64 Spoons I didn't go to College. I left school as soon as I could.  I wanted to be a rock musician and further education of any  kind seemed pointless in achieving that particular aim. So  instead I joined a band and toured the clubs, pubs and  toilets of this great island of ours. The only trouble was  that by 1977 the musical landscape had changed radically.  The years of no social life, painstaking practice,  discipline and commitment to pursuing the original had lost  it's value overnight. What was laudable one minute, was  reviled the next. By the time the 'Sex Pistols and The  Clash' were inspiring countless non-musicians to get out  there and 'do it for themselves', I had joined 64 Spoons. A  band of talented young players, three classically trained,  one ex National Youth Jazz Orchestra member and me. They say  that success is largely down to timing. Well, we timed it  perfectly. We were the wrong band at the wrong time. We  somehow survived for a number of years by working our arses  off and attempting to make our musical vision more  palatable. We did this by making the whole thing theatrical.  Ridiculous set pieces that involved various band members  dressing up, coupled with an almost Dadaesque approach to  audience participation. We played our, at times, complex  compositions with a punk like ferocity and made sure that  the lyrics to the songs were consciously unpretentious.  Indeed, they contained a level of wit and imagery that would  embarrass a 'Carry On' scriptwriter. There were musical and  visual jokes aplenty. Three years in to our career and we  were once memorably described as 'Stravinsky meets The Baron  Knights.' We had management, an agency; record company  interest and we worked all the time. It just didn't go that  one step further. Some kind of bad luck always seemed to  befall us, just when we looked like getting our big break.  At some point something had to give. One weekend In May of  1980 that point arrived. It was a sunny Saturday morning and The Spoons were heading  for Oldham. The large, blue, heavily modified van that could  easily accommodate the band, crew and equipment had  disastrously failed its M.O.T. So we were travelling in  convoy. Half of us in a yellow Bedford van that we had hired  from a firm in Edgware, the other half in a dilapidated  white Transit that Lyndon (our drummer) had borrowed from a  friend of a friend. The most obvious of the Transit's many  faults was it's inability to travel faster than about 40 mph  and only then if we were going down hill. As a result it  took us six miserable hours to get to Oldham. The venue was on the outskirts of town in an area that  was obviously once a thriving working class community, but  was now just a few terraced houses surrounded by a bleak  landscape of rubble, dust and broken bricks like some post  nuclear Coronation Street. Set in the midst of all this was  an old church building, which was falling to pieces and was  covered in graffiti. Above the large wooden doors was a hand  painted sign that said 'The Tower Club'. We stood outside  for a good ten minutes banging on the door and yelling  through the letterbox, but all to no avail. We decided to go  into Oldham to get something to eat and come back to the  club later. In a vain attempt to achieve commercial  acceptability, Lyndon and myself had had our hair severely  cut and coloured, hoping that young girls in London streets  would nudge each other excitedly at having just spotted a  couple of genuine pop stars. The waitresses at the Oldham  Wimpy, who looked like the East German shot putting team,  just giggled and made homophobic remarks as we ate. Not  surprisingly we got out of there sharpish and went back to  the club and just waited. The rest of the band and crew went  to the local pub, but Lyndon and myself felt that the Wimpy  Bar incident was enough humiliation for one day. So we sat  in the 'good' van and listened to Radio 2 (it was the only  station we could get). As the evening progressed we heard  the Eurovision Song Contest in its entirety and played spot  the key change. Eventually, at about 10:30, the large, burly figure of  the club's manager started to unlock the profusion of  padlocks and dead locks of the Tower Clubs door. So I got  out of the van, told him who I was and held my hand out in  friendly greeting. He ignored this gesture and said 'Where  the bloody hell have you been?' 'We've been right here, and  have been for about six hours' I said pointing to my watch.  He was neither pleased nor indeed remotely interested in any  explanation. '12:00, that's what it says on the contract.  12:00 until 2:00 that's the get in and soundcheck time. I  don't live here you know. Ten bloody miles I had to drive to  get here and I waited till 3:00.' He was pretty irate. I  tried to calm him down and told him about our broken van and  the 40-mph top speed of our replacement. Simple maths then  dictate that we would have had to leave London at 6:00 in  the morning in order to arrive at 12:00. He'd just stopped  listening by then and busied himself by wedging the doors  open and moving signs onto the pavement. 'So, shall we get  the gear in now then?' I suggested. The street was as  deserted, as it had been when we first arrived, then out of  nowhere a solitary car pulled up and it's two occupants got  out and entered the club. 'Get the gear in now? People are  coming in.' No amount of reasoning or pleading made any  difference. As far as he was concerned we were a typically  arrogant band from London who thought we were doing him a  favour by gracing the provinces with our presence. What we  actually were was pissed off, bored and broke. We'd been  relying on the money from the Oldham gig to pay for the  Mancunian Guest House that we'd booked before our trek to  Carlisle the following morning. We drove to Manchester in  virtual silence. We drew lots as to who would sleep in the  van and who would sleep in the guesthouse, as we only had  enough cash for two rooms. Much to my surprise the landlady  took pity on us and let us all stay on condition that we  send the money on later. We got up early the next day, as we  were keen to get to Carlisle with plenty of time spare in  order to avoid the fiasco of the previous day. We arrived at 'The Border Terrier' at lunchtime and were  able to set up and soundcheck before the pub closed. Martin  Koganovitch, long time friend and part time roadie, had  struck up a conversation with the resident DJ. They had  apparently gone to the same school before he'd moved up to  the Lake District. He asked us how we were going to spend  the time before that night's gig. We said that we were going  to get something to eat. He explained that it would be  virtually impossible in Carlisle on a Sunday afternoon. As a  suitable alternative he suggested we buy some provisions  from the local store and cook it at his house. This all  seemed reasonable, so we clambered into the good van and set  off. Wandering somewhat unsteadily along a suburban street  was a middle-aged man, hand in hand with a small boy. 'Hey,  pull over' says our new companion. The van is duly stopped  and the friendly D. J engages in conversation. The  middle-aged man, somewhat worse for drink, says that his  house is a much more suitable and larger location for  growing lads to prepare their lunch. So he and his young son  get in the van and direct us to his abode. 64 Spoons 64 Spoons We eventually pulled into a quiet suburban cul de sac of  semi-detached houses and piled out en masse. Our drunken  host walks into his home and we follow, passing three very  bemused looking women sunbathing in the front garden.  Elliot, our trusted soundman makes his way to the kitchen  whilst the rest of us sit rather uncomfortably in the living  room. The man of the house regales us with tales of what  might have been. He was something of a guitar whiz himself,  apparently. Just in case we didn't believe him (we didn't)  He gets an old reel to reel tape machine from upstairs and  piles of tapes of his own long, disbanded blues band. The  tapes are badly recorded and the group sounds awful, but he  turns the volume up and mimes to his own inept solos. We  smile and nod somewhat unconvincingly as the former  trailblazers of the Carlisle blues boom, drone on and on.  However, seen through his alcoholic haze this translates as  'Can we please hear more of your tapes please as this sounds  fantastic and mearly highlights our own shortcomings.' I am  gripped with a powerful feeling of impending doom. Just  then, the front door bursts open dramatically. One of the  sunbathing women enters the room and angrily demands an  explanation for this sudden invasion of strangers into her  home. 'Oi, enough from you. They're friends of mine from  London, and they've come to eat their lunch. Okay?' Comes  the equally angry reply. Always being sensitive to an atmosphere, I thank him  politely for his hospitality, but suggest that this is  probably not the best time for a visit. 'No, no, no. You're  staying here. Ignore the silly bitch.' Maybe if I close my  eyes, when I open them, it will all have been a dream? I  open my eyes to see the woman storm out and slam the door,  while her soon to be ex husband smiles and ushers me back to  the couch. It's not a dream but a bloody nightmare. We all  sit there quietly and uncomfortably. The woman continues to  enter and leave the room noisily, muttering audible insults  about weirdoes with strange hair invading her home. I try  once again to make our excuses and leave, but he is both  adamant and quite possibly dangerous. The little boy comes  in to inform his dad that he is off out with his mum and her  friends. 'Oh no you're bloody not!' insists his father. The  child now starts crying loudly. The food arrives. The  child's mother enters the room screaming. 'You really have  got a bloody nerve haven't you? Inviting these filthy  weirdoes into my house and have them lounging about my nice  clean living room. They mess up my kitchen and then you have  the gall to tell my son that he can't go out with his own  mother. It's a mad house, you're drunk and you make me sick,  you bastard.' Summoning up every remaining articulate cell  in his brain and body, he screws his face into distorted  anger, grasps her firmly by the collar of her flimsy shirt,  puts his face close to hers and yells 'Fuck off!'. It was at this precise moment that Tam (Keyboards and  resident eccentric) starts virtually choking, because the  urge to giggle has become overwhelming. The way you might in  front of a Headmaster or a funeral or any other serious and  singularly inappropriate moment. You know it's the very last  thing you should do at a time like this, but then that's  just another one of the reasons why you can't stop yourself.  The other significant problem with this particular form of  stress management is that it's unavoidably contagious. We  are, of course, unable to eat the food that has just been  put in front of us. We all just stare at the floor and try  to avoid each other's eyes. I start to bite my hand, vainly  hoping to remember what an unpleasant and non-humorous thing  pain is. I somehow manage to collect my self for a brief  moment, whilst the rest of the band are right on the edge of  laughing out loud. I stand 'Look, you've been very  hospitable but I really think that........ He turns to me  and 'Look she's a stupid bitch, even you can see that, and  we're getting divorced anyway. It's my sodding house  and..... Whilst he's delivering this diatribe to me, she  slaps him hard across the face and runs upstairs. 'You cow,'  he says as he chases her up to the bedroom. The moment the  door slams behind them we laugh uproariously, not to mention  nervously. At that point there is an almighty crash followed  by screaming emanating from the upstairs bedroom. His wife  comes stumbling down the stairs, blood streaming from her  nose and screams at us to get out before she calls the  police. Appalled, yet relieved, we run out of the house and  into the van. We drive off as fast as possible, leaving the  strange domestic trauma behind us, making a mental note to  leave them off that evening's guest list. We sat in the park eating ice cream in the afternoon  sunshine, barely able to comprehend the scenes that we had  just witnessed. We then tried to console ourselves with the  knowledge that at least it would be a good gig. We brought  the house down when we played there before, inspiring the  local newspaper to exclaim (and I quote) 'When you've seen a  gig as good as this you are allowed to do away with  understatement. Ready? 64 Spoons are probably the tightest  band I've ever seen in Carlisle!' Yes, it was heady stuff.  The gig was, of course, a complete disaster. We played okay,  but the reception was luke warm to say the least. Numerous  members of the crowd came up to us afterwards and said stuff  like' Whatever happened to that really good sax player you  used to have?" by which they meant our trumpet player. In  another inspired piece of career based decision making, we  had sacked Ted. We felt that the trumpet was a stupid,  outmoded and ultimately unfashionable instrument to have in  a pop group. Ted joined 'The Teardrop Explodes'. It was now about 11:30. Our main concern now was to just  drive straight home. If we got the hire van back before  morning, it would at least save paying an extra days van  hire. We had been driving on the M6 for about an hour when  the smell of burning started to emanate from the dashboard  of the borrowed Transit. This was shortly followed by a puff  of smoke as the electric's went out forever. We stood on the  hard shoulder hanging on grimly to what little sanity we had  left. We used an old piece of rope that was in the back of  the Transit to tow the crippled thing with the other van.  Fifteen minutes later the rope broke. We drove to the next  service station and bought a new purpose made one, then  drove back to the Transit. It was at about 2:30 when we got to the Preston section of  the motorway. I was sitting in the front of the good van  when it was abruptly brought to a halt. We all climbed out  to see what the hell had happened now. The transmission of  the Transit had cracked and bits of important internal  machinery type stuff was dangling on the floor (don't ask  me, I'm a musician for Christ sake). It wouldn't move  forwards at all, only backwards for about 5 feet. This was  just enough for us to push the thing on to the hard  shoulder. Having successfully negotiated this manoeuvre we  all huddled in the cramped conditions of the Bedford, that  was now parked directly in front of the deceased Transit. We  decided to get to an emergency phone box to tell the  authorities. So with all seven of us squashed together in  the cab, we drove off in search of one. Some ten or so miles  up the road we found one at last. I spoke to a rather  officious sounding woman who told me that the broken down  van could not be left unattended under any circumstances. It  was against the law to do so, the Police would tow the thing  away, charge us for doing so and we would then have to  appear at Preston Magistrates court a week or so later. As  we seemed to have no other option, we made our way back to  the wreck containing half our gear. We drove south for 5  miles to the next exit. We came off, drove over the M6 and  then drove back on to it going north. At that point on the  motorway there isn't another exit for around 25 miles, so we  just drove passing the knackered van on the other side of  the road as we went. We came off the motorway again; back  over the M6 then drove back on to the motorway this time  going south. It was at least 10 miles to the sad, pathetic  Transit. As we pulled up, we saw an emergency phone box at  the side of the road just behind it. From our earlier  vantage point in the Bedford, the phone box had been  completely obscured by the Transit. We were sick of the  sight of the sodding thing by then anyway. This had been an  unbelievable waste of time and a 50 mile round trip waste of  time at that. 64 Spoons 64 Spoons It was at least 3:30 when the AA man turned up. He got on  his knees and surveyed the trailing components left hanging  under the white van. There was a sideways shake of the head  and a sharp intake of breath and he said 'It's knackered,  the transmissions cracked.' Bloody brilliant! 'you have your  current membership card?' No of course we didn't. Lyndon had  brought the old one. The two of them embarked on a pointless  conversation were the AA man kept mentioning regulations and  Lyndon kept assuring him that he was fully paid up and all  he had to do was check. Now I've always been brought up to  respect a man in uniform but I was tired, angry, frustrated  and could take no more. 'If you're just going to stand there  and regurgitate regulations and not help, then you'd better  fuck off before someone punches you in the face.' Well, it  had been particularly long and tiring weekend. He  disappeared fairly quickly. In similar mood I picked up the  emergency phone and told the poor woman at the other end,  that we had had enough and were going. Once again she  emphasised the illegality of such an action and assured me  that the Police would be arriving shortly. It was 5:00 when the Police Range Rover arrived. He took our  names, addresses and places of birth so that he could run  them through the computer, just to make sure weren't escaped  criminals, madmen or drug dealers. Only when a negative  response to all these inquiries arrived did he call the  local 24-hour recovery service. 'They'll be here in an  hour.' We loaded as much equipment in the hire van as  possible, but the bulk of the P. A had to remain in the  Transit. Seven of us crammed in the front of the Bedford and  silently felt the minutes slowly tick away. The sun came up  and the Radio 2 breakfast show started in that annoyingly,  irritating and cheery way those sodding things do. It was 9:30 when the tow truck arrived. Somehow they managed  to pull the wreck onto the back of their wagon, gave us a  receipt, an address and disappeared. The cheerful, anecdotal  and surreal joke filled van banter, was understandably  missing as we drove the remaining 200 miles or so home. I  remember getting home at 2:00 in the afternoon. Two days later Tam and Andy (The bass player) drove back up  to Preston in the now repaired Spoons van to pick up the  P.A. They were told that the Transit was irreparable and  were given £10 scrap for it. Lyndon had the unpleasant  task of going back to a man who he barely knew with no van,  a ten-pound note and one hell of an explanation. That Thursday we began the drive to a show in Reading, and  all those inter-band tensions that normally made me anxious  before a gig, suddenly meant nothing. There was a  particularly disproportionate and violent altercation  between Tam and Lyndon over a Kit Kat, I seem to remember.  That unshakeable, unquestionable blind faith of youth, that  had kept me going for all those years, had just disappeared.  I really just couldn't give a fuck anymore. If God was  trying to tell me something, it sure as hell wasn't 'I think  this band is great! Stick with it lads"\

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