by Zoe Howe
‘Gypie could take it all in his stride,’ said Figure. ‘He just needed that tug on the sleeve and he was away. He was fantastic.’ Lee was ‘very much in favour’ of introducing keyboards to the line-up to give Gypie a bit more of a chance to ‘stretch out’ and concentrate on playing lead rather than rhythm, ‘but he said no’. As a result, this would create noticeable spaces in the music when Gypie flew into one of his virtuoso guitar solos, but this was ‘a new chapter,’ as Lee put it, ‘and I thought, if he’s happy, I’m happy too.’
Only occasionally would there be a bit of heckling from individuals in the crowd, something Lee would give short shrift. During the show on 21 May at the University of Salford, for example, a female fan repeatedly shouted out Wilko’s name during the gaps between songs. Gypie had expected a bit of this, but Lee wasn’t standing for it. When it was time to play ‘Hey Mama, Keep Your Big Mouth Shut’, Lee located the offending heckler, fixed her with a stare and delivered a chorus customised just for her: ‘Hey bitch, keep your big mouth shut.’ And one would imagine that she did.
Lee, while it may not have been outwardly apparent, was nervous – and that was no reflection on Gypie’s abilities. He had grown accustomed to being one half of a famous double act, and now most of the attention was on him. As a result, the sets got faster, the delivery more breakneck – if there was no time to think, there was no time to worry.
‘The more gaps Lee had on stage the more angsty he was,’ confirms Figure. ‘He was happier pushing things along at a fast tempo. It was always, “Let’s go, let’s zip it on.” It got a bit out of control. I’d often have to say to Lee, “Come on, mate, we’ve got a bit too much roll here and not enough rock. It’s not having the impact. It’s so fast we don’t have time to breathe, there’s no space in the music.”’
Figure concedes that Lee’s urgency to bolt through the set, again, reflects his innate shyness, despite the finger jabbing, the strutting, the mock-ejaculating … We’re talking about a serious rock’n’roll Jekyll and Hyde, and the clothes, the props and the physical elevation – not to mention the various substances – all came together to manifest the transformation, even if they couldn’t quite transcend the nerves. That said, the transformation would also take effect in the event of any petty unfairness that happened to take place within his orbit, especially when it came to matters alcoholic.
Pete Zear remembers supporting the Feelgoods on the Sneakin’ Suspicion tour, and after loading in to the venue in Manchester at about twenty to six in the evening, he noticed the bar was filling up with punters. There was just one problem: the metal shutter was still down on the bar and it would not be rising until 6 p.m. It was a warm evening, people had come straight from work, the minutes were ticking by, and the room was getting busier. Cue the revolution.
‘Lee’s looking over,’ recalls Zear. ‘Finally he starts. “Look, there’s a bar here! There’s a lot of people thirsty – we’ve got to do something about this.” He had a hat on, short-sleeved shirt; he looked like Hawkeye out of MASH. Immediately everyone noticed, you know, this is a man you can follow. “This is an injustice!” He got the whole room up. We were all like, “Yes, this is ridiculous!” And he got the bar open, basically. They were aiming to open at six, but no, we got them open at quarter to, and Lee started it. He would have been a great politician.’
While it was essential to introduce Gypie live as quickly as possible and show the world – or at least parts of it – that the Feelgood machine was still very much in motion, they wanted to get in the studio with their new guitarist as soon as possible. A new album would be symbolic on several levels: another strong statement of intent and forward motion, and their first without Wilko taking control.
‘For so long we’d been dominated by Wilko,’ said Lee, ‘[and] it was nice to have an opportunity to just be as we are. Teacher had left the classroom and now the pupils can be naughty …’ The band wanted to make a no-frills, straightforward R&B album with the chaotic, warm, tipsy feel of a live show, but some outside help would be required to bring out the best in them and, at last, successfully encourage them to write material themselves.
Feelgoods cohort Nick Lowe was brought in to produce the release which would be Be Seeing You, a reference to the TV series The Prisoner with which the band was currently obsessed, although certainly appears to be a bit of a comment on Wilko’s departure as well. As Sparko remembers it, however, it was the record company who suggested using the Prisoner connection; they would pick up on what Lee in particular was into at the time and use those references however they saw fit, and in ways they felt would capture the public imagination – and, increasingly, Lee would be more than happy to let them do exactly that. Now the visionary Wilko was no longer there to steer the good ship Feelgood, it was often left to whoever was putting up the money to make the aesthetic decisions while the band did what they did best – had as much fun as they possibly could, and poured every ounce of energy into entertaining people live.
Larry Wallis, underground star of The Deviants, the Pink Fairies and Motörhead, now a solo artist, was hanging out at the Stiff Records office when the phone started ringing. Canvey calling. It was Chris Fenwick checking in prior to Nick’s visit to Feelgood House to work with the band on what they wanted to record. Teacher might have left the classroom, but he’d taken his songbook with him, and Lowe was ‘freaking out’ because he couldn’t think of enough material for them.
‘In a moment of madness, I piped up. “I’ll write ’em a song!”’ says Wallis, ‘to which Nick replied, “You’ve gotta have it here for eleven a.m. tomorrow.” Off I toddled, with my stupid suggestion terrifying the crap out of me as I’d never written a song for anybody else in my life. I put myself in Lee’s place, thinking, what does this guy sing about? Whisky, women, maybe gambling, all suitably redolent of smoke-filled rooms in the bad part of town.’
After meditating on these themes, within twenty minutes Wallis had conjured up the darkly mesmeric ‘As Long As The Price Is Right’ (featuring the classic line, ‘I said, “oui, babe”, ’cause that’s French for ‘yes’.” There’s something pleasingly Del Boy Trotter about that lyric.) The next morning, as agreed, Wallis leapt in a cab with the demo in his hand and delivered it to Nick, who listened, approved, tore over to Canvey with the tape and played it to the Feelgoods. ‘As Long As The Price Is Right’ was in. Lowe, meanwhile, would provide the catchy ‘That’s It, I Quit’. (Fellow Stiffster Elvis Costello offered up ‘You Belong To Me’ – a song almost impertinently reminiscent of The Rolling Stones’ ‘The Last Time’ – to Lee Brilleaux, who leafed through the lyrics before protesting, ‘This is like bleedin’ War and Peace, Elvis.’)
In addition, there would be the usual handful of strong covers, including a saucy, swaggering version of ‘Ninety-Nine And A Half (Won’t Do)’, ‘My Buddy Buddy Friends’ and ‘Baby Jane’, but for the first time, Lee’s own name would be on the songwriting credits of some of the tracks – lead single ‘She’s A Wind-Up’, a high-energy canter bemoaning the perils of the prick tease, was a band co-write while ‘I Thought I Had It Made’ and ‘I Don’t Want To Know’ were composed by Mayo and Brilleaux. Lee ‘had a way of putting his own vocals over better than anybody else,’ said Figure. ‘Lee became a very able composer, especially on the last two or three albums we did.’
They might have been eager to record but Nick Lowe would generally have considerable trouble getting them away from the bar and into Pathway Studios. Melody Maker’s Allan Jones was writing a piece on ‘a day in the life’ of the Stiff Records HQ when he encountered the band in a pub nearby with Ian Dury’s maverick publicist Kosmo Vinyl, discussing the allure of Canvey Island, a place Vinyl, like many Londoners, used to visit as a child. When Jones walked in, Lee was busy filling Vinyl in on the sexual habits of jellyfish. ‘Jellyfish don’t fuck,’ he was heard to confirm. ‘They split up like worms. I hate jellyfish, as it happens. No time for ’em.’
Jones sidled up to enquire as to how the new a
lbum was shaping up with ‘Basher’35 as Lee threw yet another brandy (referred to every time as a ‘swift arf’) down his throat. ‘He’s a bastard,’ Lee replied grimly. Why? ‘He doesn’t understand the complications of British licensing laws. Pubs close at three, he wants us in the studio at two.’ ‘I can’t get them out of the pub,’ Lowe was heard lamenting back at the Stiff office. ‘They just won’t move.’
Eventually they did leave the pub (when it closed) and came up with a strong record which would earth the band’s new direction and present Gypie’s chunkier, rockier guitar sound on vinyl. The most important thing, to Lee, was that people could hear the band were having a good time on the record, and it would take the right producer to foster that combination of hard work and application and sheer drunken fun.
‘To get Nick on board at that time was really good,’ agrees Figure. ‘He got the best out of us. He was able to listen to what we were doing and go, “If you did this and this it’ll sound more like this …” He was actually working with us rather than just producing the songs.’
Perhaps it was Lee’s habitual modesty that made him initially come across as fairly casual on the subject of this, the first album he’d actually written some material on; he would joke that ‘the sound wasn’t of the highest quality but it was an opportunity to drink dozens of pints of lager with Nick Lowe’. (Jake Riviera, Lowe’s long-time manager, noted that working with Dr Feelgood had done nothing for Lowe’s physique. Riviera complained that he’d ‘just had him slimmed down, looking like a proper rock star, and the Feelgoods send him back looking like a tub of butter.’)
‘It’s not particularly well recorded,’ Lee continued, ‘because we only recorded it on an eight-track machine, but there’s feeling and power there. I like it because it was different and back to the roots, unpretentious.’ Be Seeing You was, he later declared, his favourite Feelgood record – and one can’t help but sense that Lee was perhaps making a point, being as it was their first without Wilko. That said, as Shirley points out, because the dynamic in the band had changed so fundamentally, and the strength of purpose in terms of production values was largely no longer stemming from within the band itself, ‘every record the Feelgoods did [from that point] seemed to be influenced by whoever happened to be producing the album. The original Feelgoods sound was kind of history by that point.’ It was perhaps unfortunate for them that Mick Farren, a close friend of Wilko’s, would be the one to review the record in NME – and he would register concern that the Feelgoods were allowing ‘conservatism (with a small “c”) to creep in’.36 (He reserved praise for fellow Deviant Larry Wallis’s track, however.)
Be Seeing You, in addition to its Prisoner-inspired artwork (featuring Dr Feelgood in blazers, Patrick McGoohan-style, on the beach in front of the Labworth on Canvey) boasted a cover image of the band drinking with new boy Gypie in the Jellicoe – a scene you would never have witnessed with Wilko. The release peaked at number 55 in the UK album chart, with the single ‘She’s A Wind-Up’ entering the Top 40. ‘It wasn’t unsuccessful,’ Lee reflected in later years. ‘It wasn’t a huge hit … it paid the milk bill.’
Brilleaux Musings
‘No matter what you do, even if it’s selling dodgy ballpoints down the market, you’ve gotta be a grafter and if you’re prepared to put in the hours then the chances are you’ll succeed.’
‘People have said, “Why don’t you do something about your image? Become like pop stars or something?” But that isn’t us, you know? We couldn’t afford the razor blades.’
‘I always think, if you don’t know what to do next, go back to your roots and have a think about it.’
‘The important thing is always to keep one step ahead of your hangover.’
Dr Feelgood onstage in Sweden (new guitarist Gypie Mayo on the left). It’s important to stay hydrated.
Hangover Cures
One method Lee would prescribe was a ‘coffee and a digestif’ (the digestif being a brandy). Another remedy would be to scarf down a pot of cockles from Leigh Beach – ‘pure protein,’ Lee would enthuse. ‘Great for hangovers.’
But ‘generally,’ says Shirley Brilleaux, ‘Lee’s way of curing a hangover and avoiding turning into a “three-day drunk”, as he called it, was this: you should have two or three drinks the following day and then stop yourself there, if you’re able. The ability to stop after putting yourself out of your immediate misery … sometimes he had better luck with that method than others.’
Dr Feelgood onstage: The Big Figure, Lee (in his incredible palm tree jacket) and Sparko.Right: Be Seeing You promotional tour information. The cover (and album title) paid tribute to the band’s obsession with the TV series The Prisoner, but the words ‘be seeing you’ must surely have been a reference to Wilko Johnson’s recent departure too. The other side featured the band in their favourite Canvey pub, the Admiral Jellicoe, drinking with Gypie.
Rock’n’roll’s favourite Jekyll and Hyde gets into character backstage at the Winter Gardens, Malvern, 1977.
13.EXTRAORDINARY VOYAGES: RETURN TO THE US
It’s a high in a way, but not a pleasurable high. You’re definitely hurting yourself. You’re pushing yourself further than you should.
Lee Brilleaux on performing live
The Feelgoods toured Be Seeing You that autumn before embarking on their pivotal trip to the States. CBS wanted to give the band another high-profile support slot, but the money would be rather more scant than it had been when they’d first tried their hand in America.
The band had a great affection for oddballs, so it was hardly surprising that they would bring the intimidating ‘Borneo’ (on account of his wildness) Fred Munt into the firm as tour manager to take over from Jake Riviera. Munt was formerly of psych-surrealists the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, which should give you something of an idea of the man. (Fans of the Bonzos will recall Munt getting a name check as ‘the Wild Man of Borneo’ in the classic ‘Intro And Outro’ track.)
When you spent as much time on the road as the Feelgoods did, you had to surround yourself with relentlessly entertaining people to allay the inevitable monotony of travelling, or to distract you from the more stressful psychological aspects of being away from home. Life was certainly never dull with Munt around, although his presence wasn’t exactly a stress reliever for the road crew, being as he was more interested in partying than working, and the psychological aspects … well, let’s not go there.
‘He was absolutely off-the-scale bonkers – and they loved bonkers, but this guy was mental,’ remembers Geoff Shaw. ‘I don’t know if I liked him or not, but he was interesting. He had a walrus moustache, one tooth, bit dishevelled, red gypsy bandana like David Essex on heroin, waistcoat, bit of a travelling thing. Loudest voice you’ve ever heard. He was like a sophisticated Bernard Manning.
‘He’d come down in the morning in flippers and a mask, goggles and a tennis racket. Walking into the breakfast room, everyone’s in there not talking, pissed off, trying to charge their batteries, and he’d walk in like that, or in something even madder. He was hard to work with, but he was fun and they loved him. Bring him out, put him at the bar and he’d entertain everyone all night. You could just sit and look at him.’ Munt would be the one chopping out thick rails of coke at the aftershow, as Allan Jones observed, with Brilleaux sauntering over shortly afterwards. ‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Lee was heard to say. ‘Just to be sociable.’
Now that the hedonistic Gypie was on board, the parties would get wilder and Brilleaux’s frequent announcements that he was suffering a ‘terrible thirst’ while en route were no longer inhibited by anyone’s disapproval, not that, one might argue, any consternation from Wilko ever really stopped him before. (‘Jolly-up, must have a jolly-up,’ Brilleaux would sing as they sped along in the van. ‘It’s been half an hour since the last jolly-up! No sense to this!’)
It would be during this very UK tour, after the band’s show at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall, that the Feelgoods would repair to the Holida
y Inn and, according to Allan Jones, proceed to ‘[drink] the entire profits of their UK tour in one night’. The more time spent enjoying themselves, the better – that was surely the whole point of the operation – and so with every minute being treated with respect and economy, such fripperies as sound checks were jettisoned, Brilleaux in particular feeling that the time would be better spent ‘reading a book or having a shit’. The Feelgoods were supported on several dates of this tour by the San Francisco group Mink DeVille, who evidently did require a sound check at each venue, giving rise to Brilleaux’s almost poetic retort (quickly becoming a Feelgood maxim) ‘“Sound checks are for poofs and Mink DeVille,”’ as former roadie Neil Biscoe recalls. ‘They sound checked at the beginning of the tour and that was it, anything more would be wasting time. So yes, sound checks were for poofs and Mink DeVille.’
Allan Jones, who travelled with the Feelgoods for much of this tour (and apparently ended up ‘recovering from its excesses in hospital’, which one can readily believe) reported on the group as they traversed the country, swearing, boozing and, indeed, fighting as they went, at least in Lee’s case; all hopped up on booze, substances and attitude, he would bellow abuse out of the window as they drove through Edinburgh, remonstrating with bemused passing ‘Jocks’, making a few choice remarks about kilts and the like, and, at one point, jumping out of the van and starting a fight. This behaviour was related to drink, as Sparko observed at the time, that is, Lee needed one. Lee would remember nothing of this contretemps at all, incidentally, when he received his alarm call the next morning (Fred Munt hammering on the door, howling obscenities in a bid to help them start the day).