As it turned out, I got my money’s worth out of the old £1 temporary European passport in the name of my old school pal Martin Woloszczuk. In February 1984, my pals The Decorators, set sail, or rather diesel, for a few shows in France. Their alto sax player, the eponymous Joe Sax (Cohen), was still living at Derwentwater Mansions in Acton, where I’d roomed a couple of years previously, and his partner Bareen Shah, now an eminent surgeon but then just a lowly medical student, was pining for Joe. The band had hit Paris and had their first show scheduled a couple of nights hence, and she persuaded Nina and I to accompany her across La Manche to gay Paris. Have fake passport — will travel. Along for the ride came John Perivolaris, a top smudger who was heir, if not to a Greek shipping fortune, something Greek that was closer to Onassis than a mere barber’s or kebab shop. He drove a flash low-slung sports car, across the bonnet of which I’d draped myself for a photo which had accompanied an interview in Sounds music paper by Sandy Robertson the previous year. I was sporting a black James Dean style leather Jacket and a white silk ‘biker’ scarf, and it all looked suitably rock ’n’ roll.
Bareen had negotiated somewhere for her and John to stay in Paris with some friends of hers and Joe’s, whilst part of the whim that had brought Nina and I along, was that not one but two very good friends of mine were at that time resident in Paris, namely Mark Sullivan and Ruts bassman Segs, both of whom, a trifle naively, I thought it might be fun to drop in on. My pal Dan Heatley, who was kicking his heels after a ‘headachy’ few months drumming for top ‘oi’ merchants The Exploited, had volunteered to mix The Decorators’ stage sound, so it had the makings of a fun expedition. It was the first, and as it turns out remains the last, time I’d been back to Paris since the aptly named Doomed tour in 1978. We embarked the boat train into the Gare du Nord on a cold, grey dawn that earned the cliché, and Bareen and John worked out their metro route to their lodgings, whilst Nina and I headed for a public telephone box to give my Parisian friends ‘a nice surprise’. (I am not being over-formal, but feel to abbreviate ‘telephone’ here would be inappropriate, one of France’s biggest musical exports after Sacha Distel being the band Téléphone.)
Telephone kiosk located, I fished out my address book and with freezing fingers, dialled Segs’ number. His French girlfriend Violon answered pretty promptly, and I cheerily explained who I was, only to find out Segs was in London for a few days, to do a session or something. Curse of Pus was up and running again. Rang Mark Sullivan, who had a day job he was about to go out to, and was clearly a bit taken aback, but gave me directions for the Métro to his apartment in Clichy, and told me his American girlfriend Randy would look after us. [I thought it was quite cool that Mark was living in Clichy, as my dear friend and and sometime literary agent Michael, Mark’s dad, had had a correspondence with Henry Miller, when the latter had been living in Paris with Anaïs Nin, of which Michael was rightly was rather proud. Miller had also written a book about his time in Paris, entitled Quiet Days In Clichy.] Randy was lovely, making us some breakfast and showing us to a bed where we could grab a bit of kip, as we’d been travelling all night. When Mark came in in the late afternoon, we caught up briefly before making our way, with Mark and Randy’s assistance, to the venue for the evening’s show which was in, of all places, a Turkish Baths. Mark and Randy told us it had the reputation of being a really cool venue.
It was called Les Bains Douches, and cool it definitely was. It was mainly candlelit, apart from the stage, and the water in the different baths was gleaming and glistening in the candlelight. It was great to see the lads, and with absolutely no (‘strewth guv’) prompting from me, Mick and Joe asked me if I’d like to compère and support them, as I’d gone all that way.
[I had no guitar with me, but Mick offered to lend me his, which was a beautiful Gretsch Country Gentleman, replete with the little duvet thing that clips on the back with poppers, and prevents one’s lovely axe getting ‘buckle rash’. I’d found the guitar for Mick through a Wimbledon connection who’d tipped me off. It had purportedly once belonged to Alan Caddy, the first guitarist in Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, before Mick Green, and was languishing in smashing condition, albeit within a very dusty case, in a storeroom above an antique/bric-a-brac shop in Durnsford Road, Wimbledon Park. The guy just wanted it to go to a good home really, and I soon helped Mick negotiate a bargain.]
Gig was great anyway; Monsieur le post-punk, new wave Froggie appeared an amiable type and all went well. Out of the blue, well the grey if we’re talking about the Channel, I appeared to be er…on tour in Europe. I’d tell you they were spellbound, but I think it was more me that was spellbound at the ambiance of the club and vibe of doing the gig. Nonetheless, they were a whole lot more receptive than the punks in the cattle market in Le Havre had been, the last time I’d graced French shores with my presence, back in November 1979. I think they were more bemused, than amused, as they can’t have understood many of my lyrics. Then again, they can’t have understood many of Mick’s either. As the venue was mainly tiled, the sound could easily have been dreadful, like busking down a subway, but Dan did a grand job and it was a jolly good show all round.
The next day, a Saturday, was chilly with streaks of intermittent sun. After meeting up with Joe, Bareen and John Perivolaris where they were staying, we all went for a late breakfast in a traditional French café, replete with bowls of café au lait, and hard-boiled eggs in those little chromium holders they have on the bar which rotate. Nina, John and I then went for a mooch around. Loving all the ‘Left Bank’ modernist writers as I do, I was keen to visit the fabled Shakespeare & Co. bookshop. It’s in the 5th Arondissement, not far from the Sorbonne, and it was interesting to return to the locale, where I’d last stood in July 1968, two months after the May Revolution.
The bookshop was dimly lit; fusty and musty; and musky with the faint aroma of the China tea that a few American ex-pats were sipping from oriental cups at a small table. They all wore overcoats with the collars turned up, as it was no warmer in there than on the street. They appeared too cold to wish to engage in conversation either. The stock appeared in total disarray; piles of books all over the floor and the shelves bulging and discombobulated. I didn’t really have any book-buying funds, so after a brief browse while John and Nina’s teeth chattered, we left in search of a bar to have a café and ‘fine’, as Jean Rhys would’ve done.
Strolling along at a lively pace to try and warm up, we chanced upon the nearby church of St. Julien Le Pauvre, which I had also visited with my father that time in 1968. My dad had regaled me with the none too cheery story, or legend, of said St. Julien, as he knew it from the Flaubert retelling. It’s a ghastly Oedipal tragedy of Julien fleeing to avoid his prophesied fate, namely that he will kill his parents. To cut a short story shorter, he returns home after some time to find his parents staying with his wife, but in the marital bed, whereupon he murders them both, erroneously thinking it was his wife in bed with a lover. A strange case for beatification you might say.
As we entered the square where the church stands, the bells were chiming ten to the dozen, and a newly wed couple, the bride in traditional white being scooped up by the groom, were emerging into the watercolour light as multiple camera shutters clicked. I only had a leather jacket on, whereas John had a sports jacket and dashing camelhair Chesterfield overcoat on top. Being an absolute gentleman, he had taken pity on me and lent me his coat. Aside from being a couple of sizes too large, it had my name all over it, and John added his own shutter to the Parisian clicks by taking a smashing smudge of me with the newly-weds behind, and the church behind them.
Meanwhile, The Decorators had headed South for another show, leaving a spare room at Joe’s friends Dave and Isobel’s, which they kindly let us have for the night. The following morning, Bareen decided to source a train or coach ticket to join up with the band, whilst Nina, John and I headed for the boat train. Nina and I were more or less potless by now, and we’d run out of methadone till we got home, so it was a journey we were eager to accomplish as swiftly and painlessly as possible.
When we alighted the boat in Dover, Martin Woloszczuk sailed through the customs without a second glance, but on the other side were two CID men conducting random spot checks. Or possibly laying in wait for a major Interpol level fugitive. Fugitive I was, but there were no ‘have you seen this man’ style posters offering rewards for reporting my whereabouts, certainly not after nearly two years at large swerving what were only shoplifting charges anyway, and Martin Woloszczuk himself had changed his name by deed poll, plus had no criminal record. I was nonetheless relieved when the spot check was over, and we made our way into the station. Apart from anything else, John might’ve addressed me unwittingly as Auntie, Jools, or worse still just Julian. Thankfully he didn’t, but walked on a few paces and waited for us. Cheers John.
1984 it might have been but — lucky Auntie — Big Brother’s eyes were looking elsewhere.
The postscript to this little episode came a couple of months later, when The Decorators once again traversed La Manche for a couple of dates. I was unaware they’d gone until Mick Bevan rang me to ask if I would like to come and compère and support them in Rouen. He told me they needed a small piece of equipment collecting from Acorn Studios in Acton, where they’d been rehearsing, and that if I rolled up there the following day, the necessary piece of equipment would be awaiting me, along with a train and ferry ticket to Rouen, and that I’d also get some small remuneration for my performance. So a definite upgrade from turning up on a whim. I think Mick was suffering in the still cold weather, and what he really wanted me to bring was a nice warming glug of methadone linctus for him, rather than the spare lead, microphone, or whatever it was I’d been tasked to collect. I twigged this all on my little own, and duly presented myself at Acorn Studios the following day, with enough of my prescription in my bag to ensure we’d both be snug as post-punk bugs in European tour rugs for the next couple of days. Acorn was owned by famous wild man junkie Ginger Baker; I can’t say conclusively that every bit of bad press you’ve ever read about the man is true, but I can tell you conclusively that all the staff at Acorn were in terror of him. When I arrived, it was rumoured that he might pay the studios a flying visit or spot check, and all the hard core roadies working there were shaking in their cowboy boots, and palpitating with trepidation should he show up, as he was known to be a loose cannon, to put it mildly.
Not only did I have my ticket paid for, and get paid for doing the gig, but the whole expedition wasn’t fraught with uncertainty, as it had been in the February. The journey to Rouen was uneventful, I’d brought more than enough ‘fuel’ for me and Mick, and when I went on in Rouen, and duly announced: ‘Bonsoir. Je m’appelle Auntie Pus’, they were more than slightly attentive, and even applauded at times. Since meeting Colin Delaney the previous summer, and making a gypsy jazz connection, I’d mainly been gigging that style of music, so it was quite refreshing to air some of my punk songs in public again. I travelled back with the band, and at Dover customs, all they were concerned about was ticking off all the gear on the dreaded carnet, and not Martin Woloszczuk’s documents. I had of course tipped the band the wink to call me Martin, should any conversation between us be necessary whilst re-entering the country.
Aside from gigging the same London pub and club circuit as The Decorators in the early 80s, and Joe Sax often being an honorary Man From Uncle during this time, and residing at Joe and Mick’s flat in Acton, down the road from Lionel Bart, for a while, my connection with the band has left me a special little legacy. In 1981 I had written the lyrics to a song called Falling Star, about my friend Kim ‘Zigi’ Walsh, whom I’d met when she was a devoted teenage Ruts fan, and used to follow her heroes around the country, further motivated by the fact she was having a fling with their singer Malcolm Owen at the time. I’d written the song in 1981 when we were hanging out a lot together, and she was jumping in Dick Taylor’s trusty FUs Transit, and accompanying us to many London pub and club shows. It’s paean of unrequited (and in this case opiated) love, hardly an unusual subject matter, but the metaphors I employed were untried and original. For example, I compared love to ‘a boulder in a brook’, which phrase I self-plagiarised as the title for that unpublished novel every writer has in a drawer. In 1983, Mick Bevan set my words to music and the resultant song was included on The Decorators’ ‘Rebel Songs’ EP released that year. It was a very polished arrangement, Mick had set my words remarkably empathically, and they voiced the emotions exactly as I would have wished. This track remains my proudest achievement to date that has actually found its way into the public arena. Zigi and I remain chums to this day — she was down the front punching the air at a recent Men From Uncle show in London. At Paul Fox’s swan song with Ruts DC in 2007, shortly before he left us for henna heaven, when Henry Rollins sung lead vocals, Segs put Zigi and I on the guest list as Dame Kim Walsh (Zigi’s real name), and Sir Julian Isaacs. Liking our honorary honours, we have adopted these monikers, and Zigi was indeed on the guest list at my aforementioned gig as Dame Kim.
