I had met David Berson at UCLA, and we became good friends. He looked like a hippie Groucho Marx with his bottlebrush mustache, wild, unkempt hair, and a bent-over walk. He was researching the aging of potato tissue at a molecular level. I knew him as one-half of Crazy Horse, who contributed editorials to the Daily Bruin. After graduation he was hired by Warner Brothers Records in Burbank as the assistant to Mo Ostin, president of the label. As a primarily classical music fan with eccentric taste in rock music, his only qualification seemed to me that, as Ostin’s neighbor, he had babysat Ostin’s kids. David’s claim to fame was having made the deals to release the two worst-selling albums at the label, Richard Thompson’s Henry the Human Fly and Vivian Stanshall’s Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead. He told me to see Derek, and sent advance word of my arrival.
Although I used Derek’s office as a base, mostly to rest between appointments and to make calls, I saw little of him. One afternoon he introduced me to Legs Larry Smith, the colorful drummer of the Bonzo Dog Band, who would come out from behind his drums at least once a performance to tap dance. It was a small thrill for me, as the Bonzos were among my favorite bands. Larry told me he had a new group.
Mostly I would visit with Derek’s hospitable assistant, Mandi Newall. One afternoon she expressed her excitement over Alice Cooper’s forthcoming single, “Elected,” and played it for me. I liked it too. It sounded familiar, and I recognized it as the same song as “Reflected,” from the group’s Pretties For You album released three years earlier, with different lyrics.
The highlight of my first night in London was checking out the nearby Safeway. Supermarkets were a novelty in Britain, and I wanted to compare it to those in Los Angeles. It was similar, but the products were different, of course. Being on Los Angeles time, I didn’t get much rest my first night.
The next morning for breakfast, my eggs swimming in grease didn’t seem so sunny-side up to me. I’d never experienced that before, or the grilled tomato sitting on the plate. I was hungry, so I ate, and was ready to face my first full day in sunny London.
I walked down Goodge Street, singing Donovan’s “Sunny Goodge Street” on my way to Mortimer Street, home of United Artists Records. Displayed throughout the city were government-sponsored posters of T. Rex’s Marc Bolan reminding citizens to “Keep Britain Tidy.” This truly was a rock ’n’ roll city.
The publicists based in Hollywood had sent advance word for me to see Andrew Lauder, head of A&R for UA in London. He was a devotee of the San Francisco psychedelic scene of the 1960s, which was not in vogue at the time, and the hallway leading to his office was lined with framed posters of the era. Although soft-spoken, bald, and British, Andrew dressed like an American cowboy: boots, jeans, and bolo ties. At the label’s former location he even installed swinging saloon doors. A lot of this came from his fondness for The Charlatans, among the first and least successful of the San Francisco bands, who had a residency at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nevada, where they had dressed like Wild West gunslingers.
He didn’t use a desk, but a wooden dining room table. He entered his appointments and other notes into a large ledger. He was welcoming, and I used his office as a second base. I had to get used to some unfamiliar phrases: “Give me a bell,” phone me; “Call at half-twelve,” come by at 12:30. He introduced me to Richard Ogden, head of their press office. I learned that in the UK it was the “press office;” in the US the comparable department was “publicity.”
Andrew was excited about a local power trio, the Groundhogs. Over the course of my stay, Andrew gave me the Groundhogs album with the foldout cover, Nervous on the Road, the new album by Brinsley Schwarz, and Rebel Trouser, an EP (for extended play, shorter than an LP) by ex-Bonzo Dog Band member Roger Ruskin Spear. Andrew signed the Flamin’ Groovies, a San Francisco band whose previous three albums had failed to chart. He gave me a copy of their impressive “Slow Death” EP.
I had lunch and a beer at the Speakeasy Club. It was a press party for the release of Linda Lewis’ second album, Lark. Linda gave me a big, welcoming smile, but I was too shy to approach her. That night I took in my first West End play, Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers. I never saw plays in Los Angeles, but here the theaters were old, elegant, and accessible. Admission was cheap, too. A seat in the upper circle went for two or three pounds. I briefly nodded off, but enjoyed that portion of the play for which I remained awake.
I had envisioned an extended stay, and thought about renting a furnished apartment, something I had done with friends my junior year at UCLA. I discovered that “flats” in London were hard to come by, and expensive. As three pounds (about eight dollars) a day was beyond my long-term budget, I knew I was not going to be staying in the hotel long. I lessened my burden by checking Mark’s guitar at the train station. I inquired about living accommodations at the nearby University of London, thinking that there would be availability in dormitories during the summer, and got a referral.
I took the London Underground, the world’s first underground railway, commonly referred to as “the Tube,” to the Elephant & Castle stop, which was south of the Thames River, and then a bus two miles down the Old Kent Road. Half a block down Rowcross Street was a collection of impermanent bungalows that passed for student housing. It was less than two pounds a night. I would have expected a school dorm to be on campus, or close by, but this wasn’t. It was a long way from where I wanted to be in the city, but I was relieved to have a place in my budget. I moved in the next day, a rainy Friday. My room didn’t have a radio or TV, but it did have an electric coil heater that had melted the ceiling.
On Saturday, I took up Badfinger on their offer and visited them at their house at 7 Park Avenue, a large mock Tudor in Golders Green, an upscale suburb in north London known for its large Jewish population. Tom Evans and Joey Molland were watching the Olympics on TV, broadcast live from Munich. The picture was outstanding, and that’s when I learned that the British broadcasting standard was different from and superior to that in the States. The games that year were marred by the trauma of eleven Israeli athletes kidnapped and then killed by Palestinian terrorists.
We then left for Apple Records in Tom’s two-seat Porsche. Joey squeezed in the back. Tom had purchased it used with the money he made as the cowriter (with Pete Ham) of “Without You.” Harry Nilsson covered it after hearing it on the group’s No Dice album, and had topped the charts earlier in the year in both Britain and the US.
We arrived at Apple, at 3 Saville Row, but it wasn’t the familiar site shown in the Let It Be movie. Because of neglect, the building had deteriorated and was being renovated, and Apple’s business offices had moved elsewhere. We walked through the basement, past the recording studio, in disarray. Tom and Joey were there to rehearse with Geoff Swettenham, a new drummer for Badfinger. Publicly, there was no word that their long-term drummer Mike Gibbins had been sacked. Pete Ham showed up later, in a good mood and wearing a white suit, as he had attended the wedding of a friend. I watched the rehearsal for a while, and then left.
That night I took the train thirty miles southwest to see Colin Blunstone perform at the Guildford Civic Hall. He was among my favorite singers from when he was a member of The Zombies, and that night he performed their two biggest hits, “She’s Not There” and “Time of the Season.” His voice—melodic, crystalline, aching—was in fine form. Considering it was only the third public performance of his new band, I thought they did well.
An unexpected surprise was the opening act, Good Habit, a delightful, humorous sextet garbed in green monk tunics. They were patterned after other horn bands of the day, like Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago, but with better arrangements. The bill drew a small audience—about 150—for the size of the auditorium. I went backstage to tell Colin how much I liked the show. I didn’t stay long, but when I got back to the train station, I was surprised that the next train to arrive was the last one for the night to London. I had no idea what I would have done had I
not caught it. I was freezing, and my nose dripped all the way into the big city.
On Sunday I rested most of the day. My complimentary breakfasts at the dorm weren’t substantial: hot tea and three or four cinnamon rolls to fill me up. Most evenings I would buy what passed for dinner at a small market across Old Kent Road that was run by a Middle Eastern family. I sliced the small block of cheese with the metal nail file from my grooming kit, and placed it on a Ry-Krisp cracker. Dessert was a banana. With no radio or TV in my room, my main source of entertainment was two cassettes. Mike Warner had made me one of unreleased Rolling Stones songs, and Jim Bickhart one which included selections from James Taylor’s and Rod Stewart’s first LPs.
WEA’s press officer Moira Bellas invited me to a party on Monday night for the English band Family at the Revolution Club to announce the release of their new album, Bandstand. Family was big in Britain, but not in America. I wanted to like them, but couldn’t get past the vocals of their lead singer, Roger Chapman, who sounded like a bleating sheep. Family played like they were soused. Nobody from Warners introduced me to any of the other writers, or anybody else. The only person I spoke to was the one who asked my name for the guest list. I sat by myself and felt lonely.
Before I left Los Angeles, Rodney Bingenheimer gave me the phone numbers of a few of the people he had spent time with on his recent trip to London. The highlight of his visit had been filling in for bassist Ronnie Lane when the Faces mimed their latest hit on the Top of the Pops TV show. He gave me Rod Stewart’s phone number, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling such a big star out of the blue. More my speed was Speedy Keane. When he served as Pete Townshend’s chauffeur, The Who recorded his “Armenia City in the Sky” on The Who Sell Out. As the lead singer of Thunderclap Newman, his composition “Something in the Air” had topped the British charts three summers previously. It was to be his only hit. During our phone conversation, he expressed his general frustration with life, which made me hesitant to meet him.
Much more welcoming was Ian Whitcomb, who invited me to visit him in Putney, in the south of London. He even picked me up from the train station. It was cold and rainy, Wednesday, September 13. Although Ian was considered a one-hit wonder, I found his music interesting, and had three of his albums. We sat in the dining room of the flat he shared with his mum, who served us tea sandwiches. This was my first encounter with the thin, buttered, triangle-cut item that could hardly qualify as a sandwich in the States. I was impressed when Ian told me that Ray Davies had recently been over to return the ukulele he had borrowed.
In the summer of 1964, in the year The Beatles conquered America and turned every young man with long hair and an English accent into an instant sex symbol, Ian Whitcomb was on vacation in Seattle when a local girl whispered in his ear, “Ian, your accent is really turning me on.” It was such a unique, American phrase, that it stayed with him. He turned it into a song, borrowing heavily from the boogie shuffle rhythm of a hit earlier that year, “Hi-Heel Sneakers.”
In March 1965, while recording the song with his band, Bluesville, in Dublin, he knocked an ashtray off his piano. Thinking the noise would disqualify the take, he camped up his vocal with a Supremes-like falsetto. George Sherlock, a radio promotion man, heard the tape at Capitol Records in Hollywood and labeled it “a smash!” Ian was into protest music—“I felt sure I was going to be the next Joan Baez”—but to his dismay, “You Turn Me On” was released. The American public responded in kind, buying enough singles in the summer of 1965 to take it to number eight in the charts. A cuter version of Mick Jagger, Ian was launched as a teen idol and semi-regular on Shindig!, all on the strength of a fluke record, a mistake that he never dreamed would be released.
Ian’s embarrassment had more impact than anybody imagined at the time. He learned that his song was all the rage in gay clubs, “apparently because of the high-pitched ambisexual nature of my singing.” Bruce Springsteen’s first band, the Castiles, included it in their repertoire. In his autobiography, Born to Run, he describes “You Turn Me On” as “wheezingly lecherous.” Steven Tyler, in his memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, discusses for an extended paragraph how the song contributed to his sexual awareness: “By singing it in that crazy falsetto voice he was able to convey unspeakable emotions that made girls blush and turned heads everywhere. And he nailed it, it was a huge hit.”
In the fall of 1966, The New Vaudeville Band scored a big hit with “Winchester Cathedral,” which recalled the music of the 1920s. Other artists, including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, thought they could have fun adapting the style for a song or two. But Ian made it a way of life. He was the first to follow “Winchester Cathedral,” with “Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday On Saturday Night?” a song made famous in 1916 by Al Jolson. Ian’s version was played in Los Angeles and other cities, but failed to become a national hit.
It was unusual to find a college graduate among rock ’n’ rollers. With a history degree from Dublin’s Trinity College, Ian qualified as an intellectual among his musical peers. His history degree worked in tandem with his love of the older musical styles of Ragtime and Tin Pan Alley, which dominated his subsequent recordings. My visit was timely as Ian was awaiting the publication of his book on the history of pop music, After the Ball, and his latest album, for United Artists, Under the Ragtime Moon.
He thought I was very polite, and was impressed that I knew so much about his music. I brought over a few of the singles I had pressed up with my band, Mogan David and his Winos. When I gave Ian a copy of “Nose Job,” he seemed perplexed in how to respond.
My first tourist attraction, the Tower of London, was also the best. I was enthralled with the history of the place and the tales, as told by the Yeoman Warder, and the exhibit of the Crown Jewels. I was curious about the “Old Bailey,” actually the Central Criminal Court, named after the street on which it is located. I wandered into the upstairs gallery and got lucky. It was a good case, a skinhead stabbing. The judge, who was addressed as “My Lord,” and the barristers (lawyers) wore the customary white wigs and dark robes. It was just like in the movies. I was there for about an hour. I saw Sleuth, an excellent play, at St. Martin’s Theatre.
Mike Ledgerwood, whose name was familiar to me when he was a writer for Disc and Music Echo, took me to a fine lunch in his capacity as press officer for A&M Records. We didn’t have much of a conversation. As much as I enjoyed the food, I felt he was using me so he could have a good meal at his company’s expense. A few days later, I thought I should eat a healthy lunch and ordered a salad at a modest restaurant. When it arrived, I was dismayed to find that it was mostly tomatoes and onions—no lettuce. I asked the waiter who explained that lettuce was in short supply that time of year. I learned that a “salad” in England wasn’t the same as in the States.
Record albums and record shops were different from those in the States. The cardboard used for the jackets was flimsy, in part because they didn’t need to stand up to shrink-wrap. The images on the better covers were more striking owing to a plastic film on the front called Clarifoil. To prevent theft, the vinyl usually wasn’t stored in the jacket. A customer would bring the cover to the clerk who would then fetch the matching record housed in a paper inner sleeve from a shelf behind the counter.
I was curious to see Roy Wood’s Wizzard, who were performing in the East End at Sundown Mile End. The club, converted from an Odeon Theatre, had opened the previous week. Wood had recently left the Electric Light Orchestra, but on this night it looked like a bad move as his new group was terrible. Not many people were there, about 135.
Even though I had a cheap place to stay, the location was too far from the happening areas of the city. This was most apparent when I checked out the Speakeasy. The club opened in December 1966, and was for many years the preeminent club for rock’s royalty. On the night The Turtles first visited in 1967, Howard Kaylan told me he saw The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapto
n, Brian Jones, and members of The Moody Blues. It was a late-night club and private, which meant that I had to purchase a membership. Fortunately they had one that was temporary, and it didn’t cost much.
On the night I arrived, little was happening, and there was no live entertainment. I don’t think I stayed even an hour. Jeff Beck showed up and hung out at the bar, but I was too shy to approach him. When I made it to the nearby tube station, I saw that one side was chained up. I went to the other entrance and noticed that it was chained as well. It was probably between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. I didn’t know what to do, and started walking. Then I saw a cab, and had no choice but to splurge for the ride. I learned that the London Underground closed around 12:30 a.m.
The weather improved, so I thought it would be a good day to check out what Mandi told me was the hippest shopping area in London. Exiting the Sloane Square tube station, I crossed the street and entered the King’s Road. I stopped at a newsstand and contemplated updating my foldout street map for a London A-Z book, when I noticed an attractive girl I had chatted with months earlier at an end of the school year Daily Bruin party. I reintroduced myself. She said she was off to Canterbury to spend her junior year. I flashed a thought about visiting her, but it was a long way from London, and as I was heading back to the States, I wouldn’t see her again for a year. A lot could happen in a year, I reasoned, so I didn’t pursue a friendship.
My British Invasion Page 21