The Vortex
When I first played with The Damned at Hastings Pier Ballroom in July 1977, their agent Nick Leigh from the Derek Block Agency was there and, in the dressing room, told me that he'd enjoyed my set and that he promoted top punk venue The Vortex, as well as DJing there. [I have a good friend these days who's an academic; he's one of the world's leading experts on Wyndham Lewis, but as Vorticism goes, this was one maelstrom further altogether.] Anyway, Nick gave me his card and told me to contact him.
When I rang he was good as gold and duly gave me a date at The Vortex on Halloween night to support The Ants — with Jordan singing back then — and Siouxsie & The Banshees. There was another band on before me; they were called The Void and I have no recollection of them, but about fifteen years ago, I was reading the memoirs of a posh boy junkie called Sebastian Horsley, who died not long after, and lo and behold, it turned out he was in The Void. So a posh boy junkie and not very posh boy junkie on the bill that night. Posh he might have been, but I'll bet he didn't arrive at the venue and see in the queue going round the block, a dozen or more of his friends who had come from the posh suburbs to support him. I will further bet even more money that no-one said, as they handed him a syringe loaded with morphine: 'There ya go, Jools, it's in the gun.' [I very responsibly kept it till after my set.]
I was at the time living at my gran's flat in Holland Park. My friend Adam Cox, another posh junkie, who had close-cropped blonde hair with red and blue dye in, and was dressed that night from head to foot in studded black leather, so at about eighteen stone and six feet, an imposing character, came to call for me and, guitar in my hand, we hopped on the Central Line into town. I can't remember if we alighted at Oxford Circus or Tottenham Court Road, as Wardour Street is equidistant between the two, but guess the former as it comes first.
When we got to the venue, they were indeed queueing around the block, and I was amazed to see so many of my pals there, including Bill Major, the man who'd called me Auntie in the first place, and who never left our manor, unless to see an American bluesman at the 100 Club. He had on his signature green and white striped rugby shirt, but luckily in view of the crazy pogoing that ensued inside, he had by then swapped the leather Indian sandals he always used to wear, for a pair of twelve hole Dr. Marten's. Also there were my pal Bob Wilson [known as Watson, or sometimes Sonny Boy, because once when under the influence he had been trying to talk about Sonny Boy Williamson and had inadvertently said Sonny Boy Watson], who was right down the front when I was playing and dancing like a maniac, whilst another punter set his hair alight on the floor next to him; my dear friend Robin Bibi, who would play on my single the following year, and with whom I've been playing on and off ever since; with Bill was a fella called Bob The Bins (for obvious reasons) —he had been a semi-respectable sales rep about four years earlier but had fallen into bad company i.e. us lot in the pub, and rather gone adrift. He was the one who handed me the works. My pal Glenn Mason, known as Coco for equally obvious reasons, was in attendance too.
My manager David Scott had also come up to Brighton with some pals to support me, and do some networking; it was David who had promoted the Hastings show, and I think his partner in crime Phil Church was with him. Their main income was from a car front they had — I don't know what motor they were in that night, but he always turned up in something eye-catching; the best was a white Rolls Royce like John Lennon's. When I got inside, one of the first people I saw was my other dear friend Arturo Bassick from The Lurkers, who was in conversation with Jimmy Pursey from Sham 69. I don't think they were pals, although the Sham bassist is a friend or ours, rather just two people in up and coming punk bands. Anyway the fact that I had known Robin since we were in our early teens at my public school, and Arturo since the school I went to after that one expelled me, made seeing them both there all the more emotional. As an aside, they didn't meet each other (through me) until 1980, but after that they played together in my band The Men From Uncle, and in Arthur (Arturo)'s bands The Lucky Saddles and The Blubbery Hellbellies.
I can't tell you much more about the gig — I was high as a kite on nerves beforehand, elated afterwards and don't remember much of the main bands, except for Jordan's amazing coxcomb hair, and Siouxsie's whole look. The following year I saw The Banshees at Kingston Coronation Baths and they were magnificent, and more enjoyable for me because I wasn't distrait and floating on air. I don't even recall shooting the morphine up — I think I might even have kept it till I got home to Holland Park. Nick Leigh paid me the kingly sum of ten pounds, and Damned tours and downhill slopes beckoned.
