by Bob Spitz
It was the breakthrough the band had needed, and immediately they began to work these outbursts into the act. Songs were suddenly larded with physical surges and thrusts. An emphatic spin or kick accented every beat. Once agonizingly inert, the Beatles now leaped off the stage in bursts of manic exhilaration. They were in perpetual motion, and in no time they transformed their sorry sets into something primitive and exciting. And that’s all it took to turn the corner. Word spread quickly around St. Pauli that the Beatles were all the rage, and crowds thronged the Indra to check out the newest British import. Imitating Derry and the Seniors’ high-tension act, they’d started playing what Pete Best referred to as “powerhouse music,” which was basically a selection of all-out rockers with the volume cranked up for effect (and the bass turned down for cover), underscored by a palpitating bass-drum beat and frisky stage pranks. “After a few weeks, you could barely move in the place, it was so jammed” recalls Johnny Byrne. “The heat was terrific, everyone smoked, drank. Everyone was having a blast. There was a real sense that something incredible was going down.”
Watching greedily from the sidelines, Bruno Koschmider could barely contain his delight. Not only had the Beatles succeeded in drawing good crowds, they had established a direct link for audiences between the Indra and the Kaiserkeller. They’d plug Derry down the street, and crowds would gravitate to that show—and vice versa. It was impossible to go to one without being aware of the other. A Hamburg teenager who spent his weekends in St. Pauli found it “possible to pass the whole night going from the Kaiserkeller to the Indra without the need for other entertainment…. There was no place else in the district that offered such an exciting selection of live music.”
And it was nonstop. The scene demanded it. When people strolled by, looking from place to place, their decision whether or not to go into a club was based largely on the music blaring from the doorway. There was no food served in either of the clubs. According to one frequent visitor, “Eating wasn’t part of the equation. You went in there to get pissed, dance, and pick up chicks.” The music had to be loud and hot; otherwise, a potential customer would continue on. That meant working at a brutal pace and pitch, sort of “a baptism by fire,” according to Bill Harry. Even though there were breaks planted at forty-five-minute intervals, there was really never any letdown until well after two in the morning. And the breaks, as they discovered, were merely breathers. There was hardly enough time to recharge, no civilized place to rest. At best, the boys would sit slumped at the bar, uninterrupted by drunken patrons, sipping a fifty-pfennig beer,* or they’d run around the corner for a frikadella—a greasy meat-and-onion patty that they lived on for weeks on end. There was never time for a proper meal—or enough money. The prices in St. Pauli had been jacked up to fleece the tourists. “Besides,” as Howie Casey recalls, “the first week you spent all your money right away and realized you couldn’t afford to eat.” When possible, the bands crowded into a booth at Wienerwald, a cheap deli featuring rotisserie chickens that they shared, or went to Schmu Goos on Schmuckstrasse, which was “a Chinese place that did workingman’s food”; for a few pfennigs, they’d gobble down a big bowl of soup with a roll that would have to hold them for an entire day—or longer.
Adrenaline was an even bigger headache. After a long night’s work jackknifing across a stage to endless wild applause, the boys were so pumped up that it usually took several hours to reach a state where they were calm enough to drift off. (That is, if they weren’t hunting up a party or hanging out in an all-night bar.) Often they didn’t get to sleep until four or five in the morning, and even then it was an unpleasant prospect.
Their accommodations were appalling—even worse than the Seniors’. With utter indifference, Koschmider had stashed the boys, like props, in abject old storage rooms at the back of a run-down cinema he owned at the bottom of the Grosse Freiheit. The Bambi Kino, as it was known, showed dubbed German-language two-reelers practically twenty-four hours a day, old gangster movies and westerns that were streaked and pitted from use. At one time, before the war, the place had functioned as a legitimate theater, but that time was long past, and the once-swank appointments were beat up and decrepit. Their rooms, in a corridor behind the screen, had fared no better—“filthy, dirty, and disgusting” cubicles without windows or proper beds. John, Stuart, and George shared a cell fitted with a camp bed and sofa. Farther down the hall, past the urinal and just off the fire exit, Paul and Pete had adjoining rooms—“the black holes of Calcutta,” as they called them—without any lights, to say nothing of facilities or heat. “It was freezing cold in there,” recalls Johnny Byrne, who visited the Beatles often during their stay in St. Pauli. “We’d knock for them at the side door of the Bambi Kino, and John would answer, standing there in a pair of grandad long johns and a button-down vest. It was too cold for us to hang around, just too bitter and damp, and impossible to have a conversation with the German dialogue booming from the cinema.”
But the Beatles were rarely in their rooms. They spent virtually all their spare time at Bruno Koschmider’s two clubs, either performing or fine-tuning arrangements to help tighten the act. On the face of things, this might have seemed relatively ordinary, but it was unique to the impetuous nature of a rock ’n roll band and just one of the many distinctions that contributed to the Beatles’ prodigious success. Exceptionally conscientious about expanding their appeal, they worked as painstakingly as engineers, constructing a set of songs needed to engage the fitful crowds. It didn’t take long for them to hit on a surefire formula: volume. It got people off. More than anyone so far, the Beatles realized that the function of a bar band wasn’t to promote artistry, expand the musical genre, or even entertain. Bar bands really weren’t performers in the conventional sense, but rather were agitators, and as such they had far more in common with the touts than with show business. From their opening chords, the Beatles let it rip. All-out rockers soon filled every minute of the set. Thanks to Paul’s high, unyielding voice, a barn burner like “Long Tall Sally” could ignite an edgy house, with each successive number arranged to ratchet up the emotional heat. He and John combined on a steady string of rockers: “Johnny B. Goode,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” “Bony Maronie,” “C’mon Everybody,” “Rock and Roll Music,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy,” which set a blazing pace.
Most of their songs lasted two and a half or three minutes at the most, making it possible to exhaust maybe twenty songs in a typical set. In the beginning, they often found themselves short a song at the end of a set, forcing the hasty relaunch of, say, “Johnny B. Goode.” Chances are, the crowd never even noticed or, at the least, didn’t mind—but it disheartened the band. They considered it a mark of amateurism, feared that it dulled their competitive edge. So even though they were already overworked, the Beatles devoted hours on end to rehearsing. Most afternoons they met at the Indra, giving the songs a real workout, packing each measure with rhythmic tension and pulling out all the stops, to ensure that the material was hot. But like the Seniors, they soon grew tired of rehearsing each afternoon, instead expanding what songs they already knew into long drawn-out jams. One night they walked up to the Kaiserkeller and watched in awe as the Seniors ate up an entire set with a vapid romp called “Rock with the Seniors,” which was nothing more than a twelve-bar blues riff with shifting rhythmic patterns and no lyric to speak of; every so often, one of the musicians would shout, “Rock with the Seniors!” giving it a kind of “hey-ba-ba-re-bop” holler to hold the pudding together. “What’d I Say,” more than anything else, became what Paul called their trusty “show song.” Paul recalled: “We used to work the hell out of it… kept it going for hours and hours.” And every night it took on a different shape, by either substituting their own lyrics or vamping on the bridge; it could—and often did—take off in a number of directions, perilously close to falling apart at any moment, which made it so exciting to watch. The same occurred with “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On,” a rol
licking tour de force, which could last a good half hour. By mid-September the Beatles had turned a corner. A dancer could walk out of the Indra, go across the street for a pack of cigarettes—or a screw—and still, whenever he got back, catch the same song running.
Upon arriving in Hamburg, the Beatles felt an impulse to appear “professional,” which in England meant well groomed. Eager to look the part, they had taken dress cues from the natty Johnny Gentle, who had impressed upon them the importance of “looking sharp” onstage, and in their own way the Beatles proffered a version of sartorial grace. Dressed in matching lilac-colored sport coats draped over black shirts with a silver stripe on the collar, black slacks, and clay-colored, imitation-crocodile, pointy-toed shoes, or winkle-pickers, they looked more like a Cuban nightclub act. Pete Best, who—perhaps mercifully—joined too late to benefit from the sporty makeover, came up with his own black attire and an Italian navy blue jacket, which put him in the general vicinity of their inelegance.
To their credit, the band never felt self-conscious in the suits, but after playing in them seven nights a week—sweating buckets in them, stretching them out, ripping them, punishing them—the inevitable happened: they began to stink and give way at the seams. In place of proper tailoring, the Beatles took them to the Indra’s bathroom attendant, a stocky, sixty-year-old woman named Rosa Hoffman, known to one and all as simply “Mutti,” who made emergency repairs during intermissions. But eventually that, too, proved futile, as in no time the fabric had decomposed and the matching clothes “went by the board.”
New suits were out of the question. There wasn’t enough money to spare and, anyway, the whole image suddenly seemed tired—especially in Hamburg, where the dress code reached new levels of informality. Thanks to Tony Sheridan, who had always gone his own way, the Beatles were introduced to the Texas Shop, at the top of the Reeperbahn, where they found sleek black leather bomber jackets—Luftwaffe, in this case—and hand-stitched cowboy boots. It was exactly the dark, uncompromising image they’d been looking for—part rebel, part street tough, and wholly in tune with the hard-driving music they were playing. Except for Pete, who preferred to play in shirtsleeves, they each bought an outfit and wore them onstage that same night, making an immediate impression.
The new look showed the influence of the more hard-nosed American performers, Gene Vincent in particular. Moreover, their haircuts (or lack thereof) refined this image—a longer, fuller style that crept over their collars and shook loose during long, raucous jams, but not so long that it would induce hostility, let alone an uproar. The Seniors took notice of the changes but didn’t know what to make of them at first. “We thought they were a pretty scruffy bunch,” recalls Howie Casey, who, along with Derry Wilkie, initially rejected the Beatles’ streetlike approach. But within days, the Seniors felt awkward in their “cheap, junky suits with bagged-out knees and the asses all slack,” so, says Casey, “we bought jeans and stuff rather than fight what we must have known was the coming trend.”
Somehow the new incarnation motivated the Beatles to play even harder, if that were even possible. They really turned it on—and up—squeezing all they could out of the two tiny Truvoices that pumped out their sound. It wasn’t unusual for Pete Best to crawl into place behind his drum set, only to have John or Paul whisper, “Crank it up, Pete, we’re really going for it tonight.” Neighbors complained about the noise, which seemed preposterous, considering the district’s reputation. But because of the Indra’s secluded location, on the perimeter of the Grosse Freiheit, there were residents within earshot. Girlie shows hadn’t disrupted their lives, but the din of rock ’n roll posed real problems.
Normally, Koschmider would have ignored the complaints or used his influence with the police to have them quashed. But the neighbors were mostly elderly, not the least of whom was a widow who lived upstairs and claimed that the music was making her sick. Reluctantly, Bruno ordered the Beatles to tone things down—the “most absurd request they’d ever heard.” No one took it seriously enough to reduce the volume. But the requests, friendly at first, turned intense. Day after day, the police fielded increasing complaints and leaned on Koschmider to comply. Finally, Koschmider had had enough, and in one audacious stroke he closed the Indra.
Ordinarily, this would have spelled doom for the Beatles, but Koschmider wasn’t about to lose his new star attraction. (Besides, they had a month left on their contract.) Instead, he offered the young Liverpudlians the opportunity to share the Kaiserkeller stage. They could alternate sets with Derry and the Seniors, who had another week left on their contract. Koschmider outlined the plan to John, hoping to convince the Beatles of its merits, but it proved an easy sell. The Kaiserkeller meant a bigger stage, better sound, wilder crowds, and, hopefully, lighter hours. As far as John and the Beatles were concerned, they were movin’ on up.
In fact, it was the beginning of the end.
[III]
Dismissing Rory Storm in the early sixties was easy. Unlike the performances of Kingsize Taylor or the Big Three (the reconfigured Cassanovas, sans Cass), the Hurricanes were all flash, with none of the slashing intensity that raised the other bands’ emotional stakes another notch or two. They weren’t exquisitely disciplined like Gerry and the Pacemakers or rhythmically precise like Derry and the Seniors. Although Rory was dubbed “Mr. Showmanship” by local promoters, evidence suggests that his shows were forgettable, the band a muddle of instrumentation. George Harrison, writing from Hamburg, dismissed the Hurricanes in a single word: “crumby.” Rory, he reported, “does a bit of dancing around but it still doesn’t make up for his phoney group.” (“The only person who is any good in the group,” George noted, “was the drummer,” a wiry, bearded lad named Ringo.)
Even so, from the moment they arrived to replace the Seniors, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were treated like outright stars. A sign outside the Kaiserkeller heralded their engagement in large, striking letters, with a postscript—“und the Beatles”—buried feebly below. By all accounts, they were paid more than either the Beatles or the Seniors and were given greater flexibility. They also inherited Derry’s living quarters at the side of the Kaiserkeller stage.
To the Beatles’ credit, the billing mattered naught. Nor were they concerned with the material perks, content that, come what may, they could “blow these guys off the stage.” They actually liked the Hurricanes, having often spent hours in Liverpool with them, hanging out, bullshitting in the Storms’—or rather, Caldwells’—crowded parlor. Stormsville (as Rory insisted on calling his home) was Liverpool Central to the local musicians. Vi Caldwell, or Ma Storm, as she called herself, kept Paul in cigarettes when he was broke, which was nearly always, and made John and George “chick butties”—chicken and butter sandwiches, a Scouser staple. George had casually dated Rory’s sister, Iris, considered “the prettiest girl in the neighborhood,” since 1959, and for a brief time later Paul would court her in a more serious way. Each of the Hurricanes was regarded fondly by the Beatles. Charles “Ty Brien” O’Brien and Wally “Lu Walters” Egmond, who played lead and bass, respectively, were amiable guys and a wellspring of new songs, having introduced “Fever” and “Summertime” to the communal repertoire. Johnny Byrne talked incessantly about rock ’n roll, and John, Paul, and George listened: the more obscure and esoteric the topic, the more enthusiastically they responded. They were friendly, even flattering, toward Rory; moreover, John, who relished tormenting anyone with the slightest handicap, resisted repeated opportunities to ridicule the severely stuttering Rory. In fact, the only Hurricane who eluded the young Beatles (aside from George) was Rory’s drummer, the hound-faced, self-mocking jester from the Dingle named Ritchie Starkey, whom the band fondly called Ringo.
From the opening night on October 4, 1960, the two bands commandeered the Kaiserkeller stage with a red-hot, rough-and-tumble force. For more than seven uninterrupted hours, the bands churned out a string of high-octane rockers that left the capacity crowds in a sweaty, beer-soaked fren
zy. “Every night was another amazing jam fest,” recalls Byrne. “The music got everyone so cranked up and the whole place just shook, like Jell-O. It was a solid mass of bodies. You couldn’t see through the smoke. Fights would break out on the dance floor or in the seats, and these huge glasses would be flying every which way. The bouncers all had truncheons. If there was a sailor on the floor, you’d see them lay into him, kicking him. And Koschmider would run up, screaming: ‘Don’t stop the music! Play on!’ ”
And play on they did. Every night it got louder and longer—seven o’clock in the evening until five in the morning. “Marathon sessions,” as the two bands mutually termed them, with a “very friendly rivalry” serving to fatten the stakes. If Rory delivered a solid rendering of “Blue Suede Shoes,” John countered with his own crack version; Wally would warble “September’s Song” and Paul would squeeze the sap out of “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin.” One of the Hurricanes recalls how Paul threw them a curve one night by belting out “Bama Lama Bama Loo.” “It was such an incredible number, it just buried us,” he says. “We spent the entire next day at a record store in Hamburg trying to come up with something powerful enough to top that.” There was no letup—and no downtime. If a musician needed a bathroom break or got dehydrated and stopped for a sip of water, Koschmider angrily waved him back onstage, demanding a full ensemble at all times, as stipulated in their contract. “I pay five men!” he’d shout, turning red in the face. “Mach Schau! Mach Schau!”
“It got very funny out there, very fast,” says Johnny Byrne, who helped ignite the appreciable hijinks. “I used to egg John on and he’d swear down the mike, in English, assuming the audience couldn’t understand him. He’d say, ‘Go on, you fucking Krauts, you fucking ignorant German bastards!’ It was all we could do not to piss ourselves.” Other nights Paul performed in a bedsheet. Emboldened, George draped an old, yellowed toilet seat around his neck and goose-stepped across the boards. Word spread through Hamburg that the Beatles were verrückt—crazy—their shows insanely unpredictable. In a moment of typical abandon, John paraded jauntily onstage in a pair of “scabby” swimming trunks, selecting a choice moment to moon the unsuspecting audience. According to Pete Best, “There was a stunned silence, then the place erupted… [with] people banging bottles on the tables, jumping up and down.”