I painted my room and found some junk in skips to use as furniture; I taped a brown bag from a fruit-and-veg stall around the overhead lightbulb for ambience, stood back and saw that it was good.
There was only the one toilet, out back through the courtyard. All those London townhouses were like that, built for workers a hundred years earlier, which was absolutely fine with me. Bathroom? How passé. Being on the top floor meant taking out a bucket and emptying it into the street every morning. No problem at all—the price was right.
There was a public baths on Chelsea Manor Street, nearby. For 40p you could have your own cubical, big bathtub and all the hot water you wanted for an hour.
Rotten stayed over once or twice while wrestling with his impending fame. We’d walk and talk, a little like me and Nita back in Akron. He was shy but funny—troubled, though. A troubled youth.
Another friend I met in Malcolm’s shop when I was working there. She’d walked in, all arsey in a tailcoat, wearing a top hat. I was in conversation with Malcolm and could see her behind him as she took a T-shirt off a hanger, tipped her hat, popped the shirt in, replaced the hanger and then replaced the hat, all in a split second while keeping her eyes fixed on mine.
We left together and became big pals immediately. I didn’t really like her ripping off Malcolm, but what finesse! She was the worst of all the drug fiends I’d ever met, often covered in scabs like something you’d expect from radioactive poisoning, but a laugh—a one-off. She was born to be a rock star but far too fucked up to pull anything like that off. She and I often stayed up for two nights under the green lightbulb installed at Caversham Street. Pill heads.
I had some French rockers stay for a few weeks—a rare talent named Patrice Llaberia, who I’d met in Paris, and some of his marginal friends. Patrice was a hot-shot player, the type of which you only encounter every ten years or so. These types are amiable enough about the mundane, but they aren’t paying attention to ordinary stuff—politics, religion or society—they don’t bother with opinions as those things don’t concern them. Playing guitar concerns them. Life for them begins and ends with the guitar. That’s the kind of guy you want in your band.
I found a rehearsal room on Lots Road. It was £3 an hour, and I could just about scrape that together as I was willing to do anything quickly and discreetly if it meant an hour’s rehearsal. But Patrice et ses amis were eventually forced out of London by the appalling food and general frustration of not speaking English. He did make an impact on the London scene in the short time he spent in it, though, and I know that for a fact because, after the Damned saw Patrice catch fire in our rehearsals, wilder and with more panache than any of the London boys, the Captain visibly upped his game.
25
MOPED MANIA AND WHITE RIOT
The Roxy on Neal Street in Covent Garden was the place where we gathered every night to watch bands who, even if they couldn’t actually play, put on memorable shows. Don Letts was the resident DJ.
I first met Don when he was working in John Krevine’s shop Acme Attractions in the basement of Antiquarius on the King’s Road. I wandered in one afternoon to find a wonderland of old stock: button-down collared sixties shirts, fifties wire sculptures, African masks, vinyl American car seats, Jamaican flags and zebra rugs.
Don was a professional Black Man, in much the same way the English were professional Englishmen when they went to the States in the late sixties, getting jobs at radio stations or clothing stores on the back of an English accent. Don’s accent was dreadlocks, leopard-skin waistcoat and dark sunglasses, which never came off. He really looked the dog’s bollocks: Rasta Four Eyes!
I asked him if he played anything and he told me he played bass, the cornerstone of reggae. I took his number, and first thing the next morning I called him, hoping to set something up. Jeannette Lee, his girlfriend, who looked like a perfectly formed miniature porcelain doll, answered the phone. She sounded surprised when I asked for “Don the bass player” because he’d been lying out of his ass to impress me.
Judy Nylon and I designed T-shirts, one of our many small-time money-making schemes. She’d write the text and I’d draw the corresponding portrait with a Magic Marker, then we’d sell them to Don for the shop. Nylon and I looned around the King’s Road, pooling our resources; if we had enough, we’d buy a box of Dunhill—never No. 6. We weren’t trying to save money—we had class.
Most of our T-shirt designs were inspired by Evening News or Evening Standard posters, which I unclipped and liberated nightly from newsagents. The corridors in Englewood Road were lined in them, Caversham Street too; all my places were.
Judy, the brains—me, the brawn; that was us. A typical design would boast a picture on the front—such as Keith Relf, the Yardbirds singer—with the day’s news headline on the back—“Pop Star Found Dead.” Relf had been electrocuted while playing an ungrounded guitar. One design I was particularly fond of featured a portrait of Nick Kent on the front, and a recipe card for how to cook a turkey on the back.
Nylon was an exotic giant of a beauty from Boston, or maybe Florida. She had platinum-blonde hair cropped to an inch of its life, and wore tiny striped T-shirts and trousers held up with suspenders. She was an intellectual who favored medical texts. She had a high-cheekboned, model-type face, but when she smiled she turned into Howdy Doody, in much the same way Iggy went from brooding street-walking cheetah to Alfred E. Neuman.
Nylon was my introduction to Patti Palladin, another American. Patti was from Brooklyn, had a smoky laugh, a dark wit, was devoted to the Rolling Stones and drove a Morris Minor done out like a Puerto Rican ride. I felt like white trash around those two big-city players.
One day, I took Nylon to Caversham Street and said, “Check this out.”
I plugged my guitar into Spedding’s amp and proceeded to thrash out the chords to “The Phone Call,” the song I was working on. The look on Nylon’s face! I could read her mind—she was thinking, “If this hilljack can do that…” Before you could say, “Key of E,” Patti and Judy were doing gigs as Snatch, recording albums on an eight-track and startling everyone with their super high-end glossy artwork—all done in-house.
I, meanwhile, continued to peer out from under bus shelters in the rain, guitar by my side, looking for a band like a hunter having his prey chased away by animal rights saboteurs.
While I was busying myself going nowhere, Sasha had taken up the drums and was in a crazy little outfit with a couple of French girls, PoPo and ToTo, calling themselves the Lous. They came to London and were knocking around the scene, with the city now the main breeding ground for bands.
Every rag-trade merchant wanted a band to manage and every record company had a subsidiary label to sign the punk hopefuls to. The Lous and a bunch of other loose ends parked themselves with Sebastian Conran at his dad Terence’s elegant Nash house on Albany Street, Regent’s Park, where the newly formed Clash hung out.
Sebastian had a café racer, and with me riding pillion we’d zoom through Regent’s Park, past conker trees with their candelabra-like blossoms, and weeping willows, their sad branches dipping into the ponds where the Queen’s swans competed for space with lily pads.
The English liked speed of any description and didn’t have the roads to accommodate the big hogs American bikers rode. Sebastian’s little brother Jasper would be sewing all day down in the kitchen and I happily joined him. Everybody was making their own clothes, but Jasper Conran had loftier ambitions than ripped-up cast-offs.
Another player on the scene, Barry Jones, had me round to his basement flat in Maida Vale one day and we swapped song ideas, knocking out R&B chords, but when he flatly stated that he didn’t like the sound of the female voice singing rock, I could only agree with him. I think Barry got in a band with another hopeful, Steve Walsh, but it’s hard to remember because everybody was at it.
—
I moved into Don’s house in Forest Hill, which he shared with Jeannette and a bunch of mates of similar Jamaican b
ackground—Leo, J.R. and T. Jeannette’s friend Janice had committed suicide there, and I got her room.
The guys had dragged their mattresses into Don’s room because they were too scared after Janice’s death to sleep on their own. I was reminded of something Duane had told me back in Cleveland in case I ever got mugged by a black man: “Pretend you’re either crazy or seeing something, because black guys spook easy and they’ll run off.” I couldn’t resist looking over Leo’s shoulder, pretending to see something, just to test Duane’s theory.
“Oh, Chrissie, mon, don’t!”
I did it at least once a day.
Don was a regular “wide boy,” the term the English used for an all-around hustler. He had all the cool state-of-the-art gear: stereos, Ford Zodiac, hundreds of albums and every new gadget going.
His album collection was as definitive as a WMMS playlist, but when he took his New York punk albums to play down at the Roxy, the punters told him to put them away because everyone only wanted to hear reggae. The Roxy, apart from the live acts, was a reggae club—whose patrons were predominantly working-class kids in modified clothes and haircuts, which got weirder and weirder. The music you liked defined your identity more than race or class; England was tribal like that.
The guys, second-generation Jamaicans all, worked behind the Roxy bar. They sold spliffs under the counter, while Don was in the DJ box next to the stage and I’d be right in front, where I could see the bands up close. We were always stoned, watching the bands, none of whom had any fear or shame about not being able to play and got on with it defiantly.
I’d look over to see if Don was watching what I was watching, and sure enough he’d be as amazed as me and we’d crease up, crying real tears of painful laughter.
One night, as a band left the stage I asked one of them if they were using their own tuning. He looked at me as if it was perfectly normal and said, “No, we just don’t know how to tune our guitars.” I loved that.
Don had schmoozed a woman who then bought him a camera, and he ended up shooting the definitive Roxy film. I was never featured in it myself, as most of the time I was shoulder to shoulder with him holding up the heavy light (you’re welcome!). You see Shane MacGowan before he went Irish, a London punk in a Union Jack shirt, pogoing—priceless!
Every night after closing, we’d pile into the Zodiac and I’d say, “You guys ought to get in a band.” It would go all quiet and I realized that, like everyone else, it was exactly what they were dying to do. Eventually, J.R.—the genius of the house—taught Don and Leo how to play. T could already play drums and they would become the Basement 5, a reggae band in the spirit of punk.
It was in Janice’s room that I wrote “Private Life,” which Grace Jones eventually recorded with our heroes Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. (I remember the first time I heard it in a club in Germany on tour with the Pretenders—a stand-out moment.) My room was a sanctuary, as no one would come anywhere near it. Joe Strummer took it over after I left.
—
I was back in a guitar shop on Denmark Street, a regular hangout of mine, where I’d go to imagine owning one of the guitars during my breaks from modeling at St. Martin’s. I’d loiter for a while and then buy a plectrum. I was always losing them, and I swore that one day I’d have them stuffed in every pocket. (That’s why I use orange ones—you can always find them.)
I saw a card on the noticeboard: “Bass player seeks groupie.”
I went to a call box and gave it a shot: “Do you mean groupie or group?”
“Well, both,” said the voice at the other end.
I got the train to Thornton Heath and met Fred Mills, a talented bass player and pianist. He had a mate, Dave Bachelor, who played drums. We worked up some of my Mose Allison rip-offs, and it was the closest thing I’d got to having a band.
I named us the Unusuals, although we never got a gig so we never got to use the name. I referred to them as the Berk Brothers after Fred pointed to a photo of Charlie Watts on an old single of the Stones and said, “He looks a right berk.”
It turned out that Captain Sensible lived nearby—they were all mates. I referred to the lot of them, collectively, as the Croydon Express, which Fred, for some reason, loved.
I’d regularly get the train to Thornton Heath with my guitar. We practiced in Fred’s parents’ front room, in a terraced house which, if I remember correctly, had copies of the Daily Express lying around. Some nights I’d stay over on the sofa, and we’d often go to the Captain’s and have a feedback free-for-all in his parents’ front room.
They were all in awe of the local Croydon legend, the already mythical Johnny Moped. They’d each played in bands with Moped, but he would habitually disappear for weeks and months at the behest of his girlfriend, Brenda, which everyone thought bizarre—not because he would disappear so much, but because Brenda was forty.
They gave me a tape of his “I Hate Students” and “London to Brighton Moped Race” and then I too was smitten, but I never got to meet the elusive Moped himself. He was always on the missing-persons’ list.
The only time I actually got onstage at the Roxy was with the Berk Brothers when we did a version of “Baby It’s You” changed to “Johnny It’s You,” me wearing a cardboard pirate hat I got off Fred’s little brother. I used the name “Sissy Bar,” although I doubt any of them got the reference to the passenger’s backrest on a motorcycle. They probably didn’t understand what I was doing there at all. And I admit, I was—as usual—the odd one out. I was getting used to that. But every band needs songs to play and a shitty original is still better than a good cover—and I had some shitty originals.
We went a few times to Andy Czezowski’s rehearsal place, where he stored old jukeboxes under one of the railway arches in Rotherhithe, but the Unusuals’ fate was to be another in a persistent line of misfires.
One day, while browsing through Sniffin’ Glue, the punk fanzine we all read, I saw an ad for a band: “Guitar player wanted for Croydon based…” Hang on a minute! I called the number and Fred answered. They had failed to tell me that I’d been sacked. Fred said I was the only person to answer the ad.
The Unusuals’ story went on to have a happy ending when they found guitarist Slimey Toad and somehow corralled Moped himself. The result was the Johnny Moped Starting a Moped album featuring hits like “Groovy Ruby” and the classic “Darling, Let’s Have Another Baby,” a pop delight that Fred wrote. A couple of years later, Fred threw himself under a train. I blame the booze. The Captain would one day name his son after him.
—
While hanging out with Steve “Jonesy” in Batista’s, we saw Mick Jones walk by, grabbed him and went over to Denmark Street. We had our guitars and the three of us set about making a racket. Mick’s girlfriend, a pretty schoolgirl type, sat quietly on the floor in the corner watching. So this was Viv—the one I used to coach him on how to torture.
I met Viv again on the street somewhere and we started hanging out. It was like a club, everybody wanted to get in a band. As far as I knew, Viv didn’t play guitar, but she wasted no time learning. One summer evening, we were walking down the Fulham Road. Viv was in a contemplative mood and said, “Chrissie, the Slits have asked me to be their guitar player.” The Slits were one of the most exciting bands in town, with the fearless Ariane—who Strummer called “Ari Up,” as in “Hurry Up”—as their singer; a cool-looking Spanish girl, Strummer’s then girlfriend Palmolive, on drums; and a sultry English-rose type, Tessa, on bass. Viv was undecided: “I don’t know if I want to be in an all-girl band.”
Viv Albertine obviously was the missing link. To add her to the line-up, a buxom blonde schoolgirl type wearing a crotch-revealing miniskirt would turn the Slits into the kind of band that Russ Meyer would have wanked himself stupid over. Rock and roll is all about gimmicks, after all. Who cares if you’re girls or garden gnomes, as long as you’ve got a sound and the world’s attention.
The Slits went on to make one of the stand-out albums of
the day, the first truly punky reggae album, with a famously unforgettable cover—bare-breasted, slathered in mud, wearing grass skirts.
Everyone I’d ever met in my whole life was now in a band. I now had absolutely no hope that it would happen for me, but I was so used to failure that, like a cart horse en route to the glue factory, I just kept going.
—
I bumped into Paul Simonon at Dingwalls in Camden and started hanging around with him. (I guess I didn’t mind a pretty boy, after all.) The Clash were about to embark on their first tour, White Riot, and Paul invited me to come along.
It was a blast to travel with my old buds on their bus, stealing pillows out of hotels, getting wasted and just lapping up being on the road for the first time with a great band. The audiences, mostly blokes in Mecca ballrooms and university halls, went ballistic nightly as the paint-splattered foursome hammered out their aggressive brand of political punk rock. Britain was caught up in pogo mania, and to stand in the audience watching my mates tear the place up was exhilarating. Except for the gobbing part; Joe looked like a statue covered in pigeon shit after every show.
Joe Strummer was a ringleader, always the one to commandeer the troops. He and I crawled out of a student union in single file on hands and knees one afternoon, we were so drunk. It was paramount to him that everyone was having a good time at all times, but he was quietly thoughtful and truly concerned about social injustice. He had the most activist mentality of anyone on the scene, but thrived on gang participation.
The Clash was a band of and for rogues, and I loved to see them getting the whole nation behind them. I’d always found watching a band inspiring, leaving a venue fired up with resolve to get in a band myself. The Slits were actually to join the tour as the support act. I still had no band. I left the White Riot tour tail between my legs feeling like a dog not allowed in the house.
Reckless : My Life As a Pretender (9780385540629) Page 19