22 Pints etc. Chapter 2 - The North Without Hatfield

Well...we duly arrived in Manchester, famished and craving alcohol, chips, fame and the chance of (self) exposure (in that order). Having located the gig and hooked in with the Splodge troupe, we swerved the soundcheck - it would've made precious little difference as we'd had no rehearsals and weren't playing our own instruments anyway, Arthur having procured (also for safety's sake, see Part 1) the loan of Colin Gould's faintly serviceable but inexpensive bass guitar - and we found a nearby B & B where, as self-elected tour manager, I booked us in for the night. 

We returned to the gig - Manchester Polytechnic, where I recall the wall of the student union where we played was appropriately emblazoned with a larger than life version of Dennis The Menace - and drank as much as possible by blagging, ligging, poncing off the punters and endeavouring to share Splodge's rider, not an easy task as there were about eight of them and about enough alcohol for a respectable punk trio.  We duly knocked a rudimentary rockin' punk set out without too much ado, a little bit of flying sputum and the odd missile but nothing unexpected, and half swaggered, half staggered back to the aforementioned B & B, fairly faintly drunk and even more faintly elated, having successfully elicited that evening's paltry £50 fee. Dear Dan, now a much more seasoned tour veteran than myself, had at that time never been on tour but had been regaled by Arthur, Rat, myself and others with tales of on tour demolition, carnage, etc. On entering the landlady's lounge, we collapsed exhausted into her armchairs and in ran her large hound, which was as 'faintly' friendly as we were 'faintly' drunk. As soon as her back was turned, Danny gave the poor beast a good punk kick on its rump with his size eleven Doctor Marten boot, necessitating the use of my not inconsiderable placatory negotiating skills to enable us to stay the night there, once the dog's howl alerted the landlady to what had occurred. I can't remember what I said to the woman, but the fact that we were still on the premises the next morning means I would've put Kofi Annan to shame!

Talking of knocking things out i.e. our set, the only other incident of note was when Arthur was caught by the chambermaid in the morning in flagrante but hardly delicto, as it was only with a magazine, and not a groupie! We then ate as much inclusive breakfast as possible for the combined reasons of hangover hunger and economy, then Arthur hit upon the novel idea - probably to deflect attention from the aforementioned J Arthur incident - of trying to launch Dan into the Guinness Book of Records by challenging him to brush his teeth continuously for one hour for the princely bet of £2! I am still laughing now remembering Dan asking, in a muffled voice thorugh a mouthful of Colgate foam, how long was left, as Art & I loked at our watches and giggled. Dan duly achieved his aim and objective, but informs me that Arthur still owes him the £2! After recovering from this hilarity, we set off for Piccadilly station and the rattler to Sheffield, another Polytechnic gig, where we were shortly to realise why The Damned always said they hated students...whilst it was quite an adventure being on tour with no van and minimal tour support, something told me it was going to be a long night - how right I was...

By the time we reached Sheffield Polytechnic, my body, nerves and brain were crying out for alcohol, not least because I wished to quell the unease about the previous night's B & B having been a luxury we probably couldn't afford again that night. Whilst Charlie Harper could probably tour the world being accommodated by fans, I wasn't that well connected and was thus suitably apprehensive, as it was even bloody colder oop North than it had been in London. I abandoned Arthur and Dan backstage and set off for the Student Union bar, in search of cheap libation. There I ran into Fred, the Splodge keyboard player, who was a lovely stocky, wacky feller and a good drinking partner. As we stood there chatting and slurping, we were approached by the spokeswomen for the nastiest, most militant bunch of butch man-hating lesbians you ever saw, who told us their mission for the night was to prevent Splodge performing as they had been (unreliably and innacurately) informed that Splodge used strippers as part of their routine, which they perceived as degrading women. Bolstered by my peacemaking achievements the previous day, and backed by Fred, I tried to both reason with them and point out they had been misinformed. This went down about as well as a porterhouse steak in a vegan restaurant, and the feminists let us know that, if we were intent on proceeding with the show, they remained just as intent on stopping it.

Fred and I gave up the verbal battle and went back to the dressing room, where I informed the lads of the physical battle that was doubtless about to ensue. Arthur was just as incensed as I was, if not more so, when I told him of the 'demo'. "Right," he said, "that's it!" By the time we took the boards, we'd had a fair few and Arthur had (a) stripped down to T-shirt, Y-fronts and Doctor Martens and (b) found a dog-eared copy of Playboy or a similar publication (probably the same one he'd been reading that morning when rudely interrupted by the chambermaid) which he could blatantly leaf through as we walked on. The 'ladies' were all grouped down the front in battle formation and heavily armed with e.g. cut glass ashtrays. I strode up to the mike and announced: "Good evening! I'm sorry we're a little late coming on, but I had to pop home and untie the wife so she could get on with the ironing!" Within a few seconds we knew how the Hungarians must've felt when the tanks rolled in in '56 and, within a couple of numbers, so much beer had been thrown along with the accompanying glasses and ashtrays that the stage was awash, causing Arthur to slide ungraciously to the deck mid-song where he just lay there, battered, bruised and drunk, but also cleverly realising that most of the missiles were now flying over, not at him. Dan of course had the kit for protection although, bless him, he did intervene by coming out from behind it and winding the lovely girls up further. 

Somehow we escaped without serious injury and retired backstage to locate the young punk fan who'd kindly told us earlier that we could stay round his house for the night. It soon transpired that he'd left out one vital piece of information, namely that he resided not in Sheffield, but about eight miles away (I'd always thought it was in Bradford but modern technology tells me that's about thirty-two miles away so, after consulting Arthur, I think it must have been in nearer-by Rotherham). Well, after about an hour and a half's route march through the icy Yorkshire night carrying bags and instruments - our young fan, bless him helped out - all four of us were completely sober and ravenous, so the dear young chap took us to a local late night curry house where we were the only non-Asian customers, and where we ate one of the best, cheapest curries I've ever had outside India, or come to that even Tooting! Feeling a whole lot, well slightly, better we walked the last couple of miles to the young feller-me-lad's mama's house, where she wasn't too pleased to see him at what was by then about 2am and even less pleased to see us, his new punk heroes, swiftly informing him that no, we couldn't stay there for the night. 

"Don't worry," said youngpunkfan, "my dad will definitely let you all kip there." 

"Great," said I, "is it far?"

"About a couple of miles," said youngpunkfan.

Our hearts sank, but we had precious little choice, and off we set. His dad, it turned out, liked his music too, and was quite honoured to have us, apologising for having only a couple of tins of beer that we could all share, and eager to tell and show us how he'd helped his son paint his punk leather jacket up with the names of his favourite bands. The flat was cold and barren but youngpunkfan and dad were as hospitable as theycould be, and I remain eternally grateful. In the morning we put some funds in to purchase some food and all cooked and ate some breakfast together, before being pointed in the direction of the station and trains to Norwich (for West Runton and its well known Pavilion), a tortuous journey by train, even in these days of online info, but a proper minefield back then...

22 Pints Of Lager & Fuck The Crisps 

The Hitherto Untold Story of Auntie Pus on the Splodgenessabounds Tour - November 1980

Chapter 1 - The run-up...

Well...mid 1980 saw me out of prison and on the run, but not really running or hiding very hard, as I was gigging as much as possible and blagging as much press as possible, which usually - plus ca change, ha ha - amounted to not enough. Even The Damned were finding it hard to find a slot for my compering expertise and The Ruts, post Malcolm Owen's tragic R 'n' R demise, were mid-metamorphosis into Ruts DC which was engaging our shared manager, Andy Dayman's efforts more than I was; John Dummer had yet to step into the breach, leaving me to fend for myself. This had led to what might now be termed social networking, but was then just a bloody good night or two out on the lash in the Thomas A'Beckett in the Old Kent Road, haunt of various doubtful semi-retired boxers and their cohorts and a punk pathetique stronghold, where Splodgenessabounds often played, and where I went to hear them with Ruts Foxy & Segs et al. It didn't take much to establish that Max, Baby Greensleeves & I were singing from the same defaced, sacreligious hymn sheet and, after some high level business discussions with Splodge manager Brian Bonklonk, it was agreed that Auntie Pus, plus the rudimentary Men From Uncle, would support Splodge at their forthcoming pathetique festival at Camden's Electric Ballroom in August. 

There were about eight bands programmed and advertised, of which we weren't one! The first band on were Peter & The Test Tube Babies, who appeared to have a strong nazi following - there was lots of sieg heiling and other unfortunate behaviour down the front, and I left the safety of the dressing room, accompanied by Arthur and Esso, to meet and greet with John Peel, a long time Lurkers fan, and the only man to play Halfway To Venezuela on national radio. Before leaving the dressing room, I'd posed for one of my most R 'n R shots ever with Dick Taylor, taken by Virginia Turbot (yes that was her real name, though Max couldn't have dreamed up a better one for the hapless Sounds photographer sent on this unfortunate errand!) I had an all star band that night featuring not only ex-Lurkers for life Arthur and Esso, but three, yes three, hot hot hot lead guitar players, namely Robin Bibi, Mark Sullivan and Dick Taylor, all of whom bravely withstood the hail of abuse and missiles generated when we took the stage as special guests before Splodge, and I dragged the intro to the set opener of Riot In Cell Block No. 9 out for minutes, whilst mincing up and down the stage smoking a Senior Service a la Lee Brilleaux (least that's what I thought!), apart from dear Dick, who always ensured to have a long enough guitar lead to enable him to retreat to the wings whilst still playing when such stick ensued. I then further antagonised the skins by posing the question: "Who is this Hitler chap? I thought he was a decorator!" We survived for most of our set before Segs and Foxy ran on stage and debagged me, leading to my unceremonious removal from the stage by big, bad, unpersonable bruiser Steve English, on behalf of promoter John Curd, who reinforced my eviction saying: "You'll never work in London again," or words to that effect. (Sorry John, but you were wrong!)

God knows how, but following this unparalleled success, and after even higher level business talks with Mr Bonklonk, it was subsequently determined that we would support Splodge on their scheduled upcoming UK tour, at an agreed nightly fee of £50. Things were looking up, or that's what I thought...

Well, the first step was not so much to recruit the band, but to see who was (a) available to waltz off on tour at rather short notice, it now being November and the tour due to start any day, and (b) who was prepared to do it after the Electric Ballroom debacle. I soon narrowed it down by establishing that Arthur was the only regular Man From Uncle available, so realised that I needed to recruit a drummer, at least for the first two dates, which were on a Thursday and Friday, until Dick Taylor could herd the rest of the troops into the old faithful Jean Machine (FUs - how appropriate) van and join us. After yet more high level discussions, mainly in the Tabard pub by Turnham Green tube - but no auditions - Arthur and I selected Danny Heatley, then drumming for West Acton punk pioneers The Satellites, and soon to go on to play for, inter alia, The Exploited, Boothill Foot Tappers and Shane Macgowan & The Popes. (Well, Dan, I think we gave you a good grounding in on tour havoc.) 

There was, however, one slight snag in that Danny wasn't technically available at all, as he had a day job in the CBS record pressing plant in North Acton, a job where he did about three movements all day at a machine, and which he was only too eager to leave. However he resided at home with his mum, and she was far less eager for Dan to leave his not-so-steady job. Dan's dad is the great Spike Heatley, probably the most revered British jazz double bass player, and at that time not so long divorced from Dan's mum Viv, whose actual words when Dan proposed to leave his job and set off on tour were something like: "I've heard all this before - it was the same with your dad - he had a perfectly good, secure job in the Johnny Dankworth Orchestra, but oh no, he had to jack it in to do his own thing!" After placating Mrs Heatley by acting grown-up and responsible (yes, dear reader you may well laugh) and agreeing to pay Dan's housekeeping contribution for the length of the tour - three days as it turned out, and I probably still owe her - the triumvirate of temporary Men From Uncle was cemented.

The next step was to drum up some tour support money from somewhere, as I had no job, no money, and no record company, discounting my own one, Septic Records, of which I was and am the sole director and which, then and now had no funds whatsoever in its coffers. Then...Arthur had a brainwave - we'd go to Dai Davies and Derek Savage at Albion Records, to whom Arthur had been signed with his recently disbanded outfit Pinpoint and was about to fulfil the last couple of years of his deal by forming the gloriously named Lucky Saddles (with Dan Heatley on drums)...we'd point out that Halfway To Venezuela had recently been awarded Single Of The Week in Sounds music paper (a near, but thankfully not so narrowly avoided, minor payola scandal involving my journalist chum Mick Wall), that it was riding high in the semi-fictitious Oi Oi Charts in same rag, and that we had this not to be missed opportunity to ride high on the pathetique bandwagon. Arthur duly rang up Dai & Derek and arranged a meeting; so off we hopped the next morning, Wednesday 5th November 1980 (how appropriate, once again) up to Oxford Street on the jolly old Oxo cube for a little meeting. We went into the Albion boardroom, plotted up round the table, and put a copy of Halfway To Venezuela on it. Dai responded by picking it up and tossing it frisbee style over into the waste paper bin, then they asked us what we wanted. We both started to speak at once, then after prompting I shut up and let Arthur do most of the talking, as he had their respect, and it was through that that we stood any chance at all of leaving the premises with any ackers.

Now we really were into high level business discussions...after some twenty minutes or so they'd bargained me into selling them the publishing on the two tracks on the single for £200 advance on a rotten deal (80%/20% or thereabouts), and then haggled still further to get me to throw another two tracks in. This didn't hurt much, as it was all quite academic, manager No. 1 David Scott already being the owner of all of 'em! It appeared that it would take 24 hours to draw up the necessary paperwork, and release the cash, so it was determined that we would return the next morning to sign the deal and cop the bunce, making it a trifle tight for time, as we were due in Manchester for the opening date of the tour that evening. Arthur & I then hopped on the tube back to Turnham Green to meet with Dan and share the good news; I would say tell him to pack his kit, ha ha, except that the deal was we'd use all Splodge's gear so he didn't need to, in fact I'm not sure he even took his own sticks...still, as you'll find out if you keep reading, stick was something we were not going to find in short supply. After getting very and suitably drunk to celebrate we walked merrily home on what was a bitter early winter night.

At that time I was lodging with my friend Mick O'Dwyer and his mum locally in Bedford Park. Now, following my beloved Gibson having had its headstock split (and subsequently beautifully repaired by my dear pal Johnny Bennett over on Wimbledon Common), the advice was not to take it on the Splodge tour at any cost, so I'd asked Mick if I could borrow his. Mick wasn't really a guitarist but was the owner of a Woolworths solid guitar, remarkably similar, if not identical, to the one the Damned had bought me on tour the preceding year when the Gibson was damaged (Captain Sensible's clever way of avoiding me using any of his guitars, least of all his lovely Gibson Firebird), and christened the Puscaster. When I got in that night, and stumbled into our shared bedroom, always a perilous task as it was cluttered with discarded motorcycle parts, I found Mick's guitar on my bed, tied up with a ribbon, and with the words Puscaster Mk II emblazened in permanent marker on the headstock - Mick and our other good pal Colin Gould (both 999 crew stalwarts) had done this for me, and I was suitably touched.

The following morning the three of us set off early for our appointment at Albion. Arthur & I had appalling hangovers, it was even more bitterly cold, and we were sardined into the rush hour tube carriage...I remember Arthur wearing a very heavy tweed coat and some ridiculous, tiny wire rimmed sunglasses, the former to counteract the cold and the latter the hangover...we duly collected our £200 and passed Go - next stop Manchester!

The Loch Lomond festival & how I DIDN'T play it...

Fast backward to May 1979; I was between Damned tours and my twin careers of punk showbiz and shoplifting were exhibiting their customary low level peaks and troughs. My accommodation career was most definitely in a trough, as I was to all intents and purposes homeless, surviving by what is these days termed sofa surfing (in my case it was more sofa body boarding as I preferred to lie down on my friends' settees, after all I was usually under the influence of heroin and, I if I wished to sleep standing up, could do it without the aid of any furniture.)

One of the most hospitable, genuine, caring friends I prevailed upon at that time was Tommy Crossan (RIP), Damned tour manager, rock 'n' roll travel agent, and the man who unleashed A Flock Of Seagulls on the world with all the ferocity of Hitchcock's The Birds. Tommy lived in a beautiful first floor flat in Colosseum Terrace on Albany Street, Regent's Park, its only down side being that it was virtually opposite Albany Street nick. Tommy always looked after my interests, in a friendly rather than a managerial way, allowing me to share hotel rooms with him on Damned tours to enable me to get some brief nocturnal respite from the torrent of japes, pranks and straightforward abuse I suffered during the days and evenings. We would retire to Tommy's room, get nicely stoned smoking pipes of Tommy's hash, then he'd do the day's books and I'd put my feet up and enjoy my ration of an hour a day's relaxation.  Tommy was a big bear of a man with a black beard and large tinted spectacles, who'd come to London from Glasgow amidst the tidal Southbound emigration of roadies from East Kilbride that occurred in the early to mid' 70s, and I miss him...

Anyway, back to Thursday 24th May '79 and I'm round at Tommy's, skint, with a barely fed 'brer rabbit' on the go and stressing out about a court appearance at Wimbledon for hoisting the following day, when I was worried about bail being rescinded. That day there was an old mucker of Tommy's round at his called Joe Fife; they'd grown up on the same patch, and headed South in the exodus mentioned above, as had another contemporary of theirs named Phil, who'd tour managed The Damned before Tom. Joe said he'd been working for The Skids, then relatively new kids on the punk block, doing TOTP etc. He was full of them and even more so of himself, and said that he was going up to the Loch Lomond festival that weekend where they were billed to appear. Tommy, in a pro-active brainwave, asked Joe when he was heading up over the border, and if he could take me and get me on at the festival, where the aforementioned Phil was also working. Joe insisted that he could and, though wary I agreed in my usual blind outreach for fame, adventure, sanctuary and any combination thereof. One reason for my wariness was that Tommy, who was looking out for me, wouldn't be there, and that Phil and I had never really hit it off, especially after I'd been violently sick in the tour bus in Paris the preceding November, on the first night of The Doomed tour, after copious amounts of whisky and morphine, en route from one hotel to another in the early hours, after being summarily evicted from the first, and prior to being just as summarily evicted from the second a few hours later. I also explained to Joe that our departure would have to wait until I'd answered bail at court the following morning. Joe checked which court, and then promised to come and speak for me, kind of as a prospective reliable employer, to (supposedly) ensure I got continued bail, making me warier still. However, Tommy convinced me that it was a good idea, and we made some plans: Joe would meet me at Wimbledon Magistrates Court in the morning and then we'd get the night train from Euston to Glasgow. Joe then arranged to borrow a car off yet another old chum of theirs to get us on to Loch Lomond; meanwhile Tommy rang his mum in East Kilbride and told her to expect us for breakfast, introducing me in advance and telling her that I needed 'feeding up.' 

The next morning I arrive at court looking as respectable as I could, bearing in mind the homeless circumstances, and there's Joe, crumpled denim jacket with the collar turned up and shades on, looking like he'd gone out of his way to look as disreputably rock 'n' roll as possible! When my turn in the dock duly came, Joe endeavoured to speak on my behalf but between myself and the beak, we managed to shut him up, and my bail was duly granted. My next task was to explain to Joe that I was modelled firmly in the Johnny Thunders mould, and inveigle him into taking me straight to my dealers' house in Teddington and paying for me to get 'sorted out'. After some bargaining he paid for about half as much gear as I'd need to scrape through the weekend, most of which I took on the spot. The night train journey to Glasgow therefore passed in a warm glow and my sense of adventure won over my misgivings. Around 5am on the Saturday, we arrived in a cab at Tommy's mum's, where she was up, expecting us and all ready to cook us one of the best breakfasts I've ever eaten, replete with traditional Scottish square sausages. She apologised, quite unnecessarily, for Tommy's dad, who was on the settee, still snoring off last night's heavy. Joe got on their phone and arranged to pick up the motor we were borrowing locally, and soon after we set off for the Highlands. Despite the altitude rising, it was all downhill from then on...

We arrived at the festival, where Phil and his chums doing the security and staging seemed no more pleased to see Joe than they did me, and it was a battle even to get in and get some 'access some areas' passes, let alone organise for me to do a short set before The Skids. My visions of doing a Skids tour after the forthcoming Damned one was over duly flew out the proverbial window. The nearest we got to the stage was the artistes' tent backstage where I had a few drinks with Paula Yates, the Boomtown Rats also being on the bill, and a strange, tall, Nordic looking blonde fellow with appalling acne scarring who supposedly worked for Paul Macartney's Wings. I don't recall seeing any bands live at all and, on looking the festival up, am scandalised to see that also on the bill were Dr Feelgood - by then featuring Gypie Mayo in lieu of Wilko - and the UK Subs: what I wouldn't have given to have either seen the Feelgoods then, or had a couple of beers with my old South London compatriot Charlie Harper, or better still both.

By late evening, the heroin was no longer coursing through my veins, Joe was running out of funds, and the Scottish weather had taken a decided turn for the worse. Needless to say, Joe hadn't arranged any luxury camping accommodation, and I begged the car keys off him, went and located the vehicle, started the engine, turned all the heating up to full and managed to get a couple of hours very uncomfortable kip, before being awoken in the early hours by a kind fellow who pointed out I could die of carbon monoxide poisoning if I didn't switch the engine off. Soon after that, Joe arrived back at the car and kipped in the back, but not before I had told him I'd had enough and negotiated that it was only fair that he drove me back to Glasgow and bought me a ticket back to London in the morning.

It was a long and far less cosy train journey home than going up, and what seemed like an even longer journey by tube and suburban rail back to the dealers' in Teddington, where I just made it before they retired for the night. In order to score, I had to regale them, sheepishly, with the saga of the fiasco in which I'd just taken part, and that, dear reader, is the tale of how Auntie Pus DIDN'T play Loch Lomond Festival 1979.

The continuing story of Auntie Pus managers: No. 3 - John Dummer

I first heard John Dummer drumming with his eponymous Blues Band in about 1969, when one of the first albums I owned was a Blue Horizon sampler, which featured one of their tracks. I first met John, en passant, when he was drumming for the great UK doowop band Darts, for whom my dear friend Hammy Howell (RIP) was the pianist, around '75-'76. Our paths were not to cross again until 1981, when John was running a band called True Life Confessions with his wife Helen April, and featuring two members of my band The Men From Uncle - Robin Bibi on lead guitar, and Pete 'Manic Esso' Haynes on drums (co-opted as a result of John signing me), as well as a certain Harri Kakoulli, once the first Squeeze bassist, and a beautiful French girl called Annie, a refugee from a band Robin had recently been in a la France.

By the time John & Helen came to check my band playing live - I'm not sure but I believe this was at a gig in the jolly old Clarendon basement bar, where we had an alternating headline residency with legendary Acton punks and urban gorillas The Satellites, who featured founder, and soon to be again Black Devil Danny Heatley on drums and sometime Man From Uncle Rob 'Sneak' Deacon on guitar - Halfway To Venezuela had received the Single Of The Week in Sounds, reached No. 3 in the Oi Oi charts, and started down the road to revered obscurity from which I am still trying to rescue it today.

Anyway, the next morning the jolly old eau de cologne rang at my lodgings in Turnham Green, and there was Mr Dummer sounding most enamoured with my previous evening's performance, expressing interest in managing me and inviting me over to his & Helen's abode in Rudloe Road, Clapham South (just around the Jack Horner on the South Circular from Arkwright Plaza, Segsy's later home and studio where (Over) Halfway To Venezuela 1999 was mixed and, incidentally but irrelevantly where I came the closest I've ever come to being mugged at knife point in a lift) for a conflab. A couple of days later I duly pitched up there, as arranged, and John suggested we adjourn to The Windmill on Clapham Common. I was delighted at the suggestion, and further delighted when we got there and it appeared John was footing the bill for the drinks. However Darts were a hard gigging, hard living band. Whilst aware that this had driven my dear pal Hammy to the mental illness that was to plague him for the rest of his days, I was unaware till then that it had also driven John to teetotalism. (Funny really, that's two out of three managers I've written about now who are teetotal - one would've thought managing me would've driven 'em to drink!) So there we are in the pub - I'm having a fine old time on the Ram & Special at John's expense while he's having soft drinks, thinking this is alright...back at John's gaff a couple of hours on and he whips out a contract, bless him. John is an ex-record plugger and always had an eye for the main chance but, after being shafted by various people including Virgin and Arista Records and much to John's chagrin, I chose to take it home for perusal, being at least two, if not the full three sheets to the wind and not fully focussed. Thinking back now, I don't recall ever signing it!

The other amusing episode from my sojourn in John's managerial stable was when he suggested we went up to the TOTP studios on recording day one week. John said he knew all the doormen etc. and could blag us in, then we could hang out in the bar and chinwag with the likes of John Peel. Sensing the chance of more alcohol at John's expense, I gaily accepted. Well there we are in Wood Lane, John's convinced the commissionaire he still works there, and we make our way up to the bar, finding out en route that the only band actually playing live that day are Motorhead and that all the others were being shown on video. To make matters worse, the (other) Auntie employee on the door of the bar wasn't having it as John wasn't on the list. Thinking on my feet and using my extensive guest list blagging experience, I said: Check and see if I'm on there - Phil Taylor. Obviously he was, and luckily he must've still been in the toilets of a Ladbroke Grove hostelry sniffing amphetamine with Lemmy at the time, so we were in! Except we weren't, because there was no-one of import with whom to hang out - it was a good laugh, though.

We did quite a bit of work with True Life Confessions, swapping songs with each other, rehearsing and laying down some strange demos, a couple of which I still have on cassette, at Helen April's mother's house In New Cross Gate, on the corner of Pepy's Road and the one way system. It's a bloody long and awkward journey there from West London where I lived, and the reason I mention this is because some eight years later, my great friend Helen Moore with whom I was privileged to work in the Helen Moore Trio for some fifteen years, and her partner Allan bought a house in Erlanger Road, the very next street and there I was making the same nightmare commute to rehearsals all over again, and still intermittently am. My destiny appears to be to spend my life rehearsing on the New Cross Gate one way system! Last strange, but absolutely true life confession before I close this episode: two and a half years ago my dear sparring and guitarring partner Colin Delaney from the aforementioned HM Trio passed away and I was on my way by new-fangled and potentially incendiary bendy bus from Paddington Station to New Cross to stay with Helen before journeying to Kent for the funeral the following day. Fella gets on the bus, straps of his bag entangle with mine, he apologises...I'm looking at this fella thinking: I know you, trying to place him. Then the old penny drops and I realise it's Harri Kakoulli, a right coincidence as I live in Plymouth and he lives in Cyprus, where he makes some wonderful world music - check his website.

John is not only teetotal like David Scott, he also lives in France, but in the South West, where he's written a satire on his life there, aside from recently reconvening his eponymous blues band in the UK after all this time. Is there a demographic trait in Pus managers here?  

Mr Brighton Junior

So...back to the chronological history of Auntie Pus managers...No. 1: David Scott.

I grew up - if I was American which I'm decidedly not, I guess I'd say I was raised - in the leafy but lively South West London suburb of Wimbledon, and the milieu in which I mixed, drank and took drugs, was peopled with some unique, idiosyncratic and wonderful characters, not least Bill Major, an original beatnik - who'd been written about in such terms by the News Of The World (RIP) in 1958 - who gave me the nickname of Auntie, a couple of years before punk prompted me to add the Pus suffix. Included in this group of chums - what they would have called a 'fast set' in the twenties - were two loveable rogues and smooth talking bastards called Bob & John Wilson, and the amazingly dextrous guitarist and fantastic but rarely washed songwriter Brian 'Fast Fingers' Holmes, who also went on to be managed by David Scott.

I'd heard apocryphal tales about David Scott before meeting him, primarily from the aforementioned Bob Wilson, who had briefly attended my old alma mater KCS Wimbledon, about a decade before, as had David Scott. Both were drinking buddies of Oliver Reed, a former Wimbledon resident in the formative years of his acting career. David hailed from Brighton, where his father Lionel was a prominent car dealer known as Mr Brighton. I had been transfixed by tales of David, not least his enormous capacity for food, alcohol and fun, that I'd heard from Bob over the years, and was already spending many of my weekends in the sometimes sunny seaside resort of Brighton, as I was friends, again through  Bob & John Wilson, with a family of six wild and wonderful sisters who had a flat there, and with whom the second youngest  Nadine, nicknamed the Lizard by an ex of hers and also fellow old Kings boy for her chameleonic qualities, I'd recently fallen happily in unrequited love. I still am and it's still unrequited, it being hard to track down people by the name of Smith on social networking sites. I had often visualised David and reflected on if and when we might meet, and what the outcome would be.

Fast forward to a glorious evening in the midst of the long, fabled summer of 1976. I strolled the mile and a half or so from the family menage in Wimbledon Park, of which I was at the time briefly a part again, up to my two local pubs, the Hand In Hand and Crooked Billet, which nestle on a green on the edge of Wimbledon Common and opposite KCS. As I approached I saw Bob & John Wilson standing outside with a group of people that included a few unrecognised faces. One of these, a man whom I was shortly to be introduced to as Laurie Poore and whom David was also then managing, was sitting on a post outside the Crooked Billet playing some lovely fingerpicking guitar and singing some songs. As I approached the battle cruiser, a tall, well built handsome man wearing a big cowboy hat, a dark blue velvet waistcoat with gold brocade, and with his teeth clamped firmly on a large cigar relieved Laurie of his guitar, saying: "Well, I suppose I'd better do one - after all, I am a bit good, ain't I?" With that, and with said cigar still firmly clamped in his mouth, he launched into the Stones' All Over Now just as I got to within a couple of yards away. It is testament to David's charisma that all thoughts of the beer for which I'd been gagging throughout my half hour walk from home were temporarily banished from mind. I remember thinking, quite correctly as it turned out: this must be David Scott. A couple of drinks later,  by which time Brian Holmes had joined the group and aired a couple of his awesome compositions, Bob said: "Play one of your songs, Jools!" Laurie passed me the guitar, but the memory of which song I performed in that golden light has been lost in the mists of time, although I have a feeling that I aired my parody of Mott The Hoople's All The Way From Memphis, psychogeographically entitled All The Way From West Ewell (the lyrics to this are also lost in the mists of time but I can recall the chorus couplet: Well it's a mighty long way on the 293/But it's worth it just to get where you wanna be). Anyhow it led to a happily frolicsome, tempestuous manager/artiste relationship with David. 

This was pursued on the dual fronts of London and Brighton. I would continue my weekend jaunts down to the seaside to party with Nadine and her sisters and crew, combined with clubbing and drinking with David in a protege role, and periodically David would appear unannounced with a gang from Brighton, in Wimbledon. David was during this time partners in a car showroom in Brighton, and would always arrive driving an impressive automobile - the two that stick in my mind being a canary yellow Ford Mustang and a white Rolls Royce (just like John Lennon's but minus the flower power adornments). David's gang included many memorable characters, including a wonderful poet character with what today we term severe and enduring mental health issues, known as the Reverend Geoffrey, and a recently semi-retired armed robber named Johnny Nokes.

By the next year, David and his partner in the car showroom, Phil Church, had diversified into being punk music promoters, primarily putting on weekly gigs at Hastings Pier Ballroom. At one of these in about April of that year the headliners were The Damned and dressing room chat between David and Rat Scabies subsequently revealed that David managed me, and that Rat & I were old teenage musical consorts. The idea was thus proposed, and subsequently executed, that I support The Damned on their next appearance at Hastings Pier Ballroom, which took place in the July (also on the bill were a thankfully pre-Nazi Skrewdriver). Nick Leigh from the Derek Block agency, then booking the acts for prime punk venue the Vortex Club in Wardour Street was in attendance and liked my act, going onto book me to support The Banshees and The Ants there on Halloween night 1977. (The rest, as they say, is history, or at least it will be if you keep reading this blog.)

As for my working relationship with David, it endured until late 1979, marred only slightly by David's bankruptcy and divorce demoting him from millionaire status to entrepreneurial resourcefulness, and rather a lot by my increasing use of hard drugs. David financed the recording of Halfway To Venezuela and Marmalade Freak at the legendary Pathway Studios in 1978 and his coup de grace as a manager was to schedule a meeting with the directors of Robertson's Jams to market me. David told me the meeting took place early on a Monday morning, and that he was shown into a traditional boardroom scenario, with the long polished oval table, replete with crystal water decanter. He took out a portable cassette player, put it on the gleaming mahogany and regaled the aging directors present with my dulcet tones singing Marmalade Freak. He then told them: "What you need to do is get the golliwog off the jars and put my boy on!" Strangely enough, this was far too 'left field' (an expression not then invented and which I loathe nearly as much as those directors did my music) for them, and David was swiftly shown the door.

The dreaded Facebook will let you find David Lionel Scott, now a teetotal minor record company magnate with his own label, Tosh Records, based in Normandy, and a Brian Holmes page where you can access some of his amazing archive and, of course, my very own Auntie Pus page. You can also find recordings of Brian Holmes songs by both himself and Robin Bibi (my long term colleague through thick, thin, school and punk) on Tosh Records and David was kind enough to make my current gypsy swing band's tunes available for download via Tosh Records last year. We last saw each other, and both played a couple of songs, at the 50th birthday celebrations of yet another ex-KCS alumni Phil Woods a couple of years ago, where Laurie Poore was also in attendance. David tells me The Reverend Geoffrey is still performing - I do trust in all senses of the word; Johnny Nokes went on to be a butler for  a landed gentleman and passed away a few years ago - on the strange coincidence front I had to replace my boiler at home here in Plymouth not so long back, and the man who fitted it turned out to be John's nephew!

Ticket to Ride...

And so...(I know only the Bible starts sentences with the word 'and', but...) the accoustic winedown at Ride cafe bar in Plymouth duly played host to Auntie Pus (The Punk Balladier) last night, as my comeback marches inexorably onwards and sideways. I entertained high hopes of entertaining the assembled ensemble of loyal troops who had shown their commitment and devotion by journeying from as far afield as the heights of Caradon Hill in darkest South East Cornwall, and the depths of Stonehouse Creek down the road, but was unsure what the reaction of the student layabout regulars would be...however, I can report that, after a set of fourteen songs, of which only three were covers (old rockin' classics but of course), the calls for an encore were both uproarious and unanimous, obliging me to deliver a Riot In Cell Block No. 9 - they're all back in their cells now but...

Did I do Claudette, I hear you ask? Well, it was Elvis' 77th birthday, so I felt it imperative to do a Roy Orbison tune, ha ha...homage was also paid to Billey Lee Riley and Carl Mann; I only hope there's no-one from the PRS reading this, then again a little court case is always good for upping the PR stakes, eh what?

...As the Grateful Dead would say, it's been a long, strange trip, and stranger still to be back on board after all these years, albeit sans Kings College Junior School blazer and cap, and with quiff tamed to a flat top. However, to quote from the updated and upgraded All The Way To Venezuela: 'I might have grey in my hair...but I don't care!'

I would normally feel for the act that had to follow me - unless they were The Damned - but in this case genial host, compere and music maestro Joe Biddle pulled a master stroke by slotting in a special guest slot from award winning local chanteuse and birthday girl Jill Cole, who kept the audience engaged and rocking with great versions of classics including Son Of A Preacher Man and Motorhead's Ace Of Spades. The wine at accoustic winedown leaves more than a little to be desired, and the 'stand at ease' is I think filched from local mousetraps (how appropriately punk!) but I think we can safely say that mine and Jill's performances last night left nothing to be desired!

Next stop the studio on Wednesday to begin recording Yolanda's Dreams (see last week's blog), and next live stops the Nowhere Inn (whaddya mean how appropriate!)  here in Plymouth and the 12 Bar Club (again I say whaddya mean how appropriate, nearly half the tunes have a different chord structure!), the latter will feature the newly reconvened Black Devils - dates and line-up to be announced shortly - expect guest appearances from the upper echelons of the ancien Men From Uncle, both on stage and in the audience. Next stop Auntie - The Movie!

Release...

I was going to trace my punk career through my managers, but I am going to jump straight to Manager No. 2, Andy Dayman. This is a sad day for me as I have just received the news that Andy has passed away in Los Angeles. Today's blog is entitled 'Release' because Andy has been seriously ill for some time and has thus been released from his suffering, but also because it was Andy who rescued the languishing masters of Halfway To Venezuela and Marmalade Freak and negotiated a distribution deal with Spartan Records for me in 1980, thus releasing suffering onto the listening public! (In the Ruts Glee Club, we traditionally fight crises with humour!)

Whilst on the topic of The Ruts Glee Club, I was for a while, around the time of 'Halfway's release, the notional secretary of said fan club, as part of my role as general factotum around the Ruts, or rather Andy's office, Dayman Promotions, sited at 323 Old Street, way before Hoxton was hip. I don't think Andy ever actually promoted anyone else out of that office except The Ruts and me, however. Andy was an inspirational figure in my life: we had a paradoxical relationship where, on one hand he would condone my (and of course The Ruts') outrageous antics on tour and stage, whilst on the other gently chastising them in a paternal fashion. When confronted on tour by irate hotel staff members with the remnants of a smashed standard lamp found stashed in the wardrobe, he memorably said: "No, it couldn't have been my boys", even though they were the ones that had spent the night in the room!

Whilst it was jolly sporting of Andy to give me some employment, as I had no income, but was on the run from the police and trying to give up shoplifting (the first of my addictions I successfully beat), it was rather foolhardy of me to take up his kind offer, as the CID man who was co-ordinating all the offences for which I hadn't served time, was stationed around the corner at Bishopsgate nick. So of course, lo and behold, one day Andy's out, I'm minding the office, and the 'phone rings, not an uncommon event in rock 'n' roll offices. 'Dayman Promotions', I said brightly into the receiver. A voice on the end asked for Andy Dayman. As I informed the male caller that he wasn't available, I realised with horror that I was talking to said CID man, who said he'd call back. I was forced to evacuate the office and flee by fleet foot and Northern Line to the Elephant, where the Ruts were rehearsing in the Sunday School studios. I arrived breathlessly and informed them that I'd had to leave their office unmanned; needless to say they understood and in due course Andy arrived and I put him in the picture. Now, at this time Andy had a beautiful sleek Doberman called Lucy, who really had a very placid nature. However, when Mr Bishopsgate CID came to call at the office a day or so later, Andy said she growled ferociously at him, whilst he tried unsuccessfully to calm her. If I know Andy, he would've been subtly trying to wind her up more, whilst giving the old bill the impression he was trying to placate her!

Around this same time, Rachel Howard, who designed the Auntie Pus logo, had printed up a select run of six Auntie Pus T-shirts, and Dave Ruffy (Rachel's partner at the time), being the sartorially elegant chap he still is, was sporting one of my, or should I say Rachel's, T-shirts one day. Well... Andy had an ex-business partner named Bob, with whom he'd been partners in a garage nearby in the City, and where Dave and Segs had worked before rising to the glitterati status they maintain to this day. On the day in question when Ruffy had the Pus T-shirt on, and soon after the incident related above, he happened to be having a cup of tea and a chin wag in the garage office when who should come in but some CID from Bishopsgate nick, admittedly on an unconnected enquiry, but Ruffy didn't know that at first. I still smile at the thought of Dave trying to discreetly clutch the lapels of his jacket together!

Despite mine and Segs' past achievements in igniting Transits etc., and my having just finished a lengthy, but generally very good biography of Gram Parsons, Segs & I are not going to fly to LA and steal Andy's body and drive it out to the Joshua Tree and burn it, as I don't think Andy's family would appreciate it any more than Gram Parsons' family did. I last saw Andy twice in the same fortnight in 2000, once at Segs' wedding in Fiji, and once en route there when I spent three days in LA, and went for a lovely Mexican meal with Andy - both were very happy occasions and beautiful memories. Andy was a special friend more than a manager and, if you were one of the lucky 800 or so people who actually went into a record shop in 1980 and bought a copy of Halfway To Venezuela, then don't just thank me, thank Andy Dayman.

The return of the Punk Balladier

This is Auntie Pus here, the Punk Balladier and Public School Punk Rocker.

Boxing Day found me sharing a dressing room with my fellow ex-Elliotonian alumni Chris Millar aka Rat Scabies, now a Member of The Members, for the first time in about 32 years, and also my old cohorts JC Carroll & Chris Payne, the other Members of The Members, at The Fleece in Bristol. Beer was taken, hands shaken and the boards subsequently trodden. I'd shed, or should I say both misplaced and outgrown the Kings College Junior School Wimbledon blazer, and replaced it with white Levi jacket and jeans, whilst Rat is now a renowned grail hunter. As Mr Zimmerman says, the times etc....

Old songs, not least Marmalade Freak, were aired, new songs including my latest offering Yolanda's Dreams, about a girl who you certainly wouldn't want in your dreams, were bared, and the new version of Halfway To Venezuela, entitled All The Way To Venezuela, and composed after my pilgrimage there in 2009 was shared in public for the first time. Photographic evidence has duly been displayed on the dreaded Facebook. Autographs were signed, a strange procedure in these days of identity theft, making me wonder if the punks concerned were gonna be applying for false passports in the Pus name, enabling them to supplement their meagre benefits with drug smuggling and currency fraud. Let's hope so!!

I am now eagerly looking forward to the other half of the 2011-12 tour  (a whole lot more eagerly than the audience, whom my minions are still pressganging into attendance - some things don't change), which takes place this coming Sunday @ Ride, Plymouth, where the set will be extended with various near and not so near misses, and supplemented with some raunchy ripping rockabilly, and may possibly feature a special guest singing unorthodox in tune backing vocals.

Punk for me has always been about misfits and social exclusion, to which end today's recommended read is 'God's Lonely Men' by Pete Haynes.

www.myspace.com/auntiepus