by Chris Frantz
The Slits were there partying with a few friends and offered us some warm beers and passed their spliffs. They were really friendly and welcoming, especially the singer Ari Up and her mom, Nora Foster, who later married Johnny Rotten. Viv Albertine was interested to meet Tina, too, and years later asked her to play bass on one of her solo albums. I might add that Viv turned out to be a very good writer with two excellent books to date. We were all relaxing and having a lovely time when the Clash burst in. An extremely agitated Joe Strummer glared at us as if to say, “Who the fuck are you?” It was his dressing room, after all. Then he spotted Joey Ramone sipping a beer in the corner and his expression relaxed and widened into a huge grin. Suddenly, we all were welcome.
We played a place called the Friars Club Aylesbury on the following night. This was a magical gig. We didn’t know what to expect but a name like the Friars Club conjured up the image of a funky pub owned by Rodney Dangerfield. In fact, it was a new entertainment hall that held 1,250 people and it was really well run by friendly staff. Musicians loved this gig and many of our favorites had played there. David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, The Pretty Things, and Free had all played there, as well as prog rockers like King Crimson and Genesis. Iggy Pop had recently kicked off his Idiot Tour there with David Bowie on keyboards. This was the big time, but it felt very relaxed and comfortable, no pressure at all.
The audience in Aylesbury was somehow wild yet genteel at the same time. You had the feeling that these were people who not only loved music, but also knew a thing or two about the history of music, as if they all had taken a course in music appreciation. While we represented something new to them, they recognized our musical roots and art school background and they signaled their approval with tremendous enthusiasm. The guys from our distributor, Phonogram, who were supporting the tour, came backstage to pat us on the back after our third encore of the evening. They could see clearly that their investment was not in vain.
The next day’s gig at the Civic Hall in Guilford was canceled because punk music concerts had been banned by the town government. Punk was in the news all the time in England and this day turned out to be a real punk milestone. The Sex Pistols released “God Save the Queen” in May 1977. The song was promptly banned by the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority. It rocketed to the number one spot on the NME chart and to number two on the official UK Singles Chart. Rod Stewart’s “I Don’t Want to Talk About It/The First Cut Is the Deepest” held onto the number one spot, although from what we could see there was no way that Rod was selling more singles than the Pistols at that moment in time.
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We played a last-minute show at the college in Slough because our scheduled show in Hastings had also been canceled due to fear of punk. There was not much of a crowd, even though a lively band from Ireland called The Boomtown Rats had been added to the bill. Still, we played a fine show and the kids who were there were extremely happy we had actually come all the way from New York City to play their little college.
The Greyhound in Croydon was a crazy gig. Located just across the Thames from London, this hotel ballroom got all shook up by the Ramones and Talking Heads. The capacity crowd was completely charged up and ready to go when we hit the stage. Our band was so tight and on point by this time that I felt like we had no worries at all until I looked over at Tina. There was blood running down the front of her bass guitar and she was in a world of pain. When playing the type of music we played onstage, you had to play hard and fast. The audience wanted to see passion and potency. You had to show dominance in your performance. As a result of pushing herself night after night for over a month, the calluses on Tina’s right hand had blistered underneath to the point that they had split open and were bleeding. The punks loved seeing blood so she made it through the night, but that show was really not fun for her. To make matters worse, the scene in the dressing room seemed as if every asshole, poseur, and punk in London had been let in to hang out with the bands from New York. The Damned were there and they were cool except for their drummer, Rat Scabies, who actually tried to pick a fight with me. I still don’t know why. I just told him to calm down or get out of our dressing room and he cooled down. There was a thing called amphetamine sulfate that the punk bands were snorting and after a while it made them very cranky. In fact, they even called it Crank. I suspect that Rat Scabies was riding that train, but who knows? The Damned’s bass player, Captain Sensible, was as sweet as could be, especially to Tina. There was one girl backstage whose early Goth hairdo and makeup made her look remarkably like Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees. I mean, exactly. So, I tried to introduce myself. I told her my name and asked her if she was Siouxsie. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind, like how could I possibly mistake her for someone whose look she had totally copied? That was it for me. Time to go back to the hotel bar!
The most memorable things about the Colston Hall gig in Bristol were that the hall was very large compared to the clubs we’d been playing, and that Peter Blake, the great British pop artist who had designed the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, had come to see our show. He seemed to like our performance. After the show we talked about art. He spoke of how his early influences were Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. I told him that we also held them in very high esteem and that we had lived in the same neighborhood on the Bowery. Peter said that he knew about the Bowery and SoHo in New York and how hip it was, but he had grown to love the country life. Maybe one day we would be able to say that, too. We thanked him again for that wonderful lunch at Mr. Chow’s and bid him good night. Then we did an interview with Nick Kent from the NME. We hadn’t really done very many interviews up to that point but it was clear to us that Nick was more interested in talking to David than the rest of us. Nick was all dressed up in the classic rock drag of Keith Richards back then. I wonder who he’s dressing up like now?
After playing a relaxed show in Swindon in a little shopping mall club that had a very fancy rotating bar, we had a much-needed good night’s sleep. At breakfast the following morning, Tina asked Mickey Stewart if we could possibly visit Stonehenge. He said we’d be driving right by it on our way to Plymouth, so why not? When everyone was on the bus we set off. As we approached the ancient megaliths, Mickey asked Paul the driver to follow the signs to the monument and park. Hearing this, Johnny Ramone went apoplectic. “What? What? We’re not fucking stopping at Stonehenge! It’s just a bunch of fucking old rocks!” Dee Dee stood up and said, “C’mon, Johnny! I want to see Stonehenge. Everybody wants to see Stonehenge. C’mon!” Johnny was not pleased, and sat in his seat fuming while everyone else got off the bus. It was a beautiful morning, very quiet and still, with no tourists or anyone else around. On this day, June 1, 1977, there was no protective fencing around Stonehenge. You could walk through and around the gigantic stones and touch them to your heart’s content. Dee Dee exclaimed that he would like to carve his initials into one of the stones, but quickly smiled and said he was just kidding. We didn’t stay long, but we did feel those Druidic vibes rising up from the site. We felt them loud and clear.
As we checked into a very fine country hotel in Devon, Mickey made sure that Tina and I got Tamar the honeymoon suite. In just over two weeks, Tina and I would be married and he was kind to give us this special treatment. The room was very luxe and romantic and Tina and I made the most of it. Because of the jealous way David reacted, we kept public displays of affection to a minimum, but behind closed doors, we really got it on. This was a heavenly moment.
The hotel was located way out in the country in the moors of Devonshire. Tina and I took a little hike in the fields and spotted a few of the famous wild horses that lived there, followed by a wonderful bath in the huge honeymoon suite tub. Then we went downstairs for tea and a sampling of strawberries with Devon’s famous clotted cream, which was simply divine.
The gig at Plymouth’s Top Rank club was a good one. Johnny was still angry at us about our love of art, history, and cultu
re. He said so as if this was ruining his life. I just looked at him and said, “Johnny, this tour will be over soon. Let me just say, in spite of all your bad moods, we are very happy to be here with you guys and one day you will realize that we are the best opening act you have ever had or ever will have.” Johnny would never be what you would call a nice guy, but years later, after some punk kicked him in the head, fractured his skull, and put him in the hospital, his attitude improved and we actually became friends.
The bus rolled south to the charming town of Penzance, where Tina, Joey Ramone, Joey’s girlfriend Robin, Joey’s brother Mitch, and I took a cab to visit Land’s End, the westernmost point of mainland England. The craggy cliffs overlooking the sea were absolutely breathtaking. Tina posed me by the edge of the cliffs and took my picture. I did the same for her. One hundred and fifty miles across the water in Brittany is where Tina’s mother had been born and where Tina’s great-grandfather, the poet Anatole Le Braz, had collected folklore and legends and written some unforgettable stories. Tina was feeling the pull of her roots and remembering sailing with her sisters over there. Like music, the sea can be very seductive and the memories it creates stay with you forever.
We went to the sound check at the Winter Garden in Penzance and, as the bartender was setting up for the night, I asked him for a drink of sparkling water. It was the first warm afternoon we’d had in England. He gave it to me and I asked if I might have some ice in it. He looked at me with a smile and said, “I’d love to but we lost the recipe.”
The gig in Penzance was good. Very relaxed. No stress. There were a lot of surfers in the audience, a first for us.
After the show, back at the hotel we were interviewed by a stylish young woman named Leigh Blake for Ritz magazine. Leigh was crazy about Talking Heads. She was an interesting person, kind of wild, who regaled us with tales of London in the sixties. She actually knew the Beatles, the Who, and Jimi Hendrix. Little did we know she would be following us back to New York and move right in.
For the big Queen’s Jubilee weekend we had a day off to travel back to London, where Mickey Stewart had booked us into the fabulous Portobello Hotel in Ladbroke Grove, near the Portobello Road. The hotel was one of the early boutique hotels, filled with antiques and charming ambience. It was popular with artists and eccentrics of all types. To this day, it’s my favorite hotel in London. True to form, Mickey had reserved the “Four-Poster Room” for Tina and me. The big four-poster bed with canopy was super romantic. One of the great things about the hotel was the restaurant and bar in the basement that was open twenty-four hours a day. This was unique in London at the time. The bar and kitchen were manned mostly by cool young people. In fact, one of the night bar men was Damon Albarn, who told us, “I’ve got a band.” The young women who cooked our full English breakfasts, particularly Nicola McQuaid, were fabulous and just flirtatious enough, but not too much.
The area around the hotel, Notting Hill, was hip and shabbily chic. There were loads of cool bistros, wine bars, and pubs. Down at the Portobello Road there was a huge flea market and all kinds of punk and reggae delights to be had, not the least of which was tiny little Rough Trade Records. They were selling a lot of punk records out of there and our seven-inch single, “Love Building on Fire” was in the front window.
The nation was celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s twenty-five years on the throne. Millions of people came to London to celebrate and try to catch a glimpse of her as she paraded through London in her golden carriage. There were some very fancy parties around town. Most of the people we were coming in contact with were not crazy about the monarchy, or this royal family. In fact some, like Frank Gallagher, vehemently despised “the Royals.” The Sex Pistols couldn’t have timed the release of their single, “God Save the Queen,” any better. Even though the record had been banned by the BBC, you could still hear it on offshore Radio Caroline and other pirate radio stations. It could also be heard blasting out of pubs where the Queen’s tipsy subjects sang along with Johnny Rotten.
I’m still not sure if the Sex Pistols’ song was a real revolutionary, antimonarchical song, or just really good marketing. Whatever the case, it really pissed off the squares. The Pistols were banned from performing anywhere in the UK by this point, so in another brilliant marketing move, Richard Branson of Virgin Records paid for a party-boat record release party on the River Thames.
The music press was all invited. The band snorted a lot of speed and then performed a few songs, including “God Save the Queen,” before police boats pulled alongside and killed the party. When the boat returned to its dock, the cops arrested manager Malcolm McLaren, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, artist Jamie Reid, and some others while the band sneaked away. This event made all the news outlets in London very happy. It was front-page news all over England.
We played a show at the Odeon Theatre in Canterbury with the Ramones and The Boomtown Rats. Tina thought the Rats were so civilized after being on the road with the Ramones, especially their manager, Fachtna O Ceallaigh, who went on to manage Bananarama and Sinead O’Connor. Irishmen can be tough, but this crew was charming. Singer Bob Geldof would become super famous when he dreamed up Live Aid, but for some reason we were not invited to play that gig. Oh, that’s right. By 1984, David had decided that Talking Heads, one of the world’s great touring bands, should stop performing live.
The next day was the big gig we had all been waiting for. The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm was built in 1847 as a railway turntable, but had for decades been a performing arts center. So many fantastic shows had taken place there. The Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck, the Yardbirds, David Bowie, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Incredible String Band, the Doors with Jefferson Airplane, and Otis Redding had all rocked this joint. We were sold out for two nights at 3,300 people per night. This was the biggest crowd we had ever performed to and we were amazed at the number of fans in the UK. The Ramones had played here the previous summer as a support band to the Flamin’ Groovies and set off the UK punk explosion when the young guys in the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned had been inspired by them to form bands of their own.
Over at the Portobello Hotel we were getting ready for the show. Mick Jones from the Clash was doing an interview with a journalist on the front steps. Mick was wearing a bright blue soccer uniform and holding a ball in his lap. I was wearing a rumpled white oxford cloth Brooks Brothers shirt that I had washed in the bathtub, but didn’t iron, and black Levi’s. For good luck, Tina was wearing a black linen shirt with blue stripes and a blue silk collar made for her by our friend Moki Cherry, our upstairs neighbor who was married to jazz trumpeter legend Don Cherry. Jerry was in a black T-shirt, black jeans, and Capezio Jazz Oxfords that he had painted yellow. David was wearing a light yellow button-down collared shirt and wheat-colored Levi’s with no belt, and gray Hush Puppy loafers. We felt cool.
The Phonogram people came to pick us up and take us to the show. They would be riding in a van and had provided a beautiful, blue Bentley limo with a fur carpet for Talking Heads. Thinking of our reputation in this world of punk, we declined the limo and told them to ride in it with their wives. We would take the van. When we got to the Roundhouse, I asked our driver to take us to the backstage entrance. I banged on it and banged on it, but no answer. The Ramones were already inside and the door had been locked. So, I went around to the front entrance, and cut to the head of the long line of rockers saying, “Excuse me, excuse me!”
When I got to the front I told the guy that Talking Heads were at the stage door and locked out. He told me to wait a minute while he got his boss. He came back with a tough-looking geezer who looked like he hadn’t slept or shaved in a week. I explained the situation to him and he said, “Only a Yank would be so polite about this. Follow me.” He led me through the theater to the stage door and we motioned the band to come in with their guitars.
It so happened that this guy was our promoter, John Curd, and would continue to be our promoter in London for years. He
was rough around the edges but did a great job for us, and vice versa.
There was a third band on the bill called the Saints, from Australia; they were also signed to Sire Records. They had a cool single and album called Stranded, which, like most punk rock, owed a debt of gratitude to the Stooges. They kicked off the show at around 5:30 in the evening with a fast and hard-rocking set. Evidently, they are still performing, which would make them the only band that played the Roundhouse that night that is still together.
Seymour and Linda Stein came backstage to wish us all well. Linda was co-managing the Ramones with Danny Fields, but she was also rooting for Talking Heads. Her husband, Seymour, had signed both bands, after all. This was a very big night for Sire Records in London and Seymour’s reputation as an A&R genius was sealed.
After this night, he would discover and sign loads of new British bands that no one in the States had even heard of and they would have many hits, but on this night I think Seymour was even more nervous than we were.
We did our best shows when we were nervous. In fact, if we weren’t feeling nervous we psyched ourselves up by jumping up and down, hyperventilating, and imagining everything that could go wrong. This was one way we kept our edge, by stimulating our adrenal glands.
As important as every show is—and we played each night as if it were our last—this show at the Roundhouse was particularly crucial. The number of journalists, photographers, radio people, and cultural tastemakers in the audience was staggering. Johnny Rotten poked his head into our dressing room and said, “Sorry, I was looking for the Ramones.” Frank Gallagher, who was giving us our preshow pep talk, said to him, “Well, then FUCK OFF!” Then he turned to us smiling and said, “It’s just another gig. Heads down, turn it up, and see you at the end.”
We walked out to the stage as the DJ, Andy Dunkley—“The Livin’ Jukebox”—was finishing up his set. The crowd was a teeming mass of punks, music lovers, and out-of-town Jubilee celebrants. It was our biggest crowd yet. Tina, looking cool, strapped on her Fender Mustang bass and plugged in. Jerry, very much in the moment, put on his Fender Telecaster. David, already wearing his Gibson hollow-body 12-string guitar, stepped up to the mic and said, “The name of this band is Talking Heads.” The words to our first song started out like this: