Ain't Bad for a Pink

by Sandra Gibson

  By this time the lads were rolling about on the floor.

  Once we got going we played very, very loud and our hundred watt Marshall soon emptied the concert room. Remember: these were families in for the bingo who brought their own sandwiches in tin boxes. There were just two people left at the bar. The concert secretary stormed up – absolutely furious and with more instructions. We had to tone it down for the second set. The usual story.

  We noticed after a while that the concert secretary was becoming less agitated. Then we realised that the concert hall was gradually filling up. But not with the sandwich-eating bingo fiends. What had happened was that the two remaining punters were students and they’d run across the road to fetch their mates. So it was all OK; rock ‘n’ roll had triumphed and we got paid.

  We even got a bonus.

  You get used to playing venues that might be unsuitable for your type of music and where the punters are there for reasons other than listening to your music. Arguments about volume are almost as common as arguments about money but sometimes it gets to you. One night Barracuda was in a typical bingo-dominated club. We had three spots and the evening was to finish on bingo. After the first spot we were told off for being too loud; we didn’t alter it for the next spot and we were told off again. Dave Evans was getting pissed off with the attitude so I was surprised at the end of our third set when he didn’t want to get straight off home. He told us all to hang about. So we went to the distant bar at the end of this vast room.

  Everything went quiet. The bingo was about to start: eyes down for one hundred pounds! The machine was switched on but something was going wrong: balls were spewing all over the place and the bingo caller was sweating and totally confused trying to work out what was happening. More and more and more balls. A nightmare of balls! He had lost control and a hundred pounds was at stake. More and more balls! Everyone in the room became involved. People were on their hands and knees picking balls up and shouting things like, “I’ve got number twenty-seven; here’s number three!” as if they could somehow sort it all out. It was chaos. Chaos.

  On behalf of rock ‘n’ roll Dave had taken a terrible revenge.

  Dave had taken the wire top off the bingo machine – the bit where the balls come out one by one. There was nothing to control them – the room was full of uncontrollable balls! In the meantime we were all standing at the bar trying to control our laughter but it was so ludicrous that in the end we could no more contain ourselves than the bingo machine could control its balls. The dreaded concert secretary realised we were responsible and told us we’d never be hired there again. Ever.

  The band outlived the club. The club was demolished. Perhaps it couldn’t survive the horror of a demented bingo machine.

  Wayne Davies (Slim). (10)

  The Skunk Band did tour widely in my teens and twenties but I didn’t give myself completely to the tour van lifestyle. I had reasonable staff but I kept an eye on things at base camp because I had to do the trade-ins. Transactions could be quite subtle: often involving hundreds of pounds, part exchange and a thorough knowledge of the value of the instruments involved. It was my responsibility and only I could make those decisions. I’ve always had something and I didn’t want to squander it. By the age of thirty-two I had done enough touring; I didn’t want the sort of hassle we had at Leeds.

  Sleeping Bags

  My grandfather used to say that the most important thing in life was a good pair of boots but I say, especially when on tour, that a good sleeping bag is the most important.

  During my years on the road with Tower Struck Down: six in a van and staying in Travelodges throughout the country, we often had to live off the fat of the land. The maximum for a room was three people. One of the band preferred to sleep in the van anyway so that left five of us: two too many. So two were concealed in sleeping bags which were dragged in. Thus, only one room had to be paid for.

  Whilst touring in the West Country sleeping bags were called into use again – to collect potatoes or corn. Tower Struck Down toured for three months in middle Europe. During the first leg of the tour, in Hungary, there was a hiccup – gigs not confirmed – and the band were at a loose end in Budapest. I went for a pee in a car park and noticed a large patch, about fifty yards square, of cannabis plants. The band picked the lot and concealed it in…a sleeping bag.

  John Darlington. (11)

  Hello Rockin’ Brothers

  The Leeds gig marked the end of the third phase of the Skunk Band. The something that had to give, gave: in the early Eighties Whitty made the important decision to go to Australia to see his family and to go walkabout. I received two affectionate, open-hearted letters from him. He was able to see his kids, see something of that vast country and play some music to support himself. The letters vibrate with interest and wit and life. They are full of detailed affection for his family there and his mates back home: Gwen and Edna who ran The Pig on Nantwich Road; Denzil – an old black guy who told tales of mustard on horses’ backsides to make them run faster; Mick and Snowy the bikers who owned the bike shop in Hope Street. The second letter reveals his continuing success with the ladies and the fact that he has his drinking under some control. Australia was good for him and he has obviously absorbed some of the speech patterns and language. These are the letters of a man who believes in a future, who is happy to be who he is, where he is, having the friends he has. It’s easy to understand why everyone loved Pete.

  Hello Rockin Brothers,

  How the hell are ya! I thought I’d better send you a report about my doings in the tropics.

  Well it’s not a bad old place really, if you can put up with the sand and flies. I tell ya there’s insects here you’d have nightmares about! But I’ve got myself a place to live and I’m working with “Cov” putting up advertising signs which is pretty good because it means we get around a bit.

  I think I did the right thing to stay over here even though it means I’m illegal (my visa ran out over 3 months ago!). It was good being with the kids at Christmas in Sydney but I’ve heard a lot about Western Australia from “Cov” and so I flew over here in February. I like it a lot more here than Sydney. It’s more like I expected Australia to be: gold mines, sheep stations, kangaroos, etc. The kids came over here on the bus (3,000 mls) with Pat and they stayed for a week or so. We went down the Swan river to Fremantle and I did a bit of fishing with Raph. We had a great time; they’re fine kids.

  Perth is a brand new city all stainless steel and glass I like it but I prefer to go into Fremantle (10 miles away). You’d like Fremantle Pete. It’s a lot like Plymouth, some great old pubs and big harbour.

  I’ve got meself a guitar ($100 – £75). It’s an Ibanez acoustic, nothing special but it plays well. I met up with a guy called John. He’s from Yorkshire and he plays guitar so we’re hoping to get an act together and play the bars. The pubs (hotels or taverns the Aussies call ‘em) shut at 10.30 pm unless they have live music, which most of them do, then they stay open till 12 pm. So it’s a healthy (is that the right word?) music scene. There are some good players over here, anything from jazz to C & W. Amplification is quite cheap here too, especially if it’s made in Japan as Australia has some sort of trading deal with the “Nips”.

  Anyway, enough of this waffling. How are things with you Pete? Is the shop doing O.K? Is Lyn pregnant? Has Ralph eaten anyone lately? Tommy Kerley told me that Mick Wicklow married Alison. I s’pose that was inevitable, good luck to ‘em I say.

  Have you sold “Pequa” yet or you still there (now & then)? I’d like to hear from you as we’ve known each other a long time and it would be a motherfuckin shame if we didn’t keep in touch so write you barstad!

  Anyway regards to the following people

  Give Shep: – some chewy

  “ Bip: – the rent

  “ Lyn: – *!!* (twice)

  “ Denzil: – a joint

  give Mike Slaughter: – a visit

  “ Des: – an album

  “ L
inda: – a smile

  “ Tom: – a drink

  “ Gary and Zoe: – my address

  “ Cathy: – my address and a kiss

  “ Gwen and Edna: – my undying love

  “ Snowy and Trev: – a yarn

  “ Dee: – anything

  “ Epiphone: – a strum

  Good Luck to yous all,

  Pete Whit.

  P.S When you write, address the letter to, “Peter Kelly” as I’ve had to change my monica to avoid getting pulled by the law!(12)

  Hello Pete,

  How are ya.

  I’m lyin’ in me bed, bollixed after a hard workin day. I’ve been painting and decorating a house for a Portuguese/South African lady who insists on makin me eat all kinds of strange foods every ½ hour or so. I’ve been on this job for three days and I feel like I’ve eaten my way through a delicatessen! Anyroadup it was good to hear from you and I hope that “The Beano” was had in Cornwall (didn’t see a little old man called Gascoigne did ya?). Been rattlin out a few tunes here and there – it seems 2,000 watts and a ’57 Les Paul sounds fuckin dinkum; ‘nough to send the Sheilas tropo! (sorry).

  I’m still ruining the odd song or two about the place. There’s one good thing about playing here. They don’t hold you to a particular style; so long as it sounds half-right you’re O.K. The worst thing that can happen is some “old swag’” askin you to sing something like, “Sweet Nell from Wogga Wogga”!! I did do a couple of gigs with this guy called John (from Yorkshire) but his wife really had the hots for me (fucknosewhy) and it got embarrassing me playing guitar with him one night, and her playing naughties the next; I had to bottle out!

  Anyway, I plan to move around a bit this summer (about November) and I hope to go to the southwest coast maybe Albany or Esperance. I’ve heard it’s beautiful country, very green, with lots of old whaling towns.

  Must have been a choker about the anonymous phone call. I don’t know why people do such things. Do they think it’s going to improve anyone’s life? Linda was probably quite content until the phone rang…I reckon it’s the V.A.T man!

  Anyway I’d better sign off and get some “kip.” Remember “Old skunks never die they just stink away.”

  All the best Pete; love to Lynne and Ralph and everyone.

  Pete Whitt.

  P.S. What happened to Cathy, is she still in Crewe?

  Write soon.

  P.P.S I only drink ½ as much as I did, but I work twice as hard.(13)

  Pete was in Australia for twelve months and was about to return to England when he died of a heart attack. Ironically, he had given up drinking, though he was still a smoker and he never looked after himself properly. Pete Whittingham was thirty-nine when he died in 1985 and I was thirty-six. If you lose one half of a particular partnership, you can’t replace it. The same thing had happened with my sporting partner, Keith Brammer two years previously. The riding stopped. The music stopped.

  I was invited to go to Australia but I declined, being more interested in the respect of life than the tribute of death. Everyone who knew Whitty was shocked and upset by the tragic waste. I received a letter from John Billington in New Zealand. It is very touching to notice that John has copied Pete’s style of writing about his friends. This feeling that I was a good friend to Pete Whittingham has a poignant echo in the letter, written in the form of a poem, which I received from Mr and Mrs Whittingham.

  Dear Pete,

  I got the news about Pete from Alice. What a fucking shame, it seemed like he’d sorted things out a bit for himself, seen the kids, realised where he stood with Pat and seen something of the world, so I suppose he had achieved a lot of what he needed. I find it really difficult to believe I won’t walk into your shop to find you two sitting on amps, drinking Scotch and skunking it up. Alice told me he died of a heart attack, do you know anything else?

  …How goes it Skunk in Crewe – are you playing? If you have any tapes of yourself I would love to have a copy to let people know what the Skunk band was about, also if you have got any of Whit’s music I would really appreciate it. You know what I felt about that man and I would really like a tangible memory of him, I miss him. If you can find anything I’ll refund the postage etc.

  Give my love to people we know. As Whitty said:

  Give Lynn sweet dreams

  Shep a twelve bar

  Mick the sound of a Norton

  Jonty a bacon butty

  Linda a rare bird

  And yourself the knowledge you were a good friend to Pete, probably his best friend and that you kept him sane when everything else fell out of the window.

  Thinking of You

  JB(14)

  Dear Peter Johnson,

  A friend in need is a friend indeed,

  That is what they say.

  What better tribute could you give,

  Or proof of your friendship true.

  Believe us Pete, we his Parents,

  Are really proud, that we know you.

  Peter spoke of you so warmly,

  Your friendship was so sincere.

  Not just friendly handshakes,

  But mutual help through many years.

  And now, your final gesture,

  Sums up your feelings, Lad,

  For the Son we loved so very much,

  One of the best any Parents could have.

  God Bless you Lad,

  Ivy and Joe Whittingham.(15)

  For all his problems, Whitty’s musical prowess hadn’t declined. We’d played and sung when we’d been drunk and it had been fine. As long as I could get to him before he had a drink and then control what he had, things went OK. But it was rather edgy; I’m not the worrying kind but on a personal level I did worry about his self-destructive tendencies. The possibility of appearing on The Old Grey Whistle Test was round about the time of the notorious Leeds gig but the luck didn’t happen and Whitty couldn’t have been relied on at all. Of all the variables, I suppose he was the main one.

  Every woman was in love with Whitty. Tall and good-looking, he had a regal, charismatic air about him; even when he was drunk he walked very tall. Linda’s father said of him: “He always looks the same whether he’s standing up or sitting down – like he’s got a rod up his back.” Whitty wasn’t fazed by being in trouble, or in a formal situation. Once when he was in the dock for a minor drugs offence he said to the magistrate, “I am a fool. I’ve done a foolish thing.” We all fell about: we recognised the lines from a Loudon Wainwright song. The magistrate thought it was an eloquent statement of remorse. He didn’t know the subtext.

  Pete Whittingham had style.

  Whitty’s death was a terrible blow to me. I had lost my friend, my musical brother. With regard to all important relationships I believe in total commitment – in going to the emotional edge without calculating the risks. All relationships are equally risky. The alarm bells don’t ring for years.

  I miss him.

  After this death, I didn’t play music for a while. Then I organized a charity gig to raise money to be put in trust for Pete’s children. When the kids came of age they visited me in Crewe. I was morosely sitting in the Brunswick, having split up with a girlfriend, when two beautiful girls came up and kissed me.

  These were Whitty’s daughters. Later, Raphael, his son, came to England and played drums for me at The Limelight. I recall how like his father he was and how weird it all seemed.

  I have a postcard from Whitty addressed to the Nantwich Road shop and another postcard addressed to the Edleston Road shop. Round the time he was away there was an economic downturn – during which I sold my Hanley shop and was forced out of my shop on Nantwich Road. I was on the edge of bankruptcy when I took the premises in Edleston Road. The going of Whitty and Brammer and the going of Nantwich Road were all of a piece and at the age of thirty-seven I entered a period of depression. I haven’t recovered though I learned to live with it.

  I was touched by this tribute I found on the website www.ogband.org. Adri
an Peever, who wrote it, was a Crewe musician who went to live in Miami.

  Snakey Jake has been a great influence on a lot of people in the thirty-plus years he’s been providing gear and inspiration from his store, Custom Amplification, in Crewe, Cheshire. When I worra young snot-nosed brat passing his dark abode daily on my way to school, the barred confines, guarded in those days by an enormous German Shepherd lurking in the doorway, already fronted a place unlike any other in town. Of course, it wor all trees back then.

  If you could get past the dog (for dog it was), you found yourself in a fragrant den hung with priceless pieces and piled high with speaker cabinets, on which there was always some biker or generally scary-looking character either reclining or trying out a vintage Gibson, or a National, or something equally far beyond my perpetually skint means. In those days I had to save up to buy my picks (hey, I still do!) but Pete was always as helpful as he could be, given that actually selling things never seemed to be on anyone’s agenda. It hardly seemed a shop at all, more just a place where real musicians hung out.

  Some of my earliest experiences hearing electric live music involved hearing Snakey Jake and the Dead Skunk Band, as Pete has generally called his bands. As I’d never heard any of the tunes he played I associated it all with him, though what I was hearing, I gradually discovered as time went by, was the music of Lowell George’s Little Feat, of Ry Cooder, Loudon Wainwright III (“Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road”), Hot Tuna, J.J. Cale, and a whole lot of other stuff I’d never have heard otherwise. Now that was what you call an education.

  Snakey was the first slide player I’d ever seen, and his occasional acoustic sets with his great friend the late Pete Witt (billed as “Brahms and Liszt”) showed me that there was more to the acoustic guitar than just bleeding-hearted singer-songwriters (though a few dozen more lessons in that department would have been even more useful!!). There was ragtime. There was hat-dancing.