Back Up

by Paul Colize

  Sonny had boundless admiration for The Who. The group played at the Marquee every Tuesday night. The gigs were always sold out, but Harold owed Sonny a favour or two.

  We went along in late January. That evening, I watched the most extreme group on the planet. I had heard what they got up to on stage, but what I saw was beyond my wildest imaginings.

  Their tetchy violence was felt the minute they walked on stage. They were bad-tempered, scowling furiously at the audience and scrapping amongst themselves while they set up. Rather than keep their biggest hit till last, like the Stones, they began with the shattering ‘My Generation’, currently at the top of the hit parade.

  The singer, Roger Daltrey, gesticulated and spun and hollered, and stammered and swung his mic round faster and faster like a lasso. Pete Townshend wheeled his outstretched arm and hammered his guitar strings with incredible force.

  Their rock was noisy, instinctive and destructive. The mood in the crowd was at fever pitch. Girls were in the minority, but they shrieked even louder than for The Stones.

  There was hysteria in their screams, but terror, too, as if they had been lured into a trap. I was amazed, and more than a little alarmed: at a Stones concert, one girl had thrown herself from the top gallery and died, grievously wounding another fan.

  The guys, for their part, were furious at the sight of their girlfriends in such a state, and were eager to fight it out. Fists flew at the back of the room.

  On stage, I was mesmerised by The Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, the eye in that storm of decibels. I was fascinated by his charisma. Mouth hanging open, eyes rolled back, he thrashed and thrashed, and thrashed again. As if his life depended on it. Thrashing and thrashing without pause, without stopping for air. His playing looked chaotic, but it was underpinned by a prodigious technique. ‘The Ox’, a track that lasted a few minutes on their album, stretched to over half an hour and showed the extent of his genius. His tom-tom rolls made the stage and floor shake. The two big bass drums, hammered in frenzied rhythm, produced a rumble of thunder that echoed to the back of the room.

  My ears buzzed, my hands trembled. The sound he generated was so violent, it blurred my vision.

  For their last number, Pete Townshend pushed the volume up to the max, grabbed his guitar and made as if to break it in two across his thigh. Feedback spattered and whined from the saturated amps. One of them poured smoke from behind. Daltrey slammed his mic against the bass drum, the ceiling, the amps. Keith Moon was on his feet now, kicking his cymbals, toms and bass.

  For the finale, Townshend grabbed his guitar by the neck and began striking the floor, as if he was wielding an axe. Then he attacked the two amps. The brutal epilogue sent a wave of panic through a portion of the crowd. Some of the audience tried to make their way to the exits.

  I left the club anaesthetised, deaf and groggy. Sonny looked dazed, and tripped out. One hypnotic, inhuman phrase swam round and round in my head.

  After that, I would hum it under my breath. I made it my personal creed.

  Hope I die before I get old.

  38: SUDDENLY CAUGHT HIS EYE

  Michael Stern was undeterred by the lack of enthusiasm from the editor-in-chief of the Belfast Telegraph. Obstinately he pursued his enquiries from Belfast.

  He got back in touch with the family members, hoping to gather information on the recording session mentioned by Jim Ruskin’s girlfriend, Birgit.

  Larry Finch’s aunt gave the same answer as the Parkers, when questioned: she knew nothing, and wanted to hear nothing more about it.

  As for the Parkers, neither Steve’s parents, nor any of his friends had heard from him in the days leading up to his death.

  Jim Ruskin’s father John said the same.

  Stern returned empty-handed, too, from an interview with Paul McDonald’s family. Paul’s last telephone call dated from early March, to his son Jason.

  No one had heard anything about a recording session.

  In early October, Stern contacted George West, the London detective hired by Steve Parker’s parents. He doubted West would cooperate, but prepared his questions nonetheless.

  He wanted to know if the hostesses West had interviewed in Hamburg remembered hearing Steve Parker mention a recording session. As expected, George West said they did not.

  But Stern’s conversation with the detective suggested another lead worth exploring.

  He returned to the question West had raised during the London meeting: what was the source of the money the four men had suddenly acquired, the money that Jim Ruskin mentioned to Birgit on the morning after the recording?

  Steve Parker had spent time with several hostesses, and had paid them in Deutschmarks. One of the women remembered receiving a handsome tip. If he had been able to buy a gun in Hamburg, as the police implied, the nature of such transactions suggested he must have received a considerable sum in cash.

  Stern called the Kastanien Hotel, where Parker had stayed in Hamburg, and was told he had paid cash, in German money.

  It was impossible to trace the bootleg ticket Parker had bought for the Jimi Hendrix concert, but he had doubtless paid cash for that, too.

  Yet if the members of Pearl Harbor had indeed taken part in a conventional recording session, they were unlikely to have been paid on the same evening. Demo sessions were seldom paid. As a rule, and with the exception of professional session musicians, the artists would be paid later, with a percentage of the record sales.

  Stern decided to pursue this line further, and embarked on a fresh series of telephone calls, which produced some interesting information.

  Larry Finch had paid for his trip to Majorca in cash, at the Berlin travel agency. But there had been no movement on his bank account, which was in the red and temporarily blocked. The woman he had spent the night with in Majorca said he had a large quantity of pesetas in cash.

  Paul McDonald’s movements proved still more intriguing.

  He had paid for his plane ticket to London, and the bill at his first hotel, in cash. On March the twenty-second, he had entered a branch of Barclays Bank in Glasgow and emptied his bank account. He had travelled back to London that same night and checked in to the Samarkand. Shortly after arriving, he had changed his Deutschmarks at reception, using the money to pay for six days up front.

  The information led West to a second set of questions.

  Where had the money come from, that enabled Larry to buy a plane ticket and hotel room for several hundred marks, and to pay for it in cash? The same Deutschmarks that had enabled Steve Parker to visit several prostitutes and procure a ticket to see Jimi Hendrix? The same money that Paul McDonald had spent at the British Airways desk in Berlin? And why had McDonald paid his advance bill in German currency, when he had just taken sterling out of his account in Glasgow? Why had he checked in at the Samarkand under his mother’s name? Where had the money come from?

  Stern also made efforts to identify Jim Ruskin’s contact, the man known as Karl, who he had called from Birgit’s flat.

  Karl was a very common name in Germany, and he quickly abandoned the search in favour of the recording studio.

  The studio where the recording was made was not one of the thirty-one listed in Berlin. Two possibilities presented themselves: if the studio was outside West Berlin, which would involve crossing the Wall – unlikely, given the current tensions, and the fact that the session seemed to have been arranged at the very last minute – then it must have been in a private house, or installed especially for the recording, which also seemed unlikely.

  On Thursday, October the twenty-sixth, 1967, Stern took a call from a man by the name of Stuart Bloomfield, a resident of north London who introduced himself as a friend of Paul McDonald.

  Bloomfield hadn’t been able to make the journey to Dublin for his friend’s funeral, but he would be visiting the city shortly. He had called Paul’s father to find out the location of his son’s grave, so that he could lay a wreath.

  This was how he had heard about
Michael Stern’s investigation. He said he had seen Paul in London before his death and wanted to help the journalist as far as he was able. Stern took a flight to London the following Saturday.

  Stuart Bloomfield confirmed that he had seen Paul on his return from Berlin. He was in great shape and had just secured an audition that he was keeping secret from the other band members. The two had gone out to celebrate.

  Paul was spending money like his number had come up on the Premium Bonds. Bloomfield had asked him where it came from, and Paul told him Pearl Harbor had recorded a single in Berlin.

  Bloomfield had pressed him with questions, but Paul gave no details. He seemed uncomfortable, and answered evasively, or not at all.

  On the eve of the audition, Paul had called him. His good mood had evaporated and he seemed anxious, nervy, on the defensive. He said he had changed his mind and was leaving London. He didn’t say where he was going.

  Back in Belfast, Michael Stern filed his notes and read through everything he had collected so far. It was then that a detail that had escaped his notice until now suddenly caught his eye.

  39: MY HEART RACES

  Sonny’s arrival turned life at the house upside down.

  Under his influence, Brian had switched sides, trading his beatnik disguise and tuning in as a mod. But despite what Sonny said, the movement was showing signs of fatigue.

  Once Brian became a mod, he expected the rest of the house to do the same. He limited himself to the occasional word of disinterested advice at first, but quickly became more forceful.

  He would stop us in passing, list our style failings and issue directives on how to adapt our behaviour and appearance to the new norms. In short, we were ordered to become mods too.

  He had the house repainted and hired a cleaning lady. Bedrooms were to be kept tidy, and beds made before going out.

  Several housemates fell foul of this abrupt change, not least Chess. He bowed out, and left London for New York. Chess said London was becoming a drag, and the best artists would soon be leaving England. The future lay across the Pond.

  Little by little, my dealings with Brian cooled, the more so because Sonny invariably intervened in my favour when his old friend was on the attack.

  Nonetheless, I made a few changes to my appearance, the better to blend in when I was out and about with Sonny. I cut my hair and bought a few smart suits. Sonny came to the boutiques with me, to offer advice. It was an exhausting business, given my height and build.

  Paradoxically, the musicians playing the clubs we visited all wore tousled hair and scruffy clothes.

  Sonny changed his outfit two or three times a day. In the evening, before leaving the house, he would spread out his collection of suits, try on various shirts and sweaters, change trousers, undress and dress until he found the best combination for his purposes. He would parade in front of the mirror in the hallway, check himself front and back, twist and preen and ask me what I thought. It was never-ending.

  If he wasn’t completely satisfied with his outfit, he would put his suits away, hang up the shirts, fold the sweaters in a neat square in the cupboard, sit down on the bed and declare there was no way he was going out. After a few minutes, he would get to his feet and start the whole ritual over again, from scratch.

  When he had found the right look, he would choose what I was going to wear, to harmonise – nothing too contrasting, but different enough for us not to look like twins.

  The whole business took over an hour. It was too much, and it wore me out, but it was fun all the same. Sonny took it all terribly seriously. He was a dead man, he said, if he was seen out in the same outfit twice.

  One day, Sonny ordered me to stop cleaning windows. The mods spat on plebs. I should burn my overalls and come and work with him. He had got himself a job in a record shop on the King’s Road. He was in the owner’s good books, and managed to get me hired. The business was booming, and qualified staff were in short supply.

  At first, I tidied stock in the back room. After a few days, the boss decided my odd accent had a certain charm and shifted me to the front desk, with Sonny.

  My poor knowledge of the market was no obstacle: the toughest questions we fielded were confined to the release date of the Beatles’ next single or The Stones’ next album. When the long-awaited date arrived, the queue would stretch out onto the pavement, and our day felt like it would never end. The release of The Who’s second album, A Quick One, with its provocative title and colourful, Pop Art cover, made for some unforgettable moments.

  Sonny and I were inseparable. We were opposites in every way. I couldn’t have cared less about clothes, he wasn’t interested in literature. The only thing we had in common was our worship of rock music.

  Under his influence, my style changed. Spending time with me, he saw the benefits of reading. I had started reading in English and realised the scale of the task ahead of me. The vocabulary was more extensive than French. I checked constantly in the dictionary for the meaning of a word or phrase. Sonny stared at me dumbfounded when I told him that Mick Jagger had slipped a phrase from James Joyce’s Ulysses into the lyrics of ‘Paint it Black’.

  Lucy left one morning. Brian had pushed things too far. She left with no explanation, not even one of her notes slipped into my trouser pocket. We had been seeing less of one another, but her unannounced departure left a bitter taste. I felt frustrated, betrayed, abandoned.

  That evening, I sank into a depression and told Sonny everything that had happened since leaving Belgium. We were supposed to go and see John Mayall, but he sat with me, never once getting up from his chair, never interrupting, never once glancing at his watch. He listened, wide-eyed, frowning, stunned into silence.

  Then he opened up, in turn. His father was well-known in political circles. He hated them all. Utter hypocrites. He said nothing more.

  We went out every night, skimming from club to club. Rock filled my nights – pure, living rock that had nothing to do with the polished product on the records we sold. In a smoky room filled with screams and the stench of beer, tobacco, sweat and piss, even the space between two rock numbers was pure rock. The wrong notes, the feedback, the swearing and the flights of inspiration were the fabric of our world.

  I met plenty of groups – well-known outfits like Manfred Mann, the Spencer Davis Group or the Yardbirds, but also promising musicians making their debuts at the Marquee: people like Pink Floyd, The Action, David Bowie and Al Stewart.

  We were at the Scotch of St James for a show by Jimi Hendrix. The memory of that moment is imprinted on my mind.

  At first, Jimi bent over his guitar with an inspired look, eyes closed. Suddenly, he would start whirling around, writhing and playing with his teeth, his elbow, scraping the strings of his Fender against the stage. Bombs exploded, sirens wailed, Stukas strafed over London, like the Blitz at its height.

  Hendrix could conjure a three-dimensional setting in sound and vision with his Stratocaster and fuzz pedal.

  Blown away by his talent, we saw him again at the Bag O’Nails. Every one of his concerts was unique.

  The Crawdaddy was one of our favourite venues. The Stones had been the resident group in their early days, but they had flown the nest now. Unfortunately for the band, Mick Jagger had become the most sought-after invitee on the planet. He took his role very seriously, and moved in lofty circles.

  The Yardbirds had taken over from The Stones. Jeff Beck had stepped into Clapton’s shoes. The bass player was a guy by the name of Jimmy Page, about my age, a phenomenal, virtuoso studio musician. From time to time, he would swap his bass for a double-neck Gibson, which he played with a bow.

  We would finish up at the Adlib Club or the Speakeasy. Contrary to what was reported in the music press, the rock groups camped at the top of the hit parade knew each other well and were in no way rivals. The Beatles and The Stones were habitués at the Adlib. Hordes of rich kids hung out at the club, hoping the bands would show up. They would shoot cocaine and swallow vats
of whisky, until they sank into a coma.

  Plenty of musicians went along to the Speakeasy after their shows. The ones who came along didn’t take themselves seriously, and were easy enough to talk to. If you proved your credentials, you could approach them and get into conversation.

  The Speakeasy was where I met and befriended a few names – Andy White, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord, Jeff Beck, Bobbie Clark.

  Jimi Hendrix came once or twice. He was explosive on stage, but otherwise quiet and discreet. He would sit at the back of the room and doodle on the beermats.

  I drank a lot and smoked huge quantities of grass. We never went home before dawn, and the record shop opened at nine. We slept just a few hours. To keep going, we boosted the effects of the grass with Methedrine and Benzedrine pills. A simple enough recipe: a joint, a pill, a joint, a pill. Sonny showed me the way. During the war, English soldiers had been given amphetamines to stay awake for days at a time.

  We often heard people talk about acid, but there was none to be had in England. It was a prestige product, available only to an elite few. Rumour had it that every artist in America was hooked on LSD.

  One night at the Speakeasy, a few musicians got up on stage to jam. After a few numbers, they asked if there was a harmonica in the room. Sonny pulled a face, got to his feet and went to join them.

  Two hours later, twenty of us showed up at Brian’s.

  Blind drunk and galvanised by his triumphant set at the Speakeasy, Sonny dragged Brian out of bed and ordered him to hand over the keys to the cellar.

  We hurried downstairs, and switched on the amps. Denny Laine and another guy threw themselves on the instruments. Denny had played guitar with the Moody Blues, but he had left the group and wandered like a lost soul ever since. The other guy was a bass player. I got behind the drums, Sonny sang and played harmonica.

  I hadn’t played in a while. I had tried hanging around Archer Street on a Monday, with the other musicians looking for work, but never managed to sell myself. My shyness and bad English were against me, and the British players always got the gigs.