Next day at Olympic, it’s vocals, more vocals, and a bit of this and that. Ken wants handclaps on “Chez Maximes.” Didn’t we try this joke last year? Anyway, a microphone is set up in a stairwell, just like for the Elvis vocal on “Heartbreak Hotel.” Cas and I nail it then nix it. It was a dopey idea anyway.
* * *
The heating has been off at 26 Bishop’s Road for almost a week and our entreaties to the office have had no effect. The weather’s frigid, so when I find an ax in the backyard we start chopping up the furniture and burning it in the fireplace. A chair or two a night generally does it. Burning varnish does imbue the room with a certain iffy smell, but the resulting flames are blue and cheery.
Lou picks the cellar lock and we lug up a workbench that I chop up in the garden. This lasts us quite a few nights. Later on in the week I am swinging away like a lumberjack, hacking apart the kitchen table, when there is a loud exclamation behind me. It is our landlord, Jasper Beauregard III, who has let himself in to try to figure out the heating problem. I stop chopping and ask if he’s come about the ceiling. The obvious humor in the situation entirely eludes him and he storms out, threatening to call the office and then the police. Yeah, right. The police. Go ahead, Mr. Beauregard.
Brady asks me to help him out in the backyard. He brings a whiskey bottle, matches, string, a file, and a candle. All very voodoo. While I nervously hold the bottle, he scores the neck with the file, lights the candle, ties the string around the neck, and sets it on fire. While it burns he drips candle wax over it and mutters something in Latin. Ten seconds and three twists of emery paper later, Brady has a bottleneck slide. He uses it on “Ain’t Got You” that afternoon at Olympic.
Brady decides to move out of Bishop’s Road. He explains that he really needs some private shagging time with a new bird he’s picked up from the Greyhound, Tina, and he’s tired of Lou and me watching them at it, not to mention occasionally taping proceedings to play later over the Olympic sound system. Spoilsport. Anyway, he sells his Strat for £110 and moves to a rented room in one of London’s more dodgy locales.
* * *
Olympic, Casino and I doing all the vocals. Sometimes our noggins are together on the microphone, sometimes one of us in the control room producing. The engineer is becoming entirely marginalized.
On a wander during a break, I see the Bee Gees enter Studio C. Later, I can’t resist loitering outside the door to try to hear what they’re doing. It is a beautiful version of the Beatles’ “Sun King.” The harmonies are amazing. The Fabs’ original version is no slouch but this is positively ethereal. The door opens and Maurice comes out into the hall, followed by a billowing cloud of marijuana smoke. He coughs “hello” and walks off down the hall. How can they sing through all that?
The day comes when we are going to record what has become our favorite song, “Sick On You.” “You want to know what it’s like, condemned to live with you?” Well, do ya, honey? Anger, aggression, and attitude out to here. And, as if that weren’t enough, thanks to Mr. Steel it is in the suitably psychotic key of F-sharp.
Lou kicks things off and we run through it, instrumentally, to warm up and let the tape-op get some levels. Get those needles bouncing to the extreme right, sonny. Then the engineer comes on the talk-back and says, “Take one.” Away we go at full throttle. Somewhere around the first chorus we see him standing up, staring slack-jawed through the glass. He looks at Ken then presses his little talk-back button again and says, “Wait. Stop, stop, stop.” We stop. Reluctantly. That sounded good—what’s the problem?
“You’re kidding, right?” he continues. “I mean, that’s not it, is it? That’s a joke, right?”
Well, cue a collective Vesuvius. We down tools and explode into the control room, ready to boot the beard back to Woodstock. Ken gets between us, waving a £20 note, knowing from previous experience that cash hath charms to soothe the savage Brat. He sends us off to the pub, says come back in half an hour.
When we return, half an hour times two, we are drunkish, angry, and resentful, all of which can really help some songs. The engineer sits at the console with chopsticks, staring resentfully into the middle distance eating a bowl of brown rice. We go back in the studio, strap on the weaponry, and nail “Sick On You” in one take. Through the glass, Ken gives us an enthusiastic two thumbs up.
Someone presses the talk-back button. We see the engineer slowly stand up, shaking his bison head back and forth. He says, “I’m sorry. I just don’t understand this.” Then he walks out of the studio.
We never lay eyes on him again.
II
There is only one photographer, at least only one photographer Casino and I want, to shoot the Hollywood Brats. Gered Mankowitz was eighteen years old when he was chosen by Andrew Loog Oldham to go to the States with the Stones. Eighteen, and official shutterbug to the Rolling Stones. Imagine that. He shot the covers for December’s Children and Between the Buttons (after a session in a park near Olympic Studios). That’s all you need to know. We tell Ken that’s who we want, and guess what? That’s who we get.
Casino Steel’s birthday, February 22, 1974. He is twenty—ha, ha. We rendezvous, done up and dandified, in Piccadilly Circus and make our way to Gered’s studio. On the short walk a Stuka-inspired pigeon makes a white splattering deposit on Lou’s head from a great height. Lou curses in disbelief and wipes the top of his skull with pages from a discarded newspaper, while the rest of us are bent over, convulsed with laughter.
The photo studio is fantastic, just what you’d imagine, and Gered is everything we thought he’d be: professional, creative, bursting with ideas, and crazy-focused when he’s framing a shot, with a look in his eye that Charlie Manson would get stupid middle-class girls to kill for.
Four members of the band bear an uncanny resemblance to the Hollywood Brats but, as usual, the bass player needs serious attention. The only thing Derek brings that passes muster is a Maltese cross around his neck. So we get to work on him. Casino contributes a studded leather wristband, and Brady gives him a blue paisley silk bolero blouse. I chip in a blue scarf with white polka dots.
Casino is in a black leather shirt, fingering a genuine swastika armband belonging to yours truly, black satin strides, four-inch black belt with Johnny Reb brass buckle, wristbands, silk scarf, rings, tattoos, and red nail polish.
Lou is wearing a gold lamé choker and dangling necklaces, silver bracelet, red silk chemise, skinny jeans with silver studs and turned-up cuffs, and the highest, wildest pink stack-heeled shoes in the world.
Brady’s in black satin with junk jewelry, a silk top from Chinatown, Kensington Market boots, and a red patterned scarf borrowed from the lead singer.
I’m in my Mr Fish chemise, black-and-white polka-dot trousers by Sonja, red satin coat, black fingernails, and sporting a silver-topped Edwardian walking stick all wrapped up in a fourteen-foot-long pink ostrich feather boa.
Follow that, pussies.
After an hour of studio shots under the lights and in front of a backdrop, Gered moves the madness outside up some stairs to the roof. I take the opportunity to ditch the Mr Fish for a mauve top and blue velvet ladies’ jacket, hand-painted in Ireland in the thirties, a couple of bracelets, and a black leather Jayne Mansfield belt with silver-star studs.
It’s Arctic cold and Gered’s not shy about putting us through our paces: climbing up stairs, running down stairs, bursting through doorways, etc. When we plead the need for cognac he sends us to a nearby pub and lends me a huge full-length bearskin coat in which to warm up. It weighs about fifty pounds and makes me look like a glam camera-hog Sasquatch.
While at the pub it crosses my mind that this coat is tailor-made for a spot of pilferage. But, as Chad & Jeremy mentioned, that was yesterday and yesterday’s gone.*
After a couple of decidedly non-VSOPs, followed by a pint or two of best bitter for good luck, it’s back to the photo studio for more lur
king about meaningfully on freezing stairways.
When it’s over, we know it’s good. Can’t wait to see the results. Gered’s the guv’nor, just as Casino and I always knew he would be.
* * *
Back in Olympic, center of the Universe. It’s March and this album is taking shape. Ken is exuberant. He says the Brats are going to be massive. Couldn’t agree more. And now that the engineer isn’t grassing to Wilf on a daily basis, like our own internal Stasi mole, things are moving along.
Casino and I know that guitars must take center stage and we spend hours working with Brady, goading him to get wilder and wilder. We layer the tracks, learning as we go, making a million mistakes but, often as not, using the mistakes. Sometimes we go for that Hackney-Wick-Alvin studio sound. We overdub Brady’s guitar without letting him hear his original track. It works wonders. He’s never in sync. Thanks, Alvin, for your general hippy ineptitude and please do say “hi” to your lovely missus for us.
We put an amp on its back, mic it up pendulum style, with the microphone swinging back and forth, tell Brady to rock and see what happens. We record entire tracks on the screaming edge of feedback, then tuck it deep in the mix, just to see the effect. We like it. Now that the brown-rice man is off the premises we are completely free to do whatever we want. And that’s exactly what we do.
One day, we’re just about to run a playback on “Sick On You” when the door opens and in walks none other than the ever-so-famous Tommy Steele. He must be working in one of the other studios and just can’t resist foisting his wonderful famous self on everyone else in the building. He hops around, shaking hands, teeth protuberant and gleaming, the epitome of the “cheeky chappie.” Couple of hits, I suppose; how would I know? Mostly, we’ve seen him on TV being showbiz daft, a pantomime figure, singing chirpy duets with Twiggy, things like that. Still, he insists on sitting down and listening to the mix. Fair enough, mate. Buckle up.
After “Sick On You” comes to its conclusion Tommy stands up, stammers “Yes . . . well . . . all right, then. Ta, ta,” and then scurries out the door.
* * *
We are rehearsing at a place called Dragon Studios in Shepherd’s Bush and, midway through a song, Brady breaks a string. He bends down to pick up a replacement when the dangling end of the broken E string, waving about hither and thither, pokes into the hole of an electrical outlet. There is a huge bang, a blinding flash, and the sight of a guitarist momentarily airborne before smashing backward into a brick wall. He crumples to the floor and lies there, moaning, trembling, his face red, his arms marble white, fingers even blacker than usual. The Gibson Firebird, clenched in an almost-death grip by those blackened digits, lives up to its name, for once. It is ablaze, flames ten inches high burning away, varnish crackling, like a kitchen chair in a fireplace.
The rest of us dissolve into convulsions of laughter, complete with finger-pointing and back-slapping. Finally, exhausted, we go over to see how Brady’s doing. Casino unplugs him, Derek and I help him to his feet, and Lou pours a lager over the guitar, putting out the fire.
It takes a long time for Brady to truly appreciate just how fortunate he is to have been able to provide us with this hilarious slice of entertainment. He spends the night in hospital and his hair is never the same again. He’s luckier than Les Harvey of Stone the Crows, though. Poor fucker was fried to death onstage a couple of years ago.
Monday, March 25, we spend a few hours with Kentucky Fried Brady in Olympic doing guitar overdubs with a rented left-handed Gibson 335. While we’re sitting back on the leather sofa, there’s a knock on the door and some bald guy who says he is in Family (the band, not the social construct) as though this info is supposed to make us shiver with excitement, tells us he’s recording next door. He has obviously somehow clapped eyes on the Gibson and, just as obviously, must have a southpaw guitarist, or be one, because four seconds after our last take he shows up and hey, man, asks to borrow it for half an hour.
In the spirit of musical solidarity we say, “No.”
After this intrusion, it’s a quick tart-up at home and the band plus Ken, minus Derek, are off to the Rainbow Room at Biba in Kensington to see Bill Haley and the Comets.
The Rainbow Room is straight out of a thirties movie. Beautiful, ultra-stylish (well, of course it is, it’s at Biba), jammed with that unique London chic, tickets impossible to snag, best gig in the world. The Dolls played here, annoyingly enough, just before their drummer went to heaven on a lifetime’s supply of Nescafé. This could be Rick’s place in Casablanca. If ever a venue was custom-made for the Hollywood Brats, this is the place.
Ken has us displayed for public viewing at a primo table, the best in the house, in fact, front row, ten feet from the bandstand. The place is gorgeous; the audience is gorgeous. Bill Haley, while not quite what one would describe as gorgeous, nonetheless looks exactly as a Bill Haley should. He and the Comets deliver. They put their glad rags on: gray suits, pink shirts, bootlace ties, black patent-leather shoes, twirling stand-up bass, they’ve got it all. We’re going to rock around the clock tonight.
At the end of the evening I’m like a one-eyed cat creeping in a seafood store. I bid adieu to the lads and am driven to a mews house in Chelsea by a dark-haired woman in an E-Type Jaguar. Next morning, I open my eyes and a little boy is standing by the bed, holding a teddy bear, sucking his thumb and staring at me.
I can’t get back to Bishop’s Road quickly enough.
But, oh, it’s a social whirl. The Fulham Broadway Three meet up with the London Street One at the Greyhound to see the Tremeloes. Not remotely our cup of char, but we have to admit they are note perfect. “Silence Is Golden,” “Here Comes My Baby,” and all the rest are spot on. They do seem like animated creatures in a noisy, smoky museum, though.
Brady confesses that his daft experiment with actually paying rent in Maida Vale has lasted less than four weeks. The man is like a murky, malodorous liquid that can’t help running downhill until it reaches its natural level. He’s moving to a squat on Boundary Road.
Casino and I work late into many nights at Olympic Studios, finishing up the mixes on all the tracks. Ken always accompanies us, staying in the background, looking sharp, solving problems, standing guard at the castle gate. He always protects. He never interferes.
Lou often comes along to act as the deciding vote on sticking points. But Cas and I are soaring along in smooth sync. There are no sticking points. We created this thing. We’ve nurtured, honed, coerced, and whipped this nag from mere to eternity. We agonize over this, don’t give a toss about that. There are differences of opinion, sure, but no arguments, no snits, no moods.
A heartbeat ago one of us was looking up, scared, covered in muck, three thousand feet down a mine shaft deep in the guts of the pre-Cambrian Shield. The other guy was desperate and down in a charming town at the end of a fjord in Northern Norway. We both had skulls full of ideas that were driving us insane.
Now look at us. We’ve just finished the record we always wanted to make. The desired noise, bouncing around our brains for years, is sizzling right there on the two-inch tape.
We finesse that vocal, rough up that guitar lick, sprinkle a little something on that one crash cymbal, just one last time, change a couple of bass tracks from Derek’s to the old session guy’s. Finally, we push the chairs back from the console. Ken and his legendary ears are called in. Our record is done, completed and, modesty tucked in a back pocket, we think it’s pretty good. An hour later, Ken’s smile says it all. He does, too.
Great. So, over to you, squire. Get it out there, Mr. Mewis. Do whatever it is you and Wilf do. Grease DJ palms, break legs, get hookers on retainers—just get it on the radio. Sic ’em, Ken.
III
Brady spends more and more nights with us back on Bishop’s Road. The shagging is better and certainly more private on Boundary Road, but you can’t beat the laughs, fireworks, and TV in Fulham Broadway.
For instance, one night we get two bottles of vodka to try to reach a state we’ve only read about—I think it was Roman emperor Nero who mentioned it first, or perhaps it was Charles Laughton, whatever—something called “delirium tremens.” After an hour we’re well on our way and, when a Jamaican in a porkpie hat suddenly appears in front of the TV, we think we’ve actually achieved it.
But no, it is merely the ubiquitous Mr. Beauregard, our landlord, even drunker than we are. He is so plastered, unlike our kitchen ceiling, it’s a wonder he can get his key in the door to enter our home unannounced whenever he pleases. He is babbling incoherently, even going up an octave every now and again to squeak for emphasis. I haven’t a clue what he’s on about and tune him out, leaving it for Lou to deal with.
He translates that Mr. Beauregard would like an advance on next month’s rent. The reason? It is the opening night of a new brothel in Tooting and he doesn’t have the cash, man. Well, why didn’t you say so? It is quite obviously a worthy cause, and more sympathetic we could not be as Lou steers him kindly out the door and advises him to call the office with the same story.
Back to sprawled about on the floor, casually catatonic, we watch an odd television play called Shakespeare or Bust about three working-class Derbyshire chaps who rent a barge to sail the canals and waterways of England in order to get to Stratford-on-Avon.
That’s it! By the end of the night we have cooked up a caper that Lou will present to Ken tomorrow: we have wrapped up the album; we are exhausted and need a break; a week away on a barge would be just the tonic.
It works. Well, of course it does. Lou’s got the gift. So, three days later, the four of us plus Derek arrive at a canal near Watford, where a rented narrowboat awaits. It’s a lovely craft, ornate and beautifully painted, which sleeps six and has a kitchen, shower, strange toilet affair called a Portosan that requires emptying every day (boy, does it), lounge area, and fridge. All in all, it’s far more luxurious than Bishop’s Road.
Sick On You Page 27