Ibiza 1983
(3)
Returning to the midsummer gig at the Las Dalias venue, Nina had befriended two smashing Spanish people, a hard core Basque girl named Ampero, and a guy called Tony the Astrologer, for transparent reasons. Tony spoke little English and Nina minimal Spanish but, by the time I arrived, they had struck up a friendship and understanding; I guess because all three of them were outsiders. Anyway, Tony had found Nina in the bar one evening and informed her he had told the venue he would make a poster for the gig, as he was a good artist as well as an astrologer, but had left it really late. Thinking on her little size fives, Nina picked up a copy of that day's Diario de Ibiza, borrowed a pair of scissors, or maybe, knowing her, just used her hairdressing ones, which she always carried with her, as a quick haircut on the beach or in the bar was bit of added income, and showed Tony how to make Sex Pistols ransom note style art. They made a great poster which, when Nina and I first returned to the island seven years later, was hanging framed on the bar wall. Tony lived in a tiny casita on the hill top across the road from Las Dalias — he had long frizzy hair and glasses, a touch of the Jerry Garcia about him. When I glance up at that hill top now, I wonder what became of him. Ampero, the Basque girl, lived at that time on the beach, but always looked immaculate with a crisp cotton skirt and fresh make-up. I don't know where she ironed her clothes, but she would come in Anita's of a morning, order up a café con leche, and retire to the ladies', to return after ten minutes with gleaming teeth and freshly applied lipstick. She is still on the island; I've glimpsed her at times, we have never reconnected but she still looks chic.
The now owner, and then son and heir of Las Dalias, Juanito, had also enjoyed my performance at the midsummer show so, a couple of weeks later, aided by my friend Helga who had the gallery there, I blagged a solo Saturday night gig, this time for the princely fee of 5,000 pesetas, or £25. Nina made another Mclaren-esque poster and they constructed a lovely stage by the brook under the palms. You might even describe it as intimate. I spent the afternoon of the gig at Jenny's finca rehearsing Blue Suede Shoes —I even had some with me to wear — with her daughter Gypsy, Geri's daughter Esther; my soul sister, of whom much, much more later, Marianne's daughter Shalom, and another island girl named Shanti, as Marianne and Nina had devised a little dance routine for them. Aged between six and eight, the little girls were thus all up for prima donna-ship as much as the sisterhood, and there were a few fractious wobblers thrown in the July afternoon heat. Whilst we were in my room inside rehearsing the dance routine Jenny, being the wizard at a machine she is, having whipped round the girls' waists with a tape measure, was in the workshop running up four identical pale blue crêpe dresses. It was a gorgeous evening, Marmalade Freak went down alright even with the people who didn't understand the lyric, but predictably the girls stole the show, and people on the island reminisce about it to this day, I am told even at times when I'm absent.
Around that same time, there used to be a weekly Sunday night poetry reading in the gallery at Las Dalias, hosted by Helga's husband Martin Watson-Todd. The island has always been a magnet for artists in any medium, and there were some great contributors, Guardian journalists and all sorts, in whose company I was honoured to read. Martin won many battles with cognac but sadly lost the war, leaving behind an inspiring book of poems.
Talking of Blue Suede Shoes, one literally blindingly sunny afternoon, I was sitting at the table in the front yard of the finca, playing some rock 'n' roll and singing at the top of my voice as I thought there was no-one about — I think it must have been a market day and the whole household was at the stall or school —as it was cathartic; despite the beauty of the island and the top people I was hanging out with, I was, let's face it living day to day, or hand to mouth. I always say, mind you, that there's nothing wrong with living from hand to mouth — it's when you have nothing in your hand to put in your mouth or buy something to put in your mouth, that you need to worry. So there I was in full throttle, when a girl came dancing down the track towards me in one of Jenny's white linen dresses, which were cut so they proper flounced. She had come to surprise Jenny and Rod, with the result of us surprising each other, and me being embarrassed about the singing. Her name's Christina — we've been friends ever since. The following Saturday, we went to a house party at her husband Chris's house in the hills, where I remember Bobby Schuck saying he'd make screwdrivers, and just pouring about a dozen bottles of chilled Russian vodka into a bucket, then squeezing fresh oranges by hand in a cocaine fuelled frenzy until it was faintly approaching a 50:50 mix.
The weekend before it turned out Nina and I were successfully to leave the island, after a few aborted attempts, something which had historical precedent, and therefore which neither us nor Jenny and Rod paid much notice to, Bobby had a big party at the villa he was renting in Jesús, just outside Ibiza Town. One reason for the party was to celebrate the arrival of Bobby's speedboat, now safely moored in Ibiza Port. Obviously, being a speedboat, it had arrived from England on a trailer and not sped across the Med'. This trailer is very important. It was towed by a green 1970s Mercedes 200, the ones with the stacked headlights, and driven from London, where Bobby had bought it at the Boat Show I think, to Dover, thence via ferry to Calais, overland to Alicante, and then by ferry to the island. Driving said Mercedes was its owner, Colin Delaney, a friend of Bobby's from old times in the music business, a very talented and often commercial songwriter, a former agent, one of the best guitarists I've ever heard, never mind played with, and we went on to play gypsy jazz together for over twenty-five years.
Before I met him, Colin had been involved in some project with Robert Fripp, and had flown to New York for a session. No-one knows what he might have ingested at a party there, but he came back a changed, and much more withdrawn man. Whatever it was, it never took his genius. The result of this was that driving Bobby's boat to Ibiza was a nice little earner, with a few days hanging at Bobby's before the ferry home, but that Colin wasn't the type of fella to get stuck into a full-on debauched island party. This was exacerbated by his being a non-swimmer and having had what he perceived as a near death experience in the pool that afternoon. However, as he'd come in the Merc', he had his Fender acoustic guitar with him. In between necking cocktails and blagging lines of coke, I went for an exploratory stroll around the pool and grounds. Sitting on his own by the pool strumming, was a man in a navy and white striped shirt and white shorts. I sat down next to him, shook hands, and he carried on playing, and singing very sweetly 'Wherever I Lay My Hat'. When he finished, I said; 'Nice song. 's an old soul song ain't it?' I had been in Ibiza for over two months and, although we went to the disco and heard The Police and stuff, we were definitely way behind the English charts. So when Colin replied that yes, it was a Marvin Gaye hit years ago, but that Paul Young now had a No. 1 with it in England, it was all news to me. I was thus also unaware that his backing singers were the two girl singers from the soul band Panties I told you about before, Kim and Maz, now The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts.
Colin and I were chatting away in no time about all things musical; I played a tune on his guitar and, like most regular guys, he liked the guitar playing but was a trifle taken aback by the, shall we say, unorthodox singing. It's my spirit I'm told, that wins people around, and I think Colin felt that. We spent a lot of the next eight hours intermittently chatting and playing. This eight hours was also spent waiting for a supposed banquet of a whole sheep stuffed with apricots, almonds and rice, cooked in a pit in the ground that Bobby had dug. When about two dozen people sat down at four in the morning at an enormous outdoor table, the lamb was kind of cooked, as in some of it was tender and none of it was crispy, and none of the stuffing had cooked. I have an enduring memory of my friend Lance asking Bobby: 'Do you mean to tell me this is what I've waited eight hours for — a load of greasy old bones?' Lance is another long time islander, another artist, and yet another parent to an enormously successful offspring — his daughter, Charlotte Tilbury, is a millionaire with her own range of cosmetics that you will see in every department store. It wasn't long before everyone gave up the dinner and returned to more drinks and lines.
Shortly after dawn, about 6 am, I was standing around in the kitchen with Bobby, his wife Alex, and a few other people drinking and talking rubbish, when Bobby said he fancied taking the boat for a spin, and who was up for it. I for one was — any caution relating to getting in a speedboat with a man who'd been up all night partying and definitely shouldn't be driving to the port, let alone launching a boat — went directly into the wind, faced with a once in a lifetime chance to be in a speedboat on the Mediterranean on a summer dawn. Scott Fitzgerald here we come! Alex, needless to say, was none too keen on the idea, but two others were: Roger Middleton, a frightfully well spoken and frightfully rich chap, and a Notting Hill girl called Claudia, whose son Hopi recently married a Bollywood princess in a bejewelled ceremony. Maybe it's true, cocaine keeps you alert, but we drove safely in Bobby's car to the port, and duly launched the boat without much ado. Being a speedboat, in a flash we were out at sea and Roger had found Bobby's water skis, and was aboard them off the stern. Claudia and I dived off the side and had a swim, then Bobby said he'd like a ski, and would I like to take the wheel. I might have been off my head, but I grounded myself and remembered to remember never to forget driving a speedboat just off Ibiza across the Med' in the golden light. And there you are you see, I never have.
When we moored back up again, we went in a bar in the port and had lots of Spanish sized gin and tonics and some eggs and bacon, being ravenous after the sea air and the unconsumed lamb. I recall Roger bringing a guy over to the table who he supposedly knew from the slalom in the Alps or something, a great big man, obviously very drunk but holding it together, who said he was a bobsleigh champion and bought us more G & Ts. When we arrived back at the finca it was about 11am and Colin, having grabbed a couple of hours kip or tried to, was back sitting by the pool playing his guitar. At some point during the previous evening, I had ascertained that Colin was driving the Merc' back to London in the middle of the following week and better still, we both lived West, him in Shepherd's Bush and Nina and I in East Twickenham. I now clinched the deal, determining that if we could get foot passenger tickets, we could come with him. That journey home was nothing if not an adventure, and will have to keep for next time.
The now owner, and then son and heir of Las Dalias, Juanito, had also enjoyed my performance at the midsummer show so, a couple of weeks later, aided by my friend Helga who had the gallery there, I blagged a solo Saturday night gig, this time for the princely fee of 5,000 pesetas, or £25. Nina made another Mclaren-esque poster and they constructed a lovely stage by the brook under the palms. You might even describe it as intimate. I spent the afternoon of the gig at Jenny's finca rehearsing Blue Suede Shoes —I even had some with me to wear — with her daughter Gypsy, Geri's daughter Esther; my soul sister, of whom much, much more later, Marianne's daughter Shalom, and another island girl named Shanti, as Marianne and Nina had devised a little dance routine for them. Aged between six and eight, the little girls were thus all up for prima donna-ship as much as the sisterhood, and there were a few fractious wobblers thrown in the July afternoon heat. Whilst we were in my room inside rehearsing the dance routine Jenny, being the wizard at a machine she is, having whipped round the girls' waists with a tape measure, was in the workshop running up four identical pale blue crêpe dresses. It was a gorgeous evening, Marmalade Freak went down alright even with the people who didn't understand the lyric, but predictably the girls stole the show, and people on the island reminisce about it to this day, I am told even at times when I'm absent.
Around that same time, there used to be a weekly Sunday night poetry reading in the gallery at Las Dalias, hosted by Helga's husband Martin Watson-Todd. The island has always been a magnet for artists in any medium, and there were some great contributors, Guardian journalists and all sorts, in whose company I was honoured to read. Martin won many battles with cognac but sadly lost the war, leaving behind an inspiring book of poems.
Talking of Blue Suede Shoes, one literally blindingly sunny afternoon, I was sitting at the table in the front yard of the finca, playing some rock 'n' roll and singing at the top of my voice as I thought there was no-one about — I think it must have been a market day and the whole household was at the stall or school —as it was cathartic; despite the beauty of the island and the top people I was hanging out with, I was, let's face it living day to day, or hand to mouth. I always say, mind you, that there's nothing wrong with living from hand to mouth — it's when you have nothing in your hand to put in your mouth or buy something to put in your mouth, that you need to worry. So there I was in full throttle, when a girl came dancing down the track towards me in one of Jenny's white linen dresses, which were cut so they proper flounced. She had come to surprise Jenny and Rod, with the result of us surprising each other, and me being embarrassed about the singing. Her name's Christina — we've been friends ever since. The following Saturday, we went to a house party at her husband Chris's house in the hills, where I remember Bobby Schuck saying he'd make screwdrivers, and just pouring about a dozen bottles of chilled Russian vodka into a bucket, then squeezing fresh oranges by hand in a cocaine fuelled frenzy until it was faintly approaching a 50:50 mix.
The weekend before it turned out Nina and I were successfully to leave the island, after a few aborted attempts, something which had historical precedent, and therefore which neither us nor Jenny and Rod paid much notice to, Bobby had a big party at the villa he was renting in Jesús, just outside Ibiza Town. One reason for the party was to celebrate the arrival of Bobby's speedboat, now safely moored in Ibiza Port. Obviously, being a speedboat, it had arrived from England on a trailer and not sped across the Med'. This trailer is very important. It was towed by a green 1970s Mercedes 200, the ones with the stacked headlights, and driven from London, where Bobby had bought it at the Boat Show I think, to Dover, thence via ferry to Calais, overland to Alicante, and then by ferry to the island. Driving said Mercedes was its owner, Colin Delaney, a friend of Bobby's from old times in the music business, a very talented and often commercial songwriter, a former agent, one of the best guitarists I've ever heard, never mind played with, and we went on to play gypsy jazz together for over twenty-five years.
Before I met him, Colin had been involved in some project with Robert Fripp, and had flown to New York for a session. No-one knows what he might have ingested at a party there, but he came back a changed, and much more withdrawn man. Whatever it was, it never took his genius. The result of this was that driving Bobby's boat to Ibiza was a nice little earner, with a few days hanging at Bobby's before the ferry home, but that Colin wasn't the type of fella to get stuck into a full-on debauched island party. This was exacerbated by his being a non-swimmer and having had what he perceived as a near death experience in the pool that afternoon. However, as he'd come in the Merc', he had his Fender acoustic guitar with him. In between necking cocktails and blagging lines of coke, I went for an exploratory stroll around the pool and grounds. Sitting on his own by the pool strumming, was a man in a navy and white striped shirt and white shorts. I sat down next to him, shook hands, and he carried on playing, and singing very sweetly 'Wherever I Lay My Hat'. When he finished, I said; 'Nice song. 's an old soul song ain't it?' I had been in Ibiza for over two months and, although we went to the disco and heard The Police and stuff, we were definitely way behind the English charts. So when Colin replied that yes, it was a Marvin Gaye hit years ago, but that Paul Young now had a No. 1 with it in England, it was all news to me. I was thus also unaware that his backing singers were the two girl singers from the soul band Panties I told you about before, Kim and Maz, now The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts.
Colin and I were chatting away in no time about all things musical; I played a tune on his guitar and, like most regular guys, he liked the guitar playing but was a trifle taken aback by the, shall we say, unorthodox singing. It's my spirit I'm told, that wins people around, and I think Colin felt that. We spent a lot of the next eight hours intermittently chatting and playing. This eight hours was also spent waiting for a supposed banquet of a whole sheep stuffed with apricots, almonds and rice, cooked in a pit in the ground that Bobby had dug. When about two dozen people sat down at four in the morning at an enormous outdoor table, the lamb was kind of cooked, as in some of it was tender and none of it was crispy, and none of the stuffing had cooked. I have an enduring memory of my friend Lance asking Bobby: 'Do you mean to tell me this is what I've waited eight hours for — a load of greasy old bones?' Lance is another long time islander, another artist, and yet another parent to an enormously successful offspring — his daughter, Charlotte Tilbury, is a millionaire with her own range of cosmetics that you will see in every department store. It wasn't long before everyone gave up the dinner and returned to more drinks and lines.
Shortly after dawn, about 6 am, I was standing around in the kitchen with Bobby, his wife Alex, and a few other people drinking and talking rubbish, when Bobby said he fancied taking the boat for a spin, and who was up for it. I for one was — any caution relating to getting in a speedboat with a man who'd been up all night partying and definitely shouldn't be driving to the port, let alone launching a boat — went directly into the wind, faced with a once in a lifetime chance to be in a speedboat on the Mediterranean on a summer dawn. Scott Fitzgerald here we come! Alex, needless to say, was none too keen on the idea, but two others were: Roger Middleton, a frightfully well spoken and frightfully rich chap, and a Notting Hill girl called Claudia, whose son Hopi recently married a Bollywood princess in a bejewelled ceremony. Maybe it's true, cocaine keeps you alert, but we drove safely in Bobby's car to the port, and duly launched the boat without much ado. Being a speedboat, in a flash we were out at sea and Roger had found Bobby's water skis, and was aboard them off the stern. Claudia and I dived off the side and had a swim, then Bobby said he'd like a ski, and would I like to take the wheel. I might have been off my head, but I grounded myself and remembered to remember never to forget driving a speedboat just off Ibiza across the Med' in the golden light. And there you are you see, I never have.
When we moored back up again, we went in a bar in the port and had lots of Spanish sized gin and tonics and some eggs and bacon, being ravenous after the sea air and the unconsumed lamb. I recall Roger bringing a guy over to the table who he supposedly knew from the slalom in the Alps or something, a great big man, obviously very drunk but holding it together, who said he was a bobsleigh champion and bought us more G & Ts. When we arrived back at the finca it was about 11am and Colin, having grabbed a couple of hours kip or tried to, was back sitting by the pool playing his guitar. At some point during the previous evening, I had ascertained that Colin was driving the Merc' back to London in the middle of the following week and better still, we both lived West, him in Shepherd's Bush and Nina and I in East Twickenham. I now clinched the deal, determining that if we could get foot passenger tickets, we could come with him. That journey home was nothing if not an adventure, and will have to keep for next time.
Ibiza is definitely a magic place especially back in the good old days....I never took my first speedboat abroad but did have some fantastic times at St Mawes just opposite Falmouth. Used to ski up the river Fal and at high tide you could zoom out and touch the oak tree canopys. Big mullet jumping in front on my mono ski...Magic times....taught Marylyn to ski in 30 mins....More great Ibizian memories Aunty.....As I said a magic place....especially on full moons..🤣🤣🤣
ReplyDeleteThe midsummer gig may well have been a full moon show - I’d have to look up the lunar calendar.
ReplyDelete