White Bicycles

by Joe Boyd

  The feathers of some local authorities were successfully ruffled: LFS advice helped people challenge the criminal justice system and claim unpaid benefits. But the Free School’s enduring legacy is the Notting Hill Carnival. A Trinidadian activist friend of Hoppy’s named Michael de Freitas (later Michael X) suggested moving an indoor celebration of Trinidadian culture on to the streets around Portobello Road during the August bank holiday. It was colourful and subversive, bringing together West Indians and freaks – the police’s worst nightmare. Thirty-nine years later, over a million and a half people danced through the streets of Notting Hill on that same summer weekend.

  The 1966 carnival was an auspicious beginning but it didn’t raise any money, so we scheduled a series of concerts in All Saints Hall, Powis Square. Jenner and King booked a group they knew from Cambridge who were looking for some London exposure. Pink Floyd had started out as a blues band, but after being asked for an experimental score by a film-making artist – and after Syd Barrett began his explorations of psychedelics – their music had veered off in more original directions. From the first LFS benefit in September 1966 until their departure for an American tour in November 1967, the Floyd’s music was the soundtrack for the Underground. The film score influenced more than just their music: they liked playing in front of moving lights so much they made it a central feature of their shows. The most enduring images of the Free School events, the International Times launch party, UFO and the 14-Hour Technicolour Dream at Alexandra Palace are of the four Floyds bent over their instruments in concentration while purple and turquoise bubbles of light play over them.

  In the murky glow, it was hard to pick out personalities, but if there was a centre of attention, it was Syd Barrett, with his impish girl-magnet looks, the screams of his slide guitar and the offhand way he sang his oddly melodic songs. Roger Waters also stood out for me. He is extremely tall and played a very large electric bass, often with his mouth wide open. His prominent nose and big oval head were sometimes the only human features perceptible in the gloom of the light show. Roger anchored the operatic chords, giving the group a foundation like no other. When Syd and his songs were long gone, the sound that would sweep the world was their classical harmonies underpinned by Roger’s bass, decorated by Rick Wright’s artfully cheesy organ and Nick Mason’s elaborate drumming and crowned by Dave Gilmour’s spacey blues guitar. Syd may be the most famous individual Floyd, but his songs have been heard by only a fraction of the millions who have bought Pink Floyd records.

  Peter and Andrew didn’t know anyone in the music business but me. I played a Floyd demo tape to Holzman a month or so before my departure but it didn’t do anything for him. Once I was a free agent, I set out to find a deal for them – and for myself as producer. Through the jazz tours I knew a man named Alan Bates who worked at Polydor Records, so I invited him to Powis Square.

  Polydor was the joker in the British deck in 1966. EMI and Decca had dominated the business for decades with only desultory competition. Warner Brothers had not yet ventured out of California, Dutch Philips was beginning a challenge and CBS had just opened a London office (the

  Beatles and the Stones having demonstrated that any self-respecting major company needed a British A&R presence). Polydor, the pop subsidiary of Deutsche Grammophon, sent a man with the unlikely name of Horst Schmolzi to open up the British market for them. Initially, the biggest weapon in his arsenal was James Last, a kind of teutonic Lawrence Welk popular with middle-aged British listeners anxious to insulate themselves from the unsettling new sounds now dominating Top of the Pops.

  Horst was a garrulous blond man in his early thirties who quickly became a fixture at the late-night hang-outs of London’s pop fraternity. Within a year he had prised The Who away from Decca by giving Lambert and Stamp their own Track Records label. His deal with Robert Stigwood secured not only Clapton’s Cream but the Bee Gees as well. When I met him, he had just signed an unknown American named Jimi Hendrix. It was a remarkable start for someone who came at the English with all the subtlety of a Porsche overtaking a Morris Minor in the inside lane. (Polydor executives were not known for diplomacy: the man sent to open their American office startled the crowd at the New York press launch by telling them he had wanted to live in the city ever since he had seen its skyline from Long Island Sound through the periscope of his U-boat in 1943.)

  EMI and Decca executives would have had cardiac arrests at the royalty rates and independence of Horst’s deals, which is why the wiliest managers went to him. The majors’ policy then was always to use their own studios and their own producers. The fact that staff man George Martin was so monumentally successful with the Beatles in EMI’s Abbey Road blinded them to the limitations of the formula.

  Horst was a cartoon German – vulgar, loud and monumentally pleased with himself – but I liked him: he was genuinely enthusiastic about the music and fearless in his tastes. When he heard the Floyd, he got it immediately and we proceeded to draw up a contract signing them to Polydor through my new company, Witchseason Productions.

  I had been stumped for a name when Donovan released a song called ‘Season Of The Witch’:

  Beatniks out to make it rich

  Must be the season of the witch.

  I liked the image, and by the time I thought to wince at having a company named after a Donovan song, it was too late.

  While lawyers haggled over the fine print we went into a Polydor studio to rehearse the first single. Everyone liked the choice of ‘Arnold Layne’, Syd’s catchy number about a back-yard knicker-sniffer (based on a true case from Cambridge). On our second night there, Jenner rang me to say they had signed with an agency and the bookers wanted to come down to the studio and meet the band. I retain a vivid memory of the moment Polydor’s night porter buzzed up to announce the visitors: Bryan Morrison, Steve O’Rourke and Tony Howard. Bryan now plays polo with Prince Charles, having made his fortune as a music publisher. Steve managed Pink Floyd from the 1968 coup that ousted Jenner and King until his death in 2003. In the 1970s, Tony Howard was a successful agent and managed Marc Bolan; he also became one of my dearest friends and died long before his time in 2001.

  All I saw when we first met, however, was three thugs. Steve was tallest: with large horn-rimmed spectacles, he looked like the evil twin of Yves St Laurent. Tony was short, with the squashed features of a boxing trainer. Bryan had dark hair, narrow eyes and an arrogant expression. They were dressed in velvet jackets, scarves knotted around their throats, King’s Road black boots, tight trousers and possibly one ruffled shirt. The dandyism only made them more sinister: they looked like monkeys dressed up for a PG Tips commercial and talked like Tony Secunda minus the charm. I felt in over my head again, a preppy Yank in the wilds of the London music business dealing with barrow boys far cannier and tougher than I could ever be.

  Tomorrow: Junior, Steve Howe, Twink, Keith West

  Lonnie Johnson in the late 1940s

  Maria d’Amato (later Muldaur), New York, 1963, with Bob Neuwirth and Tex Isley

  Sister Rosetta Tharpe, England, 1964

  Reverend Gary Davis, on tour, England, 1964

  Dressing room harmony, England, 1964: Otis Spann, Muddy Waters, Brownie McGhee, Sonny Terry

  Ransom Knowling, Willie Smith, Muddy Waters on stage, England, 1964

  Berlin Jazz Festival, 1964: Roland Kirk, Tété Montoliu, Tommy Potter, Kenny Clarke

  Coleman Hawkins and Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, on tour in Europe, 1964

  Ian Campbell Folk Group: Lorna Campbell, Ian Campbell, Brian Clark, John Dunkerly, Dave Swarbrick

  John Lee Hooker playing a blues all-nighter at Alexandra Palace, London, 1964

  Anne Briggs, Cecil Sharp House, 1965

  Paul Butterfield, Elvin Bishop, Mike Bloomfield, 1965

  Padstow Hobby Horse in the streets, May Day 1964

  The Watersons: Lal, John Harrison, Mike and Norma

  We Shall Overcome, Newport 1963: Peter, Mary and Paul, Joan Baez, Bob Dyla
n, the Freedom Singers, Pete Seeger, Theodore Bikel

  Paul Rothchild and Bob Dylan, near Woodstock NY, 1965

  Newport 1965: Eric Von Schmidt (beard), Joe Boyd (hat), Tom Rush, Geoff Muldaur, Maria d’Amato (Muldaur)

  The Move in caftans: Ace Kefford, Trevor Burton, Carl Wayne, Bev Bevan, Roy Wood

  John Hopkins in Portobello Road, 1965

  Robin Williamson and Mike Heron, 1966

  London Free School Notting Hill Carnival, 1966

  Vashti Bunyan, 1966

  Richard Thompson takes aim

  Nick Drake at the piano, 1968

  Bob Squire, Beverley and John Martyn, Hastings, 1970

  Marian Bain and Nick Drake, Witchseason office, 1970

  Blue Notes, ICA, 1965: Dudu Pukwana, Mongezi Feza, Johnny Dyani, Chris McGregor

  Incredible String Band on tour, 1969: Joe Boyd, Rose Simpson, Mike Heron, Christina McKechnie and Walter Gundy

  Linda Peters (later Thompson), 1971

  Jimi Hendrix and Devon Wilson, New York, 1970

  Fairport Convention, rehearsals for Liege and Lief: Ashley Hutchins, Dave Swarbrick, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Simon Nicol, Dave Mattacks

  Jenner rang the next day to say that Morrison had looked over the Polydor/Witchseason contract, found it wanting and proposed a Plan B. His agency would put up the money to record the single, then shop it to EMI or Decca as a finished master. Based on what he had heard in the studio, he was certain they could get a £5,000 advance for it. They wanted me to produce it, but as the Floyd’s employee, rather than the other way around. After kicking the wall a few times and cursing, I rang back and said I would agree so long as I was guaranteed the right to produce the first album. Bryan said he understood my feelings but was concerned that EMI wouldn’t like having their hands tied and we’d just have to play it by ear. For a couple of days I held out, then buckled, naïvely assuming that if the record was a hit, it would be in everyone’s interest to keep a winning team together.

  In early February we went into Sound Techniques, where we recorded and mixed ‘Arnold Layne’ and the B-side, ‘Candy And A Currant Bun’, over two nights. I liked the Floyd and the atmosphere was good. Even with a four-track machine, the mix was tricky. These days computers remember every movement of the faders so you can get the balance on one section just right, then go on to the next part. In ’67, mixes were like recording takes; you had to get it in one pass or go back to the top and start again. While engineer John Wood and I controlled most of the balances, Roger leaned over my shoulder extending his big index finger on one of the faders to ensure that the surge of volume at the start of Rick’s organ solo was just right. It was a nice team effort and we all felt good about the results.

  As Bryan predicted, EMI loved the single and offered £5,000 to sign the group. The royalty rate was far lower than Polydor’s, but the group needed the cash to buy a van. On the subject of producer, EMI stood firm. They wanted the group to use Abbey Road Studios and their staff man, Norman Smith, who had just had a novelty hit as a recording artist with ‘I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman’. We had one final session together when Peter Whitehead filmed the band recording ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ at Sound Techniques as part of the Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London documentary. The result is probably the closest you can get to hearing what the original Pink Floyd sounded like live.

  I went to the launch party for the single and wistfully wished them well. Witchseason Productions would have to get along without the Floyd. ‘Arnold Layne’ got into the Top Twenty despite a BBC ban for ‘indecent lyrics’. Norman Smith produced The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, but John Wood and I were gratified that they had to come back to Sound Techniques to get the ‘“Arnold Layne” sound’ for the second single.

  One evening in May I ran into Syd and his girlfriend in Cambridge Circus. It is strange to recall that early on a weekday evening there was almost no traffic in the heart of London. Syd was sprawled on the kerb, his velvet trousers torn and dirty, his eyes crazed. Lindsey told me he’d been taking acid for a week. A few weeks later Floyd fans were lined up three deep along Tottenham Court Road for their return to UFO. There was no artists’ entrance, so one by one they squeezed between me and the crowd, heading for the tiny dressing room in the back. I had exchanged pleasantries with the first three when Syd emerged from the crush. His sparkling eyes had always been his most attrac- tive feature but that night they were vacant, as if someone had reached inside his head and turned off a switch. During their set he hardly sang, standing motionless for long passages, arms by his sides, staring into space. Dave Gilmour was added to the group soon afterwards to cover for him and by the end of the year Syd was gone.

  I remember the UFO crowd sitting on the wooden dance floor in front of the stage, completely engrossed as the Floyd played those early gigs. Pete Townshend came down one evening and spent the whole night at the right-hand corner of the stage by Roger’s amp, tripping on something. When I came by, he pointed at Roger’s open mouth and told me it was going to swallow him. There were many pilgrimages to those shows: Hendrix, Christine Keeler and Paul McCartney on the same night (but not together), German TV shooting UFO’s only surviving film clip. Hearing the descending opening chords of ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ takes me immediately back to those nights, when the lights would pulse and bubble against the stage, the crowd would cheer the familiar melody, the four of them would stare intently at their instruments and we would be off. The jaunty choruses of Syd’s songs were like fertile planets in a void of spaced-out improvisation: returning to the theme after a ten-minute excursion was both exhilarating and reassuring. Even today, with Syd’s era a dim memory and Roger off sulking on his own, there is something about a Pink Floyd song no one has ever been able to emulate.

  Jenner and King were – like me – out of their depth once the Morrison Agency came on board and it was only a matter of time before they, too, would walk the plank. None of us imagined that decades later you could go to the remotest parts of the globe and find cassettes of Dark Side Of The Moon rattling around in the glove compartments of third-world taxis along with Madonna and Michael Jackson. Pink Floyd’s success is difficult to analyse or explain. What they brought with them from Cambridge was all their own; London in 1967 just happened to fall in love with it first.

  Chapter 18

  HOPPY AND I STARTED UFO because we were both broke. I had decided to stay in London and start my production company while Hoppy had given up his career as a photographer to launch the International Times. Neither venture was likely to yield much cash in a hurry.

  We spent an early afternoon in December 1966 speeding around London in the purple Mini, looking at derelict cinemas and nightclubs fallen on hard times. (In those days, you could speed around London on a weekday afternoon.) Our last stop was a Tottenham Court Road basement next to the Berkeley and the Continentale cinemas (all now buried under concrete) with a small sign outside reading THE BLARNEY CLUB. A wide stairway with faded red carpet bolted to cement steps led down to a gloomy, low-ceilinged ballroom with a tiny stage and a smooth wooden dance floor. To the left was a fluorescent-lit hallway opening on to a seedy bar area. The owner, Mr Gannon, was slinging around soft-drink crates, counting under his breath between puffs on a Woodbine. We enquired whether the club might be for rent on a weekend evening. ‘I suppose I could let you have a Friday night for fifteen pounds,’ he said, ‘but I’d have to sell the soft drinks.’ Since most of our customers were likely to suffer from dry-mouth syndrome or tight-throat syndrome and we knew nothing about the soft drinks business, we shook on the deal and booked the last two Fridays in December. Pink Floyd was engaged as the house band. We couldn’t decide between Night Tripper and UFO, so we put both on the flyers handed out in Portobello Road market the previous Saturday. We had no idea who would turn up that first night, 23 December 1966, but freaks came out of the woodwork from all over the city and we made a profit. There was a general feeling of surprise and recognition; few had any idea
there were so many kindred spirits.

  Over the coming months, UFO introduced London to Pink Floyd, the Soft Machine, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, light shows, tripping en masse and silk-screened psychedelic fly-posters. We opened every Friday at 10.30 and closed around 6 a.m. when the Tube started running. Indica Books sold posters from the Fillmore and Family Dog ballrooms in San Francisco so we decided to create some of our own. My friend Nigel Waymouth was a partner in Granny Takes a Trip, King’s Road’s most extreme boutique, where they sold floral jackets and mattress-ticking suits and shirts with collars that drooped to the nipples. Nigel had painted their shop window in a post-Beardsley acid-dream style with the front end of a car protruding on to the pavement. I nominated him for the task of creating our first poster.