Eyes Wide Open

by Andy Powell

  Right now, I seem to be a star in the legal world, appearing more regularly in legal publications than I do in the music press! But I’m not bitter about the whole experience. I wish it hadn’t happened, of course, but I’m not gnashing my teeth about it or re-running old arguments in my head. I don’t have any bitterness. But I don’t like being bullied. I’ll stand up to that, as anyone would.

  There’s a line in the sand now. Promoters know what the score is with the name ‘Wishbone Ash’. That means more to me than anything else from that whole experience. It showed people that this is a life—a career and a brand that’s worth fighting for. And even though Martin was a very important, intrinsic element of that brand he did of his own volition, in the first instance, leave it—and so did all the others. It goes on in the business world all the time: a business gets started, then the company gets sold to someone else. In the music instrument business, for example, Gibson Guitars was owned in the 80s by a company from Ecuador. People don’t generally know that. Currently, it’s owned by a man of Polish origin.

  * * *

  Not long before we received the judgment up there on the hills around Kendal, Pauline and I were in the States, in a shoe store, and we noticed a big chrome sign—a wishbone in a circle, virtually our current logo, accompanied by the words ‘Wishbone Shoes’. There’s no way they could have come up with that logo without seeing ours. So, as wearying as it may be, I may have to jump into the fray again.

  ‘What can you tell us about this?’ we asked the sales assistant.

  ‘Oh, I’ve got four pairs of Wishbone Shoes myself. They’ve been going for years. They’re great shoes …’

  INTERLUDE

  ROAD WORKS

  We’ve often been associated with the term ‘prog rock’, largely because journalists often find it difficult to categorise us as a band—and these days there is always the need to categorise everything. To me, ‘prog rock’ sounds endlessly boring. It’s like some sexless, sixth-form version of rock’n’roll—something cerebral and not at all anything that might give rise to the crazier, sexier, fun side of music, unless you count the druggy influences that have played a role in the music of the Pink Floyd or Porcupine Tree, for example.

  Early on, there was a distinct line in the sand concerning drugs in our career. Miles Copeland was vehemently anti-drug; so was Steve Upton and, to a lesser extent, Martin Turner. All three of my bandmates were cigarette smokers, though. I’d smoked hashish in Morocco, but I could take it or leave it. On arriving in London, Ted was pretty enamoured with the smoking scene, and naturally our road crew lapped it up—in most cases, our conduit to consumption was through the crew. Musicians would not wish to be seen doing the dodgy business of actually buying the stuff. I can tell you, though, that in my experience, anyone who says that pot is not a gateway drug has just got it wrong. And so it proved to be in our band. Then again, the peer pressure and the times we lived through made it very hard to stand on the outside of the drug culture. It became such a thing that, years later, I was actually astonished to hear from promoters that they had assessed us as a band of ‘heads’, and that it was seen as a prerequisite to have the necessary drugs on board at venues we’d play at, just to keep us happy. In my mind, we were only ever dabbling in the bloody stuff.

  The labels were no better than the promoters in this regard, because those were the days of equal opportunity employment. It was mandatory to have on your team at least one woman, one black person, a Hispanic, and, of course, a hippie. Hippies were seen as a disadvantaged group in their own right. That might sound funny but in our case one Jeffrey Dengrove, the stoner to end all stoners, was assigned to us on American tours to cover promotion and PR as we made our way across the United States. I can see him now with that leather shoulder bag full of delights to keep us sedated or uplifted, as the case may be, paid for, no doubt, out of our promotions budget. In other words, as a cost to be debited against our large recording advance.

  I can honestly say that aside from promoting circuitous THC-infused conversations or fits of giggles when we’d visit restaurants, the whole thing was a monumental waste of time, quite literally, in terms of the recording process. In the case of our road crew, it actually interrupted one US tour, resulting in at least one member of our crew—definitely Kevin Harrington and quite possibly Mark Emery—being deported after a hotel-room bust. It was unfortunate for Kevin because he’d been back in the hotel asleep at the time, minding his own business while the rest of the crew were out partying at a nightclub, when they’d been intercepted by law enforcement officials who demanded to be taken back to the crew’s hotel in order make a search.

  Criteria Studios in Florida, where we recorded several albums, was the worst place to be if you wished to avoid the drug scene. It was all pervasive, as can be seen by the albums that were produced there: Joe Walsh, CSN, The Bee Gees, The Allman Brothers, Derek & The Dominos … none of these guys were doing drugs, right? We were no exception. Before the advent of digital tuners, I can remember us spending hours simply trying to tune the guitars before we even played a note together, while suffering the mildly hallucinatory effects of Jamaican weed. Certainly, cocaine-fuelled guitar solos were in evidence on those sessions, and at other studios, too. I remember spending hours moving my amplifier all over the building in order to achieve some kind of ambience in the guitar sound and, on at least a couple of occasions, I’d be standing on the MCI recording console, holding the guitar up to the very expensive playback system, cranked at full volume in the small control room—anything to try to achieve the feel and energy of playing live in a concert hall. These excursions were undoubtedly drug-dependent and would have given things a certain edge, no doubt.

  Hallucinogens rarely had their impact on our recorded catalogue or general band career except to say that there was a moment in time that Martin used to mention, concerning a particularly bad acid trip that he underwent in London, where he describes a kind of lightning-bolt impact on his psyche around the time of Argus or Wishbone Four. He never seemed quite the same after that. Similarly, Steve Upton went through a major personality change after doing a 180-degree shift in his attitude to drugs, subsequent to helping out a photographer friend on a shoot and partaking of the weed. Something of an epiphany ensued and he fell completely under the spell of the stuff to the point of growing it, eating it, and generally living the life of a pothead of refined tastes.

  All of this was difficult to handle for our management, agents, and anyone who had to deal with us in a professional way. We’d met all the notorious groupies of the day, too—The Butter Queen, The Plaster Casters, Miss Connie Hamzy—at various shows in Texas and Los Angeles, and we’d had our well-documented chaotic showcase in front of the MCA/Decca brass at the Whisky A Go Go almost upended by Ted Turner’s similarly well-documented three-day disappearance in the desert at Joshua Tree while tripping on LSD. The LA rock scene was turning weird around this time and the original late 60s hippie euphoria was being replaced by a scarier vibe. The bubble burst after the Manson murders, and by the time we hit town in the early 70s the mood was decidedly different from the West Coast cool which had inspired bands like CSNY—bands that were only now inspiring some of our own musical repertoire in songs like ‘Blowin’ Free’.

  We used to like a drink, too; that old rock’n’roll favourite, Scotch and Coke, was our drink of choice. Scotch whisky still finds its way on to our touring rider, although I’m about the only one who drinks it. Old habits die hard, but these days I prefer a nice single malt, sipped quietly by the fireside. Beer was a thing, too, but more as a thirst quencher. It never caused any major issues except for one time during our first visit to Washington DC, when we were pulled over by a police cruiser right outside the White House. We simply had not realised what a huge deal it was in America to have open cans of beer—or any alcoholic beverage—in a car. To us, American beer was like weak pee anyway—we viewed it as a kind of soft drink. The officer ordered us out of the vehicle, right within
view of the president’s residence, and slammed us up against the side of his cruiser. Being as we were so young, and foreign to boot, he made allowances and let us off with a stern warning after Miles in his Brooks Brothers attire explained in an obviously American accent, ‘Officer, this an English pop group’—as if that alone designated us as clueless. It was a close call, but there were other times where we were not so lucky.

  * * *

  In the early days, we’d fly from gig to gig on these huge tours of the US, travelling on domestic carriers, playing one-night stands in Des Moines or Duluth. My geography of the United States in particular was extremely sketchy at that time: I knew that New York was on the East Coast and LA was on the West, but the rest of it barely registered. It wasn’t until much later that I got a handle on it all. We’d make do with very little sleep, and I have a lot of memories of running to airport gates to make flights. We were always late and in a hurry, having partied to the wee hours after a show somewhere. The main function of our tour managers was to wake us up and to get us to the airport. I remember a lot of times we’d simply screech to a halt at, say, Houston airport and run to the gate, leaving the rental car in the road for the company to come and collect it.

  There was very little airport security in those days, if any at all. We often travelled with a full backline of British equipment, which would need to somehow get on the plane with us, courtesy of our dedicated crew. The crew would somehow be at the airport before us and our tour manager, whether it be Mel Baister of Mal Ross, would be bribing the freight handlers with $100 bills to stuff this massively heavy artillery onto the planes. We had all these powerful amplifiers and speakers made by Orange. They weighed more than any other equipment you could buy because we loaded the cabinets with upgraded JBL K120 speakers. I can’t believe how our road crew carried these things.

  Once we made it onto on the plane, we’d slump into our seats and commence smoking and drinking, as everyone did on airplanes those days, ready for the next soundcheck and show later that afternoon. Mostly the flights were city-to-city hops. This would go on for weeks. I remember all kinds of dodgy landings in snowstorms or escaping hurricanes, being diverted miles out of our way, horrendous air turbulence (which latterly seems to have disappeared), and much, much worse things to do with the glamorous world of flying.

  When you are young and cocksure, you are totally oblivious of how close danger can be at hand when flying around the world. Flying itself is—or was—often a harrowing experience. Some of the pilots we encountered, particularly in the South, were real characters. On one occasion, after touching down in our turbo prop and going into a sideways slide, we heard the disembodied voice of the captain over the intercom: ‘That was a close call’ followed by ‘We’re heading back out like gang-busters here, y’all!’ On another occasion, the pilot let us know, while chuckling to himself, that a particular manoeuvre would not have been possible in a larger jet.

  Then there was the time we looked out of the window of our 747 after departing London Heathrow and saw flames licking around the engine cowling. We were forced to land in Ireland instead of continuing on to the US. There was the time when we were flying out of Yugoslavia. We’d all been anxiously waiting for Martin to join us on the plane so that the cabin door could be secured for take off. Finally, our errant bass player joined the rest of the passengers, the last person to board the plane. Mart had long been a member of the ‘white knuckle club’ and had a distinct aversion to flying, which was rough if you had to do it for a living. We went through the usual pre-flight routine and the plane shot down the runway, heading into a steep climb as it took off. At the very peak of this climb all hell broke loose as lights flashed on and off and the sounds of a warning buzzer filled the cabin. Apparently the cabin door had not been secured properly, thereby preventing proper pressurization—to say nothing of any other dangers. The pilot immediately put the plane into a steep dive back to the runway. That was truly disconcerting for all the passengers and no doubt for Martin in particular, who grimly held onto the arms of the seat as we went through the whole take-off procedure for a second time.

  * * *

  One of the advantages of international travel is that you sometimes find yourself in the eye of a storm caused by atmospheric or political conditions, which could be a shock to a bunch of guys brought up in the benign, liberal, nanny state of Great Britain in the 60s. My first shock in this regard came before I joined Wishbone Ash, when I was kicked by a jackbooted fascist Spanish policeman for sitting on the steps of a monument, while dressed in hippie garb sporting long blonde hair, which I was very proud of at the time.

  That was in 1969. Only recently, in 2015, we played a small town in Belgium called Verviers. It was a great show, the first date on our European tour. The very next day, we left for Germany. Just days later, we saw footage on TV of Verviers in complete turmoil as police were seen to be raiding a terrorist cell right there in the town.

  Years earlier, we saw the threat to freedom directly in Northern Ireland. On more than one occasion, when travelling from the South into the North, there would be no alternative but to go through armed checkpoints on the country roads near the border. The way it worked was that a couple of tense soldiers—the ones who’d obviously drawn the short straws—would come up to the car to study your passports and so on, fingers very much on the triggers of their automatic weapons. Others in their platoon would be positioned in ditches, observing the whole procedure, fingers also on triggers. The checkpoints themselves would be repositioned on a daily basis. It made us all aware of just how vulnerable we were.

  This was really scarily serious for all of us. We were just mere minstrels coming to this fair land to play our songs to the people, and here we were in the middle of a war zone. It was made abundantly clear to us by our driver, a rambunctious fellow who described how he’d watched as his brand new Mercedes minibus had exploded after terrorists tossed a grenade into it. Thankfully, he and his passengers had been told to get out before these guys—whom he described as being very ‘wired’ after a day of such hits—threw the grenade. This, apparently, had been their last gesture of the day; the British Army was closing in on them.

  Being in Berlin in 1989, first two weeks prior to the fall of the Wall and then a week or so after it actually started to come down, was hugely exciting. I was inspired to write a couple of songs, ‘Chimes Of Freedom’ and ‘Wings Of Desire’, the latter of which made it on to the album Bare Bones. Having toured Germany for so many years and gone through the crazy border patrol in East Berlin, travelling the ‘corridor’, seeing the plight of these ‘other’ Germans, it was fascinating to now be able to meet some of them and hear their side of the story.

  The fall of the Wall was generally viewed as a liberation but much of their familiar past was eradicated overnight—place names, identity documents, currency. That’s the side you don’t hear about. No nation other than Germany, in my experience, could have pulled off such a massive overhaul of infrastructure in such a short time. Prior to the Wall coming down you’d travel in the East and it was a time warp—the smell of coal fires, cobblestone streets, food scarcities, cheap cigarettes, farmers tilling the fields with horse and plough. Overnight, it seemed, after unification, buildings were power-washed and repaired, and gleaming new autobahns spidered out across the fields. You’d see these quirky little family units picnicking on super highways, seemingly oblivious to the Porsches and Mercedes flying by. They’d be sitting beside their Trabants—sad little cars with body panels made of plywood—that they’d saved up to buy over the course of decades.

  Back in the dark days of communism we’d balked at having to stay on the Berlin corridor road, figuring we knew better. Again with Rod Lynton at the wheel, we decided to take a side road through a village, just to check things out. Within minutes of our deviation we were surrounded by very irate, gun-wielding soldiers with German shepherd dogs and firmly escorted back to the main road. Many bands travelled that road made of concret
e slabs, and I can still recall the spine-jolting journey as you clunked along it. We did it dozens of times. In the old days you’d see Russian officers partying in their oversized caps and jackboots. It was colourful and threatening at the same time. Berlin had some of the craziest nightclubs I’ve ever been to—seeing live sex onstage was not uncommon, but then you’d be able to juxtapose that with a visit to some tearoom, where a string ensemble would be playing in a genteel manner while you sipped your drink.

  Berlin was then, and still is, a city of contrasts. More recently, we had around 20,000 euros worth of equipment stolen from a van parked outside our hotel there, in what appeared to be a very safe street. We’d played a show at a club in the city called Quasimodo’s and left the vehicle for no more than three or four hours on the street. A gang had very professionally drilled off the lock—which they did microscopically, so that we didn’t notice until we reached the next city, hundreds of miles away—and made off with some nice instruments, including a favourite Les Paul of Muddy’s. Since the theft had taken place only 60km from the Czech border, the assumption by the police, when we made the report, was that the goods would be long gone toward Eastern Europe, and that there would not be much chance of retrieving the precious Les Paul and the rest of the items that had gone missing. I hope someone is making some nice music somewhere with those guitars.

  We’ve been robbed several times, in fact. I remember Ted Turner always being robbed from whichever flat he rented; perhaps he was too trusting with visitors? In 1972 we had an entire truck taken from a hotel car park in St Louis, with all our custom Orange equipment and guitars on board. We were devastated. Luckily, I’d taken my precious Gibson ’67 Flying V with me to my hotel room, so that survived. We never did see the rest of it again until, strangely, in early 2005. The rumour at the time was that the heist was somehow connected to our promoter in St Louis, or that it had been an inside job in some way. It was just too convenient. At any rate, we really depended on our stage setup and customised Orange gear, which was the backbone of our sound, and we felt that there was no other option but to simply cancel the tour and return home. We’d lost everything, and it was pointless trying to replace it with makeshift gear from the States. That’s how precious we were about our live sound in those days.