The Rise & Fall of the Miraculous Vespas

by David F. Ross

  Grant Delgado’s face was stinging from the punch Maggie had delivered to it. He’d tried to find a casual but sensitive way to ask her about the psychiatric hospital visits but it all came out the wrong way. She accused him of spying on her, and of stifling her individuality. She was incandescent and he simply had to acquiesce and take her indignation. Grant was embarrassed and also ashamed that he had followed her. When he tried to explain that it was done purely out of love and concern, he just sounded controlling and desperate. Just before Maggie yelled that she now couldn’t trust him and that their relationship was over, she informed him coldly that she went to Leverndale to visit her mother – her real mother – whom she’d just found after years of not knowing whether she was alive or dead. Maggie Abernethy had lived with a foster family in Shortlees since she was fifteen. It was the first family that she had felt comfortable being a part of; felt that she belonged to. The previous twelve years had seen her placed with eight different families. Seven different towns; seven different schools. No long-term friendships. No conventional relationships. She told different elaborate – but invented – stories about her parents. How they had met. How unusual her ethnicity was. It was a shield. Trust and commitment issues. It took a lot for Maggie to feel relaxed; even more for her to feel loved. Almost from the first time they had set eyes on each other, she had sensed a different potential; a wholly different emotion with Grant. It felt like safety. She would’ve told him about her psychotic mother eventually, but she was still only coming to terms with it herself. And now he’d gone and fucked it all; the stupid, selfish bastard.

  Max Mojo was on top of the world. The two, foot-long lines of coke hoovered up in the tiny toilet of the British Airways 737 set him on the course, but now he was naturally euphoric. London was the greatest city on Earth. It was Sinatra’s New York, Bowie’s Berlin and The Blue Nile’s Tinseltown all rolled into one. He would head back to Soho and the bar where the boys kissed other boys. Only Morrison Hardwicke had been a wasted effort. Predictably, he didn’t remember Max having phoned him the year earlier. But since Max couldn’t remember Boy George’s code words, he perhaps couldn’t be too critical. He’d written the phone number in his wee black book, but nothing else. In any case, Max Mojo now had dreams of succeeding on his own merits. He’d do it by the Biscuit Tin Records independent route. The majors could all go and fuck themselves. Do-it-yourself; the punk spirit personified.

  Geoff Travis was very accommodating. He liked the record and agreed to place the remaining stock. He also hinted at a wider distribution deal for future records. Max kept four copies of the ones he had brought down. He caught the tube back to Oxford Circus and then walked purposefully up to Broadcasting House. He was way too early to catch John Peel going into BBC HQ, but Geoff Travis had told him about The Smiths’ new single and how he had managed to get it past the all-powerful Radio 1 playlist committee. The committee were still in the news weeks after Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ had been banned by Mike Read. Max had no prior knowledge that any such committee even existed. But now, thanks to the Frankie furore, he knew that it did, and thanks to Geoff Travis, he knew where it did.

  Max Mojo paid a window-cleaning team fifty pounds to take him up the side of the old Portland Street building in their cradle. Through each of the four open windows on the targeted fifth floor, Max Mojo deposited a copy of ‘The First Picture’. One of them was bound to be the room. It had been a great trip, in every sense of the word.

  42

  April 1984

  It was the latest, crucial Biscuit Tin Records shareholders’ meeting and Max Mojo had a job on his hands. The frost hadn’t thawed between Grant and Maggie, although the fact that she was still turning up for rehearsals was at least something to build on. Max felt that dealing directly with Maggie was like going for a bath with a toaster, never quite knowing if it was plugged in; all risk and no obvious reward. He had tried to treat her differently, but his youthful impatience often intervened. The Motorcycle Boy had regressed further, and was now represented on band matters by his brother, who also seemed to have undergone something of an attitude transformation. Hairy Doug was present, as was Hairy Fanny. They came as a double-act nowadays. She was omnipresent in band matters and since Hairy Doug was a shareholder not only in the band’s future royalties, but also in Biscuit Tin Records, she had a Yoko Ono-type effect on the others. As the newest shareholder, Jimmy Stevenson was just delighted that years of ferrying ungrateful bands, DJs and general punters had actually resulted in something approaching ownership. It didn’t give him a platform for an opinion that anyone took notice of, but it did constitute the odd arm-raising in support of a motion. It was empowering and Jimmy loved it. Only Clifford X. Raymonde and Max’s dad, Washer Wishart were still to show for the meeting.

  Max had prepared an agenda, to which he had no real intention of sticking. The main meat of the meeting was to plan activities around the recording and release of the band’s next – as yet unidentified – single, and then their debut LP.

  ‘Nae need tae go through intros then, since every cunt kens every other cunt…’ Max noticed Fanny’s hand shoot up. ‘Aye. Whit is it?’

  ‘I don’t ken that cunt!’ she said, very politely and with no trace of disdain for the chair.

  ‘Jimmy Stevenson, meet Hairy Fanny. Hairy Fa…’

  ‘Hey you!’ Hairy Doug stood up, knocking his chair over. ‘Don’t you refer to Fanny like that, you little bastart!’

  ‘For fuck sake! Ah dinnae even ken her name. Does it matter? Fuck me!’ said Max. It hadn’t been a good start. He’d anticipated consternation at the ‘accounts’ section, not at the introductions.

  ‘Just watch yer mouth. A bit more respect needed, eh?’ said Hairy Doug, sitting back down.

  ‘Fuckin’ hell. Right … noted. Can we get oan?’

  ‘It’s Fantasia, by the way,’ said Fanny. ‘Fantasia Bott.’

  ‘Fanny Bott?’ said Simon Sylvester. ‘Yer havin’ a fuckin’ laugh, hen!’

  ‘I’ll take ya outside an’ kick seven shades of shite out of ya, son!’ Hairy Doug stood tall. His chair went spinning again. Max sighed. It was beginning to feel like an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting involving George Best, Oliver Reed and Giant Haystacks.

  ‘Jesus fuckin’ Christ! Sit the fuck doon, will ye’se? Item two … the new records.’

  Grant smiled casually at Maggie. She looked away.

  ‘Right, Delgado, where are we?’ said Max, glad to have wrestled the focus away from Fanny the hippy and Biker Doug.

  ‘Aye. It’s goin’ fine, pal. Got a few ideas, an’ that. Once X-Ray shows, ah can go ower some ae them. Jist acoustic drafts at the minute, mind,’ said Grant quietly, as he played with the tuners on his guitar.

  ‘Ah telt ye, ah think we need one oot at the start ae May,’ Max reminded him.

  ‘It’s cool, man. Nae problems,’ said Grant. If he had been any more laid back, he would have been horizontal. They were a constant contrast these days. Grant, all ‘dopey’ carefree laconicism; and Max, a screwed-up ball of wired pulsating energy. Different personalities being exaggerated by different narcotic stimulants.

  Washer Wishart stuck his head in to say hello to everyone just as the band’s profit-and-loss accounts were being distributed. They didn’t make for healthy reading. If Max had been able to convert them into a graph it would’ve resembled the downward side elevation of Mount Everest. You have to speculate to accumulate in this business, Max implied. He was surprised at Washer’s nodding acknowledgment that the spending was part and parcel of the music business. Max simply assumed that his father had bought into the dream just like the rest of them. The Miraculous Vespas’ manager had no idea that the dream was being financed by money appropriated from Scotland’s most dangerous gangster.

  The meeting adjourned less than thirty minutes after its contentious beginning. A few gigs had been set up in Glasgow for the end of April and Max had stated his desire to see the new LP material showcased. Grant s
aluted. Maggie had stared at her shoes for most of the meeting before leaving sharply without speaking to anyone. The all-new, caring, sharing Simon Sylvester went though to the back of the church hall to report to his brother by telephone. After he’d noted the gig dates, Hairy Doug and the newly identified Fanny Bott left, accepting the offer of a lift from Jimmy Stevenson. Only Clifford X. Raymonde stayed. He wanted to hear Grant’s new songs, which Max had told him about weeks earlier. Max hadn’t actually heard them himself but he was quickly learning that the music business was 40 percent hype, 40 percent bullshit and 20 percent actual content.

  Washer Wishart was met at the top of his driveway by a tense Benny Donald. Washer had been expecting him.

  ‘Uncle Washer,’ said Benny. Washer noticed the beads of sweat on his top lip. He didn’t seem out of breath. ‘Any chance ae a wee word … in private, like?’

  ‘Jump in, son. Ah’m away tae pick up Frankie. We’re goin’ a drive doon tae Ayr. Ye can come if ye want,’ said Washer, knowing Benny wouldn’t.

  ‘Jist a wee five minutes. That’s aw it’ll take. Drop me at Frankie Fusi’s hoose,’ said Benny.

  When they arrived at Casa Fusi, Benny got out. He was as white as a sheet.

  ‘Fuck sake, son,’ said Frankie Fusi, ‘get yersel a fuckin’ sunbed. Ah’ve seen healthier lookin’ ghosts.’

  Benny Donald sloped away without acknowledgement.

  ‘Sup wi’ that dozy wee prick?’ asked Frankie.

  ‘Well, thereby hings a fuckin’ tale,’ said Washer Wishart.

  On the drive down to the West Coast, Washer told Frankie how Benny Donald had been supplying him with increasing amounts of drug money that had been accumulated through the ice-cream vans on Fat Franny Duncan’s Onthank patch. Washer also explained that Benny had taken it for granted that the money was being washed through the Crosshouse consortium.

  Frankie Fusi knew that wasn’t the case. Too many people asked him desperate questions about how business was for Washer. It was apparent that if business was in fact good, none of that goodness was washing its way downstream. Frankie Fusi was stunned when his oldest friend told him that the McLarty drug money was being invested into his son’s band. It seemed a highly risky strategy and although Washer was a wily old fox, Frankie couldn’t immediately see the pay-off. And that would put the McLarty spotlight on all of them. Frankie Fusi was hard, but not so hard that he was prepared to face off against the full weight of the McLarty family. He’d had a brief encounter with Malachy McLarty before. The old man had tried to recruit him almost fifteen years earlier. Gregor Gidney eventually filled the role originally scoped out for Frankie. But Malachy McLarty said he admired Frankie’s loyalty to Washer, and accepted his respectful refusal. The whole experience shook him. For at least a year afterwards, Frankie Fusi remained vigilant in anticipation of a Glasgow ‘send-off’ – a severe kicking followed by a shotgun fired up the anus – but Malachy McLarty stayed true to his word.

  Washer went on to tell Frankie that Benny had made the situation potentially worse by creaming off a slice of the money, in an attempt to pay back casino debts to organisations controlled by the McLartys. He’d come to Washer to appeal to him to cover for this, but Washer had said he couldn’t. When Benny asked what Washer had done with the funds, the old man replied cryptically that he had stored it away safely in a ‘biscuit tin’.

  It had been the early-morning news headlines on BBC Scotland that had prompted Benny Donald’s sudden fears. Several members of a family in the East End of Glasgow had been murdered as part of a gangland turf war being played out over control of lucrative ice-cream van routes. As a consequence of this upswing in national attention, the focus of the McLarty operations was about to take a very immediate turn south down the A77. Benny Donald was suddenly running out of time.

  43

  May 1984

  The first song he played them was great. But the second song was incredible. They all knew it. X-Ray Raymonde was initially speechless. Max was in tears. The Sylvester brothers both hugged Grant Delgado after he had finished playing them the demo. Even Maggie wasn’t immune. Their break-up had sent him into a bit of tailspin. He’d retreated to the flat and, in dopey bursts of reflection his creative juices had burst their banks. Several songs had been written for – and about – her, but their deceptively simple lyrics all aimed at a collection that Grant envisaged to be a universal celebration of the miraculous resonance of love. Grant had gone back to Shabby Road and had taped these demos with the young studio engineer’s help. ‘The First Picture’ was a fantastic record but now, listening to a rough cut of the song entitled ‘It’s a Miracle’, Max immediately understood why it hadn’t broken the band nationally. Both of these two new songs sounded contemporary and familiar, traditional and unique all at the same time. But it was Grant’s voice that demonstrated the biggest surprise. Where only six months ago he had sounded artfully fragile and frail, he now sang with a sighing, richly melodic croon.

  He played more. All of the new songs that Grant had written were amazing. They were a leap forward in depth, complexity and lyrical dexterity far greater than any of them could’ve hoped for. Max was ecstatic. He asked for Grant to play ‘It’s a Miracle’ again.

  ‘Holy fuck, ya cunt! That’s like … fuckin’ ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Suspicious Minds’ and ‘Hand in Glove’ aw mixed th’gither, or somethin’.’

  It was astonishing. But it was also incredibly simple. It had long notes and longer intervals, and the chorus went up, as opposed to some indie songs having down-turned minor-chord progressions. Max lifted his eye patch and wiped both eyes.

  ‘It’s great, son. It really is,’ said X-Ray Raymonde. ‘That other one, ‘Beautiful Mess’, was it? That’s fantastic as well. Once we’ve got a bigger multi-tracked backing on Miracle, it’ll sound unbelievable. Like a Phil Spector record with guitars.’

  ‘Maggie, whit dae you think?’ asked Grant.

  ‘Ah really love it, Grant … both of them,’ she said quietly. ‘Really.’

  He had made her happy, at least for the time that the tape was playing. Grant reckoned that would be enough for now. He had missed her more than he could have imagined, but that longing had fuelled the clutch of unpolished songs that would become The Miraculous Vespas’ first LP. He too had known ‘It’s a Miracle’ was a brilliant song. It had a deliberately trite and clichéd title, but that belied its sureness of touch and its timeless coolness. It had come to him late at night, as he sat on the hard floor of the flat, sketching out chords and dreaming of what Maggie was doing at that moment. Loneliness and isolation were the context. A muse is a powerful and potent force of creativity. But it can also be most effective when it’s just out of reach. In the moment that ‘It’s a Miracle’ was born, Grant knew Maggie was his.

  ‘Sing it for us noo, man,’ said the Motorcyle Boy.

  ‘Aw’right. Here goes.’ Grant started strumming:

  In the streets and houses, lines are being drawn,

  There’s ghosts in the towers, smearing honey on the lawn,

  While the winds are blowing, and the leaves are growing,

  From green to gold, it’s a miracle.

  Here comes love…

  The miracle of love.

  All my doubts and demons fall at your feet,

  Like a bee dreams of flowers, you reach to me,

  Now my mouth’s betraying what I’m really saying,

  If the truth be told, it’s a miracle.

  Here comes love…

  The miracle of love.

  It’s the miracle … The miracle of love.

  Max had already decided, on advice from X-Ray Raymonde, to delay the release of ‘It’s a Miracle’. The veteran held the view that even great songs could get as lost in the mush of novelty holiday beach songs of the Costa del Sol as they were in the pre-Christmas rush. Max saw the logic in this. Early August was the target. It gave them time to plan a campaign of sorts. With Geoff Travis’s distribution network, Max had already planned
for a pressing of 5,000.

  The bank account was being replenished at an impressive rate by Washer, without any real constraints on its outgoings. Max simply assumed that Washer trusted his judgement. The band’s new accountant – whose task it was to formulate all this financial chicanery into tax statements – was less convinced. But since he too was now a small shareholder, he was firmly holding his tongue.

  Another shareholder was Frankie Fusi. Max liked Frankie but the shared interest in the band was something insisted upon by Washer. Washer had given Frankie the role of tour manager, but this essentially meant ensuring nothing happened to Max Mojo when the band was away from Ayrshire. Given where the investment in the band was actually coming from, he also knew that the oblivious investors would ultimately become conscious investors. Frankie Fusi alone wouldn’t withstand the might of Malachy McLarty’s mob, but until Don McAllister’s squad began hoovering up the debris, it would have to suffice.

  Violence on their first tour outside of their hometown never seemed far away. The cheek-by-jowl proximity of the band to their audience in these small, sweaty, claustrophobic venues seemed to positively illicit aggression, as if it was the essential component of a great night out. Pay your money, hear some decent music, get bladdered, spit on – and fight with – the band; a night to remember and tell your kids about. Grant would come off stage every night, his face and hair soaked in saliva, beer and – when the beer was finished – the urine of others. The first time this happened, at a hastily arranged gig in Glasgow’s Rock Garden, Grant had walked off stage after two songs. The band weren’t paid. Max had to cajole Grant into continuing night after night. The manager reasoned that every band on the rise gets heckled, but only the really unlucky ones get hepatitis.