by Selena Kitt
The club was busy when they got back and by the time they’d changed and got on stage, the entire dance floor was crammed with punk-clad figures. Biff hit four rim-taps to count the rest of the band in, and as the drums, guitar and bass belted out of the amps, the entire audience began to pogo to the beat. After the one-minute intro, Wood walked to the front of the stage and sang the first lines of Reckless Driver, their usual opening song.
‘Maybe I’m a reckless driver, but I get what I want
Why should I spend my life at the back when I would rather live at the front?’
They followed up that with five more original songs and the crowd was wild. A few people moshed so violently some tables got knocked over and drinks spilt. A minor skirmish broke out which the bouncers had to break up. The band finished their first set with a punked-up version of the Beatles’ Come Together, and then went in search of beer and women. There was a thirty-minute break between the first and second set, during which time Wood managed to drink four pints of lager and start two fights by propositioning girls with boyfriends. This was becoming a regular occurrence; Jag and Muzza had both recently pointed out to Wood that life would be easier if he just tried to chat up the single women. Wood just laughed and grabbed his own crotch, saying ‘Every woman wants some of the Wood-wood.’
* * *
Jag was pleased with the second set they played, and the crowd seemed more than happy, shouting and stamping their feet at the end until they agreed to play another song. They didn’t usually bother with an encore.
When they all got back into the cellar they were using as a dressing room, the club’s owner was there with another man. He was somewhere in his late twenties in a grey suit with dress shirt, but no tie. The club owner introduced the stranger as Simon Beeston.
The band all nodded, but none of them offered a hand in greeting.
“I’ve been hearing about Frenzy for a few weeks now,” he said in a posh accent.
Jag took an instant dislike to him, and noticed a couple of the others felt the same — all folded arms and blank stares.
The guy smiled warmly, clearly trying to thaw the cold front surrounding him. ‘So when Davy told me he’d booked you for his club, I thought I should come and see you in the flesh.”
Muzza smiled and dropped his leather trousers. “Here you go then.”
The guy tried to laugh it off. “No, seriously, I wanted to see you play live, and I’m very glad I did.” He looked at every member of the band, one after the other. “I think you boys have really got something.”
Biff was the first to respond. “Well if we have, we probably all caught it from Zoe.”
Simon was momentarily speechless while the rest of the band chuckled. Jag didn’t know which he found the funnier, Biff’s joke or the posh guy’s discomfort.
Simon steered things back to his prepared speech. “I’d like the opportunity to manage you, if you’re interested in really getting into the music business.”
The room was suddenly quiet and the band members looked at each other.
“Do you have a manager at the moment?” Simon asked.
They shook their heads. Jag noticed with pride how the band reacted to an outsider. He realised they were acting as a single unit, and it felt good to be part of it.
“Well, if you’re interested in taking yourselves any further, I think it would be a logical step.” Simon was looking mainly at Wood, evidently assuming that the lead singer he would also be the spokesman.
Muzza spoke for the band. “What’s in it for us?”
Simon smiled, as if he already knew this would be the first question. “I’ll arrange for you to perform at a few better venues.” With that, he smiled at Davy. “Not that there’s anything wrong with his club, but I’d like to see you playing in front of bigger audiences. I also have some contacts in London, so I’d like to get you signed to a record company.”
Wood asked the obvious second question. “And what’s in it for you?”
“Well, we can treat the first month as a trial, and I’ll only get my expenses paid. But if you’re happy with the direction we’re going in, then I would expect twenty five percent.”
Jag spoke up first. “That’s too much.”
Wood was nodding his agreement. “There’s no way I’m standing up there and getting covered in gob for two hours while you sit at the bar and earn more than me.”
Simon had probably been expecting this and put in a high figure he’d be happy to reduce. “I could go as low as twenty. But don’t forget, if I get you performing at bigger gigs, you’ll all be earning a lot more than you do at the moment. Eighty percent of that figure will be far more than the full one hundred percent you’re taking now.”
There was a temporary silence while this sunk in.
“And if I manage to convince my contacts they should give you a recording contract, then your earnings will increase exponentially.”
Muzza looked thoughtful, thick dark eyebrows furrowing above his dark brown eyes. “You should only get a percentage of whatever you set up. We already have some regular bookings, so I don’t see why you should get twenty percent of something you’ve had fuck all to do with arranging.”
Simon narrowed his eyes slightly while he considered how best to play this. But Jag followed up with another point.
“And we sell cassettes of our songs after our gigs. Since we paid to get them recorded, I don’t think you’re entitled to twenty percent of that, either.”
Simon saw the other band members were all nodding their heads, and he had to accept this – at least, for the time being. “Fair enough. I’ll get some contracts drawn up, and you can come down to my office and sign them as soon as they’re ready.”
Wood smiled. “I suppose it’s not worth signing them until the first trial month is up. That’ll give us all time to see if we are happy with the direction we’re going.” He smirked, knowing his piss-take of Simon’s accent had impressed the other lads.
Simon forced a smile, but there was no humour there. He held out four business cards, spreading them like a magician doing a trick. Each band member took a card, but only Jag bothered to read it. Blue gothic script announced Simon Beeston, Beeston Holdings Ltd, and a Manchester phone number which was presumably for his office.
“Well,” Simon said as he made his way to the door. “Thank you for the show tonight, and I assure you we’ll soon be taking steps up to a better future.”
As soon as he’d left the room, Jag, Muzza, Biff and Wood all looked at each other, half-smiling, half shocked.
“What a cunt.” Biff was his usual astute self.
Jag held up the business card. “Simon Beeston Holdings.”
Muzza snorted. “Simon Beastly, more like.”
Well he won’t be fucking holding me,” Biff said. “Fucker thinks he’s Brian Einstein.”
Jag looked at Muzza and shook his head, appalled at their drummer’s ignorance.
“Yeah,” Muzza said. “The man’s a fucking genius.”
“But it’s all relative,” Jag chuckled.
“Wha’?” Biff looked between them, perplexed.
Jag laughed and twisted Biff’s nipple. “It was Brian fucking Epstein, yer dickhead. Einstein was a German physicist. Even you must have heard of The Theory of Relativity?”
Biff continued to look confused, now rubbing his sore nipple and looking hugely hard-done-by.
“Did you actually ever go to school?” Muzza asked him.
“Piss off. I was going to be a teach—” Biff was drowned out by their laughter.
“Like fuck! There’s no way anyone would let you near a schoolgirl, you dirty little twat.”
Biff grinned and grabbed his own crotch. “I could teach them a thing or two. Take all the fit ones into the stock room for some private French lessons.”
The band changed and went out into the club, where one of the men who’d earlier had a go at Wood for chatting up his girlfriend was waiting with three of his friends.
Muzza saw them first and walked over to try to defuse the situation. When he realised how agitated and drunk the offended man was, he didn’t even bother trying to talk to him. Muzza head-butted him in the face and the guy dropped like a sack of potatoes, blood pouring from his broken nose. His three friends lost their nerve and backed off, dragging their half-conscious leader with them.
Muzza returned to the rest of the band and they all headed towards the bar. “Another quiet night out with Frenzy,” Biff announced.
* * *
Over the next couple of weeks, very little seemed to have changed as far as band management and gigs were concerned. Frenzy played another of their regular spots at Stark, and a couple of other one-offs they’d booked a few months back.
After a fortnight, Simon turned up at Stark, looking smug. “Well boys, thanks to me you’re going to be busy during the next few weeks. I’ve booked you on a short tour with three other bands.”
Jag looked at Muzza and they both raised their eyebrows. “A tour?”
Simon nodded. “Yes. There will be eight performances over nine days.”
“Where are we going?” Biff couldn’t keep the smile from his face.
“All over the Midlands. You’ll start in Stoke, then down to Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Coventry, and two nights in Leicester. There’s one in Derby and you finish up in Nottingham.”
Muzza smiled. “A bit like Robin Hood.”
Jag was thinking about arranging time off work. Wood had rich parents and didn’t seem to need to work at all. Muzza and Biff both had casual arrangements where they were paid when they turned up. Jag’s, however, was a permanent job where he got a set number of holidays per year. “When does it start?”
Simon smiled again. “First gig is next Wednesday. The main band is ‘The Riot’, and the support acts are yourselves, ‘Gash’, and a not-very-pleasant sounding ‘Fresh Scabs’.”
Jag was impressed but tried not to show it. He’d heard of Gash, an all-girl punk band from Liverpool. He’d actually paid to see The Riot play the previous year. He was also aware that ‘The Scabs’ had recently split, and two members had formed a new band. He suspected this would probably be Fresh Scabs.
“What about getting around and sleeping?” Muzza was obviously worried he’d be dossing down in his brother’s Transit van for over a week.
“There’s going to be a coach for transport, and I’ve booked you into lodging houses for each night.” Simon raised his finger, his face serious. “However, if there is any trouble or damage, it’ll be deducted from whatever you earn.”
Biff seemed impressed with Simon’s band-management so far. “And what will we be earning?”
“As a band, you’ll be getting £70 per gig, which means you’ll get a total of £560 for the tour. Frenzy’s share of the cost of the coach and the rooms will be about £250, so that’ll give you a profit of over £300 for eight one-hour sessions. That’s £75 each.”
They rubbed their hands at the amount. Jag worked over forty hours in a local warehouse and earned less than fifty quid a week.
“Also,” Simon went on, “you’ll be able to sell some of your tapes there. But you’ll have to give twenty percent of the proceeds to the tour organiser.”
Muzza smiled. “And that would be you, I presume?”
Simon smiled back. “I am one of the organisers, yes. How much do you make on the tapes usually?”
Muzza answered. “We sell them for three pounds each. For every ten we sell, Jag gets twelve quid and the rest of us get six each.”
Simon, obviously surprised by this, turned to face Jag, who felt a little embarrassed under his gaze.
“Jag writes all the songs, so it’s only fair. If we had a record deal, he’d be the one who got the royalties for writing the songs.”
“And you’re all happy with this arrangement?”
Before Jag could say anything, Muzza answered. “Yeah, we are. In fact, giving Jag a bigger cut of the cassettes was my idea, not his.”
“Fair enough then, but what about the cover versions you do? I remember you playing Long Tall Sally and Come Together when I saw you in Stockport.”
Jag answered this one. “We don’t put cover versions on our tapes. That way we’re not likely to get sued by the people who own the rights to those songs.”
Simon produced an envelope from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “Here are the contracts I’ve had drawn up. I suggest you all take them home, have a read and get them signed and returned to my office before we leave on the bus Wednesday.”
Biff looked surprised. “Before we leave on the bus? Are you saying you’ll be travelling with us?”
Simon smiled again. “Oh yes. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” With that he left the room and all the band members looked at each other.
Once again Biff summed up how all the band felt. “Fucking Hell. He’s done alright, eh? I mean — he’s still a cunt, but he’s done alright.”
* * *
Muzza’s brother Graham was kind enough to take the band and their gear to the Salford bus depot on Wednesday morning. Although the coach was over ten years old it was still in good condition and was a large fifty two-seater. The members of Fresh Scabs were already at the depot when Frenzy arrived. With each musician overseeing the storage of his own equipment, they all introduced themselves to each other as they moved up and down the bus. Jag had been right about the band’s identity. He recognised the bass player from when he’d seen The Buzzcocks with The Scabs as support act.
There was limited storage capacity in the bag-hold spaces down the side of the bus, so only the drum kits and some of the amps were put in there. All guitars and the rest of the amps stayed on the bus, wedged between the seats. They were stowed strategically so that the passengers would be spread out throughout the bus, rather than all the people at the front and all the gear at the back. Just as Graham’s van was pulling out of the depot, a white minibus with a Liverpool phone number written on the side pulled into the vacant bay next to the coach.
The doors opened and the members of Gash stepped out. They were all dressed in jeans and t-shirts and although a couple of them had their hair spiked, none was wearing punk make-up.
Muzza elbowed Jag in the ribs as one of the girls walked past him with a smile. “I wouldn’t mind getting acquainted with her gash.”
Everyone introduced themselves. The girls all spoke with strong Liverpudlian accents. They had a couple of guys with them, possibly roadies to set up the gear, or maybe boyfriends who didn’t like the idea of their other halves spending a week and a half with a dozen horny men.
Simon emerged from the bus depot office and approached them by the side of the bus. “Just off the phone to Daryl, who manages The Riot. They’re meeting us in Stoke. Seemed pointless them coming all the way from London to Manchester, just to head back south again.”
Everyone boarded the coach and the driver started the engine. The forty-odd mile trip to Stoke seemed to pass pretty quickly, with everyone in good spirits yet quite reserved because of all the strangers. Even Wood was restrained. It took him almost fifteen minutes before he ventured down the bus to sit with one of the blond women from Gash.
* * *
The club in Stoke turned out to be a large room above a pub called The Wheatsheaf. The Riot had already got their gear set up at the back of the stage. It had been decided by the organisers that the running order of support acts would change throughout the tour. Tonight it was Fresh Scabs opening, followed by Frenzy. Gash would appear just before the main act. The Riot wouldn’t be on stage until midnight and their band members were nowhere to be seen.
It took the support acts over an hour to set up their gear, and each band was given a time slot to come and do a sound-check. A guy from the club set up the PA system and checked how many vocal mics each band would need. There were over five hours before they were due on stage. When Muzza realised the pub downstairs didn’t serve food, he announced to the other bands that Frenzy was going
for something to eat and anyone was welcome to join them.
After a bit of debating, two of the guys from Fresh Scabs joined them, and so did two of the girls from Gash, along with their two roadies-or-boyfriends. They found a suitable pub less than a hundred yards away.
“Okay then,” Muzza said. “Two pints of lager, a pint of Guinness and a rum and black, please mate.” He knew his own band’s order well enough. He turned to the others and pointed to the barman. “Give the man your orders, people.”
One of the girls came over to Muzza and Jag as they read the menu. “Hiya guys, I’m Mindy.”