where we belong. Fuck stardom, but can we afford to? A rock band's life is equivalent to that of a footballer. You’ve got to take it while it's there. I’ve dug holes in the road, I know w
hat it's like.
I remember a kindly prospective employer - ‘And if you work five years you get this . . . and if you put in 10 years you get that . . . Syd over there (Syd being some kind of factory superstar) has been with us 45 years. Your pension scheme is this, we run a life insurance scheme so when (‘when’ not ‘if’) you die your family gets this. . . .
You ain't having my body and mind mate - they belong to me. I'd rather jump off a fuckin' bridge.
Maybe we're not God's gift to rock and roll bands, but certain people love us, and I appreciate that - I won't ever forget it. This is Budweiser talk. Trudy - where are you. Scratch my back and bring me back to normal! Nancy was here tonight and you'll be angry when I ring you, but I was a good lad. Nancy was sad - I'll always remember her as being the sad one, and she was good, no matter how she fought it. Her mother and father were the last generation of U.S. bread opportunists. The people that said, ‘My kids won't have to fight like I did.’ That’s what fucked them up in the 60s and 70s - not rock and roll - dig?
Thursday, 14 December 1972
Well in the light of day I survey the damage. Buff can’t stand up and is packing from a crawling position. I've got the shakes and if this is what an alcoholic feels like first thing in the morning he can keep it. I refuse to read what I wrote last night. The thing that saddens me is that I've no fuckin’ will-power. I don't eat for three days to slim and then I drink like a fish for a couple of nights and ruin the whole idea. There’s crates of the stuff all over the place - where did it come from? Loads of Budweiser and we haven't even got room for a can in the cases.
I have got to eat. Downstairs in the coffee bar Buff and I order poached eggs, toast, bacon and very large orange juices. Gradually, my bones start to function and nerves come into being.
Two English pilots sit next to us and talk of gardening and a mate of theirs who’s working hard on a little café in Surrey. We didn’t interrupt the conversation, but it was nice eaves- dropping. Good old England. A word about the lobbies in American hotels. There’s a few in every party who always have to wait for the remainder to turn up and while you are waiting you are subjected to the same treatment every time. It’s so boring and bloody infuriating. What happens is the guy and his wife come in and stare blatantly. They’re so intent on looking at you (and, face it, we've been around for years now - hairies). They don’t realize you can see them too. The woman (this painted atrocity with bright red lips, stained teeth, beehive lacquered hair job and fake fur) shoves her painted paw somewhere in the direction of that all-American 48-year-old female mouth (trying to cover it - but it's impossible) and whispers in her partner’s ear. This happens right in front of you and then our rimless, beglassed embarrassingly obese lump of pastrami (breath comes too) giggles nervously straight at you. In England they have slightly more tact - I mean they do it behind your back so you don't get narked at what you don’t see. But these fuckers have no finesse - they do it right there in front of you. Most of the time, if you are in the mood, you stare back hard and their eyes sort of wander off and away they go. Sometimes, just for fun, I‘ve gone up to them and said something like, ‘What are you looking at?’ Now you might think this is a yob thing to do but they’re yobs, so I say it and their whole bodies change. The guy transforms into what he is officially, ‘C’mon Hester, we don’t have to talk to this guy.’ And all of a sudden he's big and strong and masculine and she's just so right - they’re all nobodies.
And now I'm on my way to Texas on a Branif with what has got to be the worst air hostess in the business. I like Branif - they’ve painted mad colours as if some eccentric billionaire airline-owner just has a bit of fun, but this bird is ruining the whole thing. I was writing a little earlier and she comes up.
‘Sir, put your bags under the seat. All these bags must go.’
I carried on writing.
‘Sir! Did you hear me?’
‘Yes, I heard you.’
‘Well you did not say yes or no so I assumed you did not.’
[Thinks, bollocks.] I hate bossy little farts; especially about 2 p.m., it’s very early and I don’t feel well. Then she comes again and tells some l4-year-old kid off for the same thing. She‘s right in what she’s saying but her attitude is unbelievable. I couldn't help it. ‘Fuck off you old bag.’ I didn't think she'd heard me but she must have heard something because she stomped back down the aisle like an enraged dwarf, frustrated by her size.
‘What's that you said?’
‘Look, what the fuck are you, a school teacher or something? There’s no need for this drama.’
‘Right!’
Off she goes, maybe to get me slung off or something. We don’t see her again so she must have been transferred to another compartment. God help the poor bloke who gets lumbered with that. Birds who come on like that need a good punching. It’s the only way to keep them quiet and it knocks some sense into their stupid, thick heads.
Ah, peace at last. Stan's got Mick’s hat on again and sits to my right; Buff’s in front, Phally and Stu beyond. Pete's behind and I can see Zee too. I like Zee, he said he’ll fix my velvet pants (they’ve gone again). Lee's somewhere around (dirty sod, I couldn't believe him last night), and Tony's sitting in the first-class section. Perhaps he’s thinking of how he’s going to make us stars. He’s got a job. I mean I want to be a star, but I keep thinking we're just ordinary blokes and we don't have the killer instinct. I can't keep myself composed continually like Bowie does. It’s like keeping your stomach in - mine flops out occasionally.
I can't see Mick, but he's here somewhere. I saw him in the limo, so unless he escaped at the airport, he must be here. There's a huge tyre in Detroit which I always remember when I see the MC5. It's on Edsel Ford and you pass it on the freeway to the local airport. Today it had a hole in it and you could see the scaffolding inside. I always wondered how they got it to stand up. The top of it was covered in snow.
They've just given us some food which is bloody awful. Branif aren't as good as they used to be. Still, don't think they're as bad as United.
The gig tonight is dodgy. People keep changing the bill around. Originally the Supremes and Fats Domino were on, but they've disappeared mysteriously and now we're playing with It's a Beautiful Day and Spirit (which Spirit I don't know). Quicksilver have been on and off the bill like a yo-yo, but at the moment they're on too. When you start hearing things like this you almost know it's going to be a farce. So, Tony and the roadies will go and see if it’s possible to do a decent gig. Trouble is, it’s a lot of bread and we need the money after the long layoff in New York. Maybe it'll turn out flukey great.
There's a grey field below and a grey sky above. We're flying 29,000 feet up and in the distance the clouds build up like mountains and you'd swear it was a different planet if you were here. It was great meeting Lester Bangs. I've always wanted to see him since that Fusion write up. That article was so true it’s frightening. He doesn't like the new album though. He likes us to rock more, but I tell him this is what we'll do on the next one. Apparently he bores the arse of everybody, raving about the Rolling Stones. I know the feeling Lester, I do the same. To me, the Stones are the best rock ‘n roll band in the world. They live it; they are it. Long live the Stones. Nuf said.
That hostess is now chatting away to a guy in first class. Eyebrows raised, hands going - really being the ace hostess to get her little ego back and prove to herself she's not what I said she was; but she is and she knows it and I know it. I wonder what she’s saved up to say to me when we get off the plane. She can win if she likes, I'm saying nothing.
Bloody hell, that flight was dodgy. Fog most of the way and you couldn't see where you were going. We landed O.K. though, and another gaudy, rude, bright plane stands next to our equally rude blue one - that's a real bit of Texas for you. They don’t mess around with colours, just slap it on as loud as possible.
Texas in the rain is nowhere near Texas in the sun and Dallas looks like any other midwestern city as we
weave our way through the trafflic to yet another Hilton hotel. It's alright travelling with Tony, all the best places, and these are the mad days, out of proportion. Fuck proportion. It's in league with logic and all those other barbed wire words. Phally and I sit in the foyer bemused. The ceiling is high and a giant Christmas tree stands right in front of us. Red balls, red swallows, red empty presents and the whole thing sprayed with instant snow.
Room 517, Stan having chased his hat (it doesn't seem to be Mick’s anymore) for about 100 yards slightly out of control. He gives me 605 and Phally 517 and tells us we're sharing. That problem is ironed out and here I sit at 6 p.m.
Zee came up and took my velvet pants away to be fixed; he‘s really nice, goes out of his way to help. Lee comes in to say the gig is officially off. It's total chaos down there and would do us more harm than good. Bit of a drag because the only gig in town is the one we're supposed to be doing, and if we go to watch the other bands, the promoter will probably shoot us for not gigging. Phally lays on the bed listening to a tape of last night. The sound's good; so’s the audience. This is your average hotel room; I won’t bother to explain it to you but the hotel has only 10 storeys. Contrary to what you hear, everything ain't all that big in Texas. But Texas to me is America, like the America I always had fantasies about.
So what's Dallas got that anywhere else hasn't got? The first house ever built here is still on display, but it’s been ‘restored’ and is called the Restored John Neely Bryan Cabin and was originally built in November of I841, and that's about it. Country and western enthusiasts would no doubt call in at the BD Jamboree at Cadz, the Levee 5615 E. Mockingbird or the Longhorn Ballroom on Corinth Street. The main attraction of this town has been the Lee Harvey Oswald shooting of John F. Kennedy outside an old red-brick building across Elm Street as you look from a park. Memorials are everywhere to the man who captivated a nation, but the obvious American lust for the dollar knows no bounds and cards showing the exact spot where it happened have been doing a roaring trade for years now. The first time I was here three years ago I had to buy one to take home, it seemed to demonstrate what a whole book on the American way of life might not. The card's worth 10 cents.