Reckless : My Life As a Pretender (9780385540629)

by Hynde, Chrissie

  He oozed melody and I was remembering how important that was to me. On the odd timing of the ragged “Tattooed Love Boys” he later admitted that he’d just been hanging in there. Because he couldn’t count it, he just followed the chords, adding chiming notes and hoping it would sound like he was on top of it. The results were magic and he let rip with a stand-out solo. Anything he came into contact with was imbued with melody, including me. He just had the magic. He played all the right stuff and never more or less. When he played he became fully alive in the mode of a true guitar hero. How this rare diamond appeared out of the rolling hills of Hereford is anybody’s guess. How I managed to locate him is mine.

  It transpired, as coincidence would have it, that two years earlier while I was staying at the house on Englewood Road in Clapham, Jimmy had been staying with a Welsh guy in the house next door. I remembered hearing someone playing some sweet guitar and wondering who it was. I could hear his unique sound floating over the gardens and into my room; he had been near me all along.

  His mum and dad came from the same places as the Hynde and Roberts families respectively: Dunfermline and Caerphilly. He would one day get married on my parents’ wedding anniversary. I don’t usually place too much meaning in little coincidental things, but they seem to point to everything being in the right place. I know I’d been searching for him for a long time.

  James Honeyman-Scott is the reason you’re even reading this because, without him, I’m sure I would have made only the smallest splash with my talents—probably nothing very memorable.

  The four of us, Jimmy, Pete, Gerry and I, worked up a set but still had no name. Dave got us a tour—some gigs in France, including a show at the Gibus Club in Paris. We had to put a name on the billing, so we called ourselves Dinosaurs Eating Cars—a description Nick Lowe had used of a sound we got in the studio.

  We were traveling around France doing shows, feeling like the Beatles touring Germany. Jimmy, Pete and I were a little gang and the music was coming alive, but there was one thing that didn’t sit right. Gerry was a competent drummer, but he was working in another band on the side to pay alimony. He was a couple of years older than us and had other responsibilities, and I wasn’t at all happy if anyone had an agenda that took precedence over the band. But that wasn’t the main thing; he got the job done, but musically something just didn’t fit.

  We were all, apart from Gerry, living in Tufnell Park in north London. Jimmy moved in with Pete, who had found the house because fellow Herefordian Andy Watt, a cameraman, was living there: Hereford House.

  I was round at theirs most of the time because of the no-men-allowed rule at my place on Carleton Road, which was run by a strict Irish Catholic couple. Plus, it was bloody cold at mine, up in the attic where I had to keep the two-bar heater on at all times and sleep in my clothes, including boots—and still froze my ass off. The Brits were famous for keeping the heat off.

  I did write some good tunes in those rooms, though, like “Tattooed Love Boys” and “The Wait.” It’s well known that adversity is a great friend to the artist as, by the same token, domesticity is the enemy.

  Seymour Stein, the legend and visionary who signed a ton of bands to his label, Sire Records, wanted to sign us. Dave realized that being our manager was going to be a full-time job so he forfeited having his own label to look after us exclusively. We would keep the name Real Records, but be on the bigger label Sire, which went out through Warner Bros. Seymour was encyclopedic in his knowledge of music, and he wasn’t shy to sing in public. One night, while driving through Manhattan, I watched the cabbie’s eyes in the rearview mirror as Seymour produced the most tuneless a cappella version of James Brown’s “Prisoner of Love” ever heard. I thought the guy was going to drive up a lamppost.

  So we were signed. I’d read about bands popping champagne corks when they finally scribbled their X on the dotted line, but it never happened like that with me. I just wanted to get on with it, bypassing any fuss. I was as happy as the next person to get a deal, but I accepted it in silence and left it at that.

  —

  We could all see that Gerry was the odd man out. The other two often talked about a drummer they knew back in Hereford who they reckoned would be perfect, but they’d lost touch with him and had no idea where to find him.

  Martin Chambers had been working as a driving instructor and hadn’t had a proper job since playing with his band Cheeks in Hereford. It turned out that he was not only living in London, but right up the road in Kentish Town. What were the chances of that? Sometimes things work. Good for Martin, bad for Gerry. I guess you don’t get a winner without a loser.

  We met up in the Black Horse pub in Tufnell Park. I think Mart thought I was a bit of a dick (he told me he did later, as a matter of fact) because I sat at the bar reading a book, ignoring the three of them while they got on with the obligatory “catch up.” I was paying attention, though. We invited Martin to come along to our studio that night. Gerry had a gig with his other band so it was behind his back but—hey! Never mind…

  We launched in. As soon as I heard Martin thumping away on “Precious,” I started laughing so hard I had to turn my face to the wall. When I recovered my composure I turned to face the band I’d been searching for.

  —

  We had to dump Gerry now. Why is it that there’s always something? Why can’t it ever just be easy? It was shitty but it had to be done. There’s never a nice way to give someone the elbow.

  It was the day we were going to the photographer Dennis Morris to have the photo taken for the single sleeve. Gerry was expecting us. When we arrived at his flat in Camden, he was still shaving and getting ready, excited and happy like the rest of us. Jimmy and I waited in the cab while Pete ran up to tell him: “Sorry, mate. It’s not happening—we got someone else.”

  Cold-blooded, but that, I’m afraid, is show business. He got paid for the session but ultimately he wasn’t the man for the job. There are no rules in rock, but there is a rule: loyalty. And the loyalty is to the music. We went and picked up Martin, who appeared on the single sleeve. Martin Chambers was born to be in the band. Who could stop destiny?

  There was only one detail outstanding. We had the single, we had a manager, we had each other and we had the photo. But we still had no name. The payphone rang in the hall of my Carleton Road lodgings, and I belted down the three flights of stairs to answer it. “We’re about to print the sleeve. We need a name!”

  Think, think, think. I remembered a story I’d told two nights earlier to Vermillion, one of the chicks who hung out with the Heavy Bikers in London. It made us both laugh.

  The story went: I’d been with the sergeant-at-arms, the one I’d been seeing, in the clubhouse in Eltham. He took me into his room and bolted the door. He didn’t want any of his brothers to hear. Then he put his arms around me as if to dance and whispered, “Sweetheart, I want you to hear my favorite song.”

  No wonder he didn’t want the others to hear. This wasn’t the Stones at Altamont—it was Sam Cooke singing “The Great Pretender.”

  29

  SID, SID! LOOK WHAT HE DID!

  Someone tossed a copy of the Sun onto the bed where I was still asleep in the house on Dalmeny Road. “Huh? What’s this?”

  It seemed that Sidney had stuck Nancy in the stomach with a knife and killed her. Oh dear. Jimmy was undisturbed. He had no time for junkie business, or for anything to do with punk. If it wasn’t musical it didn’t concern him.

  Pete, on the other hand, was duly stunned. He had already embraced his own version of the “Chinese Rocks” lifestyle and was languishing in its thrall.

  Me, I was sad to see Sid in the pickle he was in. The only thing good about the story was that it was over. Well, the Sid and Nancy part was.

  Normally, in a situation like that (happens all the time), there would be an emotive response from family and friends alike: “Sid? He would never do anything like that—not to the woman he loved!”

  However, the
nonchalant shrugging of shoulders like a Mexican wave making its way across London’s punkerage was palpable. No one who knew them was particularly surprised to hear that Sid had inserted a blade into exhibit “N.” We were only surprised that he’d stuck it out as long as he had, being half of Sid and Nancy.

  Who could forget that shriek, a sound not unlike that of an untrained cockatoo? “Sid—SID! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO MAKE ME MY FAMOUS CREAM-CHEESE BAGEL? SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!” or, “Sid—SIIIIIID! MY HAIR—MY HAIR! AAWWOOHH! SIIIIIIIID!”

  Another colleague of mine, a bass player visiting from Paris who I’d brought over to Sid’s Pindock Mews hovel to meet/score from the now-famous Sex Pistol, had slammed the door, inadvertently trapping a few of the klafte’s peroxided curls in it.

  These junkies can’t walk through a room without pictures crashing off walls, bottles smashing, ashtrays flying. It’s all part of the chaos—smack’s poltergeist. But it was an easy mistake to make, what with the harridan hovering at such close-range at all times, making sure that nobody came between her and her pride of one.

  With speed and bad intent Sid came flying out of an airless room, thrusting an eight-inch stiletto at the Frenchman’s throat. Although only a tiny drop of black blood appeared—the attack poorly aimed—the message was clear: Don’t fuck with my woman!

  Hey! That’s not how we think in the Land of Punk. Sid—what script are you reading from? (I remembered his weird comment about me marrying Rotten for the money.)

  Sid looked at me, nonplussed, fartoost. He’d surprised even himself this time. Not because of the knife wielding or the obnoxiousness of his actions, but because of what he had become: pussy whipped, cowed. It shouldn’t happen to a dog!

  In those last days he was usually far too gone to notice how fucked up he’d become, but that night his expression conveyed a sheepish, “Oops!” An exclamation mark seemed to float permanently over him, conceding to the universal dismay of recent months. He must have been as fazed by his reaction to Nancy’s relentless demands as the rest of us were, as he rushed hither and thither to accommodate her every whim.

  It had just all happened too fast for Sid. The fame, the drugs and Nancy had merged into one. His face had become a smeared, distorted version of itself, his features twisted by sickness and a lifetime’s worth of hen-pecking packed into a few unenviable months.

  My French friend stood temporarily arrested by the greeting by knife, blood now trickling down his neck, but by the same token he was impressed by someone even more off the scale than himself. I resumed normal protocol and made the introductions.

  The pair of bass-player junkies were more evenly matched than Sid and his American honeypot, but then few men could match that kind of abuse. To show the solidarity of newly forged friendship, both of the boys cut their arms in some kind of weirdo ritual, becoming “blood brothers.” Any excuse to get the blade out, the flesh open.

  Hanging around the Vicious household with the two lovebirds was not for the fainthearted, and we left young Sidney, his spiked hair grotesquely thick with Vicks VapoRub, to Nancy, who seemed greedily relieved to have her sex slave back so they could resume the all-consuming pastime of perching on the can, constipated or retching, smack’s flowers of romance.

  As we trundled down the cobbled mews I could almost hear Nick Kent’s voice, though now little more than a distant echo, still making a succinct point as only he could, with an exasperated “WHO NEEDS IT!”

  —

  The first time I met Nancy she appeared on the doorstep in need of a place to crash. A mutual “friend” had put her onto me. Cheers! I made her a bowl of popcorn, let her have the mattress and moved over to the corner with my sleeping bag.

  Nancy Spungen had stowed away with the Heartbreakers and was seeking a husband so she could get a “leave to remain” stamp in her visa. The Heartbreakers, the breakaway faction of the magnificent New York Dolls, minus leader David Johansen, had blown into town and shook up the Roxy audience with an unprecedented move—they could actually play.

  Yet, even more than through their musical excellence, they impressed everyone because they were more fucked up than all the Roxy patrons by a long shot. But no one was to be excluded. They were about to break up the dance by switching the drug of choice from speed to smack, and everybody was invited to the after-party. London punk was about to die a death. The Heartbreakers introduced three new elements into the mix which would bring the house down:

  1. MUSICALITY

  Up to now, punk had not been beholden to musicianship. In fact, it was frowned upon if you played too well—that was getting into prog-rock territory. But even the London punks were impressed with the flair and musicianship of these New Yorkers. It just validated what everybody already knew, which was that, although you weren’t meant to say it, everybody had musical heroes and always had done.

  Now, for the first time on the Roxy stage was a band that musically—and only musically—had their shit together. Overnight, everyone wanted to get better on the guitar, as is the usual habitude of a musician. But punk was about attitude; musical aspiration would not bode well for it.

  Malcolm was prudent in trying to shield his band from learning too much and trying to keep its poet under wraps.

  2. ANARCHY, ANYONE?

  Here’s the heroin!

  3. NANCY SPUNGEN

  I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Nancy was a drug mule, but she could fit a length of rubber tubing, spoon, zippo lighter and box of handy wipes up her flue and still have room for a can of Elnett and a box of Milk Duds.

  The Elgin Avenue squat where Sid had learned to play bass—shooting speed and staying up for excruciating forty-eight-hour Ramones-fueled marathons—became just another junkie shooting gallery.

  The squat wasn’t a crash pad for me, more of a place to hang out and eventually watch the others shoot speed. I didn’t share a fascination for needles, and regarded them as one addiction I could do without. There was nothing you couldn’t ingest by smoking or swallowing—shooting up was just the cheaper way of doing things. I wasn’t that desperate—or at least I didn’t think I was. The moment smack arrived it took approximately three weeks for the whole scene to stall and grind to a halt.

  Johnny Thunders showed up with his guitar and his habit. He was already idolized—nobody at the squat had known virtuosity before—and, to their ears, the American catalogue was untapped.

  “Johnny, c’mon—you must remember ‘Pipeline’!” I would prompt him to dig into his bag of tricks (being the same age and having grown up listening to all the same radio) and he held the room enthralled as he reeled off the AM charts like a card shark dealing hands. He had the look in spades too, the erstwhile angel with bloodstained sleeves, the cowboy saddlebags slung over his delicate shoulders and dark doleful eyes that said, “Feed me.”

  He’d been all set to play professional baseball but got waylaid by rock and roll, and yet, metaphorically speaking, was still spending most of his time in the dugout. However, apart from the usual junkie characteristics of lying, stealing, cheating and going missing for days, he had a sweet nature that even the drug could not fully compromise. He was looked up to, and with admiration came the inevitable aspirations to emulate him. (That would bode particularly badly for Pete Farndon.)

  —

  When was the last time I saw Sid? I think it was the Music Machine—Siouxsie & the Banshees. I clocked the noxious duo, who stood out in the crowd as if they had that wavy outline around them that you got in cheap porn flicks.

  My first impulse was to go over and say “Hi,” but there seemed no point after noting the catatonic, disconnected look that had taken over the spotty face of our old pal, so I kept walking and made my way to the bar.

  Five minutes later, after Nancy bade him fetch her some bar snacks, he was standing next to me smiling and animated, just like the Sid of yore, excited as a child on an errand outside the watchful view of Mommy. Then he slunk back to Nancy’s side and resumed his pretty v
acant demeanor.

  Everyone was fed up with this downshift in personality, and whispered plans were afoot to grab Nancy off the street, bundle her into a van and speed off to Heathrow, dumping her on the pavement with a one-way ticket and a resounding chorus of “NOW FUCK OFF AND DON’T COME BACK!”

  But the more his mates implored him to ditch her, the less likely it was to happen. Of course, Malcolm was beside himself with frustration at her Yoko-like omnipresence, which gave Sid even more reason to refuse to budge—all he had left of his self-esteem was his obstinacy.

  Now that I had my own band to think about, Sid and the rest of the Sex Pistols had been consigned in my story to “See you later.” However, in Sid’s case that was not to be.

  The Pretenders’ first London gig, on West End Lane in the Moonlight club at the Railway Tavern, was a huge deal for us. I mingled before the show with a bunch of mates who’d shown up to cheer us on. It’s all the more nerve-racking, hometown gigs, when you have to deliver to people you actually know.

  I thought I’d do a Mose Allison, go straight from the audience to the stage, no fuss. It was 8:45. Time to get my skates on—here goes. But, just as I faced to approach the stage, I heard a voice say, “Oh, man, what about Sid?”

  I turned. “What about Sid?”

  By mutual agreement no one was going to tell me of Sid’s death that day, until after the show. Too late now—never mind. I climbed up, plugged in and we were off.

  We dedicated a raggedy version of “I Can’t Control Myself” to him.

  30

  MAKING ROCK HISTORY

  The Pretenders’ first public appearance in England had been at the famous Barbarella’s in Birmingham, supporting David Johansen. We were thrilled to share the same stage as the princely Johansen, who we idolized.