“Courtesan” has come together, rolling and snarling beautifully along. Ultimately, I hear a Hammond in the mix, but right now this baby with its sleazy third-gear tempo is perfect for strutting around onstage, annoying people.
Cas and I introduce another new song to the boys, titled “Drowning Sorrows.” We wrote it with Rod Stewart in mind. He could use it, we reckon. The man’s showing distinct signs of going off the boil. Learning it allows us to jettison “Confessin’ the Blues” when we need to slow things down in a set that is getting increasingly frenetic. “Drowning Sorrows” is a stirred-up mix of bluesy drum pattern, regret, baby grand piano, alcohol, crawling around on a floor trying to make that late-night phone call. It’s got it all.
Lou and Casino want to do “Hoochie Coochie Man,” and they finally break me down. My one concession is that I don’t want it to plod along in drab, hackneyed blues fashion. If we are going to do it I want it to be unrecognizable. I want it to sound like it was done by mental patients on amphetamines.
We give it a whirl in the kitchen, and three tries later it is a suitably frantic mix of sweat and decibels.
And I can’t help but notice that Lou and Mick are turning into a rhythm section made in rock ’n’ roll Valhalla.
XIV
Ken’s Tale
So, maybe my story starts in 1967–8, no, ’67 for sure. Immediate Records bought the Small Faces contract from Don Arden but forgot to pay him, so I’m at the office, it’s 7 p.m., when two gorillas arrive. I get introduced to Wilf and Arnie. They sit me down in my office with a sawn-off pointed at my knees and tell me to call Andrew Loog Oldham, who’s with Allen Klein at the Dorchester flogging the Stones and not to be disturbed.
So we wait for two hours together—nice guys, they’re very reassuring and tell me they don’t want my kneecaps but biz is biz, no hard feelings. Finally, ALO returns with promises of 30 or 40K. So that’s how I met Wilf Pine. He was a collector for Don and very good at his job. With Wilf holding your ankles out a window five or six stories high and threatening to clap his hands, you come to an arrangement.
When Immediate folded I worked for Don for a few months and got to know Wilf. Then I went to the States with ALO—Rare Earth, Bloody Marys in Connecticut, then Greece. Upon my return Wilf contacts me. He’s stolen some group from a Birmingham schmuck, sold them to Patrick Meehan Sr. & Jr. and kept a bite of the action. Enter Black Sabbath.
Like many people, Wilf fell in love with the myth that was Immediate Records and wants his own record company, Patrick also. So I start at Worldwide Artists, new label stabled with the Sabs, Yes, Groundhogs, Stray, Jimmy Helms, etc., an inspiring bunch.
Then, I remember, back in Connecticut with Andrew Loog Oldham, Sean Kenny says to me, “What the fuck are you doing, Ken? Piss off and find your own Rolling Stones.”
Next, I must introduce Laurie O’Leary. He was a “business manager” for the Krays while they were enjoying Her Majesty’s pleasure and accommodation. Laurie comes to Dover Street in Mayfair, says he’s put this group, the Hollywood Brats, on at the Speakeasy and why don’t I have a look?
Says, “Bit flash, they’ll need a smack but have a look.”
Ken Mewis, Bali, 1989
XV
The day has finally dawned, July 28, 1973. This is the day we have been aiming for since the church hall in Stanmore. This is the day when our fortunes take flight, when all the rats and rice and rubbish and boos and spitting and crabs and knob-warts will be deemed to have been worth it.
This is the day of the night that we play the Speakeasy. We have rehearsed a million hours in the kitchen and we are, in our utterly biased opinions, white hot. We don’t know if they are ready for us but we’re ready for them. It’s Saturday night at the Speak. Who cares what picture you see?
Laurie O’Leary has let it be known via Casino Steel that tonight there will be a special someone in the audience, in attendance for the sole purpose of checking us out and deeming whether or not we are worthy of a record contract. Simple as that.
We can take the heat, so we’re getting out of the kitchen.
It’s 9:30 p.m. Here we are, nervous and edgy, in the tiny room curtained off behind the Speakeasy stage. No sink, no mirror, benches on three sides, cheap lamp on a cheaper table, stained carpet floor. Lovely.
We hear the club slowly start to fill up; we listen to and mock the crap music the DJ foists upon the punters. There is nothing to say but Lou insists on saying things anyway. A fidgety chatterbox, he’s keeping everyone loose, I suppose, but if this constitutes loose I’d hate to try wound up tight.
Matted red velveteen bench, the five of us seated in a rough horseshoe. Casino, bless his foresight, has brought a bottle of Old Grand-Dad, Kentucky bourbon, and we pass it around, looking for a jolt of 80-proof courage. We feel the weight of it all, the monumental importance of the occasion, the worries about performance, individual and collective, all of it coming down from the low pyrofoam ceiling, pressing on our skulls.
And the biggest worry of all? The biggest worry is not that we’ll be bad, because we’re razor-edged, direct from the sharpening stone—we’re kitchen honed. And we don’t particularly care if the exalted Speak audience does not immediately like us, because that’s what usually happens anyway and we’ve been trained to musically machete our way through hatred. It’s not even the fear that Mr. Mysterious Magic Music Man with his powerful wand won’t show up, or even if he does that maybe he won’t like us. Nah, it’s nothing like that.
Our biggest worry, number one with a bullet, which we can’t even talk about, so as not to invite the evil mojo, is that our beyond-decrepit equipment will die, expire, explode at the very worst moment. Because you know what? Every moment that’s about to happen is the very worst moment.
Out there onstage awaiting us are our weak amps, crackly microphones, buzzing speakers, clapped-out leads, and loose, sparking, arcing plugs. Little red lights are glowing. Intermittently. The low, threatening, sporadic static of the amps; every one of them, except Mick’s, says we’re on borrowed time.
And dare any of us? Dare any of us sitting here on the chewing-gummed, stained, stinking, beer-drenched Speakeasy bench remember the last do-or-die moment? The last time we played a venue of similar import? Dare we remember the Marquee?
Dare we remember the singer walking out, grabbing the microphone, and yapping like a sap in a silent flick? No, don’t you dare think about that, laddie. Do that tonight, and what? If you stride to the mic and it’s conked out, well, then it’s you that is conked out, matey, not the mic. If that happens on this night at the Speak you may as well just walk offstage, through the club, out into Margaret Street, and either throw yourself in front of a bus or peel off the false eyelashes and get a job in an insurance office. Pass the pills, the rope, and razor blades, please.
The trash music gets steadily louder as more and more people fill the club. Another tug on the Grand-Dad. Brady peeks through the curtain. He reports that the joint’s jammed. The tables, booths, banquettes, bar, aisles, and entranceway are full of London’s finest drunken, stoned, and impartial critics. The glitterati of the biggest music burg on the planet have shown up on a Saturday night to see and be seen. They’re dressed up to the eights. They give not the slightest toss about who’s onstage tonight.
Oh, yeah? Watch this. Roll them dice, boys.
Some guy pops his head through the curtains—“You’re on at the end of this song”—and then he’s gone. No “Good luck, chaps” or “Have a good show” or “Break a fucking fibula” or anything like that. Just, “You’re on at the end of this song.”
Mercifully, the song in question is “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Stones. Not that it’s good—it’s okay—it’s just that it goes on forever and is nod-off-to-sleep boring, so we know we’ll come out and wipe the floor with it afterward. The “goes on forever” aspect is handy, too, because it allows for a
few more good gulps of Old Grand-Dad. Still, nerves abound among the five of us.
We’re standing up, punching each other, getting the marching order straight: Lou, Casino, Mick, Brady, Me. Another slug of Grand-Dad.
The song goes to double time and dies its slow, dull death. In the awkward silence that ensues, we walk in predetermined order onstage with no introduction. There is no such thing as stage lighting so it’s as though we’ve strolled into a particularly dire cocktail party.
This is as far from Cabaret cool as it can get. The crowd shuts up momentarily, though, when they get a look at us, which I take as a good sign. Then, as usual, the snickering starts. We don’t care. They can’t intimidate us. We stared down the RAF so this is nothing. These people are dinosaurs. It’s just that no one’s told them yet.
I stand stock-still, arms crossed, at the microphone, looking out at the enemy while the boys get plugged in, situated, and comfy. This takes its usual eternity, of course. Just when it reaches its most painful point I glance over my left shoulder at Cas. He nods, and I count all the way from one to two.
The boys are in on the three, and for the umpteenth time I wonder what we would do without “Melinda Lee.” One of the first songs Casino and I ever wrote, and we use it to kick-start every gig.
She slips up to me easy
She’s holding my hand
She says my every wish is her command
If they’re noisy, Melinda shuts them up. If they’re ignoring us, Melinda gets their attention. If they’re heckling, Melinda drowns them out. And if they want to dance, Melinda tickles their tail feathers. She’s tailor-made for the minefield that is a typical Hollywood Brats gig.
But eventually, as all good things must, “Melinda Lee” ends, with . . .
I’ll see you in the sheets, Melinda Lee
Crescendo, sustain chord, screeching high note and earsplitting feedback, courtesy of Brady, followed by the definitive cymbal crash. Crowd response: not much. To call it a smattering of applause would be to, well, lie. There are murmurs, titters, and laughs. Sod ’em.
Next song, “Running Wild,” smack ’em between the eyes. And so it goes. Three minutes of mayhem followed by three more minutes of even worse mayhem. We’ve got the action so we couldn’t care less about the reaction.
We’re walking the stage like we own it and acting like they love it, and you know what? Soon they seem to fall for the deception. Soon they start to believe it, too. In the microsecond we give them to respond between songs they are starting to loosen up, slap palms together, and whoop a little. Maybe their alcohol intake is kicking in. Who cares? Enjoy yourself.
Sure, we still have the budding Oscar Wildes that can’t help but yell out their carefully rehearsed ad-libs, some of them coming right up in front of us, but all in all we might just be winning these suckers over.
I give ’em the verbals and the boys hit ’em with the noise. That’s our formula and we’re not changing it for these exalted tossers.
There is, however, one slight hiccup, and it’s Lou’s hiccup, and one more like that and I’ll strangle his scrawny throat. We’re in the middle of Randy Newman’s “Gone Dead Train”—why we’re still playing this song is beyond me—and there’s an eight-beat stop in the middle, straight in on the nine, and Lou decides he’d rather come in on the seven and a bit, which doesn’t exist, so we’re screwed for the ensuing twenty excruciating bars or so.
We stagger to the end of the song like punch-drunk punks. That’s it, we’re never playing this song again. I turn to give Lou a withering look, but for some reason he is fervently fiddling with the butterfly nut on his ride cymbal so he doesn’t see me.
No troubles, though. Brady kicks in to “Sweet Little Sixteen” and suddenly she’s really rockin’ in Boston and Pittsburgh, PA, and we get to the end of the first set and, glory be, the aforementioned glitterati blow their carefully considered cool; they yell and clap and indicate by various other verbal and nonverbal means that they’ll miss us a bit while we’re gone. We leave to a modest sitting ovation.
Exit stage right into the little velveteen sanctuary. We’ve done okay and yet a toss I do not give; I’m seething about the “Gone Dead Train” screwup and I let Lou know it. No skimping on the syllables, either. I’m standing up and doing an Adolf H. to the boys on the benches. When I’ve finished the rant I lie down on the floor and stretch out on my back with my arm over my eyes, like a particularly peeved Marlene Dietrich.
The DJ cranks up, what else, bloody “Superstition” by Stevie “Ray-Bans” Wonder, and all gets back to normal in the Speakeasy world. In the dressing room, where nobody’s heard an encouraging word, they’re just bent over, just catching breath, just dripping sweat, that’s all.
And then, it’s one of those moments . . . the curtain is pulled back and, good Lord, a vision from rock ’n’ roll managerial heaven enters. This thing is five foot ten, maybe eleven, gray pin-striped suit, sunglasses (in a club at 10 p.m., mind you), white shoes, spiky blond hairdo, fag drooping out of pouty lips, looking for all the world like James Dean’s sexually confused cousin.
Our piano man, aka Mister I’m All Business, leaps up, sticks out a mitt, and does the old chitty-chitty chat-chat. After a beat or two he says to me, “Andrew, this is Ken Mewis, from Laurie’s office.”
I don’t move. From the floor, on a sweaty hot night in July, I say two words: “Merry Christmas.”*
* * *
Second set, we murder ’em. We’ve saved up “Chez Maximes” and a few other choice incendiaries, and we smack ’em like cattle with that stun thing used in only the most discriminating of abattoirs.
This club is nothing really when you get right down to it. It’s like every other club we’ve encountered and probably like every other club on the planet. It’s no different from a biker club in Southend or Redhill, or the Railway Hotel in Harrow, or anywhere else. The true difference, the mind-boggling, or should I say remotely interesting, aspect is the clientele.
Bryan Ferry’s here again (doesn’t he have a home to go to?), so is Keith Moon and Rod, and at one point even Jeff Beck (pint in hand and not looking a minute older than when I saw him doing “Shapes of Things” on Hullabaloo in ’66 with the Yardbirds) wandered down stage-side to clock us. Imagine: Jeff Beck at the side of the stage while we do “I Ain’t Got You.”
Thank Christ the Irishman was too busy concentrating on running his bottleneck up and down the neck of his Strat to see him, or I’m sure we would have had another “Gone Dead Train” moment.
And then that’s it. We’ve done it. We’ve played the Speakeasy. If we haven’t knocked ’em out, we’ve at least smacked ’em to the canvas a couple of times, so maybe we can call it a split decision. Who knows? We’re in good shape afterward, though, packing up, laughing, and bopping around. The gear, bless it, didn’t let us down.
The manager comes up as we are packing to say thank you (imagine that?) and that he hopes he’ll see us again (imagine that?). Then, on a night made of miracles, up walks Keith Moon, carrying a tray of pints. He hands the tray to Lou and bows.
“Dear boys, dear boys. Hollywood Brats. Drink up, chaps. And well deserved, too.”
Five jaws hit the floor. Unintelligible words are stammered. Keith Moon turns to the manager and says, “The Hollywood Brats are the greatest band I’ve ever seen.” Then he bows again and strolls off through the club and out the door, stopping only to allow a blonde to take his arm.
XVI
Sunday, we lie around the squat, drained, on edge, wondering what our fate will be. Monday, down Mill Lane to the phone box. I call Casino at a prearranged time and when I return through the smashed front door, running up the rotting stairs, past the wallpaper penicillin, I am able to report that the guy who came in the dressing room on Saturday night is called Ken and he wants to see Casino and me tomorrow for a chat.
Tuesday, 2 p.m., Casino and I—scrubb
ed, brushed, and in full makeup—enter a restaurant in Mayfair that is beyond fancy. White tablecloths, exotic greenery, knives, forks, and spoons that look like they may be worth pocketing, bow-tied waiters, nimble and agile, looking like dancers from silent films.
The maître d’ is a dead ringer for a snooty, past-it Rudolph Valentino. He also looks like he has been waiting for us, because as soon as he claps eyes on us he does not call the police. Instead, we are whisked away to a corner table where sits the man who just may change our lives forever.
Ken Mewis is slouched back in his chair, tie askew, dark gray suit, pink shirt, glass of red wine halfway to his lips, hair stunning, eyes heavy-lidded like he’s about to nod off. Maybe he is. What do I know? Or maybe he’s just louche, cool. Maybe he’s self-assured. Maybe he’s going to carve us up like a couple of roast pigeons.
Ken orders a bottle of red, and when it arrives there is much staring at the label and murmuring with the waiter. It is deemed worthy of decanting. Then Ken starts to chat, telling us a bit about himself. He was with Immediate Records, for Christ’s sake. He drops names like the Small Faces, the McCoys, Humble Pie, and nearly man Chris Farlowe. And, get this, it scarcely seems possible but he says he personally knows the great Andrew Loog Oldham. I lean my jaw on my fist to stop it hitting the table. Two or three punches and the man has knocked us out.
He orders another bottle of red. I note that less time is spent label staring and waiter murmuring. We haven’t eaten in a day and a half, and we are certainly unaccustomed to this standard of intoxicant. It all begins to go to my cerebral cortex, or somewhere equally discombobulating. Everything he is saying is so unbelievable; I have to state our case, rouse myself, counterpunch.
Sick On You Page 21