Diary of A Rock 'n' Roll Star

by Ian Hunter

  We've got a choice for lunch today. A pizza snack or a chicken dinner. Looks like the chicken dinner, but that means a long hungry day until tomorrow. Perhaps I'll just eat the side salad. By the way, I'm smoking a pipe instead of fags now and everyone is taking the piss. They say it makes me look older — they should see my birth certificate. (Phally’s just taken a photograph of me writing so if you see it you’ll know when it was taken.) These airline dinners are good you know, but I always seem to leave an inordinate amount of mess all over the place. Everything down to tiny salt and pepper pots are stuck neatly in the holes provided, but somehow mine end up wandering down the aisle to be crushed by some stewardess’s foot. I must compliment T.W.A. on this lot of stewardesses, they look really nice, no instant wigs and false gushing smiles - more natural.

  Now and again someone comes on and apologizes for something, and it’s all bullshit. I mean, at the beginning of this flight somebody came and said they were sorry for any inconvenience incurred in the searching of our baggage before we boarded. They’re not sorry at all! If I'd said, ‘No, you can’t search my fuckin’ bags,’ they’d have thrown me out. I know there are hijackers about, so why apologize? Turn me over man; be careful with the heroin though, it costs a lot. It’s getting to the stage where it's a case of, “Oh shit, man, you’ve only got coke, where’s the lugers man, where's the guns?” Soon the kids of ten in the school bags won’t be choking themselves to death with an American equivalent of a Woodbine - they won't even be having a sly snort - it'll be target practice; you know, photos of teachers on the wall - a few rounds between the eyes before geography. Where is it all going to end? Random thoughts flash through all the time - too quick to write; some of them right and some wrong-everybody’s human. I tried using a cassette player to get them down, but I feel (a) like a twat and (b) like Kent Walton . . . so I stick to the pen.

  The group's talking about vitamin pills now - I mean are they any good? Pete takes them and Phally is a yeast fanatic. I take them too, but I feel just the same. Still, if I wasn't taking them perhaps I’d be feeling worse than I do. The people who make these pills are crafty fuckers.

  We've just gone over Indianapolis and the captain's told us that we’re slowing down because the St Louis airport, only 33 minutes way, is ‘inoperable’. In other words, it’s fuckin’ shut, and if it doesn't open again soon, we’ll have to take our custom elsewhere. We’ve just found out that the weather in St Louis is too foggy to land so it looks like Kansas City may be our destination. The captain still hasn’t made it official. This just isn't our day. People immediately go to the toilet - isn’t that amazing! I hope Peter's not scared. He does horrible things when he’s scared and he's sitting just behind me. It's really hard to think of a foggy St Louis far beneath us as the sun beams through the portholes onto my pad. If we all live up here after we die it’s a good scene but you’d have to duck now and again. We’ve been up to 31,000 feet but I can feel us descending now and nearing the clouds. Christ, the bloody things are solid. Why couldn't they gang up somewhere else? It looks like we’re circling now. Blue from the left and white approaching from the right. Phally’s looking at watches in the little booklet that sells airline goods and decides that the one with an alarm in it must release a needle into your arm when it reaches the given time. Believe him if you like. There we go, it’s official, St Louis is still fogbound; no planes landing there so Kansas City here we come, 45 minutes and 300 miles further on. I hope we don’t run out of whatever they use for fuel. Apparently there's snow as well in St Louis. It looks like we’re in for a couple of hotel-bound days in the city. The captain says a guy will meet us to sort out alternative travel back from Kansas City and business-men slap their knees in frustration and nervously scratch the remaining hairs on their heads. Meetings delayed, perhaps business lost, and loved ones waiting for nothing below. What with Ritchie, Phil and Dick and the rest of us all having trouble we hope it's not a bad omen for the gig at the Keil Auditorium in Market Street, downtown St Louis tomorrow. Fleetwood Mac are topping and l haven’t seen them for ages so that will be interesting. We’re on second with Bloodrock and Danny O’Keefe bringing up the rear.

  The arguments start. Pete won't go to St Louis unless there's a train. Buff won’t go in a car. The stewardess says there should be a bus waiting to take us, so maybe it will be O.K. after all. Stan's a bit worried, but then he's always worried. Still, we've never been on a Greyhound but, it's another experience; I’ve noticed buses here, especially long distance ones, have aircraft seats in them and travel at an incredible speed. Take note England’s Midland blushing Red. Perhaps that’s libel so I‘m only kidding - really! I vaguely remember hearing the news on T.V. last night. Nixon's stepping up the bombing again whilst Kissinger hints at dramatic happenings at the meeting in Paris. The defence bill expected to be dramatically cut is, instead, to be increased. The amazing thing is that Americans and English alike have grown to accept lies from politicians and take it as a matter of course. I wonder if it’s true that Coca-Cola sales help the bombs drop. It’s like something out of Walt Disney. They wouldn’t let us into Disneyland because our hair was too long; you can buy a colour T.V. and watch the shows though. I wonder what Lennon’s doing now; he’s probably just having breakfast. Bacon and eggs Japanese style. Good luck mate. But how can you tell everything to the people, and how can you escape piss-taking and the biggest media weapon? Do the thick masses you try to reach really want it? Sometimes the happiest people are the thickest. You know, they touch, miss and back away. It’s happy to be dumb to a degree; and how frustrating for you, John. Obsessives can't stop and usually die as miserable as they lived. It's not fair! It's like God saying, ‘Don’t poke your nose in or I'll squeeze it‘, but I’m sure that's not so.

  The plane wobbles as the clouds bite us and the undercarriage goes down. The table I've been writing on has to be stuck back onto the seat in front, and my pipe smoulders out in accordance with the no smoking sign.

  Well me and Phally are sitting here opposite Terminal 29 in Kansas City Airport. Confusion and Stan reign supreme. We stood in the plane for about 20 minutes before the captain said St Louis was open again and would we go to Gate 29. When we all rushed up there (about 100 of us) the T.W.A. official took one look and disappeared, only the tannoy system brought him back with an assortment of pilots. He was applauded by us all. An announcement says, ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen we are going back, but if the weather doesn't clear in that area we will have to come back again.’ Pete’s pissed off, Phally smiles, Mick's white and no one really wants to take another go at it by air. Stan's gone off somewhere to find a bus or a car or something.

  Later . . .

  Well it’s now 5p.m. Central time and we’re still sitting here. The lot that went out on the 2:35 plane have come back and the airport's in chaos. On top of this the place is new and there’s no telephones.

  Later still . . .

  St Louis opened for 30 minutes and then shut again, so it looks like it’s going to continue that way. T.W.A. have just given Stan $162 for fuckin’ us about, and we can't get a car without that magical credit card that gets you anything you want. So it’s the bus; a four-hour Greyhound journey which leaves from somewhere in Kansas and Kansas City is 20 miles away I just found out.

  Later, later still . . .

  We sit upstairs in the restaurant and Mick’s still eating, we'll go when he finishes. It’s getting dark now and the supermarket music plays out carols, a smooth cover to hide the panic going on underneath the airport’s veneer. Still, it's a day in the life. We saw Crazy Horse briefly and heard that Danny Whetton (the guy who wrote one of our singles, Downtown) died. The media seemed to have ignored his demise - perhaps he wasn't big enough.

  Pete excitedly tries a huge six-string with really thick strings owned by a passing Mexican group who don’t speak English. Buff keeps writing his cards; he must have written as much as I have since we’ve been here. Phally tries to stave off his hunger and makes do with
an apple. The eternal slimming battle - we’re like a load of old women! The things you do for a fuckin’ rock ’n’ roll band. The porters, they’re all black for some reason, come up. I’m writing and walking at the same time so I’ll stop.

  Well, I’m on a Greyhound bus now and we’re mobile. The cab drive was great, the driver talkative and I sponge what little knowledge I can get out of him for future references. Apparently there are two Kansas Cities; the one we're in is the big one - Kansas City, Missouri. The Kansas City in Kansas has a population of only 65,000 and is just the other side of the Missouri River.

  It’s strange going into Kansas; you have the total traveller's dream. On our left freight cars crawl slowly along the railroad. We crawl slowly along the road. The old airport, still in use for small craft, and then the river swimming down to its date with the Mississippi in St Louis. The cabby says soul is big here. Rock music is confined to occasional concerts due to roughhouse tactics by various segments of the local community.

  Bond houses line up over on our left close to the police station and the prison. A fortune is made by these guys who bail out suspected villains on H.P.

  The Greyhound bus station is just here and the cabby helps us with the luggage up the stairs into the station. Stan runs up and panics again. There is a bus in now at Platform 4. We run like hell, bags all over the place, and here we are. Me and Pete and a game of chess.

  And the time goes by. I'm beaten twice and we play boxes which I win. Then we play noughts ‘n crosses which is a farce. We plug in earphones to the radios above (England, again take note) and when Pete loudly says how good the chicken sandwiches and cokes are a miniature lumberjack leaps up and says ‘Where?’ Lights, darks, flash by and although inside the bus it’s warm, the rain freezes as it hits the bus outside and we stop a couple of times en route for the driver to clear the front window.

  Finally, about 10 p.m. this bloke Sam who sat across the aisle from me and talked so much I can’t even tell you what he said, walked off to see his mother who is ill. She was 98 last Sunday, so the grand old lady is entitled to sag now and again if she wants to. Sam is full of sorrow. Phoney tears seem not far away and whisky shines on his young female companion’s face. Sam, in a tarzan suit, for when the night comes has to reveal his 245 pounds for the chick to see. He knows every trick does Sam, and he knows what he is too, but he's decided to go along with it. It's easier this way. He’s like a pleading little fat dog but he'd slit your throat for five shillings if he decided it would benefit him in some small way. They’re a breed - small, fat, lots of greying hair, moustaches and beards; sort of flash Boston gear and hip flashy things - watch those fuckers. Don’t be taken in by the chat. Goodnight, Sam; hello, St Louis.

  The cylindrical Stouffer's Riverfront Inn is situated in downtown St Louis, 200 South Forth Street to be precise. We stayed somewhere else last time when the Gateway Arch, St Louis’ proudest possession, stood miles away; now we are right up close to it. It’s a huge thing about 650 feet high and you can go over it in a lift. I don't quite see why it's there, probably to hide certain other things here which the St Louis council aren’t so proud of. St Louis is one of hundreds of American cities that have areas where a cab driver won’t go, whether he be black or white. He won’t be seen with you. St Louis ghettoes are a famous part of the blues tradition; if you go to the edge of them it's easy to see why. Once they built a huge new ghetto like a modern council estate to house the blacks that team into St Louis; they wrecked the place completely and the last time we passed it looked like a monument to architectural inhumanity to man. I wonder how many people cooped in like battery hens around estates elsewhere wish they'd have had the guts to do the same thing.

  People died before they finally got the message, and that’s how blues are written. They do live life you know, they don’t let it pass without commenting. And what a fuckin’ commentary it’s turned out to be.

  I don't know what got me on to all that so I'll get off it. I had a beer tonight in the Rag Bar two storeys under the lobby, with Phil and Dick. Huge bowls of peanuts and the nearest thing to wine I could get was Dubonnet. Fleetwood Mac walked by, having a good look, sussing the opposition. Nothing said despite my hand waves, so fuck ’em if that's the way they want to be. Each to his own. That Fleetwood guy's as elegant as ever and I tell a lie, the bass player did smile, but his missus didn’t. Perhaps they've heard advance tales of our flash egos etc. It’s amazing how reputations can belie.

  Back to the room and I'm just in bed when Ritchie rings. They've got the tape of the Tower Theatre Show in 510 so down we all go to drink Ritchie’s white wine and listen to what is supposed to have been good. Dick operates the tape he's just hired and as it’s l0in. we have to wind slowly and edit onto a couple of 7 in. He gets it going and it’s bloody awful. Stan says it was nothing like this. Dudes is terrible, makes you want to stop doing it. We've never done that number well live. Oh my God, I can’t believe it - take it off. Some of that stuff doesn’t sound too bad, but the balance is awful. The bass and organ disappearing and the voices and lead guitar always too loud. It sounds like it's 70 per cent his fault, 20 per cent our fault and 10 per cent the tape‘s fault, which is playing slightly fast. Bloody hell, I can't stand it. Me and Pete go back up to the room.

  Wednesday, 6 December 1972

  And so today in St Louis the snow lays crisp and even. The sun shines. Pete’s gone down to breakfast with Mick so I think I'll nip down as well. We're going out pawn shopping. Stan just rang. He says we have to fly tomorrow even though it’s only about 90 miles or so and this is upsetting to Mick. He also says Tony’s flying in from New York.

  Later . . .

  The pawn shops were shut. It's strange to find everything closed in a predominantly black area because of a Jewish holiday, but that’s the way it is around here. We went down to Franklin Avenue and Easton, then approached Dr Martin Luther King Drive. This drive may one day reflect the size of the man's heart it is named after. At the moment it could be a tribute to the changin' times or, at face value, could be taken as the street Dylan referred to as Desolation Row.

  Barbers, pool halls, underground clubs, cheap auto dealers mad missionaries all have the same fronts. Cheap, hand painted with the nature of their business scrawled do-it-yourself style, the letters dribbling down below their intended endings. An old cleaners, a wall, a tower and a cinema are left looted wrecks. Tiny pieces of grass brave their way through this 16 degree December day surrounded by frost-covered chairs, prams, and other junk, once warm in people's homes.

  They are slowly knocking the place apart and a lump comes to my throat as a shivering dog tries to sleep at the side of the road. Another stands in the porch of a vacated house, orphaned by rules laid down by new landlords, and almost too skinny to be alive, waiting for the old days to come back. Old buildings stand here and there, the standard black houses of a bygone day. Brick blocks, maybe three stories high with wooden porches, rails, staircases, chairs and other bits of wood stuck on the front giving the overall impression of a cuckoo clock.

  Some are still lived in. Articles of clothing hang here and there but not a soul in sight. It’s much too cold, what a bloody sight. At least, as I said, they are pulling it down and sightseers in years to come will probably marvel at the flash hotels and beautiful restaurants and parking lots. But I'll always remember the cold, misery and squalor that is the street called Dr Martin Luther King Drive.

  Perhaps the next street over might have been nicer, perhaps upper-class blacks have good lives here and perhaps the Indians are worse off. All I can say is nobody should have to live here. It is 12 noon and a really drunk black man sullenly avoids his chick’s outstretched arms. When you hate help, hope’s been knocked out of you. It’s the end.

  Mick makes a few phone calls about 2:30 and we finally find a place open on Olive Street, not too far away, called Sam Lights. An overweight (but dieting) guy shakes us by the hand and announces himself as Larry Bird. Potential star, dreamer of
Las Vegas, he says he destroys the world every night before supper. Pawn shops here are both creative and destructive. Guns hang next to guitars, flick knives next to jewellery, suitcases, drums, T.V.s, clothing - they really get into it. A man told me of a guy in Albuquerque who walked into a shop with a sub-machine gun squashed inside a Martin case. Most owners will tell you stories of young rich college kids or bewildered older people selling ancient Les Pauls for $10. Alas, we never have that kind of luck! I make do with about the only decent guitar, and E.B.O. bass which I buy for $75 complete with battered case.

  Larry's a great conversationalist. He rings round friends to see if they have anything. There’s a woman who can‘t get over the accents, especially Phally’s, and we stay there for about 90 minutes. Phally takes photos before we leave. Hundreds of hats are in a huge bin. They give us one each and we feel like ‘dudes’. I give a Negro a cigarette in the doorway. He’s frozen stiff and trying to keep warm, but they won’t let him in. Even when I offer the cigarette though, he smiles gently and asks me if I need matches. I'm not rich, but I feel fuckin’ rotten - really rotten.

  My hat says ‘Barrister of Philadelphia’ inside it. I wonder whose it was. Once again a talkative cabby - who tells us about the huge Bush Stadium which houses baseball, American football and soccer, apparently soccer’s on the way up here. A sign outside the Bel Air Hotel just down the street from here says ‘Welcome Los Angeles Rams’ they‘ll probably be gigging at the Bush.

  The promoter rings up and says half the audience is coming just to see us, and they have the best groupies in the U.S.A. We’re beginning to realize this is standard business procedure to put you in a happy frame of mind, but we feel good anyway. I try to ring Trudy, but she’s out picking her Mum up; I'll try again later.

  Pete sleeps on the bed as I write. He can sleep 14 hours a day if he’s not working. I haven't seen Buff, and Stan doesn't answer so he must be at the gig. Phally's gone back to his room with Mick. As I haven't got a watch I can only guess it's about five o’clock. There’s a Chinese documentary on Channel 2. The sound is off the telly and Cat Stevens sings about the wind in his hair on the radio. I think I’ll visit the bogs for a marathon. American food does my staid English gut in, even if it's only salad. I just glanced out the window; it’s dusk now. The swimming pool’s iced over and there’s a light in the church across the street. The other way a bridge spans something I can't see and a huge office block slowly goes to sleep, it’s windows like hundreds of eyelids shutting as the working day comes to an end. Stan rings; sound check in 20 minutes. There’s another band added, Dick Heckstall Smith's new band, but we're still second from the top, so that means we can come back to the hotel to get ready. Pete’s £70 thigh-length boots have been mended and Trudy rang to say she’s in now so I’ll ring her. I still haven't had that shit yet.