Black by Design

by Pauline Black

  We signed to Chrysalis/2-Tone on 10 October 1979. The day before we recorded our first John Peel session at BBC Maida Vale. On the day of the signing we recorded ‘On My Radio’ for appearances on Top of the Pops and for Multi-Coloured Swap Shop. The day after there was a photo session with top rock photographer Brian Aris, who had the unholy job of trying to make us look like a big-time band. He even managed to subdue Desmond’s antics. Then we taped videos for TOTP and Swap Shop appearances. Chrissie Hynde’s band, the Pretenders, were also at the Swap Shop TV studio, promoting their newly released single ‘Brass in Pocket’. Chrissie and Jimmy Honeyman-Scott absconded with Neol and me to a pub for a lunchtime session and filled us in on what was expected of the newly famous. A lot of drinking, hell-raising and drug-taking apparently. Both of them had had a lot more practice at the rock-and-roll lifestyle than we had. But look where that got poor old Jimmy. He was a really sweet guy.

  From the outside it looked as if things were going brilliantly, but inside The Selecter musical dissatisfaction had already begun to rear its ugly head. Desmond began smoking and drinking much more and his personality markedly changed. This huge man would often lumber across from stage right to left and start berating Charley for his bass playing, in much the same manner as he had dissed Lawton’s guitar playing. An audience just saw two people haranguing each other.

  Charley’s bass playing certainly wasn’t on a par with that of Horace from the Specials, but it was adequate for Selecter purposes. He was also a good focal point. The sight of a slim, elegantly tall, red-locked Rastaman in a three-piece tonic suit flailing his Marleyesque locks around while playing bass with his big spider fingers was a definite winner for both a hungry press and rapt audiences. There had never been anything like it before. It was as original as my ‘rude girl’ get-up. Charley was sick of being made to look bad by Desmond, who would play air bass, in full view of the audience, to demonstrate to Charley how his bass lines should sound. Desmond was no diplomat, and would often take his grievances into the dressing room.

  Other grievances harboured by members of the band began surfacing too. The tunes were beginning to take on a rockier flavour, spearheaded mostly by Neol’s playing style, whereas there was a faction headed by Charley that wanted to promote a more reggae flavour. Commie and myself thought that the hybrid we had going was the right way. Charley, Gaps, Aitch and Desmond favoured the ‘old school’ ska sound. Funnily enough, not one of them ever suggested that a horn section might be a good addition, because that is what makes for that kind of authenticity. We remained a guitar-orientated band, with both lead and rhythm present. Many reviewers thought we had a more authentic sound than the Specials (even Jerry Dammers has been quoted as saying this too), but how could we have done without horns?

  Gig ticket October 1979, Selecter spelt wrong, as usual

  Amid these machinations, the Selecter bandwagon rolled along, gathering ardent fans and garnering rave reviews. Finally came the day, despite our ongoing wrangling, when we made our joyous mark in front of the youth of Britain. The Selecter performed our newly released chart hit ‘On My Radio’ for the first time on the only music TV show that mattered in the UK in 1979, Top of the Pops. The show itself was recorded at the London BBC studios in White City on 17 October, two days before the legendary 2-Tone Tour began.

  It was an arduous but exciting day. Like most bands, some of us didn’t know how to behave once inside the hallowed halls of the Establishment TV. The worst part of it was hanging around interminably in a windowless dressing room with only a few utilitarian chairs. Nervous bands left to their own devices tend to roam and get up to things that they shouldn’t. Trying to round up seven people to do the endless rehearsal run-throughs of the band’s hit song so that faceless people in front of banks of TV monitors could get camera angles for the evening’s ‘live’ performance was hard work. Our manager, Juliet, was running hither and thither like a sheepdog snapping at the heels of various members who had gone AWOL, while laughing and chatting with the powers-that-were in order to achieve maximum damage limitation.

  Desmond was the most unruly, because he had a well-developed method of confusing white folks with his riddle-me-ree backchat and could wind up the most laid-back of people within minutes. If any white authority figure approached him he would just let his lower jaw hang down, move his face forward until it was a few inches away from theirs and adopt a quizzical expression before saying: ‘Wh’appen maan?’

  When they returned an inevitably blank expression, he would exclaim ‘Cha bloodclaat’ while delivering a menacing stare, usually accompanied with a snap of the fingers of his massive right hand. Rest assured, it was probably very intimidating for the recipient, but most of the tight-arses at the Beeb in those days deserved such treatment. Unfortunately, it also reinforced all their stereotypes about us black folk. They had decided that we were trouble even before talking to us, which meant that we played up our given roles to the hilt. Well, who wouldn’t, given half the chance?

  Charley was banned from entering the staff bar both before and after the recording because he refused to take off the hat that covered his locks. Charley told the jobsworth commissionaire on the bar entrance that he wore the hat for religious reasons, patiently explaining the rules of Rastafarianism to him, the finer points of which fell on deaf ears. A great deal of fuss ensued, with much ‘pussyclaating and bloodclaating’ and I could see that the producer and director of the show were thinking: ‘Hmmm…future note…watch out for The Selecter.’

  Charley, Gaps and me larking about, 1979

  I stayed out of the argument because it seemed contradictory to me that Charley, most other times, particularly when performing on stage, had absolutely no problem about whipping his loose locks around for artistic effect. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t just do that in the bar, but I had come from the other side of the fence. I didn’t know very much about the strict codes of the righteous black man’s religion from Jamaica, Rastafarianism.

  Fuel was then added to the fire when I was coerced into entering the bar with my hat on which, of course, because I was a woman, didn’t seem to matter. A huge row erupted from Charley as to why it was okay for me to wear a hat, but not him. Fair point. This ugly scenario was only quelled by the intervention of Juliet who hauled us all down to the studio for the recording.

  We were the penultimate act, just before ‘Buggles’ performed ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’. Since we were on so near the end we got the chance to watch the fabulous Suzi Quatro strut her stuff, Lena Martell bore the pants off everyone and XTC, my favourite, easily stealing the show with the imaginative ‘Making Plans for Nigel’.

  The performers mimed to the backing tracks, which had been pre-recorded some days before, because in those days the Musicians Union were able to enforce a rule that the original recordings couldn’t be used, they had to be done again so that engineers and all extra or uncredited musicians would be gainfully employed. All hail the Union. It was an excellent idea, but very time-consuming in an already full band schedule. Since these tracks were hastily recorded and mixed in a few hours, they were sometimes not as exciting as the original record. Probably the average viewer at home wouldn’t notice, but the artists did. So the visual aspect of the performance has to be spot on, because the audio part is probably not as good as the record. We more than made up for any audio deficiency with our onstage antics. We looked sharp, original in both dress and song. Who else could have got a song decrying the BBC-owned Radio 1 past the censors and made a hit of it, seemingly without anybody really listening to the song’s sentiment? The Selecter definitely had the last laugh on that particular day. Mind you, Buggles played their trump card the following week, when they went to No. 1 and killed the radio star stone dead. Our highest position in the official singles chart was No. 6. I wasn’t complaining. Our first single had gone Top Ten.

  I was overwhelmed with excitement when I watched the broadcast a few days later on TV. It was an unnerving experien
ce watching what seemed like a facsimile of myself running, dancing and singing on stage, fronting a band of people who I hardly really knew, but looking like I belonged in that milieu, looking like I meant business.

  Suddenly, a maddening thought popped into my head. I wondered whether the mother who had given me up at birth for adoption might be watching. She was only seventeen years older than me, perhaps she was still young at heart and into music just like myself. Would she recognise me? Would she feel proud of me? Would she come looking for me in the light of my success? Was I worth something at last?

  For a split second I felt like Jimmy Cagney’s character, Cody Jarrett, in the movie White Heat, who utters these immortal words while firing his gun into the giant gas tank: ‘Made it, Ma. Top of the world.’

  The 2-Tone explosion had begun.

  SEVEN

  ‘A BIRD’S EYE VIEW’

  On 22 September 1979, Melody Maker music journo Frank Worrall wrote: ‘The Selector [sic!] are going to be real contenders.’

  Could things get any better? Yes they could; we were invited onto the bill of the legendary 2-Tone tour.

  I had never been on tour before, so staying each night in a hotel, rather than driving interminable distances home after each gig was a completely new experience for me. Until now, we had done disparate dates, rarely consecutively, so the 2-Tone tour was the stuff of dreams. We rode on a proper bus, albeit not the sort with bunk beds, lounges and a kitchen that would be introduced to us later, but the kind of bus that takes you to the swimming baths when you are at school. Indeed, the whole tour smacked of a school outing. It reminded me of a school field trip with no holds barred. As far as The Selecter were concerned, any mode of transport was an improvement on our old, beat-up, green Bedford van, which could now be found propped up on bricks, tyres long gone, in the car park of the infamous Hillfields high-rise, Pioneer House.

  The idea behind the 2-Tone tour was to make it like a package review show. Immediately I had in mind the Motown show that had sailed through England in my teens. It made sense: keep the ticket price low and maximise the entertainment. Even though the Specials, Madness and The Selecter were lumped under the same ska banner, we were very different bands. The 2-Tone logo and identity attached to each of our respective singles was like a corporate kinship, a unique vision that people could buy into, not only with the product, but with a dress code and most importantly an ethos, that of unity and harmony between races and between men and women. Jerry Dammers’s genius created the Walt Jabsco logo alongside the inspired use of black and white chequers to establish an undeniably cool visual that gave our audience, increasingly made up of young kids from many varied races and backgrounds, a chance to subliminally absorb a radical political statement, while getting on with the serious business of dancing.

  The ‘Rude Girl’ image perfected 1980. Photo © brianaris.com

  Even the tickets were purposely kept low in price. You could see three bands, each of them with a top chart single, for the princely sum of £2 or £3. What a bargain. Dance venues were our main stamping ground, which meant no seats and punters packed in like sardines. Looking back at old printed itineraries for the tour, we had to bed, water and feed 44 people every night for 40 nights. Sometimes those figures swelled to probably more like 54 people when managers, friends and family turned up. It was organised chaos most of the time.

  The tour manager who had to coordinate this mess was Frank Murray, a likeable Irishman who previously managed Thin Lizzy, so he was used to the antics of wayward rock and rollers. He was firm but fair, sometimes manipulative but most often relaxed. If you were in the trenches and thinking of going over the top, then you would definitely follow this man.

  The pecking order for stage was always The Selecter on first, then Madness, lastly the Specials. It was expected that the opening band would get the worst deal, normally a half-empty hall with lots of punters propping up the bar, but the word of mouth and general media mayhem about the new 2-Tone phenomenon meant that venues were full about twenty minutes after the doors opened. Many also might think that seeing three bands all doing ska music would be too much, but we had very different takes on the ska beat. The Specials mixed their ska with rock, Madness mixed theirs with music hall, and we mixed ours with reggae and a soupçon of rock and soul.

  Vocally the differences between the bands were even starker. The Selecter had the surly coolness of Gaps and gender-bending me, sometimes harmonising, sometimes singing lead individually with a whirlwind on-stage energy. In contrast, Suggs gave Madness a definite Ian Duryesque flavour while Chas Smash did his nutty dance and rallied their fanatical following. Terry Hall brought the Specials an unmistakeable post-punk whine flanked by a charismatic toasting rude boy, Neville. What was not to like? We had all bases covered.

  The Selecter’s manager Juliet De Vie and I were the only women on the 2-Tone bus who were gainfully employed and not giving gratis blow-jobs. The fragrant Juliet was a welcome respite from the sweaty-boy smell that infiltrated the bus after very hot gigs.

  In his book, Ska’d for Life, Horace Panter says that mostly he sat up the front of the bus. I don’t remember it like that. I remember him and the terrifyingly cool Terry Hall holding queenly court on the back seat. Horace probably sat up the back so he didn’t have to see the dubious shenanigans that were going on in the middle of the bus, but I always figured that Mr Hall sat there because to get there he had to traverse the entire length of the 56-seater tour bus which gave all us mere minions so much more time to admire him on the journey. I have to say I had never met such a bunch of prima donnas as some of the Specials. I don’t accuse Neville Staple of this behaviour, but the remaining sextet should have been sent down by ‘Judge 400 Years’ for a long spell of personality rehabilitation.

  Jerry Dammers, the Specials keyboard player, main songwriter and mastermind, was a bizarre figure, with his gappy mouth, Thunderbirds puppet walk and Rupert Bear trousers. His precarious sense of style and dress were simultaneously studiedly comic and cool. He affected the demeanour of the fool, much as Robert Graves’s Claudius did. Jerry used this character trait to hide his astute and somewhat manipulative business brain. He very cleverly fooled people into doing his bidding most of the time. Some people didn’t mind, some railed against him. He’s never been able to utter more than a few words to me any time I’ve ever had the misfortune to be in a place where we had to make conversation. He was one of those people who has a conversation while looking over your shoulder, hoping for somebody who would be far more interesting to talk to than you.

  The Specials guitarist, Roddy Radiation, in those days, was young, mostly drunk and full of spunk. He had the face of an angel, but the punk credentials of a stroppy schoolboy. The one good thing you can say about Roddy is that he has never changed. As a musician he gave the Specials their edge, something that often rubbed Jerry Dammers up the wrong way.

  Strangely enough, Jerry and Roddy used to share a room on the 2-Tone tour. I still have the rooming roster. On a rare night off in Manchester, I knocked on their Piccadilly Hotel room door because I had run out of Rizlas. I was entertaining in my room on that particular evening and it was too late to go out and buy skins at one in the morning. I was very stoned at the time but, according to my recollection, young Roddy opened up the door clad only in a Specials T-shirt and holey socks. Trying hard not to look while he unselfconsciously manipulated himself, I blurted out: ‘Got any skins, Roddy?’

  He was so totally drunk that he was barely focusing on anything. He smiled one of his lop-sided, loopy grins and nodded in the general direction of a table messily covered with half-eaten take-aways, beer bottles, torn fag packets and dead spliffs. As I walked over to the indicated Rizla packet, I noticed his rooming mate lying prostrate on the bed, with a fully clothed, dishevelled young woman rocking back and forth. They didn’t sound as though they were having much fun. Indeed the only sound that could be heard was the slow, rhythmic, rock-steady creaking of the bed. Meanwhile, Roddy
climbed up onto a chest of drawers, voyeuristically absorbed in some serious post-gig business. I collected the skins and made a sharp exit. All in a day’s work for 2-Tone boys.

  Much is made of Neville Staples’s sexual antics and those of his procurers, the rude-boy roadie duo, Rex and Trevor. Yes, all of that is true, I saw many a silly young girl backstage being groomed by the duo for future sacrifice on the altar of Nev’s cock. Unfortunately for those who supposed that an invite for coffee back at the hotel meant exactly that, it was probably a ‘rude’ awakening. But for the more willing participants, it was probably a mouthful too much, if the mythology surrounding Neville’s alleged sexual exploits is to be believed. Often, I would scoop up some sobbing, penniless young waif who had failed to deliver her ‘pum-pum’ for that particular night’s use from a lonely hotel corridor somewhere in Britain and allow her to use the other bed in my room. Of course, when the rest of the boys saw her downstairs in the morning and she told them what had happened, I think they all thought that I was sleeping with girls. I’m afraid not, besides, you never knew where their girls had been!